Episode 38: Melanie & Howard Malone, Military Ministry: When God Deploys You

Jacob Paul: Welcome to the Truth In Love podcast with your host, Kimberly Faith. The Truth In Love podcast seeks to present God’s timeless truth through the lens of his remarkable love.

Kimberly Faith: Welcome back to the Truth In Love podcast. I have two of my, I think best friends, whether they feel that they like it or not.

Melanie Malone: Yes.

Howard Malone: We like it.

Kimberly Faith: Howard and Melanie Malone, who are now local pastors of a church called The River. And, but what we want to talk about with these fabulous friends of mine are your life before you were pastors and how your ministry was carried out in your military job. So introduce yourselves and tell us a little bit about you, because some people aren’t going to know you obviously.

Howard Malone: Yeah. Ladies first.

Melanie Malone: Oh my. Well, I never wanted to marry anybody in the military, but God had other plans. So, the army was very good to us. And I loved all the years we were in the military. I loved the travel and mostly to see the Lord opening doors that we could have never opened. Places we went that we could have never dreamed, but only because we said yes to serve the Lord, just like every other Christian says yes.

Howard Malone: And to serve our country. 

Melanie Malone:  And to serve our country. Right. Right. 

Kimberly Faith: Yeah. What a great opportunity.

Melanie Malone:  Yeah. 

Kimberly Faith: So how many years were you all when I say you all were in the military, I was a military spouse. So if one’s in the other’s in. How many years were you all in?

Howard Malone: So Melanie got her full career and she did twenty years as an army wife. I did twenty eight years on active duty and then five years in the reserves before that, so I had thirty three years total service as a military policeman. But yeah, I remember we dated in college and one of the things that broke us up was she said, I’m not marrying anybody that’s going to the army, because I was in ROTC about to go in the regular army as an MP and she was like, I’m not doing that. But God, like she said, had a bigger plan.

Melanie Malone:  I came on board. Yeah.

Howard Malone: It took us about six years from that point. That was ‘eighty two’, we graduated and then ‘eighty eight ‘, we got married. And it was great because she had graduated college and were living in Boston, Massachusetts, you know, this huge New England city, you know, with millions of people. She married me and we got in a U Haul and I drove her to White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico, which is where..

Kimberly Faith:  The end of the earth?

Howard Malone: Yeah, where I was stationed, the moon. You know? Rattlesnakes and scorpions and mountain lions and it was a crazy and scorching desert heat and cactus and all that.

Melanie Malone: I didn’t care.

Howard Malone: From walking past Fenway Park to work every day. That’s what she did in Boston. 

Kimberly Faith: Wow. 

Howard Malone: So, Yeah, that was a wake up call.

Melanie Malone: We were newly married and it was all good. And that’s where it began. And yeah.

Kimberly Faith: So tell us about your, like, how did your ministry, I just wanted to hear about your ministry in the military while you were serving as a, I hate to say a lay minister because we’re all called to lay down our life for the gospel, you know? And I’m just dying to hear about how that began with you all. Because I’ve shared with you all how my law practice is my mission field. You know, people come in here, they hear you know, they see Christian signs, they hear Christian music, they hopefully receive the fruit of the spirit when they’re being waited on by the team or in my office. And then if the Lord prompts, they hear the gospel if they need it or whatever, however that happens.

And so I’m very interested for lay people like myself who are not full time ministers of Christ in a more official capacity. We are obviously, you know, we were called to be that, but how you all made that happen in the military.

Melanie Malone: It began here in Waynesville at a church, Grace Covenant Christian Center, where we came back to the Lord. And we sat under wonderful teaching for about two and a half

Howard Malone: Three years.

Melanie Malone: Three years.

Howard Malone: Exactly three years. 

Melanie Malone:  It was as if we were in Bible school.

Kimberly Faith: So what brought you back to the Lord?

Howard Malone: Our marriage was crashing after about a year, because we had been both away from, so when we graduated college in ’82, we also graduated from our faith, which was a horrible mistake. And we both went our way and we were just living in the world and not living for God, and then we got married in that state, even though we had three pastors that married us, my father who was a pastor, her grandfather who was a pastor, and then her home church pastor, they all three participated in it, so we got married really, really good, you know, it was well done, but yeah, we were just wrecked and we got here and we were renting a house out in Dixon and we’ve been married just a little over a year and we got in a big fight one night and we said the D word.

Melanie Malone:  Divorce.

Howard Malone:  And it was like the minute that word came out of her mouth, it was just like, how you hear one word from God could change your whole life. That word was actually from God, because I walked right around, I remember we were in our bedroom and I walked around and I said, come here, we walked around and I said, let’s get on our knees and we got down beside the bed and we just said, I remember this prayer, I said, God, we’ve messed this up as bad as it can be messed up, but if you’ll fix it, we want it fixed.

That was my whole prayer. About a week later, this lady walked up to her at work, she was working as a civilian over here on the base and she said, the Lord told me to come tell you to come to my church. And it was Grace Covenant Christian Center out here which is now The River. And I went from being this backslid heathen, that was January 1990, I walked in that church and I’m now the pastor of that church. So tell me God can’t work.

Kimberly Faith: That’s crazy. 

Howard Malone: Yes. 

Kimberly Faith: So tell us about the journey. I mean,  this sounds like a really good story.

Melanie Malone: So we were launched out of Grace Covenant when we were going to Korea. So you can pick it up from here.

Howard Malone: So yeah. So we’re both musicians. That’s how we met. We sang in choir together in college. She’s a music major.

Kimberly Faith: I just want to  say, you all are incredible musicians. I knew that you could sing and play piano, Melanie, and that you were multitalented, but I didn’t know that Howard could sing until I heard him sing. It was like, well, why isn’t he singing every Sunday?

Melanie Malone: Exactly. Exactly.

Howard Malone: Well, we did, we led worship. That was part of what we did. One of our many ministries where it just fit everywhere we went, we were able to plug into the worship teams and the music ministry and all the different churches that we served in. And in fact, before we came here, that first year we were married, we were trying to serve God. She played, we just weren’t doing a good job.

But even at White Sands Mineral Range, for six months, she played the piano and I led the music. I’ll get up there and, okay, hymn three sixty three, you know, and I would lead the music in that service, but we were just living.

Melanie Malone: God is so merciful and gracious and kind to us. 

Kimberly Faith:  He takes our fake service even, doesn’t he?

Melanie Malone: Yes, he does.

Kimberly Faith: No, I understand that, believe me.

Melanie Malone: So we got to Korea and the first thing happened is

Howard Malone: Yeah, we found a fellowship that met on Sunday nights in the chapel called New Life Fellowship and  I had never been, you know, in a speaking ministry, only singing, and we were in there about four months and the young man that was the pastor of that fellowship was a Dodds school teacher and he was from New Mexico and he said, well, I’m leaving and one of you is going to take this over.

Kimberly Faith: Because for everybody who doesn’t understand a Dodds school teacher is a Department of Defense school.

Howard Malone: So he taught like fourth grade or something. And so he and his wife and family were there.

Kimberly Faith: I know we love our acronyms.

Melanie Malone: Yes, thank you for that.

Howard Malone: We’re all Dodds. It’s not a Dodge, it’s a Dodds. But yeah 

Kimberly Faith: So he left. 

