Scott's Testimony

My journey started when I was 32.
I was very successful by the world’s standards but something was lacking in my life.
I had a hole inside me that I kept trying to fill with things of this world. I bought Rolex watches, stayed in expensive hotels and bought wine at $80 per bottle. I climbed to the top of my profession but still that hole was there.

Then one night God just showed up at our house.
I wasn’t looking for God for that matter I don’t even know if I believed in God, I guess I would say I just didn’t care.
Now, no one brought me to church or brought the gospel to my front door or was trying to pound Jesus into my head. God just showed up and it was the most terrifying event of my life.
I have struggled for years for a word to describe this event and the best I have come up with is exorcism.

For the next 3 days I did not eat or sleep. I cycled from rage to joy.
You know Satan had me for many years and God said enough is enough he is mine and I want him back.
Over those days I thought I was going crazy. But at the same time I knew I wasn’t.

At the end of the 3 days I found that the right side of my body was completely bruised from my shoulders to my waist, from my spine to my breast bone. I had come through a terrible battle, a battle for my soul, and I was afraid of God.

God spoke to me and said you will go to Africa and tell people about me. I said yes God I will.

I immediately quit my job and my family and I moved to Deep River Ontario.

I started to read the Bible from Genesis to Revelation. Then I read it again and again, I just had to figure out who this Jesus guy was. Now don’t get me wrong, I had heard some stories about Jesus growing up, but I really had no idea who He really was.

While in Deep River my wife Jodi said “now that you are a Christian we should go to church”. I said OK but not that Pentecostal one those people are weird. Now I didn’t know a lot about church but I did know that Pentecostals where looked down upon in the Ottawa Valley because they were weird.
So, on that Sunday we went to Calvary Pentecostal church. I just have to laugh, I “knew” that I wasn’t going there but God had other plans.

There I met Pastor Rick Lott. In short order Rick suggested that I take some Bible courses (which I did) and to this day he is still my mentor and accountability partner.

While in Deep River my wife and I felt we needed to get ride of everything we had acquired before Christ. You see I stepped on a number of people on the way to the top of my career and I just felt that we had to get ride of the old life and be truly born again.

So we gave away are stuff and our money to different social helps organizations around the area. When we were through we had 1 car, a laptop and $2000 to our name; and it felt great!

Still having to provide for our family we hit the road and took a job in Kalamazoo Michigan.

When we got to Kalamazoo we kept seeing these sign and advertisements for “The Dream Center” I though, hum must be one of those places where they monitor you for sleep apnea.

That Sunday we attended Kalamazoo 1st Assembly of God and guess what? The Dream Center is the inner-city outreach for Kalamazoo 1st!

The following Saturday we decide to take part in The Dream Center’s “Adopt-a-Block” program. However we got the start time wrong and ended up a half hour late and all the volunteers had left.
We decided that we would just drive around the ghetto until we found them.
Eventually we came upon a group of people that didn’t seem to belong in the neighborhood. We stopped a said “are you the people from the Dream Center?” Yes was the reply and “we are here to help” was ours.

We got out of the car and were pulling my sons stroller out of the trunk when Rik Stone, the director of the Dream Center broke down and starting yelling “it’s my vision, it’s my vision”. Rik explained to us that he had had a vision of a family with a stroller coming to be part of Adopt-a-Block and we were the exact fulfillment of that vision.

Now for those that are not familiar with Adopt-a-Block, it is a program to go into the worst sections of town, pick up trash, cut grass, shovel snow and over time win the trust and friendship of the residence. Through that trust you are able to share the Gospel and show Christ’s love to the people.
It was here that we were first exposed to prostitutes, the homeless and the truly marginalized of the world and it was here that my heart broke for them.

While attending Kalamazoo 1st a man suggested Jodi and I go with him to the Catch the Fire conference at the Toronto Airport Christian Fellowship. It was awesome!

When I went there I really wasn’t buying into the whole being slayed in the spirit thing. I had see people hit the floor at church before but I always wondered why they just got up in time for the next part of the service. The same went for speaking in tongues.



