April 20, 2013
To Whom It May Concern:
Being raised in the Tony Alamo Christian Ministries Church and Seminary and a part of the ministry for almost 38 years, I have seen down through the years the full extent of the good that the Lord has done through this ministry for too many people to even count.
I worked in the office for several years, and can witness that though most churches in the country provide a separate home, a rectory if you will, for their pastor to live in, before Pastor Alamo was incarcerated, he had only one room with a bathroom in the Fouke, AR church office as his personal living facilities. His room was right off the main office and he spent countless hours alone in his room reading the Bible and praying and seeking the Lord for more messages. He would come out and answer requests from response letters, emails and phone calls. He would bring many Bible messages and record Gospel and Salvation messages to be played on the radio all over the world. He did not live or eat lavishly and spent his hours and days reaching out to lost souls and encouraging, reproving and feeding the Spiritual needs of both the church that the Lord entrusted him with as pastor and the countless people from around the world that would write, email and call.
While working at the church office in the email department, I answered hundreds of thousands of emails from all over the world. Many of these people were requesting help for both physical and spiritual needs. We sent money, clothing, toiletries, Bibles and gospel literature and audio messages to them free of charge as the Lord provided it. I also witnessed the office end of the ministry sending volunteers to Africa and India to bring help and hope to thousands through the gospel and living necessities. While our ministry representatives were in these countries, we provided the funds for food and shelter as well as clean water tanks and pumps for many impoverished people in poverty stricken areas of these countries where pure drinking water was a luxury and many were dying from water contamination. This was not for the benefit of Pastor Alamo. He never benefited monetarily from the Ministry giving away free of charge MILLIONS of dollars worth of Bibles, Gospel literature, clothing and all the other necessities of life all these years. The only benefit, which is, of course the greatest, that he received from the work of the ministry was a reward in Heaven as the Lord promises to all who work for Him.
At the phone room at the church on 4401 Windsor Drive in Fort Smith, I answered the phone to many souls in need of help and we provided them with food and the necessities of life as well as the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ as we were taught to do by our Pastor, Tony Alamo, through the Lord’s leading. Pastor Alamo was not present at this location, nor did he profit from the functions of the Church there or the daily church services that have been held there since its opening. Ironically, it is our church at 4401 Windsor Dr., which they are attempting to take away, where many of the local churches send people that are destitute, poor or sick that they can’t or won’t help, since they know we will always help them.
I volunteered in the clothing and toiletry needs distribution department of the Ministry for many years and prepared and distributed hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of clothing and toiletry items for people in need all over the country. Pastor Alamo was not the recipient of these items. The building on 4th Street in Fort Smith AR where we did much of this distribution was not used by or for the profit of Tony Alamo nor does he own it. In all the times that I worked there, he was never there once.
I volunteered several times to cook in the restaurant building in Fort Smith where hundreds of thousands of meals were prepared free of charge for volunteers with the ministry that were working to spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ as well as anyone who came to our doors in need or to the doors of any of our properties. Pastor Alamo was rarely even in Fort Smith during these years and never profited at all from this restaurant, especially since all the meals that we prepared there were given away free of charge.
I taught in the church schools at 4301 and 4401 Windsor Drive in Fort Smith, AR, for several years and also in Fouke so that my children as well as the children of the many other volunteers that were doing ministry work could have a safe Christian environment for our children to be taught the Bible and educated from a Christian perspective. Pastor Alamo never attended either of these schools and never profited from either of them. They were for the benefit of the parents and the children of the many brothers and sisters and volunteers that were working to help get the gospel out to the entire world.
My family lived for many years in the house at 120 N. 16th Street, Fort Smith, AR, and Pastor Alamo was never there in our house. It was our private home, not his. We held the keys, and he had no access to our private living quarters. My mother and her family moved into the upstairs apartment nine years ago and has lived at this location since even when we moved away, and it is for their private use only, as well. Pastor Alamo was never there, nor did he have access to it. If this property is taken away and given to these people, Pastor Alamo would not be punished or inconvenienced since he has never lived there or even been there to my knowledge, but instead my mother will be heartlessly put out of her home of many years in her advancing years and will be out on the streets.
My husband and I have both worked at the ministry for years knowing that all the money that we made and any volunteer work that we did was for the furtherance of the gospel and to pay for OUR homes and OUR church, not for Pastor Alamo or for his benefit. Most average church goers may go to church on Sunday and perhaps Wednesday and maybe give their 10% tithe to their church and that is the extent of their contribution to the ministry that God has given to all true Christians, the winning and feeding of souls for the Lord. In the Tony Alamo Christian Ministry though, we all work together in different capacities and stations so that we can pool our money together to help others and be able to do more for the Lord. The huge amount of good that this ministry has done for so many people could not have been possible any other way. Everything that is done at the ministry is towards that purpose. For many years, and to this day, my husband has been going out with the witnessing crews for days, weeks and even months at a time distributing gospel literature by the millions, because that is what God has commanded us to do, to go into the highways and the hedges and find the lost souls and bring them to the Lord. We don’t just sit in a church building waiting for them to come to us. This all costs money, a lot of it, and it is provided by the Christian brothers and sisters that roll up their sleeves and work every day for the goal of bringing as many souls with us to Heaven as possible. All the money that comes into this ministry is put towards winning souls for Christ as well as helping the poor and destitute, and to pay for the homes of all those actively working in the ministry. These belong to the members of the church not Pastor Alamo. We have worked hard for many years and paid for them.
Since we have lived away from the ministry for the last couple of years, supporting ourselves, we continue to send our tithes in to this ministry knowing that they will be used for the same things, what they have been used for for decades—getting the gospel out and helping those in need—not for the profit of Pastor Alamo. All these things that I have already mentioned above are still going on today. We know this to be the truth since my husband has gone back on a volunteer basis several times to help repair homes and different properties at the church for those in need, as well as the church building itself, and has seen it first hand. Also, my mother works in the mail distribution department helping to get the Gospel message out to all over the world and my stepfather works in the printing department, and they have told me what it entails. I know that this is where our tithes are going, not to make Pastor Alamo rich!
Pastor Alamo has been incarcerated for almost five years and these properties are still being used for the Lord’s ministry work, not for Pastor Alamo. This WORLDWIDE work has not stopped with him being away. He is our Pastor that we love and respect and who supports us spiritually with the Gospel messages and spiritual counsel, and who we support with our prayers, but he does not live in, own, or benefit from our homes, the church buildings, the gym buildings, or the former restaurant where meals are prepared.
We can only pray, as we do daily, that God in His mercy will bring out this truth and fight for us and put an end to this terrible, cruel injustice.
Sincerely,
Melissa Knetter