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Hello,
I am Michael Edward.
And I want to tell you a story.
It's really, actually, a long story - 15 years in the making.
It's a story of Faith and Obedience and the outcome of a decision on my part to actively participate therein.
I am sharing this testimony with you for a few reasons; so you know without question that www.AmericansRestoringAmerica.com [ARA] and all that falls under it is a Work designed by our Creator and I agreed with Him to carry out this Work.
Now, if you think the above statement is a bit controversial or possibly emanating from someone who is not in full possession of their faculties, you may as well stop reading at this point. Anything you read after this point would be pointless. You know, it's like teaching a pig to dance; it annoys the pig and wastes your time. Secular wimps need not apply.
On the other hand, if you are a man or woman of faith; consider yourself one of His, than please allow me to Bear Witness and give Testimony to His wonderful Work in my life.
On a personal note and for background purposes, I am the product of a Roman Catholic Parochial School broken family upbringing by a woman who was dedicated to make the best out of her boy she could under the worst of circumstances. [Thank you, Mom. I appreciate you. I think you did a terrific job!] After leaving home I wasn't particularly a good man or particularly a bad man. I was just your average man. My Flesh brought me away from my grounding and I pursued my young life with gusto. I was just like most in America who work at it to make it. I was fortunate to find work that I enjoyed and began building a 'proper' and prosperous life early by most standards. My work for another I so thoroughly enjoyed evolved into my working for myself and this afforded me a comfortable life with all the trimmings. I was one of these 'self-made men' and enjoyed elevated public status with my family to go along with it.
As time marched forward my wife and I with our young son in tow began to seek out our religious roots and began attending the local area churches. The outcome of this was two-fold: we were serious about the matter and truly gave earnest study of the Holy Writ, even to the point of learning to read Hebrew so as to have a personal understanding of His Will [see www.FollowersOfTheWay.NAME]
and I developed a social conscience to put that faith to work in our local community [Faith without Works is Dead]. As the owner of a highly successful business, I had both time and money available to that end.
It was at this time, the mid-1990's, I also got involved with Christian Coalition, American Family Association and Florida's Right To Life.
Why? One early evening we were all sitting around the television and the news that evening told the story of a 'woman's crisis center' in Orlando, Florida that had a couple of dumpsters behind their building. That morning, a dumpster driver was pulling into the back of the building when he thought he heard a baby's cry. He shut down his rig [how could he hear a baby's cry over the din of his diesel?] and went to investigate. He found a newly aborted baby. Some news, huh. The baby died later that day.
I cannot express strongly enough to you the very profound impact that had upon my spirit. The following day when I went to work I was useless to everyone. I mean to say I was in deep grief over this. Understand this: I am not an emotional guy, but this painful mourning continued for 3 days.
I learned much associating with these great people at Christian Coalition, American Family Association and Florida's Right to Life. What I learned was simply what was wrong with our ability to communicate and network with the many, many other groups interested in bringing back to the table the Moral Code we Americans so deeply cherish.
So, for these 3 days I'm sitting at my desk trying to focus on business - buying and selling my different pieces of inventory on line - and at the same time I'm screaming out inside of me to The Father demanding He tell me why all this energy we all are expending can't even save the life of just one little baby! On the third day I heard myself say to myself - [this is my way of say YHWH spoke to me] "just change the classifications of inventory for the different Issues and have people sign up to be members. Have their membership application be addressable fields so you can target eMails to a particular area by Issue and to a particular venue." From this moment the germ of the idea birthed at that moment you now see fruition at www.AmericansRestoringAmerica.com. Praise Yah! I began to pour time and money in bringing this idea to reality.
Financially speaking, at this time, all is good.....
Or it was up until this point.
What I did not know was that when you become effective in bringing His Will back into your community you will most assuredly make enemies. ....and that I did.
A CHANGE IS ABOUT TO OCCUR: The new county school superintendent was on the local public radio station and I heard this comment made: "I am a Secular Humanist. And it is my desire to inculcate into our young students these moral foundations." or something to that effect. It appears I was not the only one who heard this and soon there were a dozen or so of us that began to meet. See, had this new school superintendent said on the radio; "I'm a Christian. And it is my desire to inculcate into our young students these moral foundations." Well, it doesn't take much of an imagination to figure out what would happen next.
Anyway, this group worked over the next year to bring together the published material this 'educrat' authored in the past and present and with each bi-weekly school board meeting me and another would take our four minutes apiece and speak these comments to all those in attendance, which included the press.
This new county school superintendent resigned 9 months later and was hired by another county. Yup, I boxed up everything I had and forwarded to another in that county to pick up where we left off.
What I did not know was this new school superintendent was the 6th most powerful person in the NEA [National Education Assoc.] To make a long story short, a series of events took place that in the flesh are just impossible to have happened between my business' landlord and my business' banker that drove me into bankruptcy in less than a year following this change in superintendents.
That flushing sound you hear is nearly 30 years of work going down the toilet.
This bankruptcy was a life changing experience. What I want you to understand is this: I would never wish upon my worst enemy what followed, but on the other hand I would wish upon my best friend. Sound strange to you? Well, I warned you right up front of this little missive, didn't I?
We lost our home. We lost our business. And most importantly, we lost our peace.....
Our family was torn apart.
Our son joined the Marine Corp.
My wife went to live with a family who took her in. [prayers answered]
And I was relegated to live on the street.
Now, you would think when you are someone who is as was earlier described in this writing that there would have been lots of people running to their rescue. Wouldn't you?
Not! You wouldn't believe the cruel things people do and say.
