April 16, 2013
To Whom It May Concern:
I, Shelley Garner have been involved extensively with all of Tony Alamo Christian Ministries for almost 42 years. I was born and raised a Catholic in NY and in my later teen years the Lord started to really deal with me about the fallacies and lies of this institution. He, God, Himself started to really show me how duped these people are, including myself because I was not yet saved. Through a series of events I left my family at the age of 17 and had gained a full scholarship, room and board to a University in upstate NY. I went with great aspirations and expectations, only to find the college campuses of 1971 in great upheaval. The youth had turned to drugs and revolution, campuses were being thrown into the new free sex- smut, and atheistic Communistic, socialist professors were stuffing their philosophies down the already perplexed youth of America; and in desperation I screamed out my questions to a God I believed was there, but I had no idea how to reach Him. After I did that things started to change quickly in my life. I left there disillusioned with college but with hope in my heart that if some where there were a people that knew God, I would find them, and I took off across the country. With that, I tell you it was no coincidence that I ended up in California, lost and on the wrong road and right in front of the Tony and Susan Alamo Christian Foundation in Saugus [Canyon Country], CA. That night I was led through a sinner’s prayer and I asked the Lord to come into my heart and to wash away all of my former sins in the blood that He shed in my place on that old rugged cross of Calvary. I knew as soon as this happened that I met Jesus. And He has never left me from that moment taking away all my former desires and giving me a brand new start and life that I can share with others lost in sin [and everyone whether they know it or not is lost in sin before they come to that same foot of the cross and ask the Lord Jesus Christ to enter in to them, forgive them, and give them a brand new start.]
What I found at the Tony and Susan Alamo Christian Foundation was phenomenal, incredible and life-changing. They did not turn me back into the streets to flounder in my new found Salvation. But they opened their doors to me. It was and is a seminary, and I was allowed to stay and get rooted and grounded in the Word of God as long as I would obey the Word of God and the simple rules set up to run the House of God in decency and in order. I was taught how to pray. I received the Baptism of the Holy Spirit. I was taken out into the streets and taught how to share the Gospel with other people and to learn how to lead them to repentance. I have literally seen firsthand at least a thousand or more saved through the simple Gospel of Christ. Simple tasks were assigned to keep all the properties maintained and other tasks like peeling produce for the multitudes that would come and be served a good 1500 meals a day.
I have been to and worked with about a dozen of Tony Alamo’s churches and outposts. I have raised a family of five children in my own beautiful homes. They have had top education in our own highly exalted Christian schools. In my younger years while my family was growing I was involved mostly with things that pertained to the children, always with the very best facilities and teachings, everything being Bible oriented. I have seen the most beautiful happy children, free from lives of dysfunctional families and free from a world full of perverts and illicit behaviors found in all schools today that are without God. I have seen children whom have been teethed on the Gospel and have drawn close walks with the Lord Jesus Christ through this. I also, unfortunately have had to also see children and teens who were only there with their parents and hate God, are liars, fornicators, and as very disreputable as the other people in the world who they only yearned to be like and be a part of. I have seen these same people stoop at anything to get monetary gain to lead the lives of sin that they so yearned for. These are some of the people with which we have to do today, who have peddled their lies to vicious people, judges, attorneys and government agencies of all sorts, who have believed the slander and have sought themselves to get gain and destroy this House of God and steal the things that belong to hard working, God-fearing, law abiding citizens of this once said United States of America, the Land of the free….
In my latter years at The Alamo Ministries I have been highly involved in the mail department of the Alamo Ministries since 1995. I have helped in getting the Gospel around the world. I have seen firsthand tens of thousands of packages and boxes of Gospel literature sent all over the world. We receive responses back from 200 foreign countries and everyone testifies the same thing that the literature written by Pastor Alamo is Holy Spirit –filled and that when they share it with others, millions upon millions upon millions of souls have been saved, one testimony after another after another after another. I have also seen a quarter of a million tracts go out through the mail each month for years to sharing the Gospel with people of this United States, until the perverse Government stole away our non- profit mail status making it too hard to continue doing this. Everyone from the local bulk mail departments in an attempt to stop this atrocity went from one agent to another climbing the ladder of all the big-wigs, each person being as much alarmed as the next, disbelieving what they were hearing and saying that this could not be so, that our non-profit status could be revoked. Alarmed that if anyone deserved it, we did. Only to stop their search of questions as how this could be, when they reached the Feds in NY, who said yes, it was so! I have seen our churches face hundreds of persecutions in an attempt by multitudes of perverse anti God, anti-Christ perverted ego maniacs to try to close the doors of this church and stop the Gospel of Jesus Christ. In an attempt to turn away the good and the right they have been unfeeling and determined in their pursuit to our destruction. I have seen the kindnesses and goodness that Pastor Alamo has shown to people in need, whether they be homeless or people in institutions i.e. nursing homes and prisons. I have seen him go without food and sleep helping all those in need and when we can barely pay our bills, because everything that comes in goes to getting the Gospel around the world, feeding and clothing people and maintaining the churches and ministries where people do not have to be turned back into the streets after Salvation. Instead of helping a great work of God like this, unscrupulous people have attempted to tear down, harass, and break up families, stealing their children and trying to close the doors of this church—blocking the truth and exalting the liars. I have been appalled by seeing one breach of justice after another to this determined end.
The Alamo Ministries has used all their assets for the furtherance of the Gospel. You need only to come and spend time at one of the Alamo Ministries to see that this is so. Thousands have testified of this goodness through the years.
Through the years we have all worked together to further the Gospel. For example while I was working with the children or in later years working in the mail department, someone else was working to pay the bills or was out on the streets witnessing and testifying, or whatever their task would be for the day or month, etc.
It is totally contrary to what I have seen and heard that Tony Alamo allegedly owns anything. He does not. And yet the properties that are ours, members of the Ministry, and legally in our names, are being attempted to be stolen from us, on account of unproven accusations against Pastor Alamo, which cannot be solved through stealing our properties that belong legally to us, the members of the Alamo Ministries. If this were to be done any person working for any business or foundation is in danger of their homes and livelihood being taken from them to settle any disputes with any company for which he or she works.
I, Shelley Garner, testify that this is all totally true to the best of my explaining and witness.
Shelley Garner