No One Forgotten

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Introducing first, from Lithuania, he weighs 123 kilos, the Russian nightmare, Nikita Kolov! Now, the Devil's Nightmare. Welcome back to another episode of It's Time to Man Up. You know, whenever I have somebody in the studio that I regard or respect, like the man sitting in front of me, Bill Russell, welcome to the Man Up show. Thank you for allowing me to be here. I feel blessed. Well, great to have you here. And we were just saying before we came on air that we were scheduled to have you in earlier, but you ran into, I guess you'd say, a bit of a health scare, but you've overcome that. We got you rescheduled, and I'm just thrilled to have you here. That you're still with us.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm excited, man. I've been excited ever since we talked in the concourse at the church. You invited me.

I feel honored. So speaking of the church, of course what we're referring to or referencing is the refuge church down in Kannapolis, North Carolina. My home church. I'm not there too often, Bill. You probably recognize that. Yeah, we recognize it. I used to frequent it more often, but the Lord has had me out and about on most weekends, and so I get to make an occasional appearance at the refuge. But you're on staff there with the refuge. Of course, I've had many others, Pastor Nathan, I've had on the Man Up show, Pastor Derek, and of course, Lead Pastor Jay Stewart, who actually this very afternoon, I'll have my monthly meeting with him.

Really? Yeah, we meet together. We've been doing that for years where we just meet together from an accountability standpoint. Obviously, he's been my pastor for 30 years now. That's great.

Wow. Yeah, a long time. And so we have just started that a number of years ago, just meeting on a monthly basis, being able to hold each other accountable. I call him my battle buddy. So he's my pastor, but he's my battle buddy. He's my friend. I know he's a good one too. I'm sure he is. He's a good one, right? And of course, the refuge there in Kannapolis has made quite an impact really on that community, Concord Kannapolis area.

And it's an interesting story when he launched it back in 2004. I guess you probably... In my old gym building, did you know that? Oh yeah, I started. I met you in the gym building before the refuge started. Before it was a church? Yeah, before it was a church, yeah. Were you a member of my gym? Yeah.

How did I not remember that or not know that? I was afraid when I first met you, so... Oh my gosh. Come on.

I'm meeting Nikita Kolov. I couldn't believe it. I couldn't believe it.

So did you grow up in North Carolina there? Give us a little backstory. I know your beautiful bride is here with you. I'm going to throw her under the bus.

We couldn't get her on air. But she's here in support of your interviews today. So give us a little backstory about Bill Russell. Tell us about her, your family, and that sort of thing.

That sort of thing. Well, I'm originally from Concord. I went to school and college there and had two great parents who loved me.

I had a great, great upbringing. I was in church. I won't go to that part, but I was in a church. Okay.

Yeah. But the Lord blessed me and blessed me. And when I was about 11, 12 years old, I won't forget, I was, I loved church and I would be, we had a stoop on the front of the house and I would go out on the stoop and I would pretend that I was preaching. Really? And leading the choir.

It was just me and my imagination. And from that point, I always knew that my calling was something like that. Not the priest, but to lead people that way. Be involved in ministry in some capacity. Exactly.

Exactly. And so I grew up and went to, like I said, I went to college and after college, living in Concord, I took a job that sent me to New York City. And was I afraid? Big Apple.

I was afraid. But I had been to New York several times. Anyway, I went to New York. I was hired by this company and they say, well, you go.

I say, yeah, you pay me, I'll go. And so I went and my wife worked for that company. And that's where we met. Okay. So you see, so you work related, how the two of you met.

That's how we met. Okay. How many years ago was that? 47 years ago.

Come on. So 47 years ago you met or 47 years you've been married? 47 years ago we met.

46 years married. Wow. So you just dated for about a year, did take love. You knew. You knew that you knew. Exactly. So the Lord brought the princess bride into your life.

Yes, he did. And he blessed me and Nikita cause I was, I was, I, well, let's say that, put it this way. I had like one foot in the church and one foot out. Okay. I'll admit that.

