You're listening to the Truth Network and TruthNetwork.com. This is the United States Champion. My first one. Ladies and gentlemen, the following contest is set for one long. Introducing first from Lithuania, he weighs 123 kilos, the Russian nightmare, the kita!
Cool.
Now the devil's nightmare. Welcome back to another episode of It's Time to Man Up.
So, I have a question for you. If you. We were born with a birth defect, something beyond your own control. How would you handle that? Like, how would you navigate life?
And with me today, I've got a phenomenal story of a man who has spent. 60 plus years having to navigate that very thing with me today. Mark Harrelson, welcome to the Man Up Show, Mark. Mm-hmm.
Well, it's great to have you with us today and excited to have you and share your story. You know, we just, of course, we met just a while back down there in the great the great Peach State of Georgia, right? And then more more recently, we got to spend several days together. At Man Camp, and we'll share a little bit of that story maybe a little bit later. But, you know, I find it fascinating, Mark, even as we got to spend those days together and you were sharing some of your story there, how you have, even looking at, I know you got kind of a bio out there, you know, talking about the medication that was given to your mom that caused the birth defect during pregnancy.
And you went through some very difficult, challenging times. And 21 hand operations as a child? Yes, sir. From thir I have my first finger transplant at University of North Carolina and Uh, at 13 months old, and I had my last hand surgery at 13 years old and 21. 21 of them during those years.
21 surgeries on your hand from 13 months old to age 13. And so what give a little backstory here for our listeners as to what happened. And so they could just kind of, in other words, paint a kind of a mental picture for us, if you would.
Okay, well uh They had developed a drug called thalidomide for morning sickness, and it came out of Germany on the hills of the concentration camps. Uh one of ju one of Hitler's uh scientists that worked in the camps. I went to secular work and developed this drug and there was no testing done on it. Because the mentality of the Scientists, and most people in that days that came out of that learned behavior of just Introduce something that all the studies and the trials they were doing on or they were. Victimizing people in concentration camps and just doing things to them.
So they carried that. same mentality didn't didn't do any testing and just passed it out around the world and It came into the US through military and sample packets and The rest is history. Uh babies were starting to be born. with major birth defects and a lady Her name was Francie Kelcey. She was in the FDA and she stopped it from being uh approved for uh distribution in the U.
S. and She saved tons of lives and Of course, most of the American people don't even know this part of history even happened. But so for you more specifically then, so like what What was obviously 21 surgeries on your hands? For you, it was birth defect with your hands.
So what happened in that regard for you? I was born. I was born with no thumbs. And clubbed hands and On one hand, it was uh My fingers were uh weave together. And I went to UNC and they did finger transplants.
So, what they did was they took my index finger off. in nineteen sixty three, so that cut an edge. And uh reattached it in place of where my thumb should have been and So the surgeries, the twenty one surgeries were a lot of adjustments Uh and getting all the muscles and tendons working right and then some skin grass to fill the holes up and Um Um that's about it, but It changed my life. I mean, it gave me a life of being able to see the world around me different than most. And I'm just extremely thankful.
You know, it's kind of a weird thing to say, but I'm extremely thankful that. I was able to live through it and had that experience That's all I know, but it definitely gave me a wind of being able to see life at a different perspective and then to minister to people today in that different perspective. And we'll uh yeah, and I I want to certainly get to that. And so just a clear perspective there.
So I mean, I can't imagine. It's kind of interesting. I was just actually just listening, ironically, in the Bible the other day, where it was talking about, and I forget the exact story now. There was a king that had been cutting off the thumbs and the big toes of people. And in kind, and in turn, you might say, when he got captured, it ended up happening to him.
And as I'm listening to that story in the Bible and even listening to your story today, you know, I'm thinking now, you know, without a trying to navigate without a thumb, you know, even just pick up a glass to drink a glass of water or just all the things we just kind of take for granted or don't even really even think about. You know, like I'm picking up an ink pen right now to make a couple notes as you're talking and to think of the role that that thumb plays in holding the ink pen.