Fortunately, someone who was not a friend known to me - at least as one considers to be a friend - allowed me to stay in his work shed and gave me occasional work. I slept on a concrete floor on cardboard boxes flattened - later I was given an air mattress to put on top of the cardboard. I lived there two years through hurricanes and freezing temperatures. This building was across from a YMCA so I had daily showers available to me. My barber of twenty years was charitable to me and provided me with my monthly haircuts. So, I made a decent appearance to the world. I was much better off than those you see on the corner with their homemade signs. I was spared from that. [prayers answered]
I had shelter and some money to buy food and our car left to us, but there was never enough to meet our needs.
My wife would meet me every day. We would ride over to McDonald's. It was food and it was cheap. Sometimes I would sit across from her and tell her I wasn't hungry - I ate earlier. I lied.
I don't even want to get into how bad it was for her. She is one brave woman and never deserved the hell she went through and to a degree still goes through - never!
We were in this situation for several years. Once you are down like this, it is nearly impossible to get back up again. I know that I know that where I am today is only because of His Grace and His Provision.
What I want you to understand is this: I learned to Trust in Him. I can't explain how important such a simple statement said can have such a profound impact upon your life. It did mine. That is why I said earlier " I would never wish upon my worst enemy what followed, but on the other hand I would wish upon my best friend."
I learned to trust in Him for my everything. HalleluYah!
I can point to a place and time when I finally recognized the reach of His strong arm into my life.
Count all things Joy! It's a taste you have to acquire.
Next, I would like to draw your attention to the tab: Angles. You will find it on the home page of www.AmericansRestoringAmerica.com. It was at this point when Our Father began to bring people into my life that financially began to restore my financial base. Not my personal financial base, but the finances needed to pick up the pieces of what I Pledged to do for Him so many years before. Obviously, in retrospect, it is easy to see the very strange series of events that followed the resignation of this county school superintendent in my business life was orchestrated by The Adversary and was for the single purpose of stopping this Vision I sincerely believe I was given from ever seeing the light of day.
YHWH had other plans.
Wrapping this up, the following years as these 'Angles' brought in His Provision into my life it enabled me to bring my wife and me back under the same roof and more importantly, begin re-writing www.AmericansRestoringAmerica.com.
In closing, I want you to understand is this: I want you to pay very close attention to this: I testify to you www.AmericansRestoringAmerica.com is a Work of the Father. He never intended that we relinquish our duty to be Stewards over this Earth. He never intended for us to give up this duty. Remember the prayer our Redeemer Kinsman taught His Apostles. Our Father, Whom art in Heaven, Hallowed be Thy Name. Thy Kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. You know the rest. What is His will? That His Kingdom is established here on Earth and that we, as His Followers promote His Laws, Ordinances and Statutes. Israel did the wrong thing when they chose a fleshly king over the Eternal King. Everything went downhill from there. Didn't it? One degree at a time.
Some say, 'Well, The Book says the fight is His and in His time and there is nothing we can do about it. It's gonna happen. So, why should I try to change things? The Adversary will have his moment.' and this is true. But, what they don't say is "And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved: but for the elect's sake those days shall be shortened." Sounds to me like there will be plenty of us that will continue our holding and fighting for our dominion until He returns. Doesn't it? Also, The Scriptures show YHWH cycles in millenniums. Yes? 'a day is as a thousand years' and Daniel's prophecy just to mention two. Well, the millennial Hebrew Calendar still shows another 29 years as of this writing in 2010 before the next Scriptural millennium occurs. Although, personally, I keep my oil lamp full daily in preparation for His return, I think, were I a betting man - and I'm not - we still have about 3 decades before His return and the time for our earnest effort is NOW and to maintain that effort until the very end.
Let me be very direct and clear here: You have a unique opportunity to participate in history's greatest single experiment in self-government the world has ever witnessed and I am asking you to join with me in this effort and I am asking you for your support - not only your prayerful support, but your financial support.
Firstly, I covet your prayers. I am in accord with the One who answers prayers. Please let Him hear from you. He is the Way-Maker. He just wants to hear from you.
The costs to pay the people to develop and just maintain the multiple web sites and the servers that host www.AmericansRestoringAmerica.com is enormous.
I spend $14,000 a month just to break even and more if I want to properly market this communications platform to the 300 million Americans who could use it. What I could do with a half million dollars. What more I could do with 3 to 5 million dollars! Think TV!
I posture were www.AmericansRestoringAmerica.com populated with just 10% of the population, we could bring America back to the Vision; the Vision of our Founding Fathers within just 3 to 5 years. Truth is, we could probably accomplish this with a lot less People.
Secondly, I ask that you share with as many as you are able the ARA web site. If you are not in a position to financially participate you could at least use some of your time and your energy to make others aware of what we are doing.
And thirdly, I ask for your finance assistance. Proverbs 3: 27 - I ask you to make a monthly pledge if you are able. Most people make a monthly pledge of $20; others less and some more. See the spinning gold coin at the home page of ARA.
If you are able to step in with a sizable figure, I would like to speak with you directly on how we both may realize the greatest blessing. 800-625-4250
Please understand this. If we don't band together NOW and deal with these social and political Issues the America that was left to us will no longer continue to exist. It will become just another insertion into the planned One World Government.
Benjamin Franklin, at the signing of the Declaration for Independence is said to have turned to John Hancock saying: "If we don't all hang together, then surely, we shall all hang separately."
I do not want this for my child and I am sure you won't want this for yours, either.
I hope to hear from you soon.
Blessings to you,
Yours in Freedom,
Michael Edward
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