September 5, 2016 Show with Jenny Reese Clark & Chaplain Caleb Schumacher on “The Ex-Meth Dealer & the Army Chaplain: A Marriage Made in Heaven!”

Live from the historic parsonage of 19th century gospel minister George Norcross in downtown

Carlisle, Pennsylvania, it's Iron Sharpens Iron, a radio platform on which pastors,

Christian scholars and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.

Proverbs 27, verse 17 tells us iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.

Matthew Henry said that in this passage, quote, we are cautioned to take heed whom we converse with and directed to have in view in conversation to make one another wiser and better.

It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next hour and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions.

Now here's our host, Chris Arntzen. Good afternoon

Cumberland County, Pennsylvania and the rest of humanity living on the planet earth who are listening via live streaming.

This is Chris Arntzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron, wishing you all a happy Labor Day. On this fifth day of September 2016, the last day of Labor Day weekend, and what better way to spend

Labor Day weekend than to have your radios or your laptops or your computers with your speakers up full blast listening to Iron Sharpens Iron while you grill up those burgers and hot dogs and chicken wings and everything else that you eat.

I am delighted today to have back on the program a former guest and also another guest for the very first time.

I'm speaking of Jenny Reese Clark, who has been on this program prior to today, and also

Caleb Schumacher, Chaplain Caleb Schumacher, who is on for the first time today.

They are husband and wife and they have a remarkable story to tell about how they met, fell in love, and got married and vowed themselves before our

Lord, God, and Savior in the covenant of marriage. We have titled our program today,

The Ex -Meth Dealer and the Army Chaplain, A Marriage Made in Heaven. It's my honor and privilege to welcome you both to Iron Sharpens Iron, Jenny Reese Clark and Chaplain Caleb Schumacher.

Good afternoon, Chris. Hi. How are you doing? By the way, Caleb, am

I pronouncing your last name correctly? You're right on. Oh, great. Usually people have trouble with that, but you hit it right on.

Good job. Well, before we go to Jenny and her story, since we already had her on, and by the way, for those of you listening, you could hear

Jenny Reese Clark's testimony on the Iron Sharpens Iron program archive if you go to ironsharpensironradio .com

and type in the search engine for the older programs or podcasts,

Jenny Reese Clark, R -E -E -S -E,

Clark, with no E at the end. You can hear that program if you download it.

You could also go to jennyreeseclark .com, her own website. But before I go to Jenny to recount or summarize her testimony that she already gave on this program earlier,

I want to hear something about Caleb, her husband. First of all, Caleb, when did you come to know

Christ? What kind of an upbringing did you have in regard to religion, and when was it that you really believed the

Lord rescued you and brought you to himself, adopted you, and made you one of his children?

Well, I would say I grew up in a Baptist home up in Wisconsin, and I went to an eager beaver club that was part of Awana, and as a little kid of six years old,

I heard the gospel for the first time, and I remember having a distinct understanding that I needed to ask for forgiveness from Jesus for my sins, and so I went forward.

I sat with a counselor and talked and we prayed, but I can tell you that when

I was 15 in my home with my family growing up, there was a lot of stuff going on.

There was a lot of, I would say, crisis trauma between relationships, and so I realized at that point that, yeah, even though I had asked the

Lord into my life as a little child, that I needed to dig a little deeper.

And so I had a youth pastor, Pastor Brad Dickinson, who's now a camp counselor up in Camp Fraywood, Wisconsin, and he was the one who stepped into my life and helped me really work out my faith, and I started a

Bible club in high school and really started to be active, realizing that I had to be proactive with my faith because of my family situation,

I think, weighed on me heavily, that I needed to do something beyond just have that salvation for myself, that I needed to reach out and impact other people.

I was at a camp. I went to Camp Wonderland, which was a

Salvation Army camp, and I was a lifeguard there. I left home my 17 -year -old and 18 -year -old summers.

I worked there, and I led children that came up from Chicago to the camp.

I led those kids to the Lord, sharing the gospel with them. Went to Bible College, Pillsbury Baptist Bible College up in Minnesota, and then

I transferred to Maranatha Baptist Bible College in Wisconsin. But I will say that, you know, kind of speeding up things here,

I went through an experience probably about six years ago where I lost a very important relationship in my life, my former wife.

I was actually out in Washington State.

They call it LDAC, Leader Development Course for Officers.

I had gone out there as a chaplain, as a practicum, and I got the Dear John phone call.

It was at that point that, coming home from that experience, I was away for 30 days.

Coming home, I stopped at a church in Umballa Forge, South Dakota. There was a pastor there,

Pastor Anderson, who invited me into his church. It's a long story how

I even got to this church, but to kind of speed up things here, I was there.

The pastor offered me the love there, and we watched the movie Fireproof. I was down in the basement of the church, and I watched that movie, and Caleb happened to be the main character in that movie.

So I watched that movie, and I was crying, just weeping about everything.

I remember distinctly coming up into the sanctuary, and it was pitch dark, and I came up to the altar and got on my knees.

I spread my arms out, and I had this distinct feeling that, even though I professed to know

Christ, I asked the Lord to be Lord in my life, there was still a question of how could all these things have happened to me if this had been my journey in life, wanting to serve the

Lord, wanting to do all these things for Him, and yet I lost the most important relationship in my life. So I spread my arms out, and I said,

Lord, if I could just ask for one thing, like Solomon, if there's one thing you could give me,

Lord, what would it be? I was begging for this one thing, and I said, Lord, please fill me with your love so completely that it would overflow and come out of my life in a way that would touch people in a real living way, that they would know that they've been touched by your love, oh

God. So from that point on, I was on a journey to love differently, to love in a way that would impact people for Christ, and that God would use the crisis that I had gone through in my life for His glory and honor, and that I would be able to speak

His love into the hearts of people that were suffering in relationships or had gone through things where they had suffered great loss in their life.

And so that was almost like a salvation cry, a plea to the

Lord at that point. I was at the bottom in my Christian life. So I would say if you look at the whole journey,

I really do believe when I was six that I called out to the Lord, but I believe about six years ago was when

I discovered that Christ's love can come even when we've lost everything.

So I would say that's been kind of my journey. And if you could even back up a little bit to your interest in joining the military and also a chaplain, to become a chaplain.

Well, that was 2005, and what had happened was I was a public school teacher for about six years at that time, and I just had a distinct feeling that I wanted more.

I wanted to do more for the Lord, and so I ended up looking online, and I was trying to see if there was something that would fit for me and my wife at the time that she would enjoy working alongside of me.

She was a pastor's daughter, and she had grown up in the ministry all of her life, and I think if she was standing right here, she would tell you that she had been through a lot as a

PK, and she was wanting to be, you know, she wanted to be,

I think, in a home where there wasn't as much traveling, going around, doing a lot of things.

I think she wanted to settle down. Her dad was an evangelist, and so I was trying to find something that would fit, and I saw they had a candidate program for the

Army chaplaincy, and so I clicked on it, talked to a recruiter, and he gave me an option to go into chaplain school that summer, and I was a school teacher, so I would be back in time for my next school year, so I decided to try it.

Went down, did a couple months down there in Fort Jackson, South Carolina, and I did my 45 days, and then they said, well, you've got to work on getting your seminary degree.

You've got to work on, you know, getting your ordination. At that time, I didn't have any of that. I was not ordained. I did not have seminary.

I didn't have any of those building blocks, any of those pieces, and so to kind of make a long story short, you know,

I would say all the way up to 2009, I had not yet completed seminary.

I still had different pieces that needed to be completed. I was an inner -city pastor in Wisconsin.

I was a private school teacher. I had a daughter who was two years old at the time.

I had been married for 13 years. I had all these things going for me, and the

Army chaplaincy had kind of taken second place or in the back seat, but after things kind of hit pretty hard in my relationship with my former wife and after things had happened there,

I, you know, basically went off to Colorado, and in Colorado, I found a pastor,

Don Barnes, a pastor at Ray Faith Bible Baptist Church in Ray, Colorado, where there's more cattle than people.

And I got to say it was kind of like my Jacob experience, where I could compare it to that, where Jacob kind of fled the scene, and I would say that was out there in the wilderness where I wrestled with God, and that church ordained me to be a chaplain in the

United States military, and then the Associated Gospel Churches, which was my endorser down in Greenville, South Carolina, they had me fly down there and interview with these two gentlemen who

I really respect. They're men of God, and they sat down with me and heard my story about the loss

I went through. They heard my desire to be a chaplain, and they decided to take me on, and then from that point on, it was...

I finished seminary in 2011, and by 2012, I went active duty after completing a residency in Pittsburgh at a psychiatric hospital for veterans, and I was a chaplain there for a year providing spiritual support, and so the active army took me on, and in 2012,

I went to Fort Leavenworth, which is kind of like where Jenny and I kind of...our paths kind of met, interestingly enough, and now

I'm down in Fort Payne, Georgia. Here as a chaplain for basic training. Oh, praise God.

