My name is Kyle Shaw and, during the 40 Days of Relentless Pursuit God at Miamisburg First Church of God, God answered a prayer that I have been praying for about 2 ½ years! I'm the founder of a non-profit organization called Whole Truth Ministries which is a discipleship and transitional housing program for recovering addicts. I too am a recovering addict. In fact, God first gave me the vision for this ministry while on my knees in the county jail several years ago. At the time, I had no idea how to achieve it, except to pray!
I've failed many times in my life. I've started over and I have a big dream that seemed almost impossible for anyone, let alone me, to accomplish.
Despite all this, I started pursing this vision for Whole Truth Ministries. At the beginning of 2016, we had a board; we had several businesses that were providing on-the-job training, discipleship opportunities and some funding; we had held our second annual concert as a successful fundraiser. We had a big dream that had some moving pieces but we couldn't quite put it all together.
During our church's 40 Days of Relentless Pursuit, I was praying not just for our church, but also for Whole Truth Ministries. Day 26 in our Prayer Guide really stood out to me. The verse of the day was Joshua 1:3, "I promise you what I promised Moses: 'Wherever you set foot, you will be on land I have given you.'" The story that day was about Abraham Lincoln. I had no idea Lincoln had experienced so many defeats; I only knew of him as a great President. This is part of the story: "Lincoln's experience is the experience of many of God's people. The enemy of our soul comes to us after repeated defeats and whispers in our ears, 'You`re a failure!'" He tells us we will never win, are trapped forever where we are, and will never fulfill our God-given destiny.
On that day, I felt hope in Lincoln's story and I felt challenged to get more dedicated, more serious in my prayers and in my pursuit of this dream. I am humbled to say that within the week, we were contacted with the opportunity to operate a transitional house through a state agency with which we had established a good relationship. What an answer to prayer! Good housing is a huge asset in reaching recovering addicts. However, we couldn't step in until we had our tax-exempt status that we had been working on achieving for months with seemingly no progress. Praise God, we were finally incorporated as a 501(c)(3) that same week. Two huge mountains moved in just days and just days after God removed a mountain of doubt from me.
Landscaping with Humble Beginnings helps clients learn a trade, experience the validation of hard work well done, provides income for the ministry, as well as creating an environment for life-on-life discipleship.
Our transitional house is being made ADA accessible and will open in the fall. We are now working on a second home and moving toward our goal of opening a faith-based Rec Center to fight heroin addiction from both ends!
God is so Good! It's been a long road and the enemy has whispered in my ear a lot, but on Day 26 that still small voice spoke truth to me!
Read more about Whole Truth Ministries Here or visit their Facebook Page.