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Highlands Today

Folsom's Life Devoted To Ministry, Work

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By BILL ROGERS

Highlands Today

Published: July 21, 2008

Updated:

SEBRING - Juanita Folsom doesn't plan to retire; she's too busy.

The 72-year-old Sebring woman is selling J & J Cuts and is going to start another business. That occupies her days, but Folsom's full-time job is doing the Lord's work.

"I minister seven days a week, and I work five," said Folsom, who operates Juanita Folsom Ministries and is the evangelist on the "The Lord's Sentinel" cable TV program.

"My ministry is to the hurting," she said "When people are broken-hearted that's when I get to them see."

She runs a nondenominational school of ministry that requires 260 hours of study for those who want to be trained as ministers. They are then ordained and can get involved in jail ministry, visiting hospitals or start their own churches.

She rents Lake Placid Christian School. There is a school Monday night and a church service Tuesday night. She works with youth on Thursday night at her grandson's home.

"Every weekend I travel to different cities such as Fort Pierce, Orlando and Davie and minister," she said "I've been doing that since 1979."

"It has been very rewarding," she said. "I've seen marriages put back together that would have ended in divorce. I've seen people get off of drugs and alcohol. I deal a lot with young people. They all call me grandmother."

And the highlight of her ministry?

"To see my family following after the Lord and going forward in the things of the Lord," she said. "To see the people that I pour my life into going and stepping out and doing the work of the Lord. That is my life."

Folsom started in radio. She said a friend of hers in Orlando had a one-hour radio show. She called Folsom and asked to her come on the show and talk about how difficult it is to be a woman in the ministry.

"Then we opened up the line for people for prayer," she said. "People started calling and the lines were just really crowded.

"I fell in love with radio," she said.

Folsom wanted her own program, so that people would be able to call in. She had a one-hour show for five years before it was abruptly canceled.

"Then I started looking for television," she said "Nothing was working out. Everybody wanted to sign you up for a year or six months. Well I didn't know if I could make it that long."

Channel 55 in Orlando agreed to put Folsom on the air. By the time she started, Folsom had enough money for six programs.

Folsom taped 100 programs and was on the air for eight years.

The programs were taped in Orlando. She did six shows during a single taping session in a day, which began about 9 a.m. and continued until 4:30 p.m.

"I had a makeup girl, and she makes you up," Folsom said. "You get dressed. You have to have six outfits. You have six (sermons) prepared. You do the one, come back and change clothes, get your mind on the next sermon because you can't have it on that one and then you go in and do that six times."

Folsom said she would do the tapings every so often "when we had enough income." It cost $5,000 to run and tape a session, she said.

Folsom plans to tape programs in Sebring at her home at some future point.

Born in Bonifay in the Florida Panhandle, Folsom said her family moved to Lake Placid at the age of 3.

"We heard that money grew on orange trees," she said, noting that her father was a farmer.

Folsom attended Lake Placid schools, but didn't graduate from high school until much later in life. She quit high school when she was in the 11th grade to get married.

She said it wasn't a good marriage, "but I had an awesome son out of it." The marriage lasted 15 years. She has two grandsons.

Folsom is selling J & J Cuts, the small barbershop on the downtown Circle in Sebring that she has owned for five years. She also owned Lake Placid Beauty Shop for many years.

"It is a mixture of sadness and happiness," she said. "I love my customers."

Bill Rogers can be reached at 386-5825 or at wrogers@highlandstoday .com

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