And I'm going to announce our email address now. If anybody would like to join us with a question of your own, our email address is

ChrisArnzen at gmail .com, C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com.

Please give us your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside of the

USA. If you're asking about a personal or private matter that compels you to remain anonymous, if it makes you feel more comfortable, we will respect that, so feel free to remain anonymous if need be.

That's ChrisArnzen at gmail .com. So, now we go to your wife,

Jenny Reese Clark, and we have had you give your testimony for a two -hour period last time, but obviously this time we'd like to have it more abbreviated.

And tell us about your upbringing before you tragically spiraled out of control and actually began, you created and began operating a meth lab in your sister's home, if I'm not mistaken, and began dealing that drug.

But if you could tell us before that happened, something about your own upbringing.

Yes, sir. It's good to be back on the show. Yeah, it's great to have you back. Yes, sir.

Well, you know, I mentioned last time that I grew up in the south, in the southern

United States, in Alabama, to Christian parents. Our household was active in our faith.

It was something that was present continuously. It wasn't just put on on Sundays.

So, we had battle sprees at our home. Parents were super involved in everything I did. Dad coached me in ball for about five years, and our whole family was on a show ski team, which is something that I saw myself being at 17 when a severe car accident hit.

I considered myself to be the next world's most amazing show ski coach, because that's what we all want at 17.

So, that was the grand smith of my plan at the moment, that I was going to be a famous water ski coach.

You know, I was on my way to my boyfriend's house at the time, and vanity struck me, and I wanted to powder my nose while I was driving.

That's not such a smart idea. One thing led to another, and I lost control of the car, hitting another car head -on.

It was one car. It's a Mitsubishi Gallant. It had eight people in it. We hit head -on.

I was ejected from the car through the car door, flew out, broke my pelvis in half, fractured it in five places, broke

L5 vertebrae in my back and my tailbone. You can see my femur on my skull. I lost five and a half pounds of blood from my femoral artery and nearly bled to death on the street.

I was transported from that moment to another city where they could take better care of me in Birmingham, where I did have a world -renowned pelvic trauma doctor work on me and install a custom external fixator for the pelvis in me, which helped speed along my recovery.

You'd pair that with a body that's in great shape, and I was able to bounce back very quickly, but what

I soon realized once I did recover enormously fast was that my body could no longer do what my mind could still do.

That was devastating to me because now, instead of being great,

I had everything going for me. I graduated school early. I had good looks. I was athletic. I had all these things, and now

I'm just, hey, you're average. You may ski again, but you will never have anybody climb on you, and you will never be able to do these tricks, and you'll never be able to show people how to do these tricks.

It just kind of really tore me up inside, and a rebellion began to stir in my soul. Instead of asking

God's kind of direction from that point forward, I decided that I wanted the next thing on my list of things to do before I die, and that was, of course, have the family that I came from, you know, two parents, loving family, kids.

I wanted the white picket fence and all that came with it, and I ended up marrying the guy who

I was on the way to his house down at Clarkson, and he stuck around throughout the whole thing, and I thought that was great.

Instead of consulting God, I just said, hey, he'll work. We'll put him there in that position of president, and that's when this little seed of rebellion began to grow more and more inside of me, and within about,

I'd say, four or five months of being married, I got pregnant with my first child, which was super exciting, but very, very painful, and, you know, that ended up leaving me with some chronic pain and damage to my spine and pelvis.

Arthritis set in. Six to eight months later, the same thing, except for I now had stretch fractures, and they were offering narcotic analgesics in order to recover from this, and what happened is one thing led to another.

I became dependent upon the substance I used to sustain me instead of a God that is greater that can sustain me through anything, and I turned to the power of it versus the power of God, and this began my downward spiral in life.

By 2005, my divorce was officially over. We tried to still reconcile things even after, but 2007, we walked away, and I pretty much lost everything that I'd worked hard for myself.

I say I worked hard for because I really didn't consult Christ on that. By 2008,

I had my first felony drug offenses. I had a possession of cocaine, a possession of ecstasy, and a concealed weapons charge.

I came to an understanding at that point that I no longer used drugs to cope with the pain that I was feeling in my body but the pain that I was feeling in my heart and mind, and the more

I did it, the more I lost. I began to lose house, car, family, friendships, family itself.

I was of less character than I once was, and people couldn't trust me anymore.

Went to some rehab, thought I got the greatest help in the world, but what I got was man's greatest theories on how to help you stay sober in modern -day

America, and we know that that does not work. I had every tool in my toolbox that the world could offer, but it was not good enough because there was something greater out there, and my heart knew it.

There was nothing that filled the void in my heart that was meant for Christ. When I got out,

I had every great intention on becoming a great, productive member of I managed to betray my sister and blow up her house manufacturing methamphetamine.

Yeah, just in case that kind of went right past some of our listeners, you blew up your sister's house where you were living, and you had a, unbeknownst to her, a meth lab in the basement, right?

Yes, absolutely, unbeknownst to her, and yeah, I was trying to skim over that, you know?

You know, eventually that will die out, right? Not really. It's part of my testimony, but yes,

I managed to betray my sister. She was away at school, teaching junior high school at the time.

She entrusted the house to me while she was gone. I was going to classes. I was doing everything technically right according to what rehab facilities will train you to do, and I remember going to an

AA facility and going to a meeting, and I had peer support with me, so someone else who was freshly sober who wanted to do the right thing, and no one showed up to the meeting but us.

You know, you put two addicts' minds together, and that equals greater dumbness.

We didn't have any leadership there, and neither one of us was strong enough at the time to reason well.

We'd only been sober, you know, a handful of months, and one thing led to another.

I began, because I wanted to conceal my sin, I was so ashamed that I had relapsed, and you know, that was my product that got me here to begin with.

I kind of didn't want anybody else to know, and I had acquired this skill of manufacturing and creating the drugs itself on my own, and I knew that I could do that more quietly.

Just to tell your audience a little bit how evil that is, somehow my mind, in the midst of drug use, reasons that since my sister was so good and so honorable and so noble, no one would ever think to look at her home for something that ugly, and that's just horrible, but that's what

I did, and it's part of my testimony. You know, I did manage to, there was an accident that happened in the midst of that.

The house blew up. I was still inside. She lost her little pet. Within 24 hours - She lost a pet, did you say?

Yes, she lost a macaw. My sister is adopted, and that was a pet that her real mother had given her, birth mother had given her, and so it was like a family member, and you know, it perished right before my eyes, and because I could see exactly the destruction that I was causing and things were going in slow motion,

God was allowing me to understand and wanted me to remember that. It was making a permanent memory. I was so,

I wanted to stay there and do the right thing, but I was so, I was such a coward because to stay there and face her would be, you know, the worst punishment.

To know that she opened her home up lovingly to me and that I, you know, betrayed her and destroyed it, and she had sold that house the day,

I believe, the day before I blew it up, she had sold that house, and the people were coming over there that afternoon to sign the papers on it, and I blew it up at like around 11 o 'clock that day.

Wow. I took off running. Yes, it's tragic. I took off running, and within 24 hours

I was admitted at a local hospital as a Jane Doe. There's no identification. I was in a coma from a drug overdose of a drug called

GHB. It was unintentional, so that's even cowardly to, you know, and, you know,

I ended up getting 15 years, which is the minimum sentence for a Class A felony of unlawful manufacturing of methamphetamines, and I did have an arson charge that accompanied that to add to the list of felony charges

I already had, and the judge, you know, he was merciful the first time, and he was even more merciful the second, but that's part

God's grace that, you know, you'll never really understand undeserved favor, but I did get 15 years, and I had a special sentence where it was three in, three out, so I would do six years on my 15 if I had good behavior, and I did.

The big transformation process took root in prison. God used that.

It was not prison that changed me. I want to make that clear for your audience. It was not prison that changed me, but God used it as a way to settle me down and silence me and make me lie down in green pastures, though my green pastures were cement and cinder block.

It was the pasture He chose in which to lay me down, and I was forced to be still and to realize that He was

God and to learn to trust Him, and it was kind of my university while my husband has many degrees.

Mine is education through Julius Suttweiler University, slash penitentiary for women, and it's what

God chose to mold me through, so that's kind of what happened. I ended up getting out, and the

Lord laid it upon my heart. He gave me a mission. You know, in Scripture it says go and tell your friends the

Lord has done for you, and it was something that moved me, that became a zeal.

It was a fire inside of me that I could not quench unless I told my story, and the more I shared the gospel and what the

Lord can do for you, the more I felt compelled to share it even more, and the ministry has continued to grow.

