Degree Program Journey
My name is Kenny Sallee and I am on a degree program journey at Christian Leaders Institute. I’m known in the area where I live as Cap’n Kenny. My ancestral families are Native American (Cherokee) and European Immigrants (Swedish, English, and French). I am a descendant of a late 17th century French Huguenot refugee who settled along the James River village of Manakintowne in the Colony of Virginia. I’m married, have a daughter and two granddaughters. My wife, Nancy, and I live in a small community north of Green Bay, Wisconsin, U.S.A. We were married in 2014 after we had both lost our spouses a few years earlier just days apart. My late wife, Barbara, passed away from heart failure after suffering from a stroke and Nancy’s late husband, Bill, passed away from cancer caused by agent orange while serving in Vietnam.
I’m retired from both the U.S. Military and U.S. Federal Civil Service with over 40 years of service. Now I’m a U.S. Merchant Marine Captain and operate a small charter/tour boat company on the Great Lakes during the summer months.
As a child, I was raised Baptist, although we seldom attended church. My father worked in the construction trade after he left the military and we traveled to wherever he worked. I attended 14 different schools before graduating from high school. I enlisted in the military right out of high school and was sent to fight in Vietnam shortly afterward. I continued my military career after Vietnam serving in the Continental United States and Pacific regions.
I first “found” the Lord a few years after I returned from Vietnam while looking for an answer to my question “why?”. Why did the war in Vietnam happen and why did so many people have to die, from both sides in that war. I started asking that question some 40 years ago and still have never found a satisfactory answer. But, while in search of my answer, I looked to religion. I attended services of many different Christian denominations. I got involved with street ministry and music ministry. After several years of devoting all my free time to “religion”, my marriage fell apart and I left the ministry wanting nothing more to do with “religion” and drifted away from Jesus.
After two additional failed marriages, I married a lady that I had known since before I went to Vietnam. We were married for ten wonderful years before she passed away in my arms from heart failure at the age of 58. After her death God heard my “ze’akah”, crying out in pain for months as a broken man. Things started happening in my life after her death that I could only credit God for. God began to shape me and mold me for a new mission, a mission to be his message. Things happened that changed my views of life, and the afterlife… and of God. I met new people that started bringing Jesus back into my life. I’m remarried now to a wonderful lady that brought me back into the church. She, too, had lost her husband just a couple of days before my wife passed away. Together we are rebuilding our lives after we lost our spouses and worship in a small Lutheran church in Wisconsin.
I am pursuing the studies with Christian Leaders Institute (CLI) on my degree program journey because I want a better understanding of the Bible and of God’s purpose for me. I want to use the training I receive from CLI to further my walk with God and to serve my community as a chaplain to our local military veterans service organizations, providing pastoral care to those outside the church and by starting a Christian faith mentoring and counseling center to the unchurched.
Through Christian Leaders Institute I have earned the Associate of Divinity Degree and have been ordained as a deacon minister through Christian Leaders Alliance. I currently hold the ministry office of chaplain for the Oconto Wisconsin area veterans service organizations (American Legion, AMVETS, and Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW)). In 2016, I started an online ministry blog sharing daily scripture readings and devotions in seven different languages that have been read throughout the world with over 165,000 page views as of date. In May 2018, I started working as a volunteer Veteran-to-Veteran Hospice Program visitation minister with Unity Hospice serving Northeast Wisconsin.
My goal at CLI is to earn a Bachelor of Divinity (B.Div) with a Chaplaincy Emphasis showing that I have completed a respected course of training to become a well-versed “ministry of presence” chaplain, well-grounded in faith and pastoral practices. After completion at CLI, I hope to be able to transfer my credits into Calvin Theological Seminary’s Master of Arts in Ministry Leadership (MA) degree program concentrating in Pastoral Care. Having a scholarship at Christian Leaders Institute is helping me achieve my goals for my degree program journey by making it affordable for a retired soldier like me to advance in my studies.
Church Growth Dream
My name is Patricia Hudson and I have a church growth dream. I am a single mom who is divorced. I have three children. My eldest servers as a Marine and the other two are in school. I was baptized at the age of 11. However, I had always wanted to be a Christian as long as I can remember. I was born in Jamaica and came to the United States of America seventeen years ago. I grew up with the church as a big part of my life, but I never really understood what it meant to be a true Christian. I had always felt that something was missing in my life.
I am presently a member of a very small church and my desire is to play a big role in growing this church. Our church focuses a lot on educating the children about God and the Christian faith. My biggest challenge as a Christian was in my ability to impart the pertinent knowledge that my children need to have to get to know God better and serve Him with their whole lives.
