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Turning Point Ministries
OUR WELCOME & CHARACTER:
WELCOME to Turning Point Ministries; thank you for allowing us a moment of your valuable time. We feel blessed to have your eyes and ears witness the grace of God, who sustains us through all hardships and trials. He makes us stronger and reminds us to appreciate our family, health, and fulfilled needs. We pray this ministry beats with the heart of Christ in word and deed. We seek to tell a story that ends with a beginning. We look to God to bless us with the opportunity to speak with you, your small groups, or your congregation. We depend on God for the growth of our ministry; financial gain is NOT our goal. So there is NO upfront cost for our services. We will only take offerings.
Preaching Style: Evangelical and topical
Main Topics: Salvation & Grace
Finding Hope in Despair
Family Violence/Domestic Violence
Obesity
Gastric Bypass (not advising, just discussion)
Homelessness
House parenting
Christian Comedy (used to be “the best sit-down comic you’ll ever see")
MINISTRY’S PURPOSE:
To take the great commission to another level. Not just to tell others about Christ but also to communicate that even in the darkest hours of physical and mental hardships, there is an eternal hand that lovingly reaches/holds us so we can find joy in times of despair (John 10:28, I Peter 4:13).
STATEMENT OF FAITH:
•We believe the Bible is the inspired, God-breathed, infallible, instructive, and authoritative Word of God.
•We believe there is one God, who exists as the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit.
•We believe Jesus Christ was born of a virgin, shed his blood on the cross, arose three days later, ascended to Heaven (for our atonement), and will return again to reign in His love and glory.
•We believe you are saved through a direct, personal connection with Jesus Christ, by which you are born again by the Holy Spirit.
•We believe God through the Holy Spirit allows/enables us to live a Godly life through obedience, and we, believers, are united together through Jesus Christ as one body known as the Church.
MEETING THE “MARK:”
An eighteen year old Burger King waitress and an nineteen year old Army soldier fall in love and wed. Struggling to make ends meet, the couple remains stationed in Fort Carson in Colorado Springs, Colorado. On July 9th, 1974, Beverly and David welcome their first son, Markus, into the world. For most couples, even in the rough times, the birth of a child is a blessed and joyous occasion, but for the Farrells, normal doesn’t exist.
The first few months of Mark’s life would be classified “bearable” by many critics. He would remain at the mercy of a father who moved the family in and out of the country during his tour of service and his mother who tended to his needs when she felt up to it.
Things began to change when the family was living in Italy on the fourteenth floor in a small villa; Beverly was bathing her son while staring out the opened window, admiring the light snow fall. As she stepped away to answer the phone, her one and half year old decided to throw his pajamas out the window. When she saw what he had done, she angrily snatched him out of the bathtub and forced him to walk down the stairs (with her assistance) naked and dripping wet. As though that humiliation wasn’t enough, she then took him outside in the snow and made him pick up his clothes.
When loud voices and anger fill a home, it doesn’t take long before the dissolution of a marriage occurs. At twenty-three months, Mark would lose his father; only to be reunited when he picked up his body for cremation services thirty years later in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Beverly took Mark and his baby brother back home to South Carolina when the divorce was final. Often times, Mark became responsible for Steven when their mother wanted to socialize or throw open parties in their tiny apartment. It’s at this time that stepfathers started coming into the picture. With each new love interest, fading stability collapsed.
At the tender age of five, Mark would experience his first recorded memory of physical abuse. He gingerly tip-toed to get a glass of water during the night but slipped and stepped on their dog’s tail. The dog let out a loud cry, waking his mom. She found him and close-fist punched in the stomach. “It was the first time in my life I was totally out of breath; she knocked the wind completely out of me. I’ll never forget that night.”
Many nights Mark and Steven had to go with their mother to pick up their stepfather from his late second shift job at dump heap. The boys would often fall asleep during the car ride, but “if mom couldn’t sleep either could we.” The boys would be constantly awaked with cruel words and slaps across the face.
His first stepfather was an illiterate but a good man, who cared about the boys. Even with the best of intentions, it was hard for Johnny to make a decent wage for the family. And soon another marriage ended.