He laid, of course, Field of Influence, the Christian fiction novel book that I wrote on my heart, and it, of course, is about the

Marines who suffer kind of PTSD through an injury, chronic pain, injury, moral injury to their souls, and one of them learns to cope with substance abuse, and of course, you know, since I've been there, done that,

I was able to interview a few Marines and take my story, blend one, and create a novel that people can walk through with the main character and kind of learn, and so basically that was just another tool in order for me to reach people.

I share, I speak, I write, I blog, you know, I volunteer, and so in that process, of course, is how

I met Caleb in a very interesting way. And that novel that you wrote is titled

Field of Influence. Yes, sir. Right, and again, you could look up more information on that novel and how you can order it at JennyReeseClark .com.

That's J -E -N -N -Y -R -E -E -S -E Clark .com. And we're going to a break right now, and if you'd like to join us, we already have a few people waiting to have their questions asked and answered by you.

But if you'd like to join them with a question of your own, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail dot com.

C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail dot com. And please give us your first name, city and state, and country of residence if you're living outside the

USA. But you may remain anonymous if it makes you feel more comfortable. Don't go away. We'll be right back with Jenny Reese Clark and Caleb Schumacher.

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This is Chris Arns. And before I return to our interview with Jenny Reese Clark and her husband,

Chaplain Caleb Schumacher, I have an important announcement. I really hope that as many of you as possible join me at the

G3 Conference, hosted by Pastor Josh Bice and Praise Mill Baptist Church, at the

Georgia International Convention Center in Atlanta, January 19th through the 21st, in celebration of the 500th anniversary of the

Protestant Reformation. I'll be joined by such notable speakers as Dr. James R.

White of Alpha Omega Ministries, Paul Washer, Steve Lawson, D .A.

Carson, Vodie Baucom, Conrad M. Bayway, who is one of the most powerful preachers

I've ever heard in my life. He's the pastor of Kabwata Baptist Church in Lusaka, Zambia, Africa.

Phil Johnson, who's the executive director of Grace to You Ministries, the teaching, preaching, radio, television, and literary ministry of John MacArthur.

Rosaria Butterfield, who many of you may have heard on my program. She is a former leftist lesbian tenured professor at Syracuse University, who was rescued by the blood of Jesus Christ, and she is now the wife of a

Presbyterian pastor. Todd Friel, host of Wretched TV and Wretched Radio, and a host of other speakers are going to be on that roster, and I am going to be having an exhibitor's booth there for Iron Sharpener's Iron Radio.

Thanks be to not only the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, but Pastor Josh Bice and Praise Mill Baptist Church, who made that possible for me, and also

Lindbrook Baptist Church in Lindbrook, Long Island, who took care of the cost of some of my expenses, and they sponsor this program annually, and I thank

God for them. For more details on this conference, go to G3conference .com.

That's G, the number three, conference .com, and the three

G's stand for grace, gospel, and glory. So we hope that you attend that conference.

If you can, January 19th through the 21st. I already know of a number of my listeners in the

Iron Sharpener's Iron audience who have informed me that they intend to be there, and some of them have registered, and I'm hoping to hear about many more of you registering, and I hope to meet many of you face -to -face, so make sure you look up my exhibitor's booth there if you attend, for Iron Sharpener's Iron Radio, which will be right next to the

Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals exhibitor's booth, and we're going to be working together on distributing literature and doing other things there.

And I hope that my guests can even attend. I believe I heard that you are living in Georgia.

I don't know how far Atlanta is from you, but it would be great if you could be at this conference. You know, it's not that far, but I think

Caleb is going to be in ranger school. Oh, okay. But when we left off before the break, you had reached the point,

Jenny, after that horrific experience of blowing up your sister's home because of a meth lab you were running in secret in the basement of her home, and then you were imprisoned, and you came to Christ, and you wrote a novel, and now tell us how you met the man that would eventually become your husband,

Chaplain Caleb Schumacher. Well, I hope you're ready, Chris, because this is a great story.

Well, like I said, I had this burning desire to reach out and minister to those who are suffering the way

I had suffered, and I prayed many prayers that God would spare me so that He would not waste my suffering, and He could utilize it for something for Christendom's sake.

And He answered that prayer, yes, and He gave me this burning desire to want to reach out and help others.

And so I was, you know, I hardly knew what I was doing. No one I knew personally was as zealous at kind of just reaching out to anybody and everybody.

I did have some wise counsel that I could turn to, but they themselves had not kind of ventured into the social media, slash church, slash rehab, slash heart, slash, you know, everywhere

I was sharing, I was kind of, you know, I made one rule, and that was to share wherever I was at.

You know, whether it be ideal or not, because I do believe that a demonstration of true faith in front of someone who may be false prophet would be a blessing to them, you know, to share the gospel.

So I asked God to protect my way, and I began to share just wherever, in many different places and settings, majority of them being recovery scenes and churches.

I began doing podcasts and radio shows. I started a blog and began to minister also in that form.

I was going 90 miles a minute. I was writing filled with influence, and I had just finished.

I would have never seen a man, if he was standing right next to me with a big sign saying,

I'm a single Christian man. I would have never seen it.

I had my eyes on the Lord and the mission that He assigned me. And because of one of the most important things of modern -day evangelism is through the

Internet, I was required to get online and network and reach out and find out other people who were also ministering in different areas, get connected to them, let them know, you know, what kind of story

I have, how I could offer, you know, hope to their audiences and their church members, and if they knew anybody struggling, you know,

I'm willing to talk and counsel or whatever. And so, you know, I was kind of doing that. And in the course of that,

I, of course, made a LinkedIn profile. And when

I had the idea for filled with influence, the big question that came to me is, now I've written this story that is primarily, you know, written about a military character, yet I am an ex -convict and I have no military connection, and how am

I going to minister? So I remember fasting at the beginning of last year, and I fasted for seven days, and I asked the

Lord to give me vision, direction, financial provision for what was going on. After fasting for seven days, you're definitely going to have some visions, aren't you?

Yes, yes. And it was a practice that I never had as a youth or never applied as a youth or young adult, but it was something that I learned in prison, and I have found that there is no greater time in my life during the time of fasting that I grow as close to the

Lord. It's the separation between you and this earth and a more intimate relationship with Him through prayer.

And, you know, He really does speak to you when you dedicate everything, including your food and cake, to Him.

And so I committed to praying and asking God for financial provision, for opportunity, for direction.

You know, what do I do in the field of influence? Because I was in that stage where I had to find a literary agent if I wanted to submit my manuscript to the big publishing houses, because that's how it is now.

You know, you can't just submit your manuscript to the big 6 -8 publishing houses in the

United States. It's just not proper protocol now. Things have changed in publishing, and you have to have one.

And so I was kind of reaching out, doing the whole things that you are instructed to do as far as how to reach these agents and petition them and write these proposals that are 60 pages long, you know.

And in the process, I realized that at the end of that, that the word chaplain came to my mind, that, you know, how do

I minister to soldiers? How do I minister to Marines? How do I minister to those who have suffered combat injury that has turned to substance abuse?

And I realized that the pastors of the military are chaplains. And, of course, like I said,

I knew no military, much less a military chaplain, because what would they want to do with someone like me, right?

So I began to reach out, and I made public my profile, my bio.

You know, I tried to remain transparent. And in the course of this, I, you know,

I think I sent out probably 100 invitations to various chaplains in the military, in all branches, all ranks.

Didn't know a near one of them. And within 24 hours, I had over 250 connections in the

U .S. military that were chaplains. So it was obviously the door that the Lord wanted me to open.

Because it was a floodgate of response, and it was exactly where I should be. And lo and behold, one chaplain,

Caleb Roth, Alan Schumacher, answered the invitation and said, I see that you are connected to some military chaplains.

Can you shoot me your bio so I can take a look at it and some of your work? And so, you know,

I sent him my website address. It has my bio, my blog, so he could see my reasoning. And then, you know, he responds back to me a few days later, after he's had time to review it, and pray about it,

I suppose. And he said, you have got to come out to Fort Leavenworth. And I was thinking, what?

I've got to come out to where? He said, I work with,

I work at the USCB and the JRFC at Fort Leavenworth with the military police and the prisoners that are soldiers, you know, that were former soldiers.

They were inmates. And so, you know, it was just kind of odd, but it was a fit, sort of.

And what that did to me was, you know, I realized that I better start hurrying up with this whole publishing process, but I really didn't have time to wait for everybody else to see if I was a candidate for whether they wanted to represent me or not.

And so God enabled me and allowed me and blessed me during a very confusing time to be able to open up my own publishing house and publish my own work.

And, you know, I'm going to let Caleb pick up here, because I know that I skip over to when

I first met him in Nashville. And, you know, we had to do that. We had to, like, meet to make sure that we were real people before he had me meet, you know, those soldiers and the commanders and everything.

But I'll let him pick up from here. Okay, Caleb. Yeah, so basically when

I looked at her bio that she sent me, something jumped out at me.

