There I was, about this time a little over two years ago, sitting in my office at one of the several convenience stores I managed at the time peacefully doing some routine paperwork and listening to one of my customer service representatives checking out a customer. It seemed a pleasant conversation and transaction and as the customer was preparing to leave the store he turned and issued out a solid “God Bless You” as he departed. Just the joy in his voice issued a warm comfortable feeling throughout the store. Catching him as he was exiting the store I returned his well wishes and followed him out the store where we had a short conversation and I got to meet his precious doggies, Mr. Reno & Ms. Buffy!!!
That was how I met Pastor Dewey Moede and his two precious four-legged team members! Pastor Dewey being a dog lover, as I am, we struck an almost immediate kinship between the two of us. I went to his car with him to meet these two precious souls and who just seemed to bubble over full of the Lord’s love! Pastor Dewey almost immediately became a regular customer at my store where I’d get to see him almost daily and that sums up the very beginning of a wonderful relationship between Pastor Dewey and myself which has only grown since.
For a little history to place that into perspective, I am a retired U.S. Navy veteran after 22 years of service and after performing five or so years of cable construction after that, I started a short career of 16 or so years of management in the convenience store industry. During my life, while holding a relationship with our Lord, it was neither dedicated or sufficient despite quite a quantity of instances in which the Lord tried to convince me of His love for me. As I was in the developing stages or my relationship with the Pastor, I had to transition through several losses almost immediately including the loss of one of my two brothers who lived in Dallas and also the loss of one of my precious dogs who was a true Princess and literally ‘Daddy’s Little Girl’. The Pastor was instrumental in my ability to transcend these losses and provided tremendous comfort and counseling during this period. Shortly thereafter, for reasons I won’t go into here, I lost my position with the company I was with at the time, and again, the Pastor was there and pointed out that God was simply closing a window that a door may be opened. And so it was!!!
Back to the Pastor; shortly after we met, the Pastor told me he was leaving his position where he managed a radio station here in Albuquerque and stated he was going to start his own ministry with For God’s Glory Alone Ministries! This was going to be done, completely without any financial backing and completely from scratch working from home. So after developing such a wonderful relationship with him, I now had to take into consideration that he might just be nuts!!! (LOL’ing) At any rate, I guess I was probably one of his first pieces of work in his new adventure! Letting me pace it at my own timing, he slowly guided me through the transition from the life I had been living, (not bad, but not with the Lord as my leader) to a new life with the Lord as my guide and it has truly changed my life since then!
Prior to loosing my position that I was in, Pastor mentioned that he would be a guest speaker at a local church in Rio Rancho, (just adjacent to Albuquerque), and asked if I would like to attend which my precious wife Sandy and I did. It was GLORIOUS!!! The warmth that we were met with as total strangers by this church congregation and the power of the message that was presented that day immediately overwhelmed us both. Sandy and I have been regular members at this precious Godly Church ever since – Christ Full Deliverance Ministries in Rio Rancho NM lead by Pastors Marty and Paulette Cooper with the help of a very Godly woman, Elder Mable Lopez. Now I had myself three (3), yes, I said three, wonderful and glorious Pastors and a most powerful woman of God, Elder Mable, who enrich our lives like we NEVER expected!!!
Yep, you got it, I’m hooked on the Word of Our Lord once again and I NEVER intend to let go again!!! THANK YOU JESUS!!! And thank you Pastor Dewey for leading me back to the path to our Lord!!!
