Good Words from John Malone’s Funeral - Comments (0)

Category: My Life
Author: Jerod Santo
Date: 21st March, 2021 @ 07:27:18 PM

This special episode of the Enjoy The Bible podcast includes the eulogy and gospel message given at John Malone’s memorial service on Saturday March 6th, 2021.

John J. (Joseph) Malone, Sr.: March 15, 1951 – March 1, 2021 - Comments (3)

Category: My Life
Author: Jerod Santo
Date: 5th March, 2021 @ 01:42:13 PM

John was born in Omaha, Nebraska, on March 15, 1951. He went home to be with the Lord on March 1st, 2021 at age 69, in his home surrounded by family and friends, almost too many to count. There were tears and laughter, goodbyes, the singing of hymns throughout the night, hugs, and comfort. It’s the way he wanted it.

Soon after believing in the Lord Jesus Christ as his Savior by faith alone at the age of 24, John knew that God had called him to the ministry. He spent the rest of his life preaching and teaching the Word of God. He could be found downtown on street corners in Omaha, in his local church, overseas in Kenya and other places, and on radio programs and podcasts.

John met his wife, Karen, in Canton, Ohio in 1984 and they were married the next year. He accepted her four children as his own and they soon moved back to his hometown of Omaha where he had several successful business endeavors. In their later years, John and Karen were able to enjoy travelling to many parts of the world together.

With Karen helping, John structured his life, work and home around the ministry of the Word of God and his family. He worked to share the Gospel and bring the truth and power of the Word of God to many throughout his life. John’s love of family extended to his church family. Virtually every weekend his home was open to not only his grandchildren and family, but brothers and sisters in Christ, who were all welcome to enjoy food and fellowship together.

Preceded in death by his beloved wife Karen, parents Edward J. and Josephine, and brother Steven. He is survived by brother Edward J. (Elaine) II, sister Mary Jo (Thomas) Hines, children Stephanie (Bob) Miszuk, Kevin (Katie) Mercer, Jeff (Melanie) Malone, Melanie (Dan) Backens, 39 grandchildren, and 6 (soon to be 8) great grandchildren.

John believed that the work of the ministry was more important than any title, and wanted his epitaph to simply be JABSBG – Just a Brother, Saved by Grace.

Memorial service will be Saturday at 2pm at Nebraska Christian College 12550 S 114th St, Papillion, NE followed by graveside service at Voss Mohr Cemetery near 138th and Harrison. Friends and family are invited back to Nebraska Christian College to enjoy food, fellowship and memories together after the service.

My Wife Karen - Comments (4)

Category: Articles,My Life
Author: John Malone
Date: 11th February, 2018 @ 06:55:19 PM

Ephesians 5:25
“Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it “

As a Christian in a local church, I suppose one can take for granted the love Christ has for his assembly, continually giving His wonderful blessings.

Such love is above and beyond His and our Father’s love for the world.

In Jesus Christ, you find One Who always loves you better.

And it is a blessed man who finds a woman who always loves you more, always loves you better. Karen always loved me better, and no one ever loved me as much.

I could speak of my love for her. It is measured by my broken heart today. I am loving the thoughts I have of her as I write this.

But she always loved me better. And if you were close enough to her, you discovered she loved you better, too.

Karen was a spring of life and happiness. Though she could no longer bear, she still gave herself to continual motherhood, becoming a grandmother before age 40, and still nurturing her children and many, many grandchildren to her final hours.

Karen was a person who constantly thought of others, and who moved my mind to follow along in her giving ways. She arranged herself for the benefit of others. This is the very definition of kindness.

Karen was kind to a fault. She even provided food for squirrels & rabbits & birds. And cats.

But her lap was always open to the many children who carry her traits.

Karen never wanted things. Except for the kids and their kids. She believed we were a wasteful society. Therefore, she was going to privately non-conform. When it came to things for us, I was the one pulling her into any spending.