When she said, you know, that I've come to the point in my life where every word in the

Word of God means a matter of life or death, I knew that this woman was in love with God, number one.

And number two, she has allowed the Word of God to take hold of her, you know, someone who's completely submitted to whatever the

Word of God is saying. And so this was, number one, for me, you know,

I just felt like if there was a woman of faith that could come and make a difference in the lives of those soldiers that I was working with, it was going to be her.

And I was instantly the like faith, the like spirit that she shared with me.

So the other part of it was, here I am working outside the prison, you know, but I go into the prison on duty to minister to the prisoners, the inmates.

And we often talk about it that, you know, Jenny was on the inside and I was on the outside ministering through the prison bars, or whatever you want to call them.

And so, in a way, I think we both kind of understood each other, even before we met each other, just from the fact that I had three years' experience in the prison and Jenny also had three years.

So it was kind of like three days, you know, she's buried, you know, and he rose again.

You know, for us it was kind of like three years in the prison and then we met together and it was great.

When she got to Leavenworth, I got her busy right away. Extremely busy.

I tried to get her doing things on the garrison level, at my unit level, even with the

VA that was in Leavenworth. And Leavenworth, just to interrupt you for a second,

Leavenworth is strictly for military, either active or former military, correct?

Right. And so in Leavenworth you have the CGSC, which is the

Command General Staff College. It's a TRADOC post, which means it's for training and doctrine.

That's the command for the military that Fort Leavenworth is. But in the back of the base are the prisons, which are also part of TRADOC.

But there were two prisons. One was a maximum security prison, the

USPB, which I was the chaplain. I would work there. And then there was another one, the Joint Regional Correction Facility, which was for inmates that were there for 10 years or under, for whatever crimes they had committed.

But I was in both of those prisons. I would preach on Sundays, the gospel service, in both of those prisons.

And I also had a chapel outside in the garrison environment.

So I was in three different chapel environments. I was preaching to civilians and soldiers outside, and I was also preaching to inmates on the inside.

And Jenny came and she, I mean, within I think the four different chapels in the garrison, which was the gospel service, the

Catholic service, the Protestant service, and various other ones, she presented her material.

Her book was finally published at that time. Well, hold on. The very same day,

Chris Arnzen, this is just how unique God is. And, you know, he likes to put his signature on his work, right?

So I knew that, backing up, I knew that when this chaplain had asked me to come to Fort Leavenworth, that there would be no better time to get my novel, written and inspired for me from the

Lord Jesus Christ, into the hands of the people who really, really needed it. But that gave me a three -month deadline to somehow come up with e -books, softbacks.

We were working on an audio book at the time, and do five different formats,

Chris. And I tell you, large publishing houses with a team of 20 or 50 working for them, they don't even do that.

Everyone attempts that. And Jesus Christ did that. And the day it released was the day

I was speaking at Fort Leavenworth on stage in front of soldiers, and I had my book in my hand.

And that was just absolutely one of those things where, you know, it kind of comes to a point where you see your ministry from across the

United States lining up with someone else's ministry in a whole other area, but it's the ministry that you're aiming for.

And it was kind of like those two points that head towards Christ and meet in the middle. So he did.

When he says he kept me busy, that's an understatement. I don't even know if I slept.

He did. He had me speak two times on post, one time at a VA hospital. I did five meets and greets, and this was like in two and a half days.

And then I did five chapel briefs, and then

I also went to the two prisons. And because he worked with the

MPs a lot there, I got to meet and greet with him, and that is how I met John Spitzer. So, you know, that came into my own ministry, the

Spitzer Project, where I actually give away that novel, Field of Influence, on e -book version for free for those who were in need of it in military ministry or in counseling settings or rehab facilities.

So, I mean, it literally was one of those things where God was saying, God was here, exclamation point.

And this is everything that you said so far is prior to Caleb expressing any kind of romantic interest, correct?

Yeah, I would say when we met in Nashville, just to see if we were for real or not,

I think at that point it was a friendship. And I don't think either of us were, you know, we were interested in what ministry -wise, how

God was using each of us, but it was more of a friendship at that point. And then when she came to Levmore, she said to me, she said basically, hey,

I need to check out how we could serve together before I'm going to even think about, you know, being with you.

Yeah, I had a series of tests, you know, and if we can't minister and share

Jesus together, we can't be together, because I'm going to share Jesus. Well, that's a very good priority that you had here.

And of course, Caleb was thinking this all along from the moment he first met you, I'm sure, and he's been lying to me right now.

Maybe, maybe. So, after she sprung that comment on you, how did things develop in a more romantic direction and so on, when you finally reached the point when you said to yourself,

I want to spend the rest of my life with this woman, and obviously vice versa there? Well, as you know, in the military it's difficult, because you don't know where you're going to end up three years from now.

So, I had no idea. I had met with my assignments officer, and he had, you know, we had talked about options, and I had actually told him

Fort Campbell, which would be very close to my daughter, six hours away from Wisconsin, and that was my number one choice.

Fort Benning was one of my choices, because I wanted to get some military leadership training, like an airborne or ranger school, and they had both of those done at Fort Benning.

So, I had put that down as a young captain, trying to get some training there. But, he ended up, for whatever reason, my orders came through, and I was going to Fort Benning, and that's an hour away from Montgomery, where Jenny's family is, her home, where she was living.

Okay, so let me break it down for you, Chris. Okay, so he had put these options in well before I even, you know, met him online,

I think. I don't know how long, I mean, it wasn't where I was anywhere in his mind, or line of sight or anything, as far as where he was thinking.

And after I came back from ministering with him, I was very, very confused. Because, all of a sudden, my eyes were opened to there's this godly man who loves

Jesus as much as I do. We have like minds and like spirits of love towards the

Father in Heaven, and he's single. And, you know, we're good friends, and we can talk, and we pray together, and, you know, what's going on here?

And the next thing I know, I'm back in Montgomery, of course, we're separated by 15 and a half, 16 hours.

And he called, he sent an email one day, and he says, hey, is Fort Benning close to you?

And I'm like, well, sure, it's an hour, hour and a half away, something like that. Why? He says, well, I just moved here.

I said, hot dog! That's a whole lot closer than 15 hours away.

That's doable. I started praying about it. It was something that I was talking to my family about, because by this time, they knew that Caleb and I had developed a friendship, and we were talking quite a bit more.

I'd already done the ministry part with him, and they kind of, you know,

I'm kind of transparent, so when I smile a little extra long, and I'm talking about Caleb, they knew it before I knew it.

So, anyhow, he moved down here in, I think it's in process,

I think it was like June 14th. Officially, we had only known each other since a brief conversation at the end of January.

We began to get a more in -depth conversation as far as ministry in March. I went in June, so really

June and July were the times that it kind of turned a little more maybe intimate conversation, deeper conversation on a different level.

And then he tells me, hey, I'm coming to Fort Benning, and he moved down here July 14th, around that time.

And so then, you know, I put him through that test, right? In July, or June, when

I went up to Lebanon, I had another series of tests. Bless his heart, he didn't know that he was jumping through hoops.

But, you know, the next thing was that his daughter was coming down to see

Georgia, she'd never been, and he had a brief gap before he had to actually in process, and so he wanted me to meet his daughter.

And so I thought, oh, well, that's going to tell me a whole lot, because how he treats his daughter is, you know, that's probably how he treats women, and da -da -da -da -da.

You know, I had all these, you know, human ideas of what I needed to see first.

And so I met him, and I met his daughter, and, you know, he is absolutely in love with his daughter, and just precious sort of her.

And so I came back, and I was confused again, because I liked what

I saw. And, you know, then it was kind of a week later. You know, my family was dying to meet him, because now

I've actually went two or three places to meet this man, and they had yet to meet him. So I wanted to invite him to meet my family, which he agreed to do.

And at that time, my oldest son had not seen my parents since, because there was, you know, a little bit of a conflict there and a little bit of grace that took place in order to kind of get to the maturity in our relationship where I could take him off.

And so it was at that point that I had come with him where I could take him off, and he was going to go to a family event, and I invited

Caleb, and I thought, what am I doing, because this could be a disaster. It's my son and my new friend and my family, and it's new for everybody.

And I thought, well, heck, you know, if we're all doing it nude and it's all new and no one feels awkward, because it's all awkward.

And then he met my parents, and he did the worm off the diving board, and I thought, this man, okay, he's okay with my parents.

And he went back home, and I was confused again. Did you say he did the worm off the diving board?

He did the worm off the diving board. What does that mean? Yes, yes.

Is that a dance or something? What is that? Well, it's kind of like, you know, in the military we have these army balls and our formals that we do, and I don't know what happened, but a couple of the ones that I would go to,

I did a worm. They would have us dance, do like a dance as a group, you know, like all the officers.

