My name is Donald Young. I was born and raised on Long Island. My family went to a Southern Baptist Church there. When I was 11 years old I accepted Jesus as my Lord and Savior and was baptized. I attended West Sayville Christian School from 6th grade through 9th grade.
There, I grew in my walk with Jesus. I was very active in our church and youth group. When I started 10th grade in public high school, I tried to live a Christian life, but the world was hard to resist. I started to let worldly influences into my life. Still involved in our youth group. I taught Sunday school and ran our youth group at 17.
Then I graduated high school and was encouraged by my pastor and church leaders to pursue a youth ministry pastorship. I felt the Lord calling me to that ministry but couldn’t leave the worldly life I was living. I was living a double life. At 21, I was convicted by God to give up my double life and He opened the doors to go to seminary and pursue the path God had planned out for me.
Then I got scared. I didn’t want to give up my other life so I left Long Island and went to North Carolina. I went to church there and I felt nothing, so I stopped going. I went to school to be a police officer. I found no peace in that. I knew the Lord was always watching over me, but I refused to come back to Him.
Over the years it got easier and easier to stop listening to that small gentle voice in my head of God’s yearning for me to repent. Through the years, I did make sure my children went to church. Not for me, but for my mother. Every time I spoke to her on the phone or saw her, she would ask if we went to church. So I sent the children to church just to keep my mom happy. I didn’t go. In 2012, my wife Kenia started going to church with our 2 children. On Easter in 2012 Kenia was saved. She wanted me to go to church with her, but I made sure I had to work on Sundays.
One year after Kenia’s salvation, I went to church with her and the moment I walked into church I felt ashamed to be there. I wept the whole sermon. I didn’t even wait for the invitational song to start before quickly walking to the altar and speaking with the pastor. I asked God to forgive me for leaving Him and asked to come back into His loving grace. I asked Him to use me as he called me twenty-five years ago.
We started serving the Lord in Tucson the next week. In August, my wife came to me and said she felt the Lord calling us to move back to Long Island and serve Him there. At first, I tested the Lord by saying, “If God wants us to go to New York, He needs to open the door wide.” Well, He did, and I got a job transfer to New York the first time I tried. My wife’s family and my family told us, “If that is what God wants, then go.” The money came and the old vehicle we had made the trip.
I started working on the Monday after we got there and had a place to live the next week. God is good. Then we started looking where God wanted us to go to church. We felt the Lord draw us to Trinity. We went several times. My wife told me this would be the church we would worship in. I wanted to search more, but we kept coming back to Trinity. We committed to go there. After attending for 4 months, Pastor John asked us if we would move into the vacant parsonage for ministry purposes. That included maintaining a presence there and doing maintenance of the church and the church grounds. We would also over see and house any interns that would be serving Trinity Baptist Church. We praise God for this provision.
We moved into the parsonage and helped fix up the downstairs of the house, which is where the interns would stay. We are to feed them and make sure their needs are met. Ministering at Trinity is a great opportunity. It is a small church with needs of growth and kingdom minded vision. Please keep us in your prayers as our church grows.
Once we were settled in at Trinity, the Holy Spirit spoke to me leading me to follow His path, the one He had placed before me 25 years ago. I told the Lord I didn’t have the time to go to school, I needed to work. Well, the Lord had other plans. In January 2015 I got pneumonia and the flu, which took me out of work for the month of January. The Lord supplied all our needs during that time. Then in February, my neck and arm pain, which I’ve had for years, got worse and I couldn’t work. This whole time my wife and I were praying for a door to open to pursue school. Well, the Lord is great.
On February 15th I started taking online classes with the Christian Leaders Institute. I was not working so I had the time for school. The school is an accredited school and is free; only donations online. I had neck surgery on April 15th and I’m not sure if I will ever be able to go back to my job at Home Depot. But, to the glory of God, I will finish my ministry classes and be ready to minister for His Glory and His Kingdom. I plan on continuing my education if the Lord desires. Only the Lord knows where He will lead us next. We are willing to go wherever He leads.
If it wasn’t for Christian Leaders Institute. I would not have been able to pursue God’s ministry. I learned so much to use in bringing God’s word to the lost. CLI has great programs and classes to train up the students in the knowledge of our faith to bring it to the world. CLI has prepared me for that. During my time at CLI, the Holy Spirit has led me to pursue my calling into being a Youth Pastor. Now I am being ordained. I know that God will lead us to a place we can serve and bring lost souls to Jesus. TO GOD BE THE GLORY!
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Ranch Ministry
There are many people who want to know God but maybe are at a disadvantage that leads them away from God. CLI graduate, Daniel, hopes to start many ministries including a ranch ministry that will help lead those in need to know God.
My name is Daniel. I am from the United States of America. I grew up in the United Methodist Church and at the age of 9, I accepted Jesus Christ as my personal Lord and Savior.
My wife and I are launching Pirkle Ministries in order to help meet our community’s physical and spiritual needs. We plan on holding bible study, worship services, and soup kitchens as well as charitable events to gather and deliver the everyday necessities for those who cannot afford them.
