Go Ye Into All the World and Run - An Interview with Ultra Distance Runner Stan Cottrell
Real Life Forrest Gump Runs World Over with Message of Love, Hope & Faith
by Rev. Terrence G. Clark Chief Editor Voice of One Online
I’ve told this testimony many times, how I drove my 8 cylinder, 77 Chevy Camaro 60 miles on “E” to get to a new job God had given me. I started out by faith believing that he that got me the job was able to keep me in it and yes get me there.
If I may draw a parallel between my ‘running on faith’ with Goodwill Ambassador Stan Cottrell’s ‘running on faith’, we both did it with a goal in mind---goals resulting in bringing glory to God. I did it on four wheels. Stan has done it and is still doing it on two feet---his own.
Another pre-article parallel is what the iconic character, Forrest Gump played by Tom Hanks in the 1994 movie pronounced, “My Momma said you can tell a lot about a man by the shoes he wears---Where he’s been. Where he’s gone”
I met Stan Cottrell in the lunch line at the Greater Philadelphia Writer Conference in Langhorne PA in 2014. He at that time had already run the equivalent of 10 times around the earth. Disclosing a little more at the lunch table, he had me intrigued. A fellow runner myself boasting sometimes on my 4-5 miles 4 times a week on the treadmill.
Stan’s journey had taken him a foot through many nations of the earth---mountains, hills and valleys, many cultures and languages of people, and into some areas not permitted to enter by others like himself. Running is not the totality of who he is. Speaking first of himself in the third person he shared.
“Stan Cottrell wears many different labels as all of us do.”
by Rev. Terrence G. Clark Chief Editor Voice of One Online
I’ve told this testimony many times, how I drove my 8 cylinder, 77 Chevy Camaro 60 miles on “E” to get to a new job God had given me. I started out by faith believing that he that got me the job was able to keep me in it and yes get me there.
If I may draw a parallel between my ‘running on faith’ with Goodwill Ambassador Stan Cottrell’s ‘running on faith’, we both did it with a goal in mind---goals resulting in bringing glory to God. I did it on four wheels. Stan has done it and is still doing it on two feet---his own.
Another pre-article parallel is what the iconic character, Forrest Gump played by Tom Hanks in the 1994 movie pronounced, “My Momma said you can tell a lot about a man by the shoes he wears---Where he’s been. Where he’s gone”
I met Stan Cottrell in the lunch line at the Greater Philadelphia Writer Conference in Langhorne PA in 2014. He at that time had already run the equivalent of 10 times around the earth. Disclosing a little more at the lunch table, he had me intrigued. A fellow runner myself boasting sometimes on my 4-5 miles 4 times a week on the treadmill.
Stan’s journey had taken him a foot through many nations of the earth---mountains, hills and valleys, many cultures and languages of people, and into some areas not permitted to enter by others like himself. Running is not the totality of who he is. Speaking first of himself in the third person he shared.
“Stan Cottrell wears many different labels as all of us do.”
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With a push from a 60 dollar scholarship for running, he graduated in 1966 from Western Kentucky University; it got him out of the backwoods of his home state, he says. He afterward taught school for four years. Doing those days, while teaching, he coached to supplement his income. He reminisced on bringing home three hundred and twenty dollars a month.
In order to survive financially, he entered the world of business including what he called (humorously) ---an extinguished experience in pharmaceutical sales. Other labels followed including director of in-service, an assistant director of allied health education at a teaching hospital, and a national product manager. He’s been CEO of a major biotech firm leading offices in forty-five countries.
Stan is also an author of several books and a sought out speaker. And a lot of speaking he has done, toting a personality that does not exemplify with a distance runner. Behavioral psychologists say he is supposed to be moody, intense and withdrawn. Stan says his personality is the opposite. He’s outgoing and postures the persona for whatever group he is communicating with.
Although his life journey is not isolated to running, it’s certainly what characterizes him. It is one of the things in his life and in this world that he is most known for. Stan has been running for sixty years, to date. He ran his first race in 1955 at a county fair in Kentucky. He was twelve years old---He won a blue ribbon.
Despite his multi-career journey, God would use the very thing he started with—the simple thing---to be his platform.
“It was all during those different things, says Stan, that I felt that there was more. I felt, I was missing what God was really wanted me to do. And, never in my wildest imagination would I ever imagine that it would be just running throughout the world.”
So far Stan has run across forty different nations. He has a non-profit organization called Friendship Sports founded in 1985.
In order to survive financially, he entered the world of business including what he called (humorously) ---an extinguished experience in pharmaceutical sales. Other labels followed including director of in-service, an assistant director of allied health education at a teaching hospital, and a national product manager. He’s been CEO of a major biotech firm leading offices in forty-five countries.
Stan is also an author of several books and a sought