So they would get up and do something, and then, you know, we would all have our capes or whatever and our nice dresses and our uniforms, and I would take off my dress blue, and I would just have my shirt, and I would do the worm across the stage.

And, you know, I had a brigade commander of the USDB come up to me and say, you're a chaplain.

Wow, you did the worm. You know, it's a great morale builder.

It's a great way to show that, hey, I'm approachable, and you can come to me and talk to me. I'm a human, you know, and I'm a worm.

And that's fine. We're all worms. But anyway, they look at that as a way to say, hey, well, that's a cool chaplain.

He can do the worm. Yeah, it's amazing because during this discussion, that would be the last thing that would pop into my head that you would do for some reason.

Yeah, that's the image of the whole chaplaincy, right? That's what you want on the front cover.

Now whenever I think of Martin Luther and the Diet of Worms, I'm just going to be totally different than the historic account.

Well, I tell you, you know, I've got an extreme sports family, so they're like, you know, pro dirt bike riders and race car drivers, pro wakeboarders,

I mean, just, you know, really like extreme stuff. And then here comes my date, on the edge of the diving board, he does the worm.

Now if you know what the worm is, Chris, it's where you lay down on your stomach and you exuberate enough energy from your body that you fly up in the air 233, you land on your stomach, and you do the worm.

Yes, I have seen that, at least on film anyway. Yes, okay, so since then my husband has wooed me numerous times with the worm.

One of the most memorable was when he did it in front of all of his family and ended up bleeding on his face, his stomach in two different places, his knees and his feet.

I thought, my hero. But he's great, he's great.

So he did that, and there were so many tests that I was putting him through. Like, for example, when he was moving down here,

I had this thing in my head, well, if we can work together manual labor and he can see me all ugly and sweaty, then, you know,

I'll know something else, then I'll know something. And then, you know, we worked great together. I mean, he's looking at me crazy right now because he's like,

Yes, yes, I'm guilty. I put him through so many tests. And finally, my grandmother, who was my spiritual mentor, who sat under John MacArthur for like 33 years before moving to Alabama to live with my parents, she said to me,

Now, Ginny, how many tests are you going to put this young man through before you know that God has sent him to you?

And, you know, it kind of opened my eyes that I had put him through really a bunch of different, odd, different scenarios to kind of see how he would respond under pressure.

And I wasn't ever seeing anything that was, you know, a caution or a warning sign.

So now I'll let you, Caleb, pick up where the whole marriage thing is. Yeah, in fact, have

Caleb pick up when we return from our next break. And I thank our listeners who are waiting to have their questions asked for their patience.

And we will eventually get to you. And if anybody else would like to join them, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com.

chrisarnson at gmail .com. Don't go away. We'll be right back after these messages. I wrote to the church at Galatia.

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Solid Ground Christian Books is honored to be a weekly sponsor of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. Welcome back, this is

Chris Arnsen of Iron Sharpens Iron. If you just tuned us in, our guests today for the full two hours are

Jenny Reese Clark and Chaplain Caleb Schumacher. And our theme is The Ex -Meth

Dealer and the Army Chaplain, A Marriage Made in Heaven. And if you'd like to join us on the air, our email address is

ChrisArnsen at gmail .com, ChrisArnsen at gmail .com. And I do apologize to Chaplain Schumacher, because before the break

I was cut off when I said Caleb Schumacher, The Ex -Meth Dealer. So I'm hoping that you're not getting court -martialed or something there.

Well, that brings up an interesting point, because when

Jenny came down here, one of the things that I thought about, I don't know how it came to my mind, but how the

Army would look at me as a chaplain with a meth dealer, or a former ex -meth dealer.

Yeah, that's a better way of phrasing it. I actually went to the legal offices at Fort Benning to talk to them about how they would look at it, because I had went online and Googled how they look at your security clearance.

And in the military, security clearances are a big deal, because if you don't, going from a captain to a major especially, the security clearance is a big deal.

And you're in the Army and you had to Google that? Yeah. So I was wondering if I was married to someone who was an ex -convict, how that would look upon myself.

And so I had gone there, talked to them about it, and I was praying about this whole situation.

And the gentleman there, I actually had him talk to Jenny. I actually had her call him up, talk to him about what exactly she had done in the record and all of that.

And I think Jenny really felt overwhelmed with all of that. And so she had tested me.

And then I had a moment when my faith became weak. And I'll be honest, my faith, this whole relationship with Jenny and I is based on faith.

To marry someone after only seeing them for a couple weeks in person, to have a long -distance relationship six months prior, this whole relationship moved all on faith.

But I will say that there were moments when our faith is weak and we question, we have doubts.

And I think whatever it was, I don't know exactly if it was just me in my own flesh or if Satan was trying to get me to scourge me in the area or if it was just wisdom, trying to really think about the future and what it would be like if there would be any restrictions or any of those types of things.

She couldn't travel. That was another thing across Oconus because of that situation that she was in.

So as a chaplain, I would be traveling, possibly, going to Oconus to a base in the future.

And I thought about, well, if she can't come with me, then what would that mean for our marriage?

So all this stuff was in my mind, and I went to the legal office. And one of the things that they told me was that the military looks at, they definitely do look at, she can't have access into a military post by herself.

If she wouldn't have married me, she would have no access. But it was almost as if,

I just got done preaching on the Book of Philemon this past Sunday, and Paul was willing to stick his neck out for Onesimus on behalf of Philemon, who was his owner, and put a good word in for Onesimus to free him.

And he eventually became the pastor at Ephesus, according to some theologians. For me,

I just felt like, hey, my faith and my love, I want to be a protector.

I want to be someone who can shield Jenny from those attacks and from those that want to use her past against her.

And for me, I just looked at it as pure love and pure faith, a kind of faith that would say, hey, by marrying me, you will be granted access to all the privileges, all the rights of being on post and be able to have that ID card and experience all of those benefits that all other spouses are able to enjoy.

And I am going to, by faith in God, regardless of whatever might come down in the future, which within a year after that,

Jenny is pardoned by the state of Alabama. And legally, they have forgiven her.

Wow. And it's another great message of the Gospel that when you live by faith and you put your relationships, agape love, if you look at the word agape love,

I'm sure we all know this, but I'll just say it on this radio show that agape love is based upon sacrifice and it's based upon faith.

And it's not a normal kind of love. It's a love that goes deep. It's the very faith that Jesus laid on the cross for us that all of our sins are imputed to him so that we could have his righteousness.

And in a way, we have to live that every day. And in a way, my marriage to Jenny, our marriage is a picture of that.

It's a perfect picture of what happened there. And I obviously have my own.

We all have our own past. And Jenny, she realized that after she married me that I have some insecurities.

I have some doubts. I have a lot of things I've gone through in my life. Shame and guilt.

But Jenny and I both together, we both shield each other. In fact, I told her every day,

I've been telling her this a lot lately, that if there was one person I would want to go to war with, be my battle buddy in war, it would be

Jenny. That's so sweet. Yes, it is. So I'll stop with that.

I don't know where I was going, but I don't know if anybody has any comments. Well, I just remembered a beautiful scripture verse that love covers a multitude of sins.

And it seems that that is a theme of your marriage, 1

Peter 4 .8. And that's a really precious story that you have.

And I guess we should go, unless you want to follow up with something, Jenny. But before I go to some listener questions, would you like to wrap up something there with that story?

Well, just one thing. You know, you put the commercial on by Charles Spurgeon, a man who never quotes will never be quoted, a man who never reads will never be read.

Charles Spurgeon, of course, is my all -time favorite. I pretty much know when I read his work that it's been regardless of whether I've read the cover or not.

But my grandmother, in the midst of her bringing these sound and good, wise points to me about Caleb, prior to our marriage, she said,

Jenny, I'm going to tell you a good bit of wisdom for you to keep and savor forever. She said, when two people can minister better together than apart, the

Lord will make that union so. And when she said that, I did begin to have a peace in my heart about the whole marriage.

And, you know, because I had that knowing that I had baggage and a history and that he was in the military.

He did have an honorable and noble job. And I have a dishonorable and, you know, very lacking past.

That's something that I'm definitely not too proud of. And I knew that I would also then be attacking that to his name.

So there was a lot. There was a warfare going on between both sides. You know, he expressed that little bit of, let me kind of ask security instead of ask

God. And I was kind of like, do I really want to cause any more damage to somebody?

And I still look at what I had done as a possible curse to someone in the future.

Because I knew the limitations and the restrictions that I had on me. But when he knew all those things and he still chose to take someone like me in, it just touched my heart.

And, you know, God gave him a heart for him. And I had this overwhelming, just like I had this deal for my ministry.

I had this overwhelming urge to be his helpmate for life. I just wanted to help him with everything.

Well, praise God for that. Yes, amen. And so we got some listener questions here.

We have Linda in Hilltop, Texas, who actually has a question for each of you.