Something as simple as that. You know, that I don't think, like you said, sometimes we. You know, we really give credence to. We just kind of roll along, you know, as it is.
So, so 21 surgeons. But I would, Nikita, I would like to share what it did to the family.
Well, I was gonna yeah, that was actually that was gonna be my next question actually, because I know I know it brought a lot of trauma and and and even shame and guilt, right? And with it. Oh, absolutely. It was rampant. Uh and trying to be a baby and a young man and a grown adult navigating that world.
With family. You know, that's that it blew us apart, mother and daddy. went at odds because we did they didn't have anything to To prepare for. You know, they thought they were just having a baby, and this baby comes out with a major deformity. blame game started and uh it blew our family apart, you know, and uh Kinda left me in the dust.
And You know, so I had to kind of raise myself. And you hit emotional abandonment, mental abandonment, physical abandonment. All that stuff was real. Yeah, I would imagine so it It it blows up it within the fam now, and siblings? Were there siblings?
Do you have siblings or you weren't an old child? I had two older brothers and uh just to throw it out there, my brother had told me later in life that he had resented me since I was born because I took his mother from him. Mm. Mm. So, you just all that kind of underlying stuff that we kind of have as people, it was real in my life.
Uh it it taught me a lot about The family. and family in general, you know, just how we show the world we are, but how things are in in the home life.
Well, and there's so many different So many different things, right, that can derail the family unit. And this just being one example of that. And, of course, you use the phrase, the blame game. I'm reminded all the way back to the Garden of Eden, right? When God confronts Adam and Eve on their sin and what they did.
And, of course, Adam immediately blames the wife, and then the wife blames the serpent.
So that blame game has been going on a long, long time, right? Absolutely. Unfortunately.
Now, our. Are you so do you have any kind of relationship with the family, or what kind of relationship do you have? Everybody's passed on, but my middle brother. And we're better than we've but we're better than we've ever been.
Now, was the middle brother the one that had the resentment or the oldest brother? No, no, the middle brother. Oh, the one that's still living. Yes, yes. The other one has its own.
Everybody's got their own scenario. because mother and daddy had a lot of of stuff going on prior to me.
So that was just really the nail in the coffin. Um I was born in a very dysfunctional family.
So that story, that relationship with your middle brother's been reconciled, and you know, you use the. The word dysfunction, I think about, well, I think about my own family unit, my own family situation, and just in general, I think when I finished reading the book of Genesis more recently, when I read about or looked at all of the dysfunction in, again, going back really since the start of time, you know, as much as things change, some things remain the same, right? And. And just, I think any one of us could point to or say, you know, to some level. Or to some degree, there's maybe dysfunction in every single family.
It just depends on how dramatic it is, right?
Now, Mark, I would imagine, too, so obviously you talked about the family dynamics and what was going on within it. I gotta imagine, you know, you go to school, elementary school, junior high, high school. I gotta imagine, man, you. That was difficult. That situation at school, you know, kids can be real mean, right?
Even if you don't have birth defects, they can be real mean. You're listening to the Truth Network and TruthNetwork.com. Mm-hmm.
If you would like to support Kolaff for Christ Ministries, for a gift of $25, Nikita will send you his two CDs, Adoration and Declaration. For a gift of $50, Nikita will include his book, Wrestling with Success. And for a gift of $100 or more, Nikita will include a signed copy of his newly updated life story, A Tale of the Ring and Redemption. Go to www.colloff.net and donate today. The Man Up Show is honored to have Dr.
Johnny Gayton as one of our longest-running supportive sponsors. Dr. Gayton is regarded as one of the world's leading elite eye surgeons. He is motivated by his faith in doing all things heartily as unto the Lord. His desire to do his best has contributed to success in his eye care practice, performing over 70,000 eye surgeries.
In addition, he's a world-renowned speaker, writer, and author. Go to iAssociates.com for more information. Would your company, business, or you personally like to partner with me in supporting Koloff for Christ Ministries, The Man-Up Show, and Man-Up Minutes? Go to Koloff.net and click the donate button. You can give monthly, annually, or one time.
