Who would of thought!

Well, this is blog #2 which is all about Jesus. I titled it “Who would of thought!” for that is exactly how I felt thinking back prior to founding the God’s Love Outreach Ministry. In January 2003 I just got through putting in my retirement notice. I was blessed being able to retire at 60 years of age. If you remember back to my first blog (not too far back since this is #2) I shared my testimony on how I gave Jesus control of my life in my mid 50’s. So even though I was starting to think about retirement my mind was not on starting an Outreach Ministry. Oh, I loved the Lord but He definitely had work to do in me.

I was starting to look for condo’s down in Florida and had contacted a realtor who was starting to look for what I was interested in. My plan was to live up north six months, then six months in the south when the cold winter weather was going on. Those three plus months with very little sunlight got less appealing as I started to get older. But keep in mind this was my plan, not God’s. His plan did not have me in Florida, so far.

Two days before I retired I was making my way around the plant where I worked for 31 years. I had a lot of goodbyes to say to so many wonderful people that I had the privilege to work with. As I walked into this large room I saw a movie screen laying on the floor with a tag on it that said, “scrap!” I asked someone nearby if it was broken, they said, “nope it is just not useful any more.” Well, they should of checked with God first for He still had use for it. He was just waiting for me to ask about it. Yep, you guessed it they let me take it. Not bad thinking I did not have a projector at that time. So what was I going to do with it? If you would of asked God back then He would of told you but I had no clue. I can tell you today through the God’s Love Outreach I have shown as of today 890 programs to over 25,000 shut-ins. (http://www.upc4god.org/data.htm). Who would of thought!

By clicking on this link http://www.upc4god.org/about_this_ministry.htm you can learn about this ministry. It was also founded on this scripture; 1 John 3:18 Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth. Now as I was trying to understand what God wanted for me to do I started to use man’s thinking. I knew I was not a singer so I tried to get choir people from our church to help, nope! Since I was not a public speaker I tried to get people I knew from church who were so good at speaking, nope. I tried to seek the help from area churches, nope. But God is so awesome He had me talk to a Baptist minister who asked me, “Is this something you can do by yourself?” I said, “Yes, I guess.” Then He said, “What are you waiting for?” See I truly believe that was God speaking through him to me. Who would of thought?

So in January of 2004 the 2nd program was performed to the first nursing home of a list of 61 various caring facilities this ministry, His ministry, that I have had the privilege to bring the message of God’s love to.

The next blog will be describing some of the incredible journey I have experienced through my love and devotion to Jesus.

From God’s heart, to mine, to yours!
Ed Shagott