Yeah, sure. And so she got kind of helped me get both feet. She lit a fire on you. She was already obviously loving the Lord herself and very involved and engaged in church.

More or less she said, hey Bill, if you're going to marry me, you're going to, you're going to ramp up your, your relationship with the Lord here. Get more serious about it. Exactly. And the funny thing about it, I had always, I took music when I was young, so I always played keyboards in church. Okay.

I was an old school musician, piano, organ, you know, these new stuff I'm not too good on. All the new technology. All the new technology. I'm with you. Yeah. And so I always did that. And that also helped keep me attached to the church, my parents. And because I played, I always played, always, always. Kept you plugged in.

Kept me plugged in at some church somewhere. So, so I, I mean, obviously piano, organ, that sort of thing. So you, you, did you take lessons, any ideas? I did. I took four years of lessons. Okay. And then for some reason, I don't, I don't even remember why I stopped.

I really regret that I stopped, but you know, I can play a little bit. I was going to say, you can, you can probably, is it kind of like riding a bike where you sit down at the keys and boom, you can just, and I'm guessing what, like, like my son-in-law has been teaching one of my, my grandchildren. He's eight or nine years old. Every time I go visit, he's got a new song. He just, he just jumps up. And then, and then what's interesting is he has showed one of my other grandsons, one of my other daughters who's only five or six, and he'll go over to piano and just start playing. And, and because of his, because his cousin kind of encouraged him, he's just on his own without any lessons. And he's, he's pretty good.

I have to say, you know, I don't have the greatest ear for music, but yeah, pretty, pretty amazing. So, okay. So she gets you in, in, in, in church, you're, you guys are growing in your faith and families start, start having children or? We didn't have our own children. Okay. Okay. I had a daughter previously, previous relationship, but we didn't, it just didn't let that happen. Okay.

It just didn't happen. But, but you, so the, the other daughter, was she a part of your life? Oh man, is she?

Is she? Wow. And my wife accepts her as, as her own. Come on.

It's just a great, it's great. Okay. I couldn't, the Lord could not have, I mean, I'm just a part, I'm just surprised at how, how it worked out because the way I acted, it should not have worked out that way. Okay. But it did.

But it did. God and his grace and mercy. And you know, it's, so it's interesting here a little bit that, that, that story. So I've got, currently I've got 11 grandchildren. My youngest daughter, Colby, and her husband, Andrew, it looks like they are not going to be able to have children. But good news is they prayed, once that, the reality of that set in, they, they have been praying diligently and have a great church family surrounding them. And just recently shared with me that they'll start the adoption process.

How about that? And yeah, and go down that path of adoption. You know, we know there's, there's, there's lots of babies out there, lots of children who, who would love to have God-fearing, God-loving parents, right, to, to raise them. So they're going down that path. And so, so you're, you're in New York, you're working, you meet your bride, you guys get married. And so just stay in New York for a while.

Yeah, we found a wonderful church that we were part of 25 plus years, plus we, I'm still in contact with that pastor today and know some of those people. I love them, but I had to come back to Concord. And that was one thing I said I would never do.

Back to your roots, back to the upbringing. Because there was nothing in Concord. Never say never. There's nothing out there in the world.

Here's what you can learn from Bill's story right now. Never say never. I will never go back to Concord. But my, but my dad passed away and I had to come home and take care of my mom. So we, Sylvania was with me all the, I miss Sylvania by the way. She, she was with me all the way, said, let's go because New York, I was getting old. I was getting, getting a little tired of it, you know. And you know, that was changing. I was changing. My priorities in my life changed.

You know, when I went to New York, I thought I was going to, you know, make a lot of money and, you know, do some things I never thought I would do. Yeah. Yeah. But it didn't happen. So we came back to Concord and moved, moved. In fact, I moved in the house I grew up in. Wow.

That was awesome. And we lived there. How that, like was it just come out on the market or was it still in the family? It was still in the family. Yeah, my mom still lived there.

