JOE'S STORY
Ministry Experience
- I attended Teen Challege in Uk in 2001
I graduated the programme and school of Evangelism in December 2002
- In September 2003 I attended kings Bible college for a One year Mission & Ministry Diploma course and Graduated in July 2004.
November 2004 I worked for Teen Challenge London as a full time Evangelist for 2 years.
Establishing Teams from churches in London and equip to reach our too people with Addictions and link them with rehab side of ministry!
January 2006 I went on my first mission to kenya and moved to kenya September 2006! I Married my wife Monica in January 2007 in kenya.
I set up a Orphanage in Kenya with my wife
I established and Registered a Ministry and charity called Restoring Life Ministers before I left for kenya in September 2006.
The lord called us back to uk January 2008.
I have travelled to over 20 nations raising up leaders in the nations and planted 10 churches
Trained and Equipped thousands of churches and leaders from youth conference to youth camps to Pastors and leaders conference to open air crusades.
Teaching disciples basic kingdom principles of Evangelism:
How to share your faith
How to led someone to Jesus
How to pray for healing
How to move in the gifts of the Holy Spirit !I have written a teaching Manuel called Equipped to be effective. I used this for Evangelism and Leadership Training
I have had the wonderful privilege of personally leading thousands to Christ over the last 15 years and my heart is to see the church equipped to function in the gifts and callings in the body of Christ in the nations of the world!
We have moved from the North East of England In Middlesbrough to Ruslip in North West London on 25th of July 2020 to work with an AOG church in Wembley!
This is a verse that has been the foundation of the ministry the lord has given me over the past 15 years!
Many thanks love Joe Monica Family
““Look among the nations and watch— Be utterly astounded! For I will work a work in your days Which you would not believe, though it were told you.”
Habakkuk 1:5 NKJV
My name is Paul Joseph Shepherdson from Middlesbrough in England. This is my Testimony to the Glory of God.
I was born in Middlesbrough. I am 58 years of age and have 5 sisters and one brother. I was brought up in a council estate. My father was a heavy drinker and a gambler. I remember when I was around 8 years of age on a Friday night my father had been drinking and was drunk and he came in and started to argue with my Mum. I saw him pick a poker from the coal fire and hit her on the head. Her head was bleeding and the neighbours called the police and ambulance. My father used to swear all the time. He never said anything good to me. When I was 10 years old, at school a lad who was the best fighter in the school kicked my legs playing football. I ended up beating him up and from this day I started to have a reputation.
I started to smoke cannabis when I was 11 years old and first went to court for criminal damage. My first day in secondary school I got sent home for fighting. From 11 to 16, at home my father got worse with me and my Mam and family where I ended up fighting with my father when he would hit my mother. I was thrown out of school twice and was only let back in to finish Exams which I failed. I left school with no qualifications. I started to go to all night northern souls dancing where I took speed to dance all night. When I was 18 years old, by this time I was a football hooligan with Middlesbrough Frontline. One Saturday morning when I was going to QPR up early to go, my Mum had a fall outside at 5am in the morning putting cloths on the line before she went to work. She slipped and fell and broke her Ankle in three places.
I started to argue and fight with my Father as he was more concerned about putting bets on and drinking! My Mum told me to go to London to the football match. When I came back I went to visit my Mum. she said; your Dad has said if I don’t leave the house he will kill me! Shortly after I left home I started to shop lift and was drinking and at night clubs 4 or 5 nights a week. When I was 19 years old I did my first prison sentence for punching a man in the eye with a half pint glass was drinking. My first day in prison I was put in the block for fighting, I lost 7 days. When I got out I was seeing a lady and she had a baby boy Joel a year later, but when she was pregnant I was in prison for Police assaults. I was smoking cannabis using a page from the Bible. I went to church in prison and there was a Bible in my cell, but it didn’t mean anything.
For the next 14 years my life was controlled by alcohol and drugs and violence. I had another child, but my relationships with my son’s Mum was the same as my Mother’s was with my Dad. I didn’t know how to love and to receive love. I was a thief who couldn’t go in to any shop with out stealing. I was a football Hooligan with Middlesbrough Frontline from the age of 18 and was the first person to every get a prison sentence for a breach of the peace. I followed my team home and away games fighting for over 17 years. I became a Ticket Tout and I thought that travelling all over Europe which I did and the world and having loads of money would change my life.
It made it even worse, but I was addicted to drink and drugs and even the love of money. In December 1998 after months of splitting up with my partner and a court order to stay away from her and my kids. I had enough of pain and life and wanted to end my life and took a overdose of Sleeping tablets my sister found me unconscious and was taken to hospital and end up in a metal hospital. This went on in and out of the hospital for two years. I became addicted to crack cocaine and heroin I overdosed twice and was taken to hospital.