Howard Malone: He left, but yeah, the Lord kind of gave me an open vision. I was sitting in the congregation, listening to him preach and I blinked and I opened my eyes, I saw myself standing at the podium.

Kimberly Faith: Wow.

Howard Malone:  So then a week later, he said, I’m leaving and one of you sitting here, and it was only about 12 people  at the time. He said, one of you is going to take this over as the pastor of it and I’m like, what was that thing? So I went out and I talked to him and I said, I think the Lord is showing me it’s me. So he and his wife prayed, we prayed and after about two weeks, we all came back and he said, yep, it’s you, here you go, Here’s the keys, lock up when you leave. Melanie played the piano and that was the beginning of our , that really was the beginning of ministry.

Kimberly Faith: Where you were put in charge and the buck stops with you, buck stops with God, obviously, but you were lay people in kind of your full time ministry. 

Howard Malone: Yeah, and my goodness, I was working in a brigade S3 in Korea and in Korea, eighty percent of the people were on unaccompanied tours. So they don’t think, even though I had Melanie and our daughter Erin was one at the time, she was with us, but they give no consideration to your family. So I was working a million hours a week, seven days a week.

Kimberly Faith: And still giving the message on Sunday nights.

Howard Malone: Yeah. And I can remember Sunday nights where I would be at my desk cranking out products till five.

Kimberly Faith:  That’s okay. You can type on the desk it’s going to pick up on the mic.

Howard Malone: Oh, sorry. I was not playing the drums. I was typing on the desk.

Kimberly Faith: It was pretty entertaining actually. 

Howard Malone:  I talk with my hands and I’m not even Italian.

Kimberly Faith: Hey, watch it. 48% over here. 

Howard Malone: Oh, okay. Oh, cool. But I distinctly remember a couple of Sunday evenings where I would finish my work, I’d say, well, it’s 5:30, the service starts at six, I have to get over to the chapel and I would pick my Bible up off the table and I would be walking across the base and I would say, Holy Spirit, you have to show up.

Kimberly Faith:  Wow. 

Howard Malone: Because I’ve been working eighteen hours a day for seven straight days. I haven’t even read my Bible this week. I don’t even know what I’m doing and I’ve got to go in here and these people are expecting me to give them some fresh bread from heaven. And I’m like, you just have to show up. And I’m telling you, Kim, those were some of the greatest messages I’ve ever, because I would literally flip my Bible open and I would just look down and I’d say, okay, Lord, what is it? And he would, just a verse would jump out at me and I would just start talking and he would hook up with me, but it’s back to what you said, it’s the humility thing. It’s the thing of God, I cannot do this unless you show up. 

Kimberly Faith: Right. Right. 

Howard Malone: He wants to hear that.

Kimberly Faith:  He does want to hear that.

Howard Malone:  Boy, he pours into that. He pours into that. He really does.

Kimberly Faith: I love that story because, you know, I’m writing a book called, The Beatitudes, The Attitudes of Christ. And the first one is poor in spirit, which is what you’re talking about. It’s like, I have nothing, God. I can’t do this. And then he says, oh, I’m so glad you said that. Watch this. I keep telling myself, if I could just be there all the time where I can’t do this, then God would just blow me out of the water. And that’s such a great goal. You know, we look at the attitudes that Jesus taught us in the series on the beatitudes and that was the number one because it’s required for salvation and it’s required for life, for service.

Melanie Malone: That’s exactly right.

Kimberly Faith:  So anyway, go ahead. Thank you for sharing that. That’s amazing.

Howard Malone: So we did that for two years.

Melanie Malone: And we also by the time we left, that congregation had tripled. 

Howard Malone:  We were running fifty people every Sunday night. So there was some fruit.

Melanie Malone: That open door led to a prayer time in our home, not just with that fellowship, but several other people came and participated in that. And so we learned how to pray, how to lead prayer during that time.

Howard Malone: And met the Perukers. We had this young couple. They were missionaries to the Far East from America. She was actually South African, and he was from New Mexico, there was this New Mexico thing kept coming up, connection. But several times they would come and we just let them live with us. They lived in our house on the base for one time, three months. Yeah. And they did drama ministry in which they were contracted by the army to come in by the chapels.

Kimberly Faith: That’s great.

Howard Malone: And they would travel all over the Peninsula Of Korea and we were their base. And so they lived with us and just things that we were able to do, connections we were able to make. 

Kimberly Faith: Right.

Howard Malone: It was just amazing.

Kimberly Faith: It just reminds me, we have this common bond in Christ. It’s like that thing happens because of the common blood we share in Christ. 

Melanie Malone: Yes. 

Kimberly Faith: We are blood brothers and sisters on a spiritual level. And we don’t have to, you know, do a criminal background check because we know that the spiritual connection is there.

Melanie Malone: That’s right.

Kimberly Faith: And just like when you were sharing how you would ask the Holy Spirit, show me what I need to feed them the bread from heaven. The Holy Spirit’s like, I got you. Here we are. It’s the same thing with other people. 

Melanie Malone: Yeah.

Kimberly Faith:  I mean, I don’t even remember the first time we met, but I know that the thing I remember the most about you both is I knew that you were kin.

Howard Malone: Yeah.

Melanie Malone: Well, I have a way I like to say that. I think the Lord gave it to me, but when I come up to someone I don’t know and they are a believer, I say it like this, the Holy Spirit in me recognizes himself in you.

Kimberly Faith: That’s good. It’s kind of like John the Baptist and Jesus when Mary and Elizabeth were pregnant. 

Melanie Malone:  Exactly like that. 

Kimberly Faith: Don’t tell me babies aren’t saved  before they sin.

Melanie Malone:  Yeah. Right. Of course. They’re full of love.

Howard Malone: That’s the thing Paul talked about when he said I was alive once.

Kimberly Faith: Yes. 

Howard Malone: Then the law came, sin revived and I died. 

Kimberly Faith: That’s right. 

Howard Malone: That’s what he’s talking about. We’re born alive unto God.

Kimberly Faith: That’s right.

Howard Malone: That’s why we know that when little ones pass, they go right back to God who sent them here.

Kimberly Faith:  Absolutely.

Melanie Malone: Yes. Out of that ministry also, we didn’t do it. There was no way we could do it, but the Lord opened several other doors. We were invited into a house church in Korea off post.

Howard preached, of course they had to translate during the was little bit different, but they did not want us to leave. They had prepared this meal.  It was a wonderful time.

And then we were invited to one of the colleges there in Seoul. It was the Campus Crusade for Christ, we think. We can’t remember the ministry. But it was a Christian ministry and somehow heard of us. We were invited there to the college to speak. And again, they were so hungry. They didn’t want us to go. Do you have anything else to say? 

Kimberly Faith:  Yeah. And here you are, not been to theology seminary. 

Howard Malone: No. Not at all. 

Kimberly Faith: You were trained by a pastor and you sucked it up and you learned it and you absorbed it because you wanted to be close to God. You were motivated to connect with the Lord, not just intellectually, but emotionally, spiritually, and your soul grew and became this fruitful vine. 

Melanie Malone: Yes.

Howard Malone: Yes. 

Kimberly Faith: Right?

Melanie Malone: That’s exactly right. And every time we were in those places, I remember we would look at each other and say, how did we get here?

Howard Malone: It’s just, yeah, it was amazing.

Melanie Malone:  About how we got here.