Karen did some things you probably don’t know about.

She was the first Nebraska “Home School Grandma,” graduating from homeschool our oldest granddaughter, mom being a homeschool graduate.

Karen also founded the Warrior sports program. She never wanted that credit, but I wanted it for her. You see, that is how she was, so modest.

I took Karen out of that program, and other such life endeavors, because I needed her in our Africa adventures.

Without ever wanting it, Karen enjoyed a life of true adventure, always inside the faith. She visited China, spending weeks in fabulous places, in 1991.

She enjoyed a spectacular visit to the UAE, hosted especially by an oil sheik and the Regional Chef of the Intercontinental Hotels.

Karen sparkled in such settings. So pretty!

In Kenya, East Africa, Karen and I found especially romantic places, together with some difficult and hard work.

But we always took time to revisit a special and simple place called the Kentmere Club, just as we – with me pulling her – visited the fabulous Mount Kenya Safari Club, the ‘Ol Pejeta Ranch, Sweetwater Tented Camp, and even a tent on sticks in the midst of the waters of Lake Naivasha, amongst hundreds of hippos. We rode an ATV together through the Masai Mara, and saw each of the Big Five game animals.

Karen’s favorite adventure times were riding: once on a horse in the midst of so many animals, including elephants, and another time she rode a camel.

My wife Karen was an exciting woman, I can certify, and she thrilled me to my bones. The thoughts of these amazing rendezvous we arranged in our lives are both keeping me from and making me cry.

I realize the Scriptures teach is to “judge not.” And to “judge nothing before the time.”

But please allow me to reflect.

Because I have written about a few things out of an entire life, and even then only a slight reference.

Karen’s life was marked by much sorrow. She just took it so well that she wouldn’t let it bother anyone else. She actually called me to cheer me up in 2007 when she discovered she had the cancer that finally killed her.

She suffered in very many ways often at the hands of physicians.

This was part of the way of the cross in Karen’s life. That way that we don’t like to talk about.

She didn’t talk about it either. “I’m not a whiner,” she would say. On her death bed, she saw me in tears. “Don’t be a wimp,” she said, “You have to hold everything together.”

Because the glue of our amazing family was leaving us.

So my assessment is not what matters, the Lord will judge us all at the judgment seat of Christ, and that’s where I’ll see and be with Karen, and most likely some of you.

But in my assessment, Karen’s was a triumphant life, one well-lived because she loved us so well.

Good night, lover.

Commies & Homos, 1972. - Comments (0)

Category: Articles,My Life
Author: John Malone
Date: 19th February, 2014 @ 03:07:12 PM

Interestingly yesterday, as I listened to my friend (and brother) Chris Baker on his “Big Show” afternoon Omaha radio talk show, I heard a caller who was brainwashed about the recent past. Never has the old saw, “history is written by the winners,” ever become more clear to me than when it happens about the times I have lived.

You see, in a very real way, while the rock bands played, and while people still were coming late to the 1960’s, I was left of Karl Marx. I laughed at the National Lampoon edition that featured hippies smoking weed and thought bubbling, “Marx was no communist, I’m a REAL communist.” (In fact, I spent an entire day with PJ O’Rourke – today a conservative writer, and still a funny guy – when he was in his heyday at the National Lampoon: that’s another story for another day.)

Perhaps you know the Karl (not Groucho) Marx story. The oppressed worker lives in a valley. Every day he trudges up left hill on his right to go to work, where he is oppressed. Every Sunday he trudges up the hill on his left to go to church, where he is told to trudge along, because things will be better in the by-and-by. Pie in the sky.

I studied the dismal science. I learned it. Chris’ caller forgot that Marxism has never happened, but that Communism took its place. And then Stalinism took its place. And that was all BEFORE my generation. As was Hitler. Stalinism struck on the “dictatorship of the proletariat” phase. You know, the temporary phase until the masses can be re-educated in the FEMA camps? Hitler was a socialist. People tend to forget that when they so willingly vote Republican. As did Herod and Pilot, Latter Day Stalinists and Hitlerians became fast friends. Christians should be wary of the “leaven of Herod.”

