The S.O.S. Story
The story of S.O.S or Soldiers of Salvation is not unlike your story, it had it’s beginning before the foundation of the earth. We’ll cut to the chase and spare you 58 years of details. In truth, one thing leads to another and if we are truly “called” we can look back and see God’s hand in all of it. Scripture is very clear on this, only Satan himself will argue with your testimony. None of it is chance. At the invitation of a friend Kim and I attended Hillside Church in Greenville Pa. I became an elder there. We transferred our membership to the little church just up the road from our home where God appointed my first real mentor in Dr. VanDyne.
After “Chucks” passing God straightaway appointed Malcolm to bring me along. I became part of the Mercer County Prison ministry, ended up in seminary, preached at a little church on the Venango County line for 8 years. Read a newspaper one afternoon which led to a small church on an island in Southeastern Alaska, a motorcycle shop in Stoneboro, a biker’s garage south of Greenville, a Kingdom Unification prayer meeting, breakfast at Joe & Company’s, a fund raiser at Conneaut Lake for the Hope Center, to the old Record Argus building in Greenville.
I was counseling at the Hope Center when 2 young wayward fellows, excited about God’s ministry through us, called and asked “what are you going to call the ministry?” “The House of the Rising Sun?” The young fellow I was counseling, a descendent of Jesse James, cried out: “S.O.S, Soldiers of Salvation!”
We found the scripture in 2 Timothy 2:1-4 to support our title and stuck a hand written sign in the yard outside the door. We have a fine disposition for hanging signs out, that’s the easy part, becoming what the signs says is a daily battle that separates the wheat from the chaff. Out of the wreck we rise!