They still lived there. Okay. Gotcha. Okay. All right. So you came back?

Yeah. Came back and I was looking for a job. Well, I did get a job when I got here.

But that, that anyway, about 10 years on that job, I was laid off actually. The technology changed and I might look like it, but I'm not a great computer guy. Okay.

My technology skills are not that great. Okay. So I got laid off that job and, you know, it was good because they helped.

They did me well and gave me a good package and said, you know, find you something. But I was 59 years old. Yeah.

To try and reinvent, if you want to say reinvent yourself or start over again or at 59 is a challenge, right? It was. It was. And I was, you know, praying to the Lord. We were both praying and she was working. She had a good job. But for us, it kept us going.

You know, one of the things that kept us going. But anyway, I was coming up the street one day, branched to you in Concord and I was praying. I said, Lord, what am I going to do? What do you want me to do? You know, I need to make some money, you know, and I want to be, I want to serve you.

Yeah. I want to serve you. And I've always wanted to be in kind of a full time ministry because when I was at first assembly, I was hoping I would do that there, but that didn't work out. So anyway, I was riding up the street and I didn't, I can't say I audibly heard it, but I felt it in my spirit. The Lord said, go and love on the people in senior facilities. That blew my mind.

I couldn't stand senior facilities. Not on the radar. No, I never thought of that. That would not have come to me automatically. And I'm saying, well, Lord, you know, they don't want to pay you, so how am I going to make any money? But I did it.

I didn't even call my wife. I went straight to a facility and usually when you go and volunteer, they'll let you volunteer, you know, so that wasn't hard. Always looking for volunteers.

Always looking for volunteers. So I went in and I said, well, Lord, what am I going to do? And the first time I was scheduled, I took my hymn book and my Bible and the Holy Spirit. Come on. And I said, that's it, I'm going. Lord, I'm doing what you told me to do. I went in, the people were glad to meet me.

It was this place where they had this room where they could assemble the people. They brought out a bunch of people and I prayed and just started singing and talking to them. And it just worked out. It just flowed. So I wasn't, I wasn't doing it. I know I wasn't because I mean, I've always considered myself to be a communicator, but I didn't know how to communicate with these people. You know, some of them were kind of out of it. Some of them could hear, some of them couldn't hear, you know, but it really, really, really, really worked out.

You're listening to the Truth Network and truthnetwork.com. Nikita Koloff here and I am excited. Did you hear the huge announcement, the big announcement?

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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. And I just cried when I left because I said, Lord, thank you. And they asked me to come back, of course, and I came back and that started that. I went home and I told my wife, you know, she jumped right on. She said, that sounds great. She had no questions.

She didn't ask about how you gonna make money. Fully supported. She just said, fully supported.

Man, that just made my heart glad. So I went there and I went to another place and I asked and they said, sure, I came. The other 10, 15 places have always been requests. It's been word of mouth. I heard about Bill Russell and Heaven's, the name of the ministry is Heaven's Touch. Heaven's Touch.

Come on. And that has always been our, the purpose. And it's never been about me.

I pray that all the time. They love me and they like me and all that, but Lord, it's not about me. It's about you.

It's about you. And when I first started, I was about 15 places every two weeks, morning and evening. How many? About 15 places every two weeks. 15 different places every couple of weeks. Wow. A couple of things, Bill, come to mind as you're sharing your story is, you know, let's go back to, would you say 11 or 12? You're standing on the, I guess I call it a porch. You had a different name. I was more of a stupider. I wasn't even sure what that meant, to be honest with you, Bill.

I'm like, I'm not doing a stupider. Okay, I'm going to roll with it, but I'll call it a porch. But you're 11 or 12 or whatever, and you're envisioning, you know, you pretended to be a choir director, to be a preacher or a pastor. So it really kind of goes all the way back to then, that vision, the vision you had at that age that, you know, that one day you'll be involved in some type of ministry, right?