I have witnessed the politics of the past 40+ years. You see, in a certain way I dropped out, went to the political sidelines, and conducted myself more prudently than I used to, and have been called to preach. Yet I have observed, and occasionally engaged.

The commies are in power now. Here. As are the homos. Get used to it I think. It’s going to get worse.

It was 1972 when I saw the Civil Rights Movement oddly and illogically morph into the Homo Movement.

I was 21-years-old, and ascending in the world of student politics. I was attending the National Student Association Convention, and became deeply involved as an operative in a winning campaign to lead that formerly-CIA-financed radical student organization.

To my surprise, the organization was very heavily influenced and led by people closer to age 30 than 20. One of the key influencers of that organization at that time was Jack Baker (age 30), student president at the University of Minnesota, and perhaps the most radical homosexual in the country. While I was unabashedly pro Civil Rights in the context of racial discrimination, I could not – and still cannot not – bring myself to the equation of a homosexual behavior with racial inheritance.

As it turned out, despite winning that election electorally, we lost it when our candidate was punched in the face, and a voice vote then overrode the election. In that day – 1972 mind you – “student leaders” were competing with one another to proclaim how anti-communist they WEREN’T. I recall Margery Tabankin distinctly pleading with us at the plenary session to believe her when she said she was never anti-communist. While her rhetoric at the time didn’t disturb me at all, it should have.

In attendance as honored guests at that convention were Tom Hayden and Jane Fonda, and Senator Edward Kennedy, among others.

At least from that time, the student movement in the United States was totally pro-communist, and largely also pro-homosexuality. Before that experience, I thought “communist” and “marxist” was a persuasion. I had never met any committed communist party members prior to that time. At that time, meeting some, I realized how committed and dedicated to the revision of the USA these people were. Any real student was a mere spectator at that convention. The players were all older, and they were on a mission, and they were funded.

In fact, Tabankin went on from there to become someone who could find tax money to support left wing causes. That was her early career. Later, until now, she has gone about raising private and public funds to continue the agenda I saw emerging way back there in the Nixon Administration: commies and homos.

That was my early education in the politics of today. I went home in the summer of 1972 disillusioned and depressed about the politics of my generation. From that time forward, I saw politics in the United States become more and more about homosexual sex. And more and more authoritarian, anarchist, godless, and Nazi-like.

At about this same time, I became pretty worried about the GroupThink and mass mentality of my peers. I attended very few concerts in my life, and the reason for this is that I did not care for the mass behaviors I saw taking place in crowds. It was so engineered!

Maybe it was the writings of Gunter Grass (The Tin Drum), Alexander Solzhenitsyn (The Gulag Archipelago, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich), and Albert Speer’s contemporary work (Inside the Third Reich), that made me wary. I was no cold warrior, for sure, and had no fear of Russian military aggression against our country, but I really did fear the direction I saw my peers taking. In a way, I suppose I saw myself as the Grass’ “tin drummer,” prepared to beat a counter-rhythm to the Nazi-like beats all about me.

But in the summer of ’72, my depression deepened as my altruistic belief in enlightened politics crashed hard on the understanding that anarchy and homosexuality were creeping into my then-“paragon of righteousness”, the American civil rights movement. It seemed inevitable that movement would get hijacked. In fact, it was inevitable.

I was barely 21 years old, had already twice been the Editor-In-Chief of the campus newspaper, and probably switched majors 4-5 times. I had lost my girl friend, and I didn’t care. Even baseball wasn’t fun. The then-greatest Husker teams ever weren’t playing anymore, and a guy I played baseball against was going to win a Heisman trophy, even after knocking off a gas station. I played a mean game of bridge.

I realized I was on a wrong track somewhere. I also realize I found the right track.