Howard Malone: Absolutely amazing.

Kimberly Faith: Yeah. So, where did you go from Korea?

Howard Malone: We went to Atlanta, Georgia for six years, served in a church there.

Kimberly Faith: Now, let me ask this before you go on with your career. You served in churches, but what about your everyday life with the troops with, how was your,  I know we’ve talked about this from time to time. I’ve heard you talk about this from time to time in different sermons, how you had people that you were serving with, people that you were affecting as a child of God when you weren’t preaching or teaching or doing music. So tell us about that.

Howard Malone: Yeah. So I like to call that presence ministry. It’s just being there. Right? And the thing is, we have God on the inside of us. He’s with us. He’s in us. And so, if we are walking in tune with God, I believe people sense that. They sense something about us that’s different that they don’t have. I mean, that’s about the best way I can describe it.

But Kim, it happened again to me just two weeks ago. I got a text from one of my former bosses on Fort Leonard Wood, who I haven’t seen in about four years maybe. He just texted me and said, Oh, hey, by the way, I never thanked you for turning me back to the Lord. 

Kimberly Faith: Woah. 

Howard Malone: And he said, It has completely changed my life. I just wanted to say thank you.

And I’m like, wow, when did I do that? Because he worked for me when I was on active duty, then I retired and I became a civilian and then I worked with him and then I worked for him. We’ve had every different relationship in that regard, right? And we’re both retired military police, so we had that whole background that we shared, but I never sat down with him and said, thus saith the Lord, let us now rehearse Psalm 91 or whatever, I didn’t. I just shared myself.

Kimberly Faith: I love that presence ministry. You know, I like to say that’s the difference between walking in the fruit of the spirit versus the works of the flesh. 

Howard Malone: Yeah.

Kimberly Faith:  Because that’s another way to look at it. You know, when people say, I see peace in you and I want that, then it’s an open door sometimes to go ahead and sit down and talk about Psalms 91 or whatever.

But mostly it’s how are we carrying ourselves and producing the fruit of the spirit, which gives us that open door to truth. Because that’s why this podcast is called truth and love because truth without love is cruel and love without truth is cruel.

Howard Malone: Right.

Kimberly Faith: Together they bring you to peace and love and joy the truth sets you free. And that’s what you’re talking about.

Howard Malone: Exactly. So I thought about this when you said, I want you to come and share about what you did. I’m like, well, I went to work every day, you know, I did my job and I deployed a lot of times and went through some crazy stuff, but the Lord just kept showing me over and over again that like, look, this is not about you, this is about me in you. This is about me through you.

Kimberly Faith: That’s like Galatians, I have been crucified with Christ. It’s no longer I who live, but Christ who lives me.

Melanie Malone: That’s right.

Kimberly Faith: And that’s what absolutely changes people to see that. People know, they’re born with the knowledge that they are created in the image of God. They’re born, Romans Chapter One says we are born, God puts the knowledge of himself in us. So, there is this draw to the presence of God in Christians if they’ll let it come out. Whether you’re at work or you’re deployed or whatever you’re doing.

Melanie Malone: That’s right.

Howard Malone: You don’t have to stand up on top of a car and shout the Roman road, you know? You don’t have to do that.

Kimberly Faith: Right.

Howard Malone: And I’m not saying people that do that, I’m all for them. As long as what you’re doing is you’re being led by the spirit of God, when you do whatever you do, right? 

Kimberly Faith: Right. 

Howard Malone: Like there’s some young men that stand down here on the corner a couple of times a week and they’ve got their little PA system and a cross and they’re like, Jesus saves and they’re just preaching the gospel. Every time I go by, I’m like, get it boys. You know, it’s just I’m excited for them. I would probably never do that unless the Lord told me to, of course, but that’s not my thing. That’s just not who I am, right?

Kimberly Faith: Well, right. And it’s like you said, get to be led by the spirit. You know, I’ve led more people to Christ in my law office, in the chairs that people sit in, than I have knocking on people’s doors, which I used to do back in a particular church I went to. 

Howard Malone: Sure. 

Kimberly Faith: And then I’m not critical of that method.  I think that you have to be led by the spirit, but I can tell you when people come to my office, they’re very hungry for something because they’re usually in trouble.

Melanie Malone: Right. And they’re desperate.

Kimberly Faith: And they’re ready. Probably you experienced that when you were in combat.

Howard Malone: Oh, absolutely. You know, there’s that old saying, there’s no atheist in the foxhole. 

Kimberly Faith: Yeah. 

Howard Malone: And you know, you get into a place like Iraq or Afghanistan, where people are dying every day and you are become instantly aware of the fleeting nature of human life and then you see some of your friends die and some of your friends get, you know, critically wounded and it just brings that all home and then of course, sometimes those things happen to you.

Melanie Malone: You should share about your friend in Afghanistan that, again, just your presence and he saw something in you he wanted.

Howard Malone: Yeah, there was a guy, he’s not the movie guy, but his name was Stephen King and we just sat next to each other, we worked in the Joint Operations Center, which is just one of the parts of the staff, right, and we sat in this little, like a 20 foot Conex box, they put a bunch of them together and made our offices and so it was a narrow little eight foot wide thing with a just had a bench desk kind of a thing on one side and then you could walk behind it, and that was all it was, and we had our computers. I sat next to that guy for, I don’t know, three months. We never said I never said Jesus, not one time. I don’t even remember if I had a Bible on my desk or not, but I was leading one fellowship and I was leading worship in another fellowship on that base.

Kimberly Faith: And this is where?

Howard Malone: Afghanistan, Kabul, Afghanistan, and after three months, I got up to go to breakfast one morning, because I’d come to the office first, then I’d go and eat and then come back and I said, Steve, I’m going to breakfast, I’ll be back.

And he says, can I go with you? I go, yeah man, come on, let’s go. So we go down the chow hall, we get our food, there’s this beautiful little patio, it was a gorgeous spring day, we’re sitting outside and we’re eating our breakfast and he just looks at me and he goes, what is it? I said, what is what? He said, what is it that you have that I don’t have?

Kimberly Faith: Oh my goodness.

Melanie Malone: Yes.

Howard Malone: And he began to weep.

Kimberly Faith: Getting goosebumps.

Howard Malone: Yeah, he began to weep. And I said, oh, Steve, that’s Jesus. I just said, that’s Jesus. So I just explained to him my relationship with Jesus, and I said, He loves you the same as he loves me. Do you want to have a relationship with him? He goes, Yes, I do. And I just led him in a prayer right there to receive Jesus, just kind of gave him the, you know, Romans 10:9 and 10, confess with your mouth the Lord and believe in your heart God raised him from the dead, you’ll be saved. 

Kimberly Faith: Right. 

Howard Malone: And man, we were both just crying like little babies hugging out there, I’m sure everybody thought we were nuts, but that’s just how that happened. 

Kimberly Faith: Yeah.

Howard Malone: And to this day, I don’t know what it is that I said, or what it is that I did, it was just God on the inside of me. God was ministering to him and I think back to something you said earlier about it’s the fruit of the spirit. When people see the love that you have, compassion, concern, mercy toward other people and the peace.

Kimberly Faith: Yeah, the peace.

Melanie Malone: The peace.

Howard Malone: It’s the peace.

Kimberly Faith:  It’s the peace.

Melani Malone: Yes.