Daniel’s dream for the future is to have a ranch ministry that will reach out to those that are in need of both money and God.
Our dream is to open a ranch ministry for the economically disadvantaged where they can live rent free in exchange for being a ranch hand. This would be open for individuals and families. The word I most identify myself with is servant. I do not feel I fit into the mold of Pastor or Evangelist or any traditional term. I want to serve my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ by sharing the Gospel and helping those in need.
Growing up in the Church, I knew I wanted to serve. I assist my Church by running the sound board as well as running the presentations, slideshows, announcements, etc. I also am a layperson taking training through the UMC as well, this is how they have supported our ministry. We live in the Appalachian region in southeast Kentucky. In our region we are very economically disadvantaged, many have unfortunately fallen under the addiction of drugs (we have a bad meth epidemic). I would love to see the people in our region free of drugs and back to the foundation that matters, a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.
Training at CLI is very important for Daniel’s ministry and future ranch ministry, so that Daniel can have knowledge that is effective in leading others to Christ.
The scholarship at CLI is important to our ministry because without it we would not be able to receive the training we need in order to be effective and reach others for Christ. Please pray that we receive financial support, the partnerships and relationships that we need to meet the physical and spiritual needs of our community. Thank you CLI!
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My name is Quama Hamilton, and I live on one of the small Caribbean island known as Trinidad. I have one brother and live with both my parents. My husband does telecommunications, we have been married for six years and share the same home with my parents. I am a full-time junior Pastor and Missionary at my local church.
My country has a broad range of religious, ethnic and cultural groups making it a challenge at times to get the gospel out. Individuals of these various groups are mostly engulfed in their preconceived thoughts and ideas of who God is rather than coming to the knowledge of the word of God. However, despite these challenges, my parents were eager to grow closer in their relationship and walk with God. As a result, they led me to my faith in Christ.
My faith in Christ started at the tender age of three, as my mother enrolled my brother and me in Sunday school at our local church. From then on my hunger to know Jesus and to worship him grew more and more leading me to be baptized at the age of twelve. Due to the pressures of being a teen, I lost my virginity at fifteen, and that lured me more and more in the desire to commit sexual sins. At that time, I left the church I where I got baptized. Friends of mine invited me to fellowship at their church. It was bigger in size and congregation but quite intriguing, as the worship appealed to my love for it. I continued to attend and was convicted of the sinful life I was living. This conviction caused a paradigm shift to take place. I rededicated my life to Jesus at the age of seventeen, and I have not looked back since.
My ministry dream is to be a missionary for Jesus. I desire to take the gospel of Jesus to the nations of the earth and to fulfill the command of Jesus as it is stated in the book of Matthew 28:19-20. It says, “Go ye therefore, and teach all nations baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you, and lo I am with you always even unto the end of the world.”
I see myself as a church planter as the role of the missionary has similarities to such. The call of God in my life became clearer while working for a telecommunications company. The Lord spoke to me instructing that I should leave my job and go into full-time ministry. I was twenty-two years old at that time. As a result, a lot of questions were raised by close family members and friends to persuade me from the decision I made to leave my job. But such didn’t deter me as I was convinced that it was a clear direction from God in walking in his plan for my life. Shortly after leaving my job, I dreamt of traveling to the nations of the earth. When I awoke, I heard an audible voice say to me, “You are a missionary, and you will go to the nations.” A few months after, I got the opportunity to go on my first mission trip to the Dominican Republic. What a life changing experience it was! I returned home and preached my first sermon at my church.
Some unique challenges that I face on a day-to-day basis where I reside are that most of the people are more focused on material and academic accomplishments rather than fulfilling God’s plan for their lives.
Another challenge is, as a result of our communities being multifaceted in religious beliefs, individuals have their unique understanding of who God is.
The church that I currently attend has had an immense impact on me becoming more of the missionary God has called me to be. The church has offered me opportunities to grow spiritually by the means of leadership training seminars, conferences, and Bible study sessions. It has also contributed financially to my mission trips. I received on-hand training in handling church matters as a result of me being a junior Pastor, and it allowed me to be part of the church board. Thereby enhancing my ability to exercise skills in decision making and church planting.
My husband and I share similar ministry dreams, so he fully supports me. Being a full-time minister, I have limited time to attend an on-campus Bible college. So the fact that CLI is an online Bible college makes it possible for me to have a good quality and solid Bible education. Also, this scholarship will be a vital asset considering my responsibilities, functions and roles I play at my local church. I have gained more knowledge of the work, my ability to preach the word enhanced due to the knowledge gained. My skills to mentor others also have improved which has been a great asset to the role I currently have as junior Pastor.
In fulfilling the call of the missionary, I can accurately and effectively deliver the word of God to a lost and dying world with boldness and confidence. A scholarship at CLI will also increase my desire to study the word more, rightly dividing it as a workman so that I should not be put to shame in delivering it.
My prayer is that I will continue to preach the Word of God without compromising. That I will not only be a hearer of the word and a preacher of the word but a doer of the word. So that I will not allow men to deter and deceive me from the knowledge of God’s word. Also that my relationship and walk with Him increases daily.
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