So fast forward, you know, 59-ish, right? And the Lord puts that on your heart. And what's interesting about that story, too, is talk about a community that would embrace and love, obviously, visitors. Because my guess is, or at least what I've heard is, a lot of people go into those, you know, retirement homes or assisted living homes or whatever, and family kind of forgets about them, very rarely. And you could probably tell me better than, is that right? I mean, very rarely does the family, if in some cases, if at all, even come, just kind of stick them in there and forget about them. Is that right?

I'm sure you have stories. Yeah, that's right. Well, there's two sides to that. One, where they don't come visit.

And the other side is where they don't remember they came to visit. Okay. Yeah, okay, that makes sense. But they do come and visit, and I love, and sometimes some of them are there when I'm in session, I'm in ministry session with the folk, and I just love it. And the ministry, what I do, it's involved. I don't preach to them.

It's not all about me, because I try to sing, but I don't sing that way. So it's engagement. You get them engaging as much as possible, right? Oh, yes.

Oh, yes. I talk to them. We talk about their life some.

We, you know, I ask the women sometime if they want to get married again. I love it. I have fun with them. I try, and I make them laugh, but yet it's about Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit being there.

Them knowing and realizing they're not forgotten, that Jesus Christ still loves them, no matter what the situation. That's great. Even though they might not come here as good, walk as good, you know.

See as good. But yet they're still here, and they can praise the Lord. I tell them always they have plenty of time. They have plenty of time to praise the Lord and, you know, and pray. And I try to just encourage them in life, just to live a life, live the best life they can, even there with each other.

Now, have you seen, have you experienced, I mean, I'm going to assume something, that not everyone in those places is a Jesus lover or Jesus follower. No, they're not. No, they're not. And have you over the years, and how many years now have you been doing this? It's been going on 13 years.

13 years ago. God put that on your heart. You went to the first one, fast forward all these years later, and you're able to minister. So have you seen over the years, have you seen some of those folks make a decision or come to Christ? That's interesting you would say that. You know, I've had more people who work there and who heard me come to Christ than some of those people. Yeah, because for them it's just a job, right?

Just a J-O-B. They tell me, I don't get to go to church on Sunday, this is the only church I have, thank you, Bill. And some of them have accepted Christ because of what they heard in the kitchen in the next room. In the next room, yeah. Overhearing, right?

Yeah, the songs. Wow. Okay, so I got to ask you this, because part of your story is, Lord, okay, I'm going to go volunteer and do this, but I'm not going to make any money. So there's got to be a story there on how the Lord has provided and supported you to be able to do this last 13 years. Yes, one day I was going, I was somewhere, and Pastor Jay called me, and he says, Bill, I need to see you. The lead pastor is calling me, I need to see you.

Random call from the lead pastor. I said, well, I stopped drinking years ago. You know, I haven't been anywhere that I should not have been. I hadn't said anything to anybody in church, you know. As far as you knew, right?

As far as I knew. Hadn't offended anybody, I don't think. Really, but he, and it scared me. I mean, I was literally afraid. You were nervous?

Yes. Yes, okay. He said, meet me at Starbucks.

So I went straight to Starbucks and where I was, and when he laughed at me, because he saw the look on my face. He says, Bill, slow down, just chill, you know. It's okay, man.

It's okay. And that's when he was led to say, Bill, listen, you've been doing what you've been doing about three years then. And I was out on my own. He says, I've been led, you feel that you need to be covered by church. Your ministry needs to be covered. And I'm asking you, would you allow that to happen?

Also, if I need you to be on staff or give you some other, you know, responsibilities to do part-time, you know? Oh boy, I just cried. I just cried. I just cried. I just cried. You're just thinking about it. You're choking up now, Bill. I am, I am.

That was really amazing. What a blessing, huh? And we prayed about it and he left.

I called my wife and she cried and it was just something. And ever since then, I've been on staff and I've been covered with speakers and everything I need by the refuge. Anything you need, he's there to support you. Well, that's the one thing about anybody that knows Jay Stewart is, yeah, he is very sensitive. One, he's very sensitive to the leaning to the Lord and the Lord puts something like that on his heart. Say, hey, make Bill a part of the refuge, officially a part of the ministry.