Kimberly Faith: And the joy. I mean, the satisfaction.

Howard Malone: Yeah, all of that.

Kimberly Faith: You can be in a foxhole and be completely satisfied with your life because Paul talks about that in Philippians. He was in jail writing about joy. And he says, for me to live is Christ and to die is gain. It’s needful for me to be here with you.

Melanie Malone: Yes.

Kimberly Faith: And when we live that way, which is what you were, that’s what he was seeing. He was seeing this guy is away from his kids, his family, and yet he has the joy and the peace and the concern .Yeah, sure, you can come to breakfast with me. So small, but so powerful.

Howard Malone: Yeah,  the little things are really big things.

Kimberly Faith: Yeah. So, let me just ask this question because I think in the teaching that I do, one of the big gaps I see with people and being able to have a lay person’s ministry is they have not been discipled. There is a huge lack of discipleship. Like, they don’t know how to lead somebody in a prayer. They don’t know how to even explain the gospel. They can kind of tell their own testimony, but it’s not, they can’t answer the hard questions like why did Jesus have to die? Why can’t I work for salvation? Why don’t I have to be baptized to be saved? You know, hard stuff. Or what’s my purpose? You know, they don’t know that their purpose is to glorify God because nobody’s ever taught them. And I know with the basic Bible concept study that I teach, that’s the thing that we focus on. 

But how did you all get to that place where you were able to not only exhibit the fruit of the spirit, but also just explain answers to the hard questions and they’re not really supposed to be hard questions right?

Howard Malone:  Well, think for us, a lot of it goes back to this teaching that we got here. This was like Bible school going to Grace Covenant Christian Center and that was back in the good old days when you had Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night church.  And one of the things that we did in that church, which I was raised in church my whole life, my dad was a pastor, I had never been in a church where they did this. Every service for forty five minutes before the service, they prayed.

Kimberly Faith: That’s amazing.

Howard Malone: Like they would pray from 9:00  to 9:45 on Sunday morning, and then the service began at ten. And in the beginning, we didn’t go to that. We were just like, I don’t know what that prayer thing is. But then one Sunday, I just said, hey, let’s come early next week and go to that prayer thing that they do. That was life changing.

Melanie Malone: It was life changing. Prayer is life changing.

Kimberly Faith: : It is life changing.

Howard Malone: I’m telling you.

Kimberly Faith: It’s the most underutilized asset we have. 

Howard Malone: Absolutely. 

Kimberly Faith:  What about you, Melanie? What do you think is critical for you to have gotten to a position where you’re able to lead people to Christ, to disciple them, to answer these hard questions?

Melanie Malone: So, being asked to do certain things, asked to lead worship, and then asked to, this was in Germany, asked to head up the Bible studies curriculum and me thinking, why are you asking me? What do I know? And so going back to the Lord and saying, okay, Lord, what do I know? Help me with this. Because someone asked, I’m going back to get smart. I’m going in the word, I’m praying, I need to have answers, Lord. I mean, that’s what I did. For everybody, it’s different. But I drew so much on what I had been taught. And so that was helpful for me just to sit down and clarify for myself, what do I need to do to lead worship? I need to worship. What do I need to do to put together Bible curriculum for the  Protestant women of the chapels study in Germany? I need to be smart with Bible curriculum and the word of God. So I did that for myself.

Kimberly Faith: Right.

Melanie Malone: Yeah.

Kimberly Faith: And you did that while you were being a full time military wife and a mother and 

Melanie Malone: Yes.

Howard Malone: Chasing three little girls.

Melanie Malone: Yeah. It sounds very academic, but that’s just what worked for me.

Kimberly Faith: No. I think that this is one of the things that why I want to hear people’s journeys. 

Melanie Malone: Yeah. 

Kimberly Faith: And share those because what you did worked and we need to do more things that work. 

Melanie Malone: Yeah. 

Kimberly Faith: You know?

Howard Malone: Yeah.

Kimberly Faith: We have, I think a cultural Christianity that was our podcast last week, was on the danger of cultural Christianity, which is a mentality that I’ll show up on Sunday morning and be served. And then the rest of the week, I really don’t have anything else to do, just make a living or raise my kids or go to soccer practice. And the only way that’s going to change is if people have ideas about how to change that. And that’s why I wanted to have you on the podcast because I know you have lots of ideas. You’ve done lots of things. And so I appreciate you sharing that.

Melanie Malone: Study to show yourself approved. 

Kimberly Faith: Exactly. Yeah. 

Melanie Malone:  Out of Timothy. And so I am not like my husband who can extemporaneously, is that the right word?  Get up 

Kimberly Faith: They have lots of words for that.  Extemporaneously is I think the best word, right?

Melanie Malone: The Holy Spirit can download, freestyle. You can download from him and it just so eloquently comes out. That’s not me. And so I know what I have to do in preparation for that.

Now, certainly, I don’t. He studies all the time to show himself approved.

Kimberly Faith: Well, that’s right. Because he can, I’m a lot, I think, Howard and I have talked this. We’re kind of alike in a lot of ways. We study, study, study, and we don’t necessarily have a big outline plan because we want to give that freedom to the Holy Spirit to download as we draw from the resources we’ve studied. 

Melanie Malone: Right.

Kimberly Faith: And some people want to have an outline and they stick to it because that’s how God uses them. Nothing wrong with us. 

Melanie Malone: Right. 

Kimberly Faith: It’s just a different gift.

Melanie Malone: Many different methods, always the same message.

Kimberly Faith:  Yes.

Melanie Malone: Yeah. 

Kimberly Faith: Absolutely. And so in your role as, you know, as an army spouse, tell us a little more about, you’ve shared how you were asked to lead this group in Germany. Tell us what other opportunities God gave you.

Melanie Malone: Well, certainly when we happened to be there, desert Oh, boy. What was the name?

Howard Malone: Desert Shield Desert Storm.

Melanie Malone: Desert Shield Desert Storm.  We arrived shortly after 9/11. So all of that ramped up.

Howard Malone: Oh, we’re talking about Germany. I’m sorry. Germany. Desert Shield, Desert Storm was when we were here in 1990.

Melanie Malone: Yes.

Howard Malone: And we were deploying.

Melanie Malone: Sorry, but in Germany.

Howard Malone: That was Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Melanie Malone: Okay.

Howard Malone: 2003.

Melanie Malone: So many of many of the troops where we were stationed were sent out and spouses were left at home.

Howard Malone:17 thousand troops left Germany and all the wives and kids were left there.

Melanie Malone: Were left there on the bases. And so, I was already plugged into the Protestant women at the chapel. We had a wonderful group of women, But we kind of rallied together to help these other women that were not part of that and didn’t know what to do. Certainly we prayed, first and foremost, but we continued to meet. We prayed.

We invited them to come in. But one thing we found, they began to isolate themselves and not come out of their homes. And so we would have to go in maybe to neighbors and caringly and lovingly say, we understand where you are, but the best way for you to come out of this is to be, is to serve someone else. And many of them did. Out of that, they began to see the heart of service that Christians have for other people. And so it drew them to want to know the Lord. Get up, fix a meal for someone else. Get up, go take something, go grab a woman and go to lunch somewhere. Don’t isolate. And many of them did that.

Howard Malone: Offer to watch your neighbor’s kids. 

Melanie Malone: Exactly. 

Howard Malone: So they could have a few hours away because your husband’s not there.

Melanie Malone: Right. And we would come together for prayer. And so that drew a lot of women in, again, in kind of a desperate situation, not knowing what to do. And certainly the help of prayer, praying and then having a peace and knowing, oh my goodness, I can rely on God for my husband or wife or whoever it was.

Kimberly Faith: You definitely have the gift of prayer. You and I prayed together and you’re one of my favorite people to pray with. And I think that, that what you’re sharing, you know, you’ve actually inspired me to become more of a prayer warrior because of the times we’ve prayed together. And I can imagine, you know, you being in that situation and having that gift and how the Lord just opened the doors through the power of prayer. 

Melanie Malone: Yeah.

Kimberly Faith: Something that strikes me about what you just said is, and this is so vital in any kind of ministry, but here you are, you know, at home with three kids, trying to do all the spouse army stuff that you have to do, but also using that as a platform to teach people to live in the way that God designed them to live, working, serving others. Because you know, God is love, which is selflessness. 

Melanie Malone: Yes. 

Kimberly Faith: And Jesus set that example. God works all the time. You know, He’s working right now. He’s keeping things together, right? 

Howard Malone: Yeah.

Kimberly Faith:  And we were designed in His image, created in His image to work. And so of course, to show people, hey, when you serve, when you work, you’re actually running on all eight.  This is what you were designed to do. Oh, by the way, when those works come from the inner righteousness that Christ gives us as opposed to just pure discipline, you know, outward discipline, it becomes really satisfying.

Melanie Malone: Yes.

Kimberly Faith: And for them to see that in you and your team and then see that, wait a minute, they’re doing this because they love God.

Melanie Malone: Yes. 

Kimberly Faith: And it’s different than doing it just to do it to feel good about yourself. 

Melanie Malone: Absolutely. Absolutely. 

Kimberly Faith: Paul talks about  in Philippians about the difference between his righteousness from following the law and God’s righteousness.

Howard Malone: Yep.

Melanie Malone: Yep. 

Kimberly Faith: It’s inward out. 

Melanie Malone: I have one other story that just came to my mind that I want to share when we were there. Our youngest daughter, Molly, at the time, she was in kindergarten. Esther, our middle daughter, was in second grade. Erin was in fourth grade when we moved. So Molly, part of a kindergarten class and one of her good, good friends there. Her dad who was not military, but the mom worked for the government. She was American, the dad was Italian. So that’s how they were part of the school. She was able to go to the Department of Defense school, this little girl. 

So her dad had gotten cancer and was dying. And we had begun to pray for him somehow. I can’t remember how Molly, I think, told us her, you know, her dad’s really sick, and I don’t remember that little girl’s name. But nonetheless So at some point, the father did pass away.

He was young. The mom was young, and this little girl’s only in kindergarten. And do you remember the mom came to our house and she said, can you please pray for me? And I remember asking if she knew Jesus, if she had had a relationship, she had been Catholic. And so she said yes and gave briefly her description of what she knew. So she said, I have heard that you would pray for me. And so she came to our home with her little girl, and Molly was there, and we prayed together.

Oh, it was so hard. But it also brought such peace, and she said that I have such peace. She came several times to our home, the mom did, with her little girl. And so Molly also, we instructed Molly how to help her friend. It was just a hard, hard time, but a precious time. I don’t know what happened to them. 

Kimberly Faith: Right.  And you planted the seed.

Melanie Malone: Yes. 

Kimberly Faith: And that’s all we’re supposed to do.

Melanie Malone: Yes. At the time, I didn’t feel that it was a good time to pressure her about, let’s pray for your salvation. No, that’s not what she needed. She needed our comfort and our prayer at the time because she was grieving. And of course, we put that into the prayer as best we could.

Kimberly Faith: Yeah. I think that’s that you bring up a really good point because I think there’s a lot of pressure that’s really man-made pressure to you’ve got to give them the gospel now. You know? And it’s like, but if the ground is concrete

Howard Malone: Yeah. It’s  going to bounce off.

Kimberly Faith: It’s going to bounce off.

Melanie Malone: Yes. Sometimes

Kimberly Faith:  Sometimes what you need to do is love on people. And then they ask, why are you loving on me?

Melanie Malone:  Oh, yeah.

Kimberly Faith:  And that concrete cracks.

Melanie Malone: Yeah.

Howard Malone: Yeah. Because you know what? I say this all the time, because our church, when we changed the name to The River, scripture was John 7:38, when Jesus stood up on the last day of the feast and He said, Let all those who thirst come into me and those that follow me out of their heart will flow rivers of living water. And every time I share that with new people at our church, I say, we know that God’s water is His love. So God is saying that a river of His love will flow from us. And so if you put that into that analogy of the water, like you were saying, if that ground is so hard that the Word will bounce off, you pour the love on it, because what does water do to hard ground? It softens it. Then the seed can go in there.

Kimberly Faith:  Yeah, that’s so good.

Howard Malone: But we get, like you said, sometimes it’s the best motive in the world, but we think we have to put the word on them. 

Kimberly Faith: Right. 

Howard Malone: You know, and it’s like, don’t put your arms around them. Just love on them.

Kimberly Faith: I’ve seen that over and over,  and you probably have to over and over and over in my own life where, I mean, some people just irrationally hate me, I don’t even know why. And that’s Satan, you know, that I’ve never even met this person. I’ve never had any interaction with this person. I mean, they have this unmitigated hate. I’m just like, so, you know, I mean, they’re obviously not going to be open to the gospel, you know? And I’m not saying you shouldn’t share the gospel, I’m just saying because the gospel is the power of God unto salvation. But I also think that, you know, Jesus spent a lot of time with people loving them and showing them the way. And for those who had the hard ground, he’s, you know, the hip hop hypocrites and stuff, he mostly scolded them and scourged them.

Howard Malone: Chased them with a whip.

Kimberly Faith: Chased them with a whip.  Right? But I’ve seen that over and over again, you know, and I’ll never forget one particular story where a lady was just very, I mean, in public had kind of attacked me. And I remember it was so shocking and I just kind of didn’t even know how to react to it. And so I didn’t do anything. I just left. And, when she came back later and was like, apologizing, you know, I think she was afraid I was going to file charges or something, you know,  the Lord really just laid on my heart to pray for her and keep praying for her.

Melanie Malone: Yeah. 

Kimberly Faith: And, you know, little by little, she has kind of reached out to me and said, hey, I’d like to get together and talk.

Melanie Malone:  Wow. 

Kimberly Faith: So I don’t know what the Lord’s going to do with that. But the fact is, I could have never just shared the gospel with her.

Howard Malone: Right. 

Kimberly Faith: But, you know, and it’s by God’s grace, you know,  you don’t, I don’t feel like praying for someone who does that. 

Melanie Malone: Right. 

Kimberly Faith: And that goes back to when Jesus Christ is our Lord and savior. He’s our savior and our Lord. He is the center of all that we do. And his righteousness and His mercy flows out of us. And it’s not us. It’s definitely not me praying for her. It’s Jesus in me.

Howard Malone: The best analogy, I’ll call it analogy of that, that I ever heard and I just only heard it one time spoken of this way, but I just never forgot it. I heard a speaker talking about forgiveness and how difficult it can be to forgive people. He said, but you know, we had the ultimate example set for us by Jesus on the cross because he said, Father, forgive them. Because he said, you know, Jesus was 100% God, but he was 100% man and that man part of Jesus, he wanted to come down off that cross and kick them all around the county, but the God part of him was the merciful part, but even in that, in his humanity, he cried out to his Father, Father, forgive them, because it’s just interesting that he didn’t say, I forgive you.

Kimberly Faith: That is interesting.

Howard Malone: I don’t think he could have said it, to be honest, after what they had done to him, but he called on the Father’s love and grace and goodness to flow through him to them. And I had never heard that explained that way before that or after that, but that really touched me. And I thought, man, if Jesus had to say, Father, forgive them, if he had to and I think it’s in there on purpose to show us that, hey, listen, there’s going to be times where you’re just going to have to say, man, God help me. I want to forgive them, but I just can’t right now. And God will work it in you, but you’ve have to want it and you have to draw on it. It’s like everything from God, have to pull on it, you have to draw on it. So let them that thirst come unto me. If you’re thirsty and you come into him, you’re going to be quenched every time, no matter what it is.

Kimberly Faith:  I love that example. That speaks volumes about every aspect of the way that we’re supposed to live. I was telling one of my Bible study groups the other day, was like, you know, I just want y’all to know, there are mornings I wake up and I say, Jesus, help me even love you right now. You know? Because I don’t feel it. You know? Help me to want to pray to you. And that is so stupid. You think about this is the omnipotent, omniscient, all loving, the God who can do anything, right? And we don’t want to spend time with Him.

You know, if you knew a human like that, we’d be jumping out of bed and bowing at their feet every day. But that is so it’s so real. And so it’s I appreciate you sharing that because it does show, you know, Jesus gave us this example. Even with I mean, forgiveness is such an evolving thing.

Melanie Malone: Yeah.

Kimberly Faith:  It’s a journey for situations that are so horrible that you can’t. Your flesh just can’t  do it. Your mind can’t do it. And God has  to cut those new grooves.

Melanie  Malone: Yeah. Yeah.

Howard Malone: It just takes his grace to do it.

Melanie Malone: I do want to say this because Howie, he won’t say this about himself, but when we were in Germany,  there was so much ministry time. People started calling him Chaplain Malone. He’s a military policeman. He’s no chaplain. But they would call him he said, oh, no. No. No. I’m not a chaplain. I’m a military policeman. But I think because the drawing 

Kimberly Faith: Yeah.

Melanie Malone: You know, has nothing to do with us and ministering to so many people, they thought he was a chaplain. So I just thought, Lord, that’s so sweet that you would do that. I would like for you to tell them about what happened in Afghanistan when you were deployed and you were with the missionaries and what they said to you about your time there and how prophetic.

Howard Malone: Oh, yeah. It was an amazing moment. So it’s a long story, I’ll make it really short. So I met this Afghan man, I won’t say his name, but I met him and he was a contractor and I was in charge of security. So my thing was barriers and fences and guard gates and just all that kind of stuff and I was placing that stuff for our bases and also for the Afghan police at the national level, and I would go out to these Afghan police stations and we would help them strengthen their defense against vehicle bombs, against whatever. Well, this guy, I met him, I was looking down a sheet of contractors and I saw Sozo International was the name of his company. I’m like, Sozo? That’s a Bible word and I’m in a Muslim country and I’m like, I want to call this guy, this is the guy I want to work with. So I called him and he spoke really good English and I said, hey, can you come meet me? I’ve got some projects I want you to do. So we started doing these projects, right? And he kept saying to me, Colonel Malone, I want you to bring your team to my house for lunch, and I was like, I can’t do that. We’re not allowed to like go to people’s house. 

Melanie Malone: No.

Howard Malone: We’re in a combat zone. Anything can happen. I’m not going to come into your neighborhood, but he just kept on, he was very persistent, and he said, it’s where my office is. It’s not like you know, it’s going to be okay. I want you to come, And it was totally a God thing because I just picked a date, and one day I just got, I had a six man team and I just said, boys, today we’re going to Mr. so and so’s house, and they were like, what? And I said, yeah, I know, it’s on me. If you don’t want to go, you don’t have to go, but I just feel like I have to go. He’s asked me like 10 times, and I said, you know, we’re armed to the teeth, we’ll be okay.

So we load up in our two Humvees, machine guns up, you know, all this stuff, and we go rolling, and he gave us the directions, we turned down this alleyway, because all the houses have big walls around them, we turned down this alleyway and when we get to where the turn is to his property, there’s two guys standing there with AK-47s and I’m like, Jesus, you better be in this because I’m either going to be dead or court martialed or something if this is not what I feel in my heart it is because I just felt like it was the right thing to do.

So we turn and we pull into the courtyard and they had like a little garden area out there and I see all these people. So let me back up, the fellowship that I led on Friday nights was called the Coffee House, all these American missionaries who were there flying under the radar as part of non governmental organizations, doing presence ministry, they would come to that meeting on Friday nights, because that’s where they got fed. I’ve led that, like I say a pastor, because we did a lot of prayer.

Kimberly Faith: Chaplin Malone.

Howard Malone: Yeah. Chaplin Malone  in Afghanistan too. It was like everywhere I went, God put me in positions to just minister to people, it was the craziest thing. So I got my guys and we go to this house and as we pull into that garden, I look out my window and there sat all those missionaries that come to my meeting every Friday night. And I opened the door and they’re like, hey, Howie, what are you doing here?  And I’m like, what are y’all doing here? And they were like, oh, Mr. So and So is hosting a big meeting.

Kimberly Faith: Oh my goodness.

Howard Malone: I was like, oh, really? And they said, all of the M word because you don’t say, missionary in a Muslim country. They said, yeah, everyone’s coming from all over the country to this big meeting and he’s hosting.

Kimberly Faith: And you had just called it the date just on the fly.

Howard Malone: The date just on the fly. And I show up, so he comes walking out of the house and I look over and I go, You’ve been keeping secrets from me. But see, the whole thing was, it was that Holy Ghost recognized himself. From the very first time I worked with him, I was like, There’s something about this guy. He’s not like anybody else I’ve met in this country. There’s just something about him.  And that drew me to finally say, we’re going to this house. 

So then we get out and here we are, battle rattle, we call it. We’ve got our flak vests on, our helmets, pistols, rifles, all this stuff, ammunition everywhere, and we come walking into the kitchen of this house, and six of us in a row, and as we turn the corner into the foyer, there’s about five or six ladies standing there in a circle talking, and when I cleared that door, I was in the front, my team was following me, when I cleared that door, she goes, look, it’s the gospel doorkeepers.

Kimberly Faith:  Oh my goodness.

Howard Malone: I said, it’s the what? She said, you’re the gospel doorkeepers.

Kimberly Faith: Wow. 

Howard Malone: And I said, what do you mean by that? She said, the Lord told us that in 2001, when the United States military came into Afghanistan, a door was opened and the military is holding that door open and we know that we only have a little window of time, but as long as you guys are here, you’re holding the door open for the gospel to go into Afghanistan. And that was so prophetic because we saw what happened when we withdrew and how it all collapsed back to what it was before, now the Taliban’s ruling with more of an iron fist than they ever have.

But for those years, the gospel was flowing freely into that country, and man, a lot of people came to the Lord, People were raised from the dead. There were so many things that happened over there. 

Melanie Malone: Because the US military had a presence in that country.

Howard Malone: Yeah. 

Kimberly Faith: You were there.

Howard Malone: Yeah. I was there. And I hear people like, one of my daughter’s instructors, I won’t say the school she went to, but she went to a very conservative Christian college, and in one of her classes, her professor stood up at the front and said, no real Christian can serve in the military. 

Kimberly Faith: Wow. Wow.

Howard Malone: And of course

Kimberly Faith: I bet she has something to say.

Howard Malone: My daughter Esther’s a redhead and she went ginger on him real quick.

Kimberly Faith: Well, you know, I love your story, I’m so glad that you had him tell us because, you know, I mean, all of us remember what happened when the military withdrew from Afghanistan. 

Howard Malone: Yeah. 

Kimberly Faith: And how awful. I mean, I have friends like you who were in Afghanistan who were getting messages from people there that they had made friends, they were friends with for serving, saying they were just desperate, you know? 

Melanie Malone: Yeah.

Kimberly Faith: And yet their eternity is unmoved because the gospel was there.

Howard Malone: So my friend that I’m telling you about, he was in Kabul when it went down and his wife and he have two grown sons. They were there in Kabul and I was so concerned that they weren’t going to get out when it all came crashing in. And about two weeks after the dust settled, he contacted me and he said, I want you to know, I got my wife and my two sons out on the last commercial flight that left Kabul International Airport.

Kimberly Faith: Wow.

Howard Malone:  And we’re now in New York and we’re safe.

Melanie Malone: And he is still conducting ministry in that country as best they can.

Kimberly Faith:  Wow. 

Melanie Malone: Ministry is still going forth in the nation of Afghanistan.  

Howard Malone: Yeah. There’s still ministering in Afghanistan. Even with the Taliban in charge.

Kimberly Faith: Doesn’t that just ignite your passion for the Lord?

Howard Malone:  Oh, yeah. 

Kimberly Faith: To know that you were there in such a pivotal time to plant seeds, to sow, to fertilize seed, to water seed. And this is eternal stuff. This is not like I mean, peacekeeping is great, but it’s earthly. You know, Jesus said, Blessed are the peacemakers. You know, that’s what, you are peacekeeping for the military, but you are becoming a peacemaker for Jesus. There’s a big difference. You know, the peacemaker is an eternal thing. And again, Chaplain Malone, he was just an MP.

Howard Malone: That’s right. I was there as a security guy.

Kimberly Faith: You know? But it’s like people come up here. They bring their teenagers and their young kids that are in trouble legally. We hear she’s the Jesus lawyer. 

Melanie Malone: The same thing. Yes, the same thing. 

Kimberly Faith: I’m proud to be the Jesus lawyer.

Howard Malone: I’m just  going to say, that’s great. I’ll take that title.

Kimberly Faith: You know why? Because it’s like, you know, we, whatever we’re doing, whether you know, you’re an army wife and you’re ministering to the women and the children that are, you know, whose, whose husbands or whatever it might look like are gone or whether you’re serving in any type of, commitment in the army, whether you’re active duty or whether you’re a window washer, whether you’re a teacher, whether you’re a lawyer, you’re a doctor, whatever you’re doing, our job is to represent Jesus Christ.

Melanie Malone: Yeah. 

Kimberly Faith: And not the wrong image of Jesus Christ, the right image, which is the fruits of the spirit. Right? I mean, isn’t that ultimately, you knew that this friend of yours was different because your spirit and his spirit had that common denominator. 

Howard Malone: Yeah.

Melanie Malone: That’s right.

Kimberly Faith: And people who even are dead spiritually, see life, they know what life looks like. They know what spiritual life looks like. And because everybody wants love, everybody wants joy, everybody wants peace. It’s a common denominator. We all want it.

Howard Malone: Yes. And we need it. 

Melanie Malone: Yeah. 

Kimberly Faith: We need it. 

Melanie Malone: I want to say we are imperfect people. We are no different than any other Christian. We’re not. But we pressed in to want to know God, and we pressed in to study, but we’re no different than anybody else. And so God is no respecter of person. The word says that.

Kimberly Faith: That’s right.

Melanie Malone: So this is not, well, they had important ministry opportunities. So can you.

Kimberly Faith: Right.  Right.

Melanie Malone:  So can you. We didn’t know about any of that. The Lord just led us into that.

Kimberly Faith: That’s right. The last podcast from the one from this week, you know, where Chris Edmunds was talking about his dad, Roddy Edmunds. You know, the guy was a committed Christian. He knew his Bible. He was in a prisoner of war camp and he was the only one in 1,300 guys who had a Bible.

Melanie Malone:  Wow.

Howard Malone: No kidding.

Kimberly Faith: And he had smuggled his Bible in and he read it every day. And the Jewish men would borrow his Bible to have their Jewish services. 

Melanie Malone: Wow.

Kimberly Faith:  And he was, you know, one of the things Chris says about his dad is, my dad was just an ordinary guy.

Melanie Malone:  Right.

Kimberly Faith: He was just an ordinary guy who had an extraordinary impact because his life belonged to Jesus.

Melanie Malone: That’s right. Oh, that’s good. 

Kimberly Faith:  Yeah. And he matter of fact, he went from the rank of private to command sergeant major and in less than two or three years. Nobody does that. But the Lord put him in that position so that he would be the one, the Nazi guard, the commandant was saying, only the Jews need to fall out. And he said, no, we’re all Jews here. That’s kind of, the all1,300 guys were out there basically shielding the 200 Jewish men. And, that kind of courage, that kind of, you know, it, people say it takes courage to be a Christian. I disagree. It takes more courage not to follow in the steps of Jesus when you’ve known Jesus than it does to not do that. Because then you’re on your own. You know, I remember when the Lord was convicting me about certain, just ways of dressing and acting. And he was trying to change me to be more Christ-like and have what people would see Jesus in me instead of see Kim. Right? 

Melanie Malone: Yeah.

Kimberly Faith:  I’ll never forget. I was leaving the house one day to go to court and not dressed in a way that I think was attractive to Jesus,  you know, would have attracted people to Jesus.

My imagination is like yours, Howard. I was walking out the door and I looked back and I had in my mind this picture of Jesus saying, girl, you don’t want to head out that door by yourself because you’re going by yourself because you know you’re dressed in way I don’t want you dressed like, And and you’re going to be on your own today. So you go on ahead out that door that way and I’ll be here. 

Howard Malone: Wow. 

Kimberly Faith: And I turned around and I went back to my closet and I said, alright, I get it. You know what? I want to glorify you. And because it’s some point in our walk and it sounds like this is where you have been. The presence of God is more important to you than your own will.

Melanie Malone:  Yes.

Howard Malone: Yeah. You just want God to be in everything you do.

Melanie Malone: Yes.

Howard Malone: Because that’s where success truly lies.

Kimberly Faith: That’s right.

Howard Malone: You know?

Kimberly Faith: That’s right. And when we’re glorifying God with all that we have, you said the opportunities. There are opportunities all around us. You know, Paul had them in prison, a stinking, first century, you know, horrible conditions.

Melanie Malone: Yeah. 

Kimberly Faith: And he wrote, what? Half New Testament. You know? 

Melanie Malone: That’s right.

Kimberly Faith:  And we all live in a country where we’re free. It’s probably freer than we’ve ever been.

Howard Malone: Oh, yeah.

Kimberly Faith: To use the internet,  to use, you know, the fact that we can be neighbors, we can be friends, we can meet people in gas stations, you know, whatever that looks like.

Howard Malone: And you can basically speak your mind, you can say what you believe and not be stood up against the wall and shot for it.

Kimberly Faith:  Right. 

Howard Malone: Which is not true in every country.

Kimberly Faith: That’s right. Well, so I know we’ve been going on a while, but this has been so good. And I just want to give you all, I like to do this at the end. Just, first of all, ask, number one, is there anything else you’d like to share? But the most important thing I like to do at the end is just say if there’s one thing that you would want people to know about your journey and about what has made your life the most satisfying and fulfilling and full of joy, what would that be? And so I’ll just open up the floor.

Melanie Malone: I’ll go first so that you can go last. So I said this earlier to Howard. I said I was thinking back about all of this and the one thing is we never tried to push a door open. And it’s not like my personality anyway. I think Howard would say his personality is, let’s knock the door down and go through and come on. But I’m more put the brakes on. But allow the Lord to open the door because if you don’t, you can mess it up. And so we never had to push a door open. We just trusted the Lord in every place we were. And also, I want to say, ditto what you said, that there’s no greater life than following Jesus. The adventures he takes you on, the people that he connects you with like your friend in Afghanistan that we could have never met. And I think about all of our partners overseas that we support from our church. We have a personal connection to every single one of them. How is that possible except through the Lord?

Kimberly Faith:  Right.

Melanie Malone: So there’s no bigger adventure than an adventure with Jesus.

Kimberly Faith: I love that. That’s wonderful. And it’s every day, 100%. I mean, one of my prayers in the morning is God to give you 100% of my time, 100 % of my heart, 100 % of my law practice, 100% of my bank account, 100 % of, you know, just whatever comes along, whatever I can think of. And now of course you have a hard time taking that back as you live throughout the day. But if your heart is to do that, God’s going to help you.

Howard Malone: Yeah.

Melanie Malone: Yeah. 

Kimberly Faith: Keep that promise. 

Melanie Malone: Yes, that’s right. That’s right.

Howard Malone: Yeah, so I would say a couple of things. One, and we’ve heard this probably, if you’ve been in church at any major part of your life, you’ve probably heard this. God is not concerned about your ability but your availability. And I’m telling you that, to me, when I look back across our life and our quote ministry, it was just that we were always saying, God, here we are, do what you want to do, have your way, we belong to you, not our agenda, not our words, not our thoughts, not our plans, yours, only you. Every Sunday before I preach, I say, God, not one word from me. I only want the people that hear from you, speak through me and let me set myself aside and I really, you know, my heart’s in that and He knows that. And so I just trust Him with that, you know, every week.  And the other thing is that I would say, I learned this lesson really big in Afghanistan too, that it’s not all roses, this walk with Jesus, and back to, you know, like you said with Paul, I was thinking as you were talking about him, you know, we read right over these little verses where he says, five times I received the forty minus one.

Well, the forty minus one was 39 lashes from the Romans and that would kill a lot of people. He received that five times just for saying Jesus is Lord. How many of us would have stayed faithful after one time?

Kimberly Faith: Right.

Melanie Malone: Yeah. 

Howard Malone: But yeah, I just always remember that the Word says that He is faithful, and even when we’re not faithful, He’s still faithful because He can’t deny Himself.

Kimberly Faith: That’s right.

Howard Malone: He is faithful and true. That is who He is, He will never leave you or forsake you. Those things, we say that stuff almost tongue in cheek, but man, you know, it’s true, you know, when the rubber hits the road and when it gets tight and when it’s ugly and when you’re scared, He is there, He’s faithful.

Melanie Malone: And your favorite saying is, you trust in

Howard Malone: I trust God’s ability to lead me more than my ability to follow Him. And that’s just my own little axiom that I’ve developed over the years.

Kimberly Faith: That’s good. That’s really good.

Melanie Malone: Because if you do it the other way, it’s about you again. It’s not about us. It’s about him.

Howard Malone: It can’t be about us. It has to be about him. And if we follow him, he’s going to  lead beside the still waters to the green pastures, right? 

Kimberly Faith: Yeah. I love that. I like to say, God does my life better than I do.

Howard Malone: Oh, that’s good. I like that.

Kimberly Faith: Because it’s so true. You mentioned Paul being beaten five times. And here we are in a free country. Our freedom was not cheap. 

Melanie Malone: Right.

Kimberly Faith: It was, and you know this probably better than a lot of people I talked to. But I think about the difference between serving the Lord out of fear of retribution and serving Him because you love His presence so much that at this point in my walk with God, I would rather be dead than live without His presence or strong sense of His presence because I’ve lived the fake Christian life. 

Melanie Malone: Yep.

Howard Malone: Yep.

Kimberly Faith: You know? Leading the songs without the spirit. 

Howard Malone: Right. Right. 

Melanie Malone: Yes.

Howard Malone: Yeah.

Kimberly Faith: I’ve done that. You know, it was misery beyond misery because you have a born again soul and spirit and you have this, you’re in the world. You’re living in the works of the flesh as opposed to the fruit of the spirit. And when you walk beside the still water, when you have been in the presence of God, even in the storm, you don’t ever want to be outside of the presence of God. And so I just, man, what a blessing. What a blessing to sit down with you both and hear your story. I’ve been wanting to do this since I think we started this podcast back in September. And, of course, God has his timing. And I appreciate you guys being willing to sit down and do this with me.

Howard Malone: Yeah. Thanks for asking us. It’s always great to rehearse how God’s been in your life, you know? And it’s so humbling. You just realize, wait, the God of the universe has been directing my life and has blessed me beyond measure and has used me to help other people. It’s just overwhelming sometimes when you think about it. 

Kimberly Faith:  It is. And it’s like the Psalmist, you know, that  Psalm where he says, God’s mercy endures forever. And they recount all the things that God had done for Israel. Thankfulness for what God has done. My prayer list, so you’ve inspired me to have a prayer at the end of my prayer list for this year, I have all the things that God has done. I’ve listed all those things that God has done just this year. And that list gets longer and longer and longer. And so many times I start my prayer by, Lord, your mercy endures forever. You paid the bills for April. You caused this person to give $8,000 to fostering by faith. You, and then suddenly you’re in your prayer time and you’re shouting and people, your neighbors think you’re crazy. 

Howard Malone: Exactly. 

Kimberly Faith: But that’s so key to us wanting to be in God’s presence because we remember why it’s so good.

Melanie Malone: Yes. 

Kimberly Faith: You know? And then we as lay people become, we have the mission field everywhere we go.

Melanie Malone:  That’s right. 

Howard Malone: Absolutely. 

Kimberly Faith: Everywhere we go. 

Melanie Malone: That’s right.

Kimberly Faith: Thank you both so much.

Howard Malone: Thank you, Kim. We love you. 

Melanie Malone: We love you so much. Thank you for this. 

Kimberly Faith: And thank you. You’ve been listening to the Truth In Love podcast with two of my favorites, Howard and Melanie Malone, and I pray that you all will have a wonderful week.

Jacob Paul: You’ve been listening to the Truth In Love podcast with your host, Kimberly Faith. To discover more answers to the big questions in life, visit us at gofaithstrong.com.