God bless you for making a difference around the world. You're listening to the Truth Network and TruthNetwork.com. The good thing the thing that I experienced, Nikita, was I got the other side of that because I could hide my hands, but I had such a personality. That you know, in the elementary school, that's one thing, but when you get into junior high and high school, They look beyond that. Most people do.
You just get the stares from people that don't know you or. See you for the first time. Uh and That's kind of uh I have been accepted by all my peers. Uh and I I I excelled in sports when I was released by the uh uh doctors to just go on and continue life and I went to state competition in mechanic and in high school and played soccer. played football and I couldn't couldn't manipulate my hands to play baseball but Soccer was my sport.
Uh the company didn't have to work uh rely on my hands.
So you've been in I I didn't experience that rejection. as much as a lot of people do, you know, because there's like twenty thousand babies born. born to this kind of birth defect. I gotcha. Which is good news.
So you were able to kind of navigate those waters and feel a little more acceptance there, which is amazing. And I know you've turned all of this story really into a testimony. And as you've taken your own journey that brought you, I think at the age of 19, right? You gave your life to Christ at the age of 19. Correct.
And as some do, right, there's some drifting there. But you you about twenty plus years ago, you got really focused on your relationship with Christ and that's turned into an opportunity to minister to others now, right?
Well, see, I need to back up a minute. And when I was twenty f uh seven I got diagnosed with stage three colon cancer and I had to take a year of chemo. They couldn't tell me anything. And me and God got real then. In that hospital, because they took me in the afternoon and said, You've got advanced colon cancer, you're going straight to the hospital.
I just couldn't go to the bathroom and And then next thing I know, I'm in the hospital being cut on. uh with no prognosis. And those three days of laying there and thinking and all that kind of trying to process what just happened. I willed and dealt with God. You know, I wanted to feel like I've achieved something on my own and And that really kind of was a stepping stone and But I could not let go of what I had conformed into.
Does that make sense?
Okay. Through life. You know, I've had all this trauma and had all this learned behavior, peer groups, and I couldn't let that go to that level of total transformation like I do now. Yeah. I really struggled with that.
I really didn't understand it. Didn't even think about it. Uh then I had uh 2019, I diagnosed with four spots on my lungs, and they put me in a cancer treatment center. in Noon and they were already tried a biopsy, but they were going to do an open lung. And the night before, I told my wife that I've been healed, and I told them they weren't going to cut on me, give me six months.
They said, Okay, your call and six months later I went back and uh they pulled the pictures up and said that You have no indication of any kind of spots. Your lungs are crystal clear, and whatever you're doing, keep doing it. And I just gave the praise to the Lord. But what really changed my life from a surrender point of view was because I was progressing towards him. But I've still struggled with the lack of understanding and commitment, all the things that most of us struggle with.
But when in 2003 I got, uh, struck by that lightning. And when that happened, I walked away from everything and started. Seeking what he was doing, how he was doing it, why he was doing it, and that was when the transformation started in a mighty way of uh really thinking about what I had been birthed into, turned into as a child. I revisited a lot of that stuff, the trauma and the kind of the understanding. And then the passion was set in my heart to Because the Lord revealed to me is a lot of us are stuck in that world.
And uh so I've led three men's group and Uh Today, I just totally seek out Romans 12:2 and the conforming, do not conform to the patterns of the world. Just that right there is a life-changing event if you just really allow the Holy Spirit to speak into the conforming in a person's life.
Well, and and and speaking of life changing Events, you know, I hear that expression quite often for men who attend our man camp. And let me just kind of transition over into you taking a few minutes, couple minutes, you know, whatever God puts on your heart, I'm talking about your experience in coming to man camp, speaking of life-changing events and transformation.