In December 2000 I was sectioned in a mental hospital and while in there I met a lady and we got talking and she started to tell me about Jesus. He could help me and she said these words to me ‘ Jesus can set you FREE “. She asked to take me to the Chaplin to pray for me. The Chaplain prayed for me and I was discharged the next day. I have never been back since to that hospital. I never saw the women either. On the same week I met another lady who worked with the local prostitutes and Teen Challenge she told me about the programme . On 18th of March 2001 in Thorntree Apostolic church, with Teen Challege taking the service, I made a commitment to follow Jesus. At the end of May 2001 I went in to Teen Challenge Rehab Centre.
I didn’t know Jesus and didn’t know is His voice and thought the people were more mental than I was. On the 5th of January 2001 in Teen Challenge London I had an encounter with the Lord that changed my life forever. We were praying and the Presence of the Lord filled the room and all of us 7 in total and one staff member. We couldn’t stop laughing for 3 hours. I was sat on a chair and couldn’t get up, because the Presence of the Lord was so strong upon me. I had a open vision and I was under a water fall drinking the water and saw a man stood next to me and I knew it was Jesus. I knew then that Jesus had called me for something greater and I wanted to know what. I was baptised with the gift of tongues. The next day all I wanted was more of Jesus. I ended up in Wales Teen challenge where I finished the programme then I did a 12 week school of Evangelism.
After Teen Challenge I ended up going to Bible college in Oxford for a year then I went to work as a Full time Evangelist for Teen Challenge London. In 2005 I was asked to go to Kenya for a Mission as I started to do a few Missions in Europe, but thought Kenya was not for me. My friend from Kenya who was at the same church as me asked me on three occasions and was to meet him the next day to pray, but 5.30am in the morning the lord spoke Jeremiah 1v5 to me and told me GO this is your destiny. Two weeks later I was in Kenya. On my second visit to Kenya I met Monica, who is my wife now of 13 years. She was a gospel singer and I was the preacher at a open air crusade. (She set her eyes on me once).
I moved to Kenya 29th of September 2006. We were married on 20th of January 2007. The amazing thing the lord told me was to open one of the houses I was renting as a orphanage so we had 12 children when we got married. We had open air crusades and Leadership conferences all over Kenya and we saw Thousands come to the lord and many people rose up as leaders in the church. We lived in Kenya for two years. Then the lord told us to move to London in the UK. In the past 15 years I have travelled to over 20 nations to preach the gospel. We have planted churches in East Africa and seen thousands come to the Lord. In 2019 I travelled to 12 nations and was away on mission over 5 months.
I would like now to share a few Challenges I have faced in the last 13 years. I shared about my Father how he was with all my family. In 2007 whilst visiting the UK with Monica we were there for 6 weeks with 4 days left to go back to Kenya we found out my wife was pregnant on the morning. In the evening we got a phone call my Mum had a heart attack and died on a boat trip in Turkey. We stayed in the UK three more weeks. On the day of my Mother’s funeral my wife Monica started to bleed. We went to the hospital and we were asked to go back three days later. The next day I visited my Father who was told he couldn’t go to the funeral, because some of my sisters didn’t want him to. So I told him why and wanted to know what he had done to my Mum and myself and the rest of my family.
I told him I have forgiven you through Jesus who helped me, but my sisters can’t. It’s only God who can forgive you and we led him in a prayer of forgiveness and we led him to the lord in a prayer of salvation. In May 2016 at 4am in the morning I got a phone call from my sister. My Dad had a heart attack and I was to go to the hospital. I went straight in to the hospital all my family crying straight to where my Dad was. All the doctors around the bed. I told them I am the son of my father and the Pastor of this family and I would like to do what I am called to do. The doctor said what is that? I said lay hands on the sick and pray for healing, so I did.
The next day my Father went in to a coma. We all, the family, had a meeting with the doctors who told us that the arteries in my Dads heart were blocked and he needed a three hours operation and that there would only be a 15% change of my Dad living. I stood up in the room and told the doctors and all my family, Jesus has told me my Father will walk out of this hospital completely healed and you will see it. The next day, I left for a mission to New York as the Lord told me to GO. I arrived in New York on the Friday and on the Saturday my Dad came out of the coma and on the Monday my Dad walked out of the hospital discharged and completely healed.
God is a God of Restoration and his heart is to Restore Families. The Lord gave me a Ministry in 2007 called Restoring Life Ministries. He has restored all my family and used me to bring 7 of them to the lord including my Mum and Dad. I have baptised in water my two sisters and the past 4 years I have been living back near my hometown where I have seen the Lord move in my family and heal my sister of cancer. I have faced many challenges and wanted to give up at times, but I could never because he saved a sinner like me and if he can save me Jesus can save anyone .
“Now all things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation, that is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation.”
II Corinthians 5:18-19 NKJV