It wasn’t long before Beverly met her 3rd husband, Dale; they were married on December 4, 1982. With the exchanging of rings came hell on earth for Mark. For the four years that followed, he was physically, emotionally, and sexually abused. It was a pastime for Dale to beat him so hard with a fishing rod you could see the fiberglass shavings slivered into his skin. At this time of overwhelming stress, Mark began to suffer from migraines so debilitating he would pass out. No medical condition mattered to Dale; he would make him clean the entire house until it was spotless. He would tell Mark, “You’re gonna have a buttache if you don’t clean this house.” Then finally an exhausted eight year old would lie down on the couch; Dale would slip behind him and slowly kiss on the back of his neck. Kissing would lead to him simulating sex from behind while both were fully dressed. It was also during this time of pure torture that he saw his mom raped twice. Life was a nightmare!
Freedom came in 1986. With no place to go, Mark, lived, ate, and slept in their car. It was his first encounter with homelessness. Beverly grew weary of the “live where you park theory,” so the family drove to Anderson and moved in with her mother and stepfather (the grandparents). Once again, allowing their mother the time to do her own thing without the responsibility of children.
From this point on another new pattern evolved. Mark would start to be passed between his grandparents and his Aunt. At ages 6, 9, and 11, Mark stayed under the strict rule of Easter and Johnny then during ages 12 and 13, he stayed with his loving Aunt Debbie and her extremely physically abusive husband, Randy. Though Debbie opted to take many of the beatings for her nephews and own children, Mark still felt the sting of drunken beatings with hickory sticks and leather straps. He was berated and belittled by Randy often chased around with the neighbor with a belt, because he was “too fat.”
Gradually, Beverly would feel guilty then show up to “rescue her children.” Their fate once again was homelessness for an entire year; the family shifted from staying in an Atlanta motel to eating/sleeping at a local homeless mission to living under the stars at Carolina Campground.
At age 11-12, the Farrell family lived in yet another dilapidated, small apartment on Stewart Avenue. For those not from the Atlanta area, this neighborhood was known as “prostitute alley.” To this day, Mark can remember watching the streetwalkers as they catcalled motorists for business.
For reasons unknown, Beverly decided it was time to move again; this adventure would lead them to a Domestic Violence Shelter in downtown Atlanta. The Shelter founded off a ministry branch of a Baptist church. For three months, a small amount of stability was renewed. It allotted their mother just enough time to figure out her next plan.
Of course, as mentioned above, Mark was set back to his Aunt’s house where he had to fight to stay alive, to save his Aunt, and protect his brother.
To welcome his teenage years, Mark was taken out of the custody of his Aunt and placed into a Christian group home known as Christian City in Union City, Georgia. Mark grew in the grace of Jesus Christ and felt loved by his house mom, Kay Harkness. He would remain in the group home until his second year at Atlanta Christian College where he doubled majored in Youth Ministry and Human Relations.
His relationship with his mother would remain strained, regardless of his best efforts to make her feel important, and there would be one more major hurdle he would have to face…his weight. In 2004, his 5’ 10” frame held 520 pounds; doctors told him if drastic decisions weren’t made he would not live to see his forties. He battled sleep apnea, extreme hypertension, and arthritis. His only option was gastric bypass. He was denied for the surgery in South Carolina but approved in California. Mark believed this decision was the road God intended for him; the greatest sign came after his biological father died of a massive heart attack and untreated diabetes. An angel laid at the foot of his bed during the surgery on January 24, 2005.
Now, almost 2 years later, Mark weighs under 240 pounds with no medical issues and is happily married to an Iowa woman who shares his heart for ministry and loves him with all that she is. He credits our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, for surviving the terror of his past. “I’m alive and have a purpose BECAUSE of Him. God cleared my mind of the horror and allowed me to have stability in unstabilization. I believe my story can be humorous in parts yet sometimes a hard look at what it would have been like if Job was fat.”
PRAYER REQUEST:
Turning Point Ministries sends their most sincere condolences to J.T. Hart for the tragic loss of his lovely wife, Laura, who bravely faced cancer for several years. We are greatly saddened by this loss, because they are two very wonderful people. We will miss her...J.T., We're so sorry; we love you. Our prayers are with you and your family. We ask each of our ministry members to please keep this amazing family in prayer...may God fill you with comfort.
Would you like a free gift?
Jimmy Wayne Paper Angels Awareness Program
National Coalition for the Homeless
National Coalition Against Domestic Violence
Send E-Mail to: mfarrell456@yahoo.com
Copyright © 2007 Mrs. Farrell. All Rights Reserved