Well, what was that experience like for you? Oh, Nikita, that was wonderful. You know, I never realized what the Lord was up to because I shared some of my story about uh the lady I'm dating, uh and I felt like that, oh man, I can go help some guys and kind of get meet meet up with Nikita and work on this transformation and help people. And then then I get there And what was so powerful in that was the Uh maximizing manhood, right? Yep.
And spending to I've done retreats, but what was really caught me caught me in this man up. uh manicamp was The one-on-one time you have with the Lord and yourself, and you're out in the woods, and you're alone, and And a lot of the stuff A lot of it gave me perspective and gave me time to listen to the Lord and listen to this and listen to that. You know, I my takeaway was just liberation. I mean, freeing is it's I've worked on an awful lot, but it just settled some stuff in my spirit. that I had been not really working on, but I he clearly made it a Something I need to work on and think about it and do a paradigm shift in my mind and let him have it and all that stuff.
So I've been practicing that and I just let him have it, but it freed me. It freed me from so much bondage and Even today, you know, some three weeks, four weeks later, I'm just like I was there.
So, so what's Mark? What's funny is, you know, when you said the expression, oh, yeah, I can go to this camp, go help some guys. Man, you're not the first one, you won't be the last guy to think that, like, man, I'm good. I'm good. You know, I don't even know why I'm even going to this camp.
I don't need it. You know, I'm in a good place. And then you get there. And like you said, when you're in that setting and you draw away from all of life's distractions, right? You just set all that aside.
And man, God can then go, okay, let's talk heart to heart here. Let's have a heart-to-heart come to Jesus moment and talk about some things you need to work on, not who you can help, right? And then by working on those things that he reveals, as you said, putting into perspective and having the time to really focus. On your relationship with him in that setting, then you can go home and then really help some guys, right? Which is which it has changed everything in my home.
I mean, I've had four or five people come up to me recently want me to work with them. Come on. And I've been in. Come on. It is amazing what a little bit of thought life.
ha a little bit of change of a thought life can impact, uh the people around you because I re what I received there has has been such a Uh geom. For me.
Well, take away. And I'll say it's the strong, it's the biggest thing that's ever happened in my life in a retreat setting or a man setting where men come together. Very in Passover.
So i incredibly impactful for you. Correct. And do you feel like it's beyond measure because it not only impacted me, it impacted somebody that's very special to me.
Well, and on that. Yeah, yeah, who I got to meet recently and a charming young lady, and what's amazing, and just, you know. You know, to ask her a couple of questions in front of you and see her response is always encouraging to me to know that our camps are having a positive effects on men's lives, but also on the relationships around them. And would you say, Mark, that perhaps you came away too with uh or or or maybe I asked the question, did God give you kind of more clarity and and of strategy and a plan and and and focus on what to do when you went back home? Oh, well I yeah, I had things in my way.
I had a lot like my issue with one of my issues with idolatry and uh everything that I valued because you know, if you after sharing my little bit of my life with you here, I've lost so much. I lost my family, I lost went through a divorce, lost material things and everything I'll hold on to all I can. But when I left that camp I came home willing to let everything go. Hmm. Which is one of the keys.
And one of the reasons too, like guys who come, they go, well, I wasn't told a whole lot about it. And that's for a reason. As you can attest, it's a different experience for every single guy. And so we don't want to build any kind of false expectations.
So we just tell guys, hey, go home, let guys see the changes in you, and then just encourage them to go experience camp for yourself because you're probably going to have or could have a completely different experience than I had. And so we don't want to build any false hopes or false expectations, right? And so. That's powerful. That's powerful.
Now, we just got a couple of minutes left, but I know you've been you know, so you're working on what what I guess you would call developing a continual lifestyle of transformation.
So you said several men have already approached you.
So that's something that you're now focused on, helping other men overcome just challenges in general in their life? That'd be fair to say. It could be anything. It could be just standing with them, come alongside them, and just stand with them and support them, encourage them. and just be a a lending ear and listen.
And then, if I have the opportunity to plant a seed, I plant a seed, but one thing I don't do is walk away. I stayed committed to 'em and uh Uh and always will be until I leave this place.