And I'll start with Jenny's question. How has the relationship with your family since the

Lord changed you? The Lord has restored every single relationship, including my sister.

She actually forgave me for blowing up her house and destroying her dreams and hopes.

And the Lord worked on her while I was inside. He worked on her heart outside.

That scripture that says the world will fight for you, I truly understood what that meant. The day my sister forgave me because I had written her many, many letters and she never would forgive me or see me.

And it was three years later after silence that she did do that. And the Lord was working the whole time for me.

There is one relationship that is not yet restored, and that is it. But it is a very important one because it is my youngest son.

So I have a relationship with my oldest son. A very good one. He was with us this weekend, but also lives in Montgomery.

So we are separated. But my youngest has yet to come to the point of the desire there and the maturity to want to rekindle that relationship or develop that.

So any of your listeners who want to pray for that, I will definitely take prayer for that one. But besides that, everything is great.

My family is super supportive. They were all present at our wedding. That's where I went to go live when

I got out of prison. So they've been very, very faithful. And especially everybody was,

I'm sure, wondering about your sister's reconciliation with you because it was her house that you blew up. Yes, yes.

She's actually gone and shared her testimony with me on numerous occasions for the last three years.

We have done it over the summer. She's a teacher, of course, so she can't do it during the year. And now we're separated by state.

But she offers a different perspective of the same event to me, someone who was needing forgiveness to seek it out and what that looked like, and then, of course, her having to come to a point of forgiving someone who is undeserving.

So it's really neat when we get to share together. Well, Linda in Hilltop, Texas, also has a question, as I mentioned, for Chaplain Caleb Schumacher.

I would like to know a little of the history of military chaplains and how different it is to be a chaplain in the last few years compared to when you first began.

Obviously, political correctness has changed a lot of things in our world and especially our nation here in the

United States. And I don't want you to feel uncomfortable if there are things that you can't mention as an officer in the military, but if you could comment on that as much as you can.

Well, I'll say that when they talk to us at the chaplain school, they have a wonderful museum down there.

I would invite anyone who wants to learn about the historical aspects of the chaplain, they can go down to that museum.

It's in Fort Jackson, South Carolina. It's the U .S. Army Chaplain School. They have the Navy there.

The Navy chaplains, Army chaplains, all in one school. So everybody is down there.

So that's a great place to go. They have a museum there that shows the history of the chaplains. I walked through it this past summer just to kind of refresh myself as to all of the history of it.

And I will say that throughout the history of the chaplaincy, we go by the word sacred.

And there's an acrostic, you know, that stands for, F, means spiritual, that we are inherently, you know, we stress the spiritual aspects in our ministry.

A is for accountability, that we are accountable to our commands.

We're advisors to them, religious advisors on the morale of our units as well as to the moral.

We are that moral compass that we provide for the commanders for the units. So accountability,

C stands for compassion. You know, I think of Emil Capon, who was a

Medal of Honor recipient, who, you know, sacrificed his life in the

Korean War. He is probably one of my favorites. He was actually a Catholic chaplain.

And his story is amazing, if you ever want to look at it. He basically gave everything he had to the guys that he was in a prisoner of war camp in Korea.

And he gave everything he had to the guys around him. He would sing songs to them to keep their spirits up.

And these guys were going through the hardest of times. And he ended up, you know, paying the ultimate price there.

But he was raising the morale when, you know, everyone had lost hope.

And the chaplain was there keeping everybody, you know, at least keep their spirits going.

Because, you know, when everything is lost, it's the spirit that God puts within us that keeps us going.

And the chaplain appeals to that spirit. And the

R stands for religious leader. And then you got E, which stands for excellence.

And D stands for diversity. And so I think no matter what age that, you know, the chaplaincy is in, you can go look at the four chaplains that gave their life on the

Dorchester, the USS Dorchester. They gave away their life jackets to the people that didn't have any.

And the four chaplains, you know, a Methodist minister, a Catholic minister, they were all a different faith.

I think there was a Reformed and an Orthodox. But all four of them perished together. And that's just a beautiful picture of the chaplaincy that, you know, together, regardless of what faith we represent, we try to minister and instill within our soldiers to encourage their spirits and keep hope alive for them.

That's a beautiful picture of the chaplaincy. So I would say that in recent days where you have this, you know, a lot of these different things coming down that obviously are not taught in the

Scriptures, just to be blunt, to be honest, the Scriptures do not, you know, the gender identity type issues and the marriage issues and all these different things that are coming down.

And, you know, psychology and some of the recent reports, I know the Associated Gospel Churches of which

I represent, they send me articles from some of the leading experts on gender and how those things happen.

And I'm not an expert on it, I imagine, but I know what God's Word says and I appeal to my authority of the

Word of God. The chaplaincy allows us to stand on what we believe.

I compare it to, like, a pyramid. At the top of the pyramid, I can freely exercise my faith in my chapels, in my preaching, and even in my

Bible study. I have the right to freely express my faith. In the middle of the triangle, we're here to provide advisement to our commands and religious support, which could involve more people than our faith group.

And, for instance, for me, having a prayer breakfast, which is a command event,

I could have four different people provide prayers from all different faiths, but I might have a musician come in that is going to, you know,

Amazing Grace, you know, sing that song, the contemporary one, or, you know,

Hallelujah, What a Savior. We have that freedom to bring in musicians that can proclaim the

Gospel. The way I look at it is we allow others to freely practice their faith, which is why the chaplaincy exists.

We are here to make sure people can freely express their faith. If chaplains allow that and provide those opportunities for people to express their voices, then

I, too, can express my voice. And so, for me, it's essential to support multiple faith groups from that point of view, that the moment we stop allowing that, we then prevent ourselves from having a voice.

And so, you know, that's the message I give to my command teams, that every voice needs to be supported.

And so, with that, you could even look at some of the current issues that we have that are here that are actually coming down.

And I would approach them the way Paul would approach them, you know, that I can become all things to all men, that I might win some.

And, you know, Paul didn't back down, and you go to the book of Acts, Paul didn't back down from all these groups that had different religious views, and, in fact, he engaged with them.

And, you know, I currently have this program at Basic Training called Panther Pad. The name of our group is the 247

Infantry Regiment, and our group symbol is the Panthers. But I call it

Panther Pad. P -A -D stands for Planning and Development. And I have all these faith trainees come down on Wednesday nights right before they go to bed, and then about an hour before, and they come from all different faith groups.

And they're down there, and we engage them on topics. The last one I just engaged everybody on was the character of God and the attributes of God.

And, you know, I had Buddhists. I had Hindus down there. I had Jewish. I had, you know, obviously

Christians and Catholics and all different types of people down there engaging in really excellent, you know, discussion.

And, you know, chaplains are on the sphere. We're not running from religious thought or expression or even cultural differences or, you know, whatever

United States of America is choosing to say, hey, this is the way it's going to be, or whatever the

United States chaplaincy, you know, over in the Pentagon is telling us, hey, this is the way it's going to be, and this is what you're going to do as a chaplain to support where the way the

Army is going. Even though that that is coming down, the

Army chaplaincy makes it clear to us that we still have the freedom of expression. And I preach hard.

I preach hard against, you know, what we need to preach for, righteousness. And, you know, but most of all, it's

Christ. You know, it's always been Christ. Christ is the first and forefront of all religious thought for me. And so for me to proclaim

Christ in the Gospel, you know, that's my primary mission in the

Army. And the rest, you know, whatever is going to happen, I think it's actually exciting days.

It's exciting days to be a chaplain in the United States Army. Well, certainly challenging also.

Yes, it's extremely challenging. Some people would say, you know, chaplains, are you—you know, especially me,

I come from a fundamental Baptist, independent, you know, fundamental Baptist background. And, you know, people would say, are you compromising your faith by working with other religious groups?

Are you working in a pluralistic, ecumenical environment? And, you know, proselytizing often comes up, praying in Jesus' name.

It's another topic that has come up recently, and some people have even questioned recently, should chaplains be even praying at, you know, graduations for basic training?

And so, we have to be relevant. We have to give a voice. We have to give a reason for our faith and why we should exist.

And I would say the number one reason that chaplains say that we need to exist is for the freedom of expression of religion in America.

And we're—you know, the amendments that we have currently in our Constitution, some of them are in danger of being taken away.

And as chaplains, we stand on the First Amendment, and that's really why the chaplains exist, the

First Amendment and the Constitution. And we would not exist without that amendment.

So, we have to do both of the things that are in that amendment—provide for the free expression, but also we cannot establish any particular one.

But, in my opinion, I'm here to establish Jesus Christ and a relationship with Him.

And that's really not a religion. That's a relationship. And that flows into anybody from any faith group.

I believe Jesus is the start. And if I can convince them that Jesus Christ is the

Son of God, and I can convince them to trust Him for their salvation, that's the starting point.