Yes. And so you have, I know you take some of the seniors and what's the ministry at the refuge, Hart? Young at Hart. Young at Hart. Young at Hart. I probably should know that, Bill, but I'm not there that often. That's my excuse, okay? I'm not going anywhere.

Young at Hart. So in addition to the nursing homes and the elderly homes that you're doing, I know you take folks on trips and all kinds of things, right? At the refuge. Yes, yes. My wife and I do that together. And the purpose of that is relationships because a lot of times the older people, they just need to know each other. We need to get together, we need to pray for each other. So we do trips, we do ministries, we just came back off of a cruise. A cruise, come on now, come on, here we go.

Yeah, we've been to Savannah and a lot of different places. But the meaning of the ministry is to get you to know somebody, to connect you with connection, connect you with somebody who you have something in common with. Okay. And you've been sitting in front of me for all this time, I just read your hat, Young at Hart. I'm like, hello, duh, there you go, Young at Hart. So Young at Hart Ministries through the Refuge, Heaven's Touch?

Heaven's Touch is the facilities, is the nursing facilities. Okay. Is there a way, now obviously Pastor J supports you, covers you, for our listeners out there, do you have your own website or anything or no? No, I don't have my own website. I don't, I should, but I don't. But they can connect me, I can be connected through the Refuge.

Okay, through the Refuge. billrussell.therefuge.com billrussell.therefuge.com. And Russell's, but sometimes one, two L's, one L's, two L's, one S, two L's? Two S's and two L's.

Two S's and two L's. Billrussell.therefuge.net. Let's do it one more time. It's bill.russell.therefuge.net. Okay, bill.russell.therefuge.net.

Therefuge.net. And hey, at very least, as you're hearing Bill's story today, I hope it's touched your heart like it's touched mine. At very least, as God might put Bill and his lovely bride on your heart, pray for them, pray for Bill. And hey, if there's a way or an opportunity, I'm sure people could help support and sew into the ministry, the Young at Heart, and Heaven's Touch, and what you're doing, and impacting folks that, again, I feel like a lot of folks just kind of forget about. But God bless you, man, for all the work you and your bride are doing.

It's amazing. Praise the Lord. I'm looking, people can go with me. I have three ladies that go with me now to assist me. You don't have to sing, just go sit with the people and pray for them. Bill will do the singing and the playing of the piano. Everybody thinks they've got to sing, but come and just read to them.

Yeah, just be engaged. Okay, so people could come and volunteer. Yeah, make their own schedules, come and make them available.

Well, that's pretty amazing. Bill Russell, The Refuge, Kannapolis, North Carolina, Young at Heart, Heaven's Touch, I love that. And so just consider, just you pray about, pray for Bill and his wife, consider coming, maybe volunteering if you're in the area. And if you're in the area, I'll say this too, go visit The Refuge some Sunday, right, 9 a.m., 11 a.m. Praise the Lord. And I know they've got stuff going on all week long for all ages, right, from birth to the grave, I think, if I'm not mistaken.

That's right. They have a senior ministry every Wednesday morning at 11 o'clock. My wife leads that. Okay. And that's for an hour and they just come and it's a study and it's just another opportunity to meet people.

Lots of opportunity. Well, and I want to thank you. You're so faithful each and every week to tune in and listen to the show. And I hope you were encouraged and inspired by Bill's story today. And I just want to challenge all of you, go out and see what you can do, how you can impact God's kingdom and make a difference in this world. Have a God-filled, 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 Koloff.net and donate today.

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. 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. 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. If you're looking for the perfect gift for your pastor, well, look no further. Bless him with a trip to the Holy Land with yours truly, Nikita Koloff, The Russian Nightmare. I'll be hosting this once in a lifetime trip, December 27, 2023 to January 5, 2024.

Your pastor will never be the same. Go to Koloff.net to get registered today. This is the Truth Network.