Well, that's that's because that's the th that's the biggest thing that I see is uh A lot of peo a lot of people are wanting help. They're needing help and everything we deal with is a spiritual battle, it's not Is not some of this stuff that we buy into in this world we live into.
Well, and I know I'm just I'm I'm just looking at what what what you sent me here. Are you struggling with negative thoughts and emotions when things just don't make sense? Do you feel like a failure, inadequate, confused? Have you felt useless, worthless, struggling to understand what life can What life throws at you, ready to experience a transformation? If somebody wanted to reach out and get in touch with you, is there a way to do is there Facebook, email?
How would they do that? They they they would uh they could go to the church, the Leaders' Church, uh in in Douglasville, Georgia. And look at the website and sign up. Since the church supports me, With this ministry, I shovel, I push everything through the church. But it's it's for numbers and for them to know and for them to follow up.
But They can get my name, number. I'll be more than I don't know how I'd get it out there to them, but there's nothing other than the church website. I got you. And word of mouth. Leaders Church.
Work of mouth. Word of mouth. And Leaders Church in Douglasville, Georgia.
Well, at very least, for you out there in listening land, I want to encourage you to. Just as the Lord drops the name Mark, Haroldson on your heart, you know, pray for Mark that He has many opportunities to help others get healed or set free or release things and struggles and difficulties in their own life. What a story of transformation. But, Lord, Mark, I wrote down overcomer. Overcome, man, you are an overcomer from.
Starting from the birth defects to overcoming cancer, not once, but twice. We didn't even dive into the being struck by lightning. That's a whole nother story for another time. But. Just all the things you've been through, Mark.
It's amazing. Your story is amazing. I really believe believe there are some great opportunities for you forthcoming here in the near future that you're going to help a lot of people. Amen. Amen.
I'm just trying to be obedient and wait on his timing and not mine and get in the way.
Well, and I think you just nailed it on the head.
Sometimes we try to get out front, or we can get out front of God, right? We're like, God, I see where I'm going. I see where you got me going. I got it. I'll take it from here.
And then forge ahead only to get ahead of Him, right? And not have the patience to wait for Him to open up the right doors. And so. Mark Harrelson, incredible story. I appreciate the Lord crossing our paths.
I'm glad you had such an incredible experience at Man Camp as well. Yeah, I'll be forever thankful for that. And thank you for putting it together and it being a passion on you. your heart and allowing the Holy Spirit to helped build it and All the people you're affecting, and thank you for just being obedient and affecting me like it did. I appreciate it.
Mark Harrelson Leaders Church, Douglasville, Georgia. If you'd like to reach out and connect or keep Mark on Beaumar Road. Beaumar Road. On Beaumar Road. And so, all right.
And to each and every one of you, how faithful you are every week to tune in and dial in and spread the word on the Man Up Show each and every week. We try to bring you some fascinating stories. Hope Mark's story has blessed you today. Until next time, I challenge you to go out today and just be salt and light and just have a God-filled and live a God-blessed day. This podcast is made possible by the grace of God.
And your faithful prayers, support, and generous gifts. May God bless you for your continual contributions. Go to kolof.net and donate. Good day. If you are enjoying the Man Up Show, would you help us spread the word?
Tell your family, tell your friends, tell your neighbors to download, subscribe, and leave a comment. Hi, Nikita Koloff. Be sure to check out the Man Up Show now available on television, broadcast, and podcast. Go to MorningStarTV.com or the Truth Radio Network. Check out your local listings, or better yet, Download the Truth Network app today.
Nikita Koloff here. If you're needing to buy a car and have marginal credit and considering using buy here pay here, that's worse than taking the Russian sickle. Winston-Salem motor cars will put you behind the wheel of a car you can rely on while helping rebuild, repair, or establish your credit score. Conveniently located on Silas Creek Parkway in Winston-Salem, be sure to check them out today at WSMCthenumberone.com because you are number one. This is the Truth Network.
Yeah.