Sorry, but I kind of have to go back to me for just a moment to help complete a story here. A few months later, on a Friday evening, my wonderful wife called 911 after I had collapsed in the living room. My health over the last decade had been deteriorating and previously already had two heart attacks, emergency gallbladder removal, hospitalized for about a month with pneumonia and major lung and chest surgery where the doctors told my wife, “We’ve done everything we can, it’s entirely up to his will to live at this point”, in addition to several other minor & major surgeries for various other events and she was now watching me suffer through my fourth minor stroke. At this point she was pretty well educated and knew well the signs of same. While in the hospital for a few days for that they did a number of different tests including taking a biopsy from my right lung that they thought to be a little suspicious but released me pending the completion of my test results. Exactly one week later, Sandy had developed a medical issue requiring a trip to the emergency room and while checking her in I got a call from my pulmonary doctor from my hospitalization who wanted to talk to me and asked if I could come in that afternoon. I explained what I was doing so he asked if I could see him the following Monday as it was rather important but wouldn’t go into further detail over the phone, this being on a Friday. Spending the entire weekend in the hospital with my wife, I would constantly pray, with tears dripping down my cheek, that the Lord would release my precious wife from whatever was ailing her and give it to me if either of us needed to be ill. She was released the next week in good health, two days after the doctors informed me that I now had stage four lung cancer which had spread quite extensively throughout my lymph system in the chest, neck and at least as far as up to my chin area!!! Not trying to hide anything from my wife, but wanting her to recover a little more before I broke this somewhat disturbing news to her, I waited until the following weekend before informing her of my situation and on the following Saturday morning, Pastor Dewey, Pastor Marty and Pastor Paulette and our entire Albuquerque family met in our living room where we informed the family and their support and prayer helped tremendously in breaking such horrific news to the family. (As for the timing of my loss of work and my discovery of my illness, I will leave all assumptions/presumptions/conclusions to you but I think it’s kind of obvious!!!) Two weeks later, I was in extremely intense chemo and radiation treatments receiving up to 4 different types of chemo and a daily radiation treatment for the next 45 consecutive days. Through this entire process, Pastor Dewey and the Pastors from my new church were there, side by side with us through the whole process and prayer from my entire church congregation was endless!
Following the commencement of my treatments all the doctors and nurses told me I should avoid the public to avoid infection of any kind. In addition, my oncologist informed me that the probability of seeing much more than another year was pretty low. Forgetting who my true caretaker/doctor is, I followed their instructions and skipped church. I couldn’t stand that for more than one week. As hard (physically) as it was, I returned to church the following week and we have not missed a Sunday since and through the power of prayer, I’M STILL HERE!!! Praise the Lord!!!
Sorry, I got off on a personal tangent there, sorry.
Back to this ‘nutty’ Pastor I met! I truly couldn’t believe what he was attempting to do with this ministry but day after day, week after week, he amazed me, (and himself I think), on what fantastic results he was having despite trying to get this thing off the ground with the pennies out of his pocket, a computer on his desk at home, a broke down Chevy and with literally no income other than that of his most precious beautiful wife Sharon. Roughly a year later, that computer on his desk was operating a website, fggam.org, and it has done nothing other than to explode in God’s Glory ever since and still continues to grow today with as many as 20,000 visitors on some days from across the globe. What a vision this man had! A vision like this could only come from one place; our God!!! Pastor Dewey’s devotion to his work for our Lord is endless, 7 days a week, 24 hours a day at times. God has to be giving him the strength, you can’t buy this much anywhere else that I know of!!! With the assistance of what I believe now is about 30 different volunteers including Pastor Paul Holt, another extremely strong man performing God’s assigned mission, this ministry is growing with leaps and bounds while spreading the joy and hope with the Word our God has provided us and it is just completely unbelievable.
All the Glory goes to God as Pastor Dewey himself would say, but my-o-my this man certainly deserves to share a touch of His glory as well. His devoted work for our Lord is ‘above and beyond’ and the strength God has given this man is truly astounding!
I don’t mean to judge our God’s plan but I certainly do consider His decision to place Pastor Dewey Moede and his lovely wife Sharon, along with his precious little four-legged ministers in our paths as one of the best parts of His plan!!! Again, THANK YOU LORD!!!
Yes Pastor Dewey, Glory To God, but Glory to you also Sir and I thank you from the top to the bottom of my heart and soul for all you do for us and for our Lord!!!
As I side note, every time I depart a store, I give them a hearty ‘God Bless You’; just as what was done for me which started a new beginning in my life that I shall never forget or regret!
THANK YOU PASTOR DEWEY!!!
GOD BLESS YOU SIR!!!
Signed:
Rick Stambaugh
United States Navy Chief Petty Officer Reitred