And so you basically have no restrictions when you're speaking to your faith group. You could say anything that your heart compels you to preach and teach and proclaim from the

Word of God without restriction, at least at this point in time. Correct.

Yeah, when I'm holding a chapel service, I currently pastor the second -largest chapel program at Fort Benning.

It's called BWC—Protestant Women of the Chapel, believe it or not. They have a chaplain there that leads them in devotions and benedictions every

Thursday. And Jenny is the programs director there. And that is a distinctly, you know, gospel -centered service.

And I open up the Word of God all the time and, you know, speak out of it freely.

And I think the invocations that we give, they do ask us to consider the audience. So, for instance, if I'm giving an invocation at a graduation where—I don't know who is in that audience.

I mean, there could be a thousand people up there listening to an invocation for their graduates. It's very interesting how

I do that. Some chaplains choose to say, you know, in the name of my Savior, I pray.

You know, so they make it personal when they conclude their prayer. I say, in the name of my

Lord and Savior, amen. I will say, in His most holy name,

I pray, amen. And so, in my mind, you know,

I am praying a prayer that has to be sensitive to those that are in that audience.

So you have to exercise some wisdom with that. You know, obviously, when I'm in my chapel at the tip of the triangle, and there's less people, you know, more would agree with what

I believe, I can pray in Jesus' name all I want, and I can, you know, preach the gospel and preach righteousness from the

Bible. So you have to know where you're at. You have to know what your audience is. You have to constantly go by two things.

You're either providing for a particular faith group, or you're performing. It's one of those two.

You're either up there—you're not performing, per se. You know, I'm just saying it's like, performing means that I'm up there doing what

I do based upon what I believe. The providing means I'm being sensitive to the beliefs of those that are around me.

So, if a Buddhist comes up to me and says, Chaplain, do you have a teaching of Buddha?

You know, I provide that for that Buddhist. If, you know—and

I have trainees all the time that come up to me and ask for religious resources that, you know,

I don't endorse. But it's about them, not about me. And so I'm giving that to them.

But if they choose to come to my chapel service, which a lot of them do, you're going to hear what

I think. And so, like I said, it's an academic environment. It's an educational environment.

And may Christ be glorified, you know? If we really believe that Christ is all in all, then we shouldn't be afraid to engage these other faiths.

Because ultimately, they'll see the love of Christ. They'll see that He is supreme. They will see that there's nothing that compares to the love that He gave to us on the cross, and the resurrection.

They will not—they will see that. But they have to see our love. And they have to see our willingness to provide for their needs and what they want.

And that we're sensitive to that. Oh, go ahead. No, no, you can finish, and we have to go to a break after that.

But if you want to finish— I will give you an example of this.

I just recently had a trainee come down and speak to me one -on -one.

And he happens to be someone who is, I would say, more of the

Wiccan type of faith, where he's got his beliefs there.

And I was very sensitive to his needs. I basically counseled him.

I gave him direction that would fit his belief system. And he came to chapel, and he heard me preaching on Philemon.

And just this past Sunday, he came up to me and said, Chaplain, I want to be baptized.

Wow. And this happens all the time. You know, if we show love and we show a sense of sensitivity to what they believe, they in turn will show that sensitivity to what we're saying.

And it's a power of prayer. I always believe that. It's not me. It's God anyway. I pray for that guy.

You know, he leaves my office, and I'm on my knees praying. And God's going to go to work.

It's the love that makes the difference. It's not that we have a superior knowledge or a superior argument to overcome.

It's the love that they're looking at. Does this guy love me? Does this guy care about me? And if they see that, that opens up the door for them to really hear the truth.

And, of course, you could only plant seeds in the water, and it's God that gives the increase. Amen. So we have to go to our final break right now.

So if you'd like to join us on the air, and there still are a couple of people waiting for their questions to be asked, and we thank you again for your patience.

But if you'd like to join us on the air, we have about 23 minutes or so left. So I would email those questions as soon as possible to chrisarnson at gmail .com.

chrisarnson at gmail .com. Don't go away. We're going to be right back after these messages.

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Welcome back, and here's a little special treat. Happy birthday to you.

Happy birthday to you.

Happy birthday, love the Oxford bells.

Happy birthday to you. That was happy birthday to our guest,

Jenny Reese Clark. It's her birthday today, and she actually was willing to carve out a chunk of her day to be on our program today, and I'm very honored by that.

So I hope you enjoyed that. That was the Oxford bells singing happy birthday acapella.

Well, thank you very, very much. I'm honored to have your birthday wish on radio.

That's neat. Now, was I mistaken by interpreting one of your emails that this is the very first time that you two have been interviewed together?

Yes, it is. The very first time Caleb and I have done an interview together.

And so, you know, we were kind of wondering how things would go, but I'm smiling ear to ear because my husband has expressed himself well and really shared a little bit of his heart, which is the whole reason

I fell in love with him, to your audience. So I'm glad to hear what I'm hearing. Amen.

Well, I am honored that this is the first time that you two have been interviewed together. So that's a historic landmark in the history of Iron Trap and Zion, and I'm assuming your ministry as well.

Yes. Yes, sir, it is. I will say that Jenny and I minister together, you know, and it's really an amazing thing.

I just, I'm really awed by how Jenny guides Susan. Jenny, even though she's at PWSD, and, you know, she's always longed to be part of, in a growing body of believers and actually be able to minister to them.

And now we can minister together, and it's just an amazing opportunity for both of us. Amen. Well, praise

God. We have a listener in Mastic Beach, Long Island, New York, and I'm wondering if his question has something to do with the fact that I have had recently a couple of Christian libertarians who have been discussing their point of view on my station, on my program,

I should say, whereby they have basically said that for the

United States government to be having this ongoing war on drugs and, you know, having these recreational drugs outlawed, it actually gives birth to crime.

In fact, many of us who know something about our history, about the prohibition laws that took place in the early 1900s, where alcoholic beverages were outlawed, that is actually what gave birth to the mafia in the

United States. But our listener, Tyler, was basically obviously, primarily,

I guess, asking this of Jenny. When it comes to the U .S.,

is policy on incarceration for illegal drugs a good thing, and what is your opinion on that, and do we as a nation incarcerate more people than needed for minor offenses?

Now, obviously, you could be vehemently opposed to illegal drug use and drug activity and so on, and you could even go as far as saying that this is damnable wickedness, but there's a difference between that and saying that the government should be looming over our heads and trying to correct every bad decision we make as individual citizens and seeking to prevent us from behaving in an evil manner that is self -destructive.

But what is your opinion, if you have one that you care to share, Jenny? And of course, Chaplain Caleb, you could chime in as well if you want to.

Well, first and foremost, if you break the law, there should be consequences. Drug addicts know this prior to choosing to use drugs.

Now, of course, their sanity kind of goes out the window once they become addicted to them. But the way the state and the penal system works as far as consequences for drug crime is the more offenses you have, the more increased your time will be.

What we have happening right now, for example, in the state of Alabama, is an overflow in the prison system and a majority of the crime is drug use.

Now, should someone who has so many possessions or so many drug dealings, dealing, of course, is different than possession, or theft led from a substance abuse or a crime that was charged in accordance with a substance abuse issue.

Now, you are seeing people that are going free on robbing, raping, and murder charges sooner than some of these drug addicts are.

Now, that to me is a problem because they have so many drug offenses.

Obviously, incarcerating them for a long period of time isn't necessarily working. There is a recidivism rate that is phenomenal and out of this world.

So I do think there needs to be something done. But I am not an advocate against refusing to incarcerate addicts.

I think that there is a time in everyone's life that they need to be sat down forcibly if what they're doing is harming themselves and others.

And obviously, I am one to say that God uses an institution to do that. He used it in your life, that's for sure.

He absolutely used an institution to house me and kind of settle me down and get me to that point where at least the fog of the substance abuse would be lifted enough for me to actually receive a message from him and receive good, sound counsel and direction and guidance where I could actually take it, interpret it, digest it, think about it, and then put it into action.

Some people may be quote -unquote sober, but they have what they call dry drunks. You may technically test clean, but there is a healing process from chronic drug use.

I will say it was not the prison. I said this once already on this program.

It was not the prison that rehabilitated me. Do I think that they have some good programs?

Some, I do agree with. Do they have an excellent program?

No, they do not. And they're always open to kind of finding new programs that are worth it.

That's why there is so much counsel and so many different forms and methods of recovery and counseling styles and philosophies and all the positive stuff and all the stuff that you have to go through that they want to offer you.

But like I said, I went to those state rehabs, and I came out and ended up going up the house eight weeks later.

So all their greatest training in the world didn't help me. I think that everybody should have to serve their consequences.

But if you do begin to see that the majority of it is from a substance abuse, we need to have treatment centers that do offer, the word of God, as a reliable method of recovery.

And that is kind of right now I speak for Army programs as well in the military.