Wham! 3 times that weekend I hit floor convulsing like a fish out of water. As I lay there the first time I said to myself “what am I doing? I’m college educated and I’m on the floor is this mass hypnosis, hysteria what?”
The second time it happened I continued to analyze the experience but the third time I simply said ok God I believe.

Heidi Baker of Iris ministry spoke at the conference and said “if anyone has a specific country that you are called to, come forward I want to pray for you”.
Jodi and I both said ok God now give us our country, we know we are to go to Africa but what country?
Nothing.

As Jodi and I drove back to Kalamazoo we both felt a little bummed out because God had not revealed a country.
Then we looked at each other and said “did you say something? No did you? No”. “God just told me to go to Milwaukee and give baked potatoes to the homeless living under the bridges” “Me too!!!”

We were back in Kalamazoo a week or so when I had a strange feeling come over me while I was at work. I phoned Jodi and asked if she could have our kids in bed by the time I got home. I really felt we needed to pray and that something was going to happen.
When I got home I went into our bedroom and sat on the floor with my back against the wall. As I sat there I began to see one of those old red letter flashy boards where the words use to scroll by from right to left. I began to read these foreign words allowed and this was when I was baptized in the Holy Spirit.

Now, I knew that God had told us to go to Milwaukee but I had no idea how we were going to get there. But God did.

The following week an engineering company called CH2M Hill called me and said we want you to come and work for us in Milwaukee!

The job was for a piping designer, which I was but unfortunately it was designing water and sewer plant, a specialty I did not have.
I told them that I did not have the right skill set and that they would have to find someone else.

But there was no stopping Gods plan. They called back again and said just come and interview and bring your family.
We decided to go and the company put us up in a beautiful hotel that had an indoor water park that the kids totally enjoyed. To make things even better it was Jodi’s birthday weekend!

I went to the interview and it really was just a rubber stamp. A few weeks later we moved to Milwaukee.

When we got to Milwaukee we just throw our stuff into the apartment and headed downtown, I mean that’s where you find homeless people right?

We walked around downtown for a long time without seeing any homeless people. It was cold and the kids were starting to whine. Jodi said that we should head home but I said I know we are suppose to be here, just one more street, if nothing happens we will go.

We started walking up the street and saw a black man walking toward us. As we passed I said hello and kept walk. When we were about 20 feet past him he yelled “what did you say to me?” I thought to myself oh-oh this is not going to be good. I spoke to him and said “I just said hello”.
The details of what happened next are a little fuzzy but he said no one ever talks to me. Moments later he was lying on my shoulder crying. He had once gone to church but had backslide. He quoted scripture like I could only hope to, but he had forgotten that Jesus loved him no matter what he had done.
He went on to say that he was downtown because Manpower was to have a day labor job for him but when he got there the job was not available so he was walking to the other side of town to get some other work.
He asked if I could give him 10 cents. If he only had 10 more cents he would have enough to ride the bus to the other job. “I will find my own way back he said”.
We gave the man $20 to get him there and to get something for his wife on the way home. We also gave him some juice boxes and granola bars that we had brought.
He broke down crying again and we were given the opportunity to pray for him and remind him just how much Jesus loved him.

Now I am a person of habit and I always jump on the freeway to go from point A to point B. But for some reason I chose to drive back on the frontage road.
As we rounded the corner, there they where, the homeless of Milwaukee. We had found them and that would become the beginning of Can Alley Ministries.

The following Saturday morning we baked up 2 pound of potatoes, put butter and salt on them and wrapped them in aluminum foil and put them in an insulated bag. We grabbed our Gospel of John booklets and we headed down to the recycling depots.
That first day we spoke to one man and discovered that the homeless people get there earlier with their cans to recycle as there is a free lunch on the other side of town that they all try to get to.
Over the following weeks and months we formed a friendship with the men that came down can alley.

Brian was a tool and die maker that made the mistake of going to a bar and commenting on someone’s girlfriend. He was shot in the head and had been on the street ever since.

Bill was part of the group of 3 guys that would always come together and lived under the same bridge. Bill froze to death under that bridge.

Dog and Dumpster were two others, named so because people on the street do not have names.

All of these men had something in common, they all came out of foster care and none of them ever had someone to show them unconditional love.

Our parking lot church grew to a core of 12 men plus our family, all holding hands and praising Jesus.
We use to get some pretty strange looks from the police that patrolled the area and I have to believe that they were saying “what are these clean looking white people doing in this neighborhood”.

We had some amazing success story, one man had been on the street since he returned from Vietnam but he said “because of the love you have shown me I have checked into rehab”, he went on to get a job cleaning Miller Park after the Brewers baseball games.

Another interesting thing happened when we showed up in a blizzard. Now just to be clear this was a freeways closed blizzard, not a snowfall. The owner of the recycling depot had been watching us for months. He walked over to us and said “I have to be here but what are you doing here in this blizzard?” I said “I have to be here to God told me to be here”. That did it for him, he started to share about his family and how his son had fallen in with the wrong crowd. We were able to pray with him and give him some hope. I can’t say that he accepted Christ but the seed was planted that day.

A few weeks later a similar thing happened with one of the loader drivers. He pulled up, jumped out of his loader and began to question what it was that we were doing there. In a similar story to his bosses his son had fallen into drugs and all the trouble that comes along with that. We prayed with him and I have to say that there is something really rewarding about praying with a huge, tattoo cover biker type. Just drives home how God loves us no matter what the outside looks like.

While there, a group called S.H.A.L.O.M. Ministry heard about what we were doing and asked if we would like to partner with them. This was definitely a God send. You see up to that point we were spending our entire pay check on the homeless. We were buying sleeping bags, hats, and mitts. Anything that we felt would benefit them.
When S.H.A.L.O.M. partnered with us they started to provide warm clothing and boots for the homeless. They also gave us an opportunity to expand our ministry and our knowledge base.
Through S.H.A.L.O.M. we started to serve at the Salvation Army Homeless shelter. Here my daughter got involved in puppet ministry; the big stick puppets not the little hand one you might have at home. Jodi and I got an opportunity to council the people in the Shelter. This really stretched us. We met, became friends, and loved on crack addicts. We heard their pain, their hopelessness. We heard how their hopelessness led to alcohol, then to pot then to crack. We saw the damage that crack did to their teeth, how they would break away and fall out. We saw how their hopelessness destroyed their bodies. We met a prostitute that would inject cocaine into her neck. I can still see the scares. We heard her story, again no hope, and no real love.
There was another prostitute that offered her 6 year old daughter to her drug dealer if he would just give her a little something to take the pain of this world away. I walked up to a man’s room at the shelter, along the way he shared his story about being in prison. He shared how he had been continuously raped, starting that very 1st night. Why, why he cried. Why did it happen to me? He told me of his first night in prison, a night that would repeat itself many time while he was there. He asked me why? I said I do not know. But I know that Jesus loves you, I know that you can start a new life, one that is new, one that is clean. As quick as Can Alley had started it ended. I noticed that my passion was shifting and I could not understand it. Can Alley ministry was growing, people were getting saved and “our men” where getting jobs. God, what is happening? This ministry is a success! What are you doing?

Malawi!

One night Jodi and I were sitting in the living room and God said “Malawi”.
Once again we looked at each other and what?
Malawi? God had spoken Malawi to us both at the same time.
What is a Malawi? We had no idea so we googled it and sure enough Malawi was a country in Africa. God had finally given us our country.

We said yes God we will go.
I had learned to obey God, but I hadn’t quite figured out His timing yet.

I said ok, God wants us in Malawi. How will I make that happen? I called a company that I had worked for in the past and we moved to Green Bay Wisconsin. This was my answer, more money, which should get us to Malawi.

Guess what, I jumped the gun. I wasn’t listening to God and we had the worst 6 months ever. You see this was supposed to be a job in Green Bay. We rented a nice house with a huge back yard. This was the first house we had lived in, in 8 years; it was going to be great. That is if we had gotten to live in it.
What I didn’t know was that this job was 100% travel so we ended up living in a hotel in St Paul Minnesota for 5 months, only returning to our great house on weekends to cut the foot tall grass!

There were a couple of highlights. When we where home we attended Central Assembly of God. Pastor Ed Garvin and his wife Jodi were inspiring to us. They allowed us the privilege of helping with their children’s ministry and with their 4th of July outreach. These opportunities expanded our experience base and would come to great use a few years later. I have come to realize that God puts you or allows you to be in places for a reason. We don’t always understand why, but that’s ok too.

With the traveling back and forth to St. Paul it was impossible to save any money.
After 6 months of this I got really mad at God. I said God you told us to go to Malawi, this is your deal so you have to provide for it! The only thing I am going to do is turn on my resume.

The next day I got 13 job offers before noon.

The one that stuck out was in Denver Colorado. You see we had been trying to live in Denver for years but it is a very clique place. If you aren’t from there or you don’t know someone from there you just don’t get into the engineering offices.
I spoke with the engineering company and I told them what I wanted for money they said oh no, we pay $3 more an hour than that and we will give you the following for free: fully furnished housing, utilities, cable, local phone, maid service, a rental care, gas, food, dry cleaning and you can send your other laundry out, free flights home every 3 weeks or since your family is with you free flights anywhere you want to go for you and your family every 15 weeks (so long as it is the same price or cheaper than flying home), oh and we will pay for your rental car, gas and food when you fly somewhere.
Ok God! I think that counts as providing.
You see we didn’t have to spend any of my wages. We saved them all for Malawi.

When we arrived in Denver we went to the closest Assemblies of God church.
Now for those of you that are not familiar, Assemblies of God (AG) and the Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada (PAOC) are the same fellowship, just different names on each side of the border.

Ok, a little back ground is in order. At the time we were in Denver the Assemblies only had 3 missionary families in Malawi. Guess what? On are very first Sunday we walked into Grace Community Church which is the home church of Larry & Rhonda Allen one of the 3 missionaries in Malawi. Now take a moment to figure out the odd of even being in the same state let alone the same town, let alone the same church; impossible right? Well let me add a little more to that, we also met Neil & Joy Allen that day; Larry’s parents!

Over our time there Neil & Joy pretty much adopted us. They showed me perseverance and what it is to serve Jesus for your whole life. They showed me what “old” Christians look like. Now I say that with respect. I am not just saying that they were seniors; I am saying that you can see Christ in their eyes because Christ has lived in them for a long time.

You would think we would learn but we are rather hard headed so Jodi and I started to figure out how the Malawi side of Gods plan would work out.

We knew we were to stay for 365 days in Denver and then go to Malawi. Ok we told ourselves that means that we need to be in Malawi in September. What are we suppose to do there and where are we going to stay. Now at the time we had 3 children, twin girls 9 and a son 3.
We started to investigate places to stay and organizations to partner with. We can upon “Youth with a Mission” (YWAM) and they accepted us into their discipleship training program but that would not start until January and we knew that God wanted us there in September.
We tried and tried to figure out where we would stay from September until January. We hit one road block after another. Finally we said ok God, we trust that you will keep us safe and prove for us.
We went to the store and bought a tent and 5 sleeping bags. Yes we where going to camp in Africa!

Time passed in Denver and God remained silence regarding our African living conditions and we became resigned to the fact that we were about to spend 4 months in a tent.
It was our last week in Denver and we started to pack up our belongings, still no word from God. In 4 days we would get on a plane to Malawi. In 5 days we would be camping. But you know what? We were at peace with it.
Then it came! 3 days before we were to get on the plane the Assemblies of God in Malawi called and said that their guest house had opened up and that we were welcome to stay there! Yeah! God is so awesome and God provides.

I look back and have to laugh. You see, I got myself all stressed out trying to implement God’s plan. But it was God’s plan and it had to be done in God’s timing and for God’s purpose.

Our move to Malawi was exactly that. The timing was perfect.
You see at that time the mission was disheartened. They had had a bad experience with some short term missionaries and were no longer going to accept families on the compound.

There was also an ongoing building project that was seriously distracting one of the missionaries away from his core duties at the Bible school. I wouldn’t say that the missionaries were burnt out, but they were on the road to it.
Again, God’s timing. Had were gone to Malawi a year and a half earlier we would not have had the same healing presents to the mission, nor would we have been able to take over the building project. God’s timing for God’s purpose.

Our time in Malawi was a stretching time for us. We had never see poverty like that, we had never see death like that and we had never smelt death like that.

Before going to Malawi we had read an article in the Ottawa Citizen newspaper about how the hospital in Lilongwe Malawi didn’t have any surgical gloves.
While still in Canada we went around to some churches and friends and did a glove drive. We ended up will a full hockey bag of boxes of surgical gloves.

The Hospital was our first stop in Malawi and this was our first real look into the 3rd world. The smell was so bad in the hospital that I chocked back vomit. There were people lying everywhere. The halls were full of the dying, just laying on the floor on a grass mat.

What was once a water feature in the center of the hospital was now a mop bucket where the janitor dipped his mop to clean up the sick that was all over the floor.

In the yard of the hospital was where the families of the sick and dying lived. You see in Malawi the family must cook and bring food to there sick relatives. As I looked out over the hospital grounds I saw hundreds of small fires with ladies stooped over a pot stirring a mixture of corn flour and water that is locally called Nsima.

We found Nurse Monica Bottoman from the newspaper article and gave her the gloves. Mrs. Bottoman is an amazing example of God’s love. She is a woman giving hope to the hopeless, a woman working without gloves in a hospital, in a country where the HIV rate is hitting 60%.

Before I got to the hospital I planned on taking some pictures. Pictures I thought would inspire people to give, and to pray for the people of Malawi.
However, as we walked back through the Hospital my heart broke. The Hospital was so bad so horrifying that out of respect for the dying I did not take any pictures.
The drive back to the mission was silent. None of us could process what we had just seen, what we had smelled.

Over our time in Malawi we were involved in a number of outreaches. Jodi and the children worked at the Crisis Nursery loving on HIV positive babies. This again stretched us for the babies that were being loved on today where dead tomorrow.

I was given the opportunity to head up the building project, to layout an irrigation project at the PAOC’s Lifeline Malawi in Ngodzi and the privilege of preaching in a village church as well as at the Bible School.

Malawi was a time of great change for our family. We truly became more Christ like, we learned to look past the smell and appearance of people, we learned to love people right now because tomorrow they may be dead. We learned that we could not feed and cloth the world but we could share Christ and the hope of an eternal life with Him.
You see we could feed and cloth the homeless of Milwaukee but how does a family of 5 feed and cloth 10 million people?
We learnt that the most important thing in all the outreach is to show the love, hope, and salvation that Jesus Christ brings.

Eventually we ran out of money and or time in Malawi came to an end. We cried, and cried and cried some more as we left that little country. It was like leaving a loved one.

We returned to Denver for a short time before moving onto Charlotte North Carolina.

Now at this point people start to wonder, is this guy American or what. No, I am Canadian, born and raised in the Ottawa Valley, not leaving until I was 27.

While in Denver another remarkable although scary event happened. I died.
At 36 I died on the operating table. It ends up that I am allergic to a couple of anesthetics. I found myself in God’s perfect light. If I had any doubts of Gods existence they were eliminated that day.

When we got to Charlotte we were tired. We decided that we would just sit at the back of the church and try to go unnoticed. But once again God had other plans.
We ended up at a church call New Hope Worship Center where we spent the next 2 years helping with their children’s ministry.
New Hope was the perfect place for us. We were able to recharge our batteries until God once again said NOW.

I was sitting at my desk working away when I heard God say Now. I immediately recognized God’s voice. It was time to return to the mission field.

I called my wife and told her that God had said it was time to go.
I spoke with my boss and we arranged a good breaking point in the project for me to leave.

I decided that at that point that I would no longer be bi-vocational but would serve God full time. Now it is important to understand that “I” decided but we will get back to that later.

People sometime ask how do you know it is God’s voice?
There are some standard answers to this question, it must line up with scripture etc.
This is absolutely true, but I have also found that the more time you spend with God the more you tend to recognize his voice.
A lot is seen in hindsight; as you look back over the event you see how God connected the dots to get you to the exact place at the exact time He wanted.

God also lines things up for you in advance and you are able to see the path.
For example:
There we were sitting in North Carolina, we already knew that we were going to move to Brockville to help out at my mentor Pastor Rick Lott’s church, but we had no idea where we were going to stay. We searched the internet for housing that would fit our family and our budget. Since we no longer had an income, our budget was rather small.
We found a very small, very old duplex that we could afford and we said ok God we will live there because we will follow you.

But God had other plans. You see at the same time God was speaking to my in-laws.
God laid our housing situation on their hearts and they decided that they would buy a house in Brockville and rent it out to us at cost. Praise God!
So instead of an old run down duplex we ended up in a lovely little bungalow. But that is just the beginning. The house is only 1.7 km from the church and the house came fully furnished, including all dishes, pots, pans, bedding towels etc.
This was huge because we did not own anything; our furniture etc in North Carolina had been rented.

When we returned to Canada we contacted PAOC missions and had our first meeting. We went into the meeting assuming we would be going back to Malawi as we had already served there and we already knew some of the Chichewa language. However, once again God had other plans.

Darcy McAllister, our interviewer suggested that we all spend the next 10 days in prayer and seek God’s guidance.

So we went home and started to pray. On day one of prayer I had a vision of a map of Asia. I saw Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam. This came as a total shock to me because I had never even considered going there.

I said which one God and God said “the green one”. Now at the time I had no idea what that meant so I went and got the atlas and opened it to the Asia section. There it was Thailand was the green one.

I said ok God now I need 3 witnesses to confirm Thailand. I had 2 mentions of Thailand within the first hour and the 3rd came that evening. Now remember Thailand isn’t real high on the conversation list of people in Brockville.
So there we have it, Thailand it is and yes God we will go.

Other things have lined up in Brockville that have shown us that we are on the path that God has laid out for us.
Our ministry is called “Just Love” and the man in Thailand is that we will be working with in the slums is in the process of creating “The Just Love Foundation”, coincidence, maybe?

Stewart Hunter, while at Highway Pentecostal Church, spoke on missions.
At the end of his talk a collection was taken. I looked in my wallet and I had $100 to my name. I gave it in order to bless a missionary somewhere out there.
Monday morning came and the door bell rang, standing there was the mailman with a package and my mail. I opened the letters to discover a medical over payment check, a check for our Charlotte rent deposit and my 1st unemployment check, which had been tied up in red tape for almost 3 months. Praise God! I believe that God rewarded me for my obedience in giving to missions. Not only did we receive the checks but they were hand delivered!

Now God works in mysterious ways and that is evident in this story. A couple years back my wife and I attended our High School reunion. There we reconnected with an old friend of ours who is an atheist.
When we returned to Canada we wanted to set up a website but we did not have the skills to set it up ourselves. So I posted on Facebook asking if any of my friends knew anything about setting one up.
I got an email from my friend saying “hey you know I own the 2nd largest web design company in Canada right, I’ll do your website for free.” So there you have it, we had an atheist create our Christian website.

I want to encourage you to do a couple of things. I want to encourage you to donate to missions and I want to encourage you to get out outside the wall of the church. I can describe to you what it is like to be a missionary. But I cannot describe what it feels like or what it smells like.

I have to tell you something though. I have found that the world is a messy place and if you choose to go out into it you are going to get some of it on you.
There are going to be things that haunt you, that you cannot figure out why or how this could happen to the person you are talking with.

But you know what? When you get a little bit of that mess on you, you create a clean spot on that person you are talking to.
Jesus walked around in sandals, Jesus had dirty feet. If you want to truly walk with Jesus and truly want to touch the world for Christ you are going to get dirty.

However, the more you go out into the world, the more you become like Jesus, the more His love grows inside of you.
You start to see people differently, that bum is no longer something disgusting to be avoided, he is your brother, your child even, someone to love with all of your heart. That prostitute that gave her child to her drug dealer is someone you must help, someone you want to love.
When Jesus is truly inside of you, you cry, and you JUST LOVE!

June 5th – We are in the Valley

June 5th – We are in the Valley: Real Hope Christian Assembly, Deep River, 10:30 am; Pembroke Pentecostal Tabernacle, 6:00pm. Come and hear how Jesus rocked our world. RHCA- 33019 Hwy 17 Deep River, ON; PPT – intersection of HWY 17 & 41.