The opportunity that Christian Leaders Insitute will afford me is exactly what I need. I am so excited to start this next part of the journey with the Lord. I want to learn all I can about the Bible, walking with God, and sharing my passion for God with my family and others. My hope and prayer is that I will be better able to serve my church and to help my children to be stronger Christians. I am eager to see what God will have me do and to go where He will lead me through this ministry training journey at CLI.
Learn about ordained minister study programs and ecuministry ordination at Christian Leaders Alliance.
Cross Making Ministry
My name is Johnny Blackmon and I have a cross making ministry. I’m from Visalia, California. I’m the father of three amazing children, Cooper, Trinity, and Johnny. I’m currently working part-time as a Psychotherapist at a children’s clinic. I recently started working in ministry and love the ways God uses us to minister his message. I was raised by my grandmother, a faithful Christian, until I was 11 years old. She exposed me to the Gospel of Jesus at a young age. By age 12, I went to live with my aunt and uncle, and eventually found myself in the foster care, juvenile detention and state prison systems.
Through hardships, I became interested in helping others and obtained college degrees which allowed me to become a counselor. In time, I married and built a family. But the windy storms of life eventually hit hard and I stumbled, learning that self-reliance and worldly solutions are not the way. I found myself baffled and broken after going through a rough separation/divorce and potentially losing my children (my little angels). The grief I experienced was overwhelming to the point at which it seemed coping was hopeless. I was much like the lame man who couldn’t see or walk on his own. Self-reliance proved to be a losing battle and I was defeated feeling spiritually dead inside.
Christ answered my cry for help on December 24th, 2017. With no hope left, I went to God out of desperation and the miracle began to unfold. The old me died and by his grace, I rose up a new man. Salvation! My new faith was unlike anything I had experienced before. I tapped into his loving and powerful existence. The Spirit has delivered me from problems of chronic depression and alcohol/drug addictions. God’s love and his promises in the Bible have given me freedom, courage, wisdom, and strength I never had before! I seek out knowledge regularly by reading his word, fellowshipping/worshipping in church and ministry, studying at Christian Leaders Institute and sharing on CLI networks. These tools have exposed me to a walk of life that provides my true purpose and a greater sense of direction.
I’ve gotten involved by using my talents to serve the Lord and help people in my personal life and community. One of my talents is landscaping and I’ve recently discovered a talent in woodworking. My friend from church called me one day and said she had dreamt about me handing out big crosses on one of the busiest streets in our city. I did not take it very seriously as I had never made a cross before. After all, where would I gather the time or materials?
A few weeks later a man randomly dropped a pile of old wood at my house. I decided I would make my friend a cross for her birthday the following week. I made the cross the best I could which did not actually turn out to be too difficult and presented it to her. Soon after, my Facebook account lit up as requests for the crosses began to pour in for my cross making ministry. People were asking if I’d sell them and how much would I charge. I prayed about the crosses and remembered the purpose of making them was to honor other people and spread God’s message. I decided not to charge but would take donations for resources instead.
I’ve personally made over 45 crosses in my cross making ministry and the list continues to grow each day. Complete strangers are requesting them and I never imagined a small act might touch so many people. I have invited other men to get involved and fellowship if they’d like to learn to make crosses and grow in faith in Jesus. We regularly look to award crosses to ambassadors or servants in the ministry, who lead others to the light, in our cross making ministry. And just as important, we try to present crosses to people going through hard times in life to help lift up their spirits (Jesus walks with them).
We pray with people and hope that the crosses will bless their hearts with a reminder about how Jesus sacrificed it all for them. We named the cross making ministry “Men of Crosses”. Today some of the crosses are being sold in a Christian Bible Store, which is located on the busiest street in our city. The money from the crosses is used to buy materials and one day fund a restoration home for single mothers in Visalia.
I’ve also started a business to increase community service which already employs two men who are growing in their faith. I teach landscaping and we fellowship as we seek to share God’s message of love and freedom in Christ. This business has been going two months and we are flooded with referrals, the name is “Johnny B. Good Lawn Service.”
The Lord saved me and would save anyone who’s willing to have faith. I feel he’s brought me through the firing lines to find wisdom and carry his message to the lost. I’ve surrendered to the Lord so he can guide my feet and my thoughts daily. I feel a calling in my life like never before. I read the Bible and seek out his purpose daily. As Paul said, I feel his spirit inside me. I mostly identify with the word Pastor or Minister, as I follow Christ and feel compelled to share the truth about God’s unconditional love whenever I can.
I would like to continue my education at the Christian Leaders Institute because I’d like to grow as a servant of Christ and unlock additional talents and opportunities to serve him. By receiving a scholarship to attend CLI, I’ll get good guidance that will enable me to be a stronger vessel to spread the Gospel of Jesus. I thank you for the opportunity to learn about the Lord and new ways to help others. Peace and blessings to all in Jesus name!
Learn about minister ordination at Christian Leaders Alliance.