And one of the things I explain to them is you cannot offer someone six of seven tools in recovery and expect them to have all the resources when, for me, the seventh was the most important of all.

And the Army likes resiliency. The military likes to bounce back, come back here. They want power.

They want the quickest way to solidify sobriety for their soldiers and for their civilians and families.

And I offer faith -based recovery as a legitimate method of recovery, using the church as your accountability partner.

I think that if the state would put that down as a reasonable approach to recovery,

I think that they would have a greater success on their recidivism as far as substance abuse, chronic users, habitual offenders, those going in the state.

So I definitely think there's some reform that needs to go on there, but it's a process, and it requires lots of money, and it requires so many voices, lobbyists, et cetera, in order to take this place.

And it's going to require more people that have sought Jesus Christ in the midst of their substance to stand up and say, nothing else saves me but Jesus Christ.

My faith set me free. He set me free. And I think until the state hears that loud enough, they will not give a legitimate excuse to that.

And I will say that even the ones that they do condone, such as AANA, they will say something about a higher power, because almost every recovery program that's out there will include the fact that you can't do it by yourself.

So it does require something else. But restricting the something else that someone can get it from.

Like I tell the Army, I have been to rehabs. I've been to halfway houses.

I've been to treatment centers. I've been to prison. I've been to all these things. Nothing was as effective as the church, and nowhere did

I get the same amount of resources that I got at the church. I have a slide that I show in the PowerPoint presentations when

I do these trainings. On the last slide it says, these are all the different things you can find located under one roof, and that is the church, and that is service opportunity, mentorship programs, financial support, ministry, knowledge, education.

I mean, you have these, and the church has been around and established for hundreds of years. So it's not like you need to test, does the church work?

The church works. And so if you want to go to a rehab and think you're going to get necessarily financial support, then some of them, some of them not.

You're going to have to go to a resource center that's going to offer you financial help. If you go to a resource center, you're not necessarily going to get rehab or counseling or an ear -to -listen or service opportunity.

For that, you may need to go to the soup kitchen. At the soup kitchen you're not going to find your faith or mentorship or financial.

But if you go to the church, because God told those folks to love you, because they want to be obedient to his word, they will love you and they will help you.

And then you find a new family. I mean, and you can't find that at every other place here. So that's kind of my answer to that question.

I hope I answered it in a way that, you know, you're kind of seeing where I'm coming from.

Like I said, I think that institutions serve its purpose and there should be consequences for breaking the law, even, you know, for Hillary Clinton.

As far as, you know, her questions in the line that comes there, what does that teach society that, you know, different groups of people with different types of problems shouldn't be punished as greatly as those who have substance abuse or any other kind of issue.

They kind of say, well, this is not that bad and this is bad. But to me, breaking the law is a separate consequence of this period, no matter who you are.

Yeah, well, that was a very thorough answer, I believe. And we have CJ in Lindenhurst, Long Island, New York, who wants to know, it seems apparent that you two have very different personality types.

And was that at all a challenge that you needed to overcome and perhaps still need to cope with?

Or, as the old saying goes, opposites attract. Does this just always maintain a beauty in the relationship that you seem very different from one another?

Jenny, do you want to go? No, I'll let you answer this one, Eddie. Okay, yeah.

You know, we do a lot of Strong Bonds retreats and marriage enrichment courses for our couples in the military.

And one of them we do is Prepare and Enrich. And so Jenny and I, we take these, of course, and we've gone through all this.

And, yeah, so in the Strong Bonds material, there are six colors. Different colors represent different personalities.

And Jenny happens to be the red -orange. Orange being very expressive and just very energetic.

And the red meaning control. The person with the red hat, you know, often control. I happen to be more of a green and blue.

So I tend to be a little bit more laid back, kind of look at a bigger picture type, more of a cerebral type.

You're kidding me, really? I'm shocked by this. Yeah, I'm more reserved. Except for when he does the worms.

So I will say this about our personality. That, you know, it's really more the spiritual giftedness.

And, like, for Jenny, her joy. For me, I came with more grief.

So I kind of look at themes in our lives. And for Jenny, I see this bubbling joy coming out of her life.

And for me, having a lot of grief, it really does minister to me. It helps me to kind of get out of that, that stuck feeling that I'm alone or, you know, she helps me with that.

And also, I think I help her, you know, when I'm talking on a sensitive level, talking about feelings, talking about whatever chaplains do,

I think that ministers to her and helps her slow down a little bit and just enjoy the moment.

So I think we both have those spiritual gifts. I think we both have our themes in our life.

But I think God actually takes those and makes a masterpiece out of it.

So that's all I'll answer. He's getting brownie points. We have

John in Augusta, Maine, who asks, Sorry if you've already answered these questions or brought them up, but I just tuned in recently and I was wondering if your children from previous relationships have now fully accepted your new spouses.

Okay, so I'll start with that. I have a daughter, a 10 -year -old daughter, Brooke. She lives in Wisconsin.

And speaking of personality, her personality is a lot like mine. And so what

I found was that when she first came down, she was, I'll be honest, she was a little jealous. She wanted her daddy.

She didn't want Jenny to have him. It was hers. But I would say through the process of time, what

I learned is kind of step out and let Jenny have time with Brooke. And obviously, being a child, being very busy,

I had her come down here actually when I had to be at work. Most of the time when I saw her,

I was on vacation. So she was down here for a month where I couldn't take off a whole month.

So I had to go away. I had to be away. I had to be at work. And so Jenny had time with Brooke. And I think that proved invaluable because those two actually developed a pretty good relationship together because they share that joy.

They're very bubbly personalities. They're very funny. They like to be funny and express that humor.

And Brooke is, I think that was the best thing I could have done was to kind of just step out of the picture a little bit and let them work on their relationship.

As far as my kiddos, of course, like I had mentioned, Joshua, I yet to have a relationship with him.

So, of course, he does not have a relationship with Caleb. But Gabriel, on the other hand, is a very big intellect, really, really super brilliant kid, magnet program,

AP classes. He's 13 years old. They teach them in math grades and different subjects to go beyond his years.

But being that Caleb was also a former math teacher, their minds kind of process information and strategize kind of in the same way.

They're both logical, but they're reasoners. So that was very appealing to John Gabriel.

Someone, a male figure who could engage him in conversation that was stimulating to him.

And, you know, he was kind of, I will say that John Gabriel and Brooke were both in our wedding.

John Gabriel was Caleb's best man and Brooke was my maid of honor.

Wow. Yes. And that was it. That was who was in the wedding. We gave them each a time a pocket watch on a necklace.

Gave them each that because it was symbolic of the time that is precious to us that we either do or don't have for them and that this is a moment that we would like to keep in time.

We had one made for Joshua. We have to make for each one of them. But since that moment, we've been married.

Matter of fact, my birthday is today, but our one -year anniversary was August 23rd.

So I will say a year later, John Gabriel has absolutely blossomed from, you know, a kid that kind of stayed in the background a little bit, which is kind of Caleb's personality.

He'll stay in the background until it's time for him to express, you know, the word of God or share.

And they really have similar, you know, they're like -minded in that way. And so John Gabriel has become this kid that once was in the corner that is now strategizing two months in advance to play

Francisco with Caleb when he gets to visit again and to play these games.

And it's so precious to me because, you know, he's been through a lot with having me absent from his life for a few years because of the incarceration for roughly around a five -year period

I was just gone. And to see him begin to trust again and to love again, it's just very precious.

So we've had our challenges, but any blended family does. And so we pray about them constantly.

We always pray for our children's salvation and for the growth of their relationships in the Lord, those that have them already.

And so it actually is something that has united Caleb and I and made us grow closer together than apart because it is, again, our hearts for the

Lord that want our children all this way. So it's been a blessing. Well, I want to thank you both for being on the program together today and having a landmark in your own ministry and mine by having this first interview together on Iron Sharpens Iron.

And I want to remind our listeners that if you want more information about this couple and their ministry, you could go to JennyReeseClark .com.

JennyReese, that's R -E -E -S -E, Clark .com. And Clark has no

E at the end, C -L -A -R -K .com. And don't forget that this

Friday we have some more military folks on the program. We have

Staff Sergeant David Carnes joining us to give his testimony on how the

Lord used him to rescue several of the transit police officers that were trapped beneath the rubble of one of the

World Trade Center towers after the infamous attack upon the

World Trade Center on 9 -11 in 2001. And if you want to watch the movie

World Trade Center starring Nicolas Cage and Michael Shannon before Friday, so you'll get an idea of something about Staff Sergeant Carnes, you might want to do that.

And it's available on Netflix, I believe, right now. But I want to thank you both again,

JennyReeseClark and Chaplain Caleb Schumacher. And I hope that you both can come back on Iron Sharpens Iron in some time in the near future.

Look forward to it, Chris. Yes, sir. And I want everybody to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater