Scripture defines becoming a man or a woman one way, the world another. Were not
for the people of God intervening in our lives as spiritual or even surrogate
parents many of us would be lost, but when we are led to our Father in heaven
our lives take a deciding turn, we join the family of God and take our place on
the long list of generations privileged to follow Him. In doing so we in turn
become leaders carrying his life with us and passing it to those who come after.
Most guys in the military are fatherless they don't have a dad who spent time with them,
they don't have a dad who is in any way the dad they were hoping for. We have
generations who have not had their father's look them in the eye and
tell them, I love you. The reason guys joined the Marine Corps
and didn't join the Army, they didn't join the Airforce didn't join the Navy, was
because they wanted to show that they were a man. The privilege that we get
when working with Marines is, I get to look Marines in the eye and tell them
that I love them. So we've been able to be family and be a spiritual parents for these
military people. The Marine Corps is a particularly hostile environment, you're
18 years old, 19 years old and most of these young guys haven't been discipled
up to this point. When I joined the Marine Corps kind of sent me for awhile
just kind of searching to figure out what I actually believed myself. There's
all sorts of temptations, probably more rampant you know in this environment
than elsewhere.
One of the things that I noticed about Mike early on the way that he talked
about his relationship with Jesus, he was talking about hearing God speak to him
and that was like a foreign concept to me. So I began to help him understand the
good news of Jesus and His kingdom and how he could reach his fellow Marines
with that. Four weeks after I trained him how to do that he introduced one his
buddies to Christ. Jesse Cox discipled me and since then I've been able to
disciple some other Marines and individually God has connected me with.
In February '99 I came to Camp Lejeune as a Marine and that was when I met Mike
shortly after that. One of the hallmarks of my relationship with Mike is that he
has this this little open room in his house and I've told him everything about
myself in that room. He actually became like a spiritual dad to me taught me a
tons of stuff about following Jesus.
Mike Darnell came to Camp Lejeune and John Martin was being
trained by Mike and I came as an enlisted Marine and John got ahold of me
then, and he's been discipling me ever since. It's really important for me that
our kids see people, young men especially for my boys who just are living for
Jesu.s As I've gotten to know Jesse and others in this community here just
seeing the wider ripples of this spiritual generations because of Mike
and Pam and how they've cared for me I really want to do that and be that to
other people so other people will look at Jesus and think wow, man Jesus is
awesome, and if it wasn't for John Sherry. I've met Dave who's the guy that
discipled Jesse and Mike Darnell discipled Dave, just from what I've seen Mike, Dave,
Jesse, me, and others that I've discipled, so at least just five generations of
they're followers of Jesus. It's not just the next generation we're influencing
generations, we help them a spiritual disciplines so that they can reproduce
themselves spiritually the generations of others. I mean, and help them have
vision to think you know just reaching your buddy you're reaching his grandkids
and that's that's just cool. This Kingdom legacy continues to deepen
in our military communities, if this isn't a work for the few and the proud
but rather those who are humble followers with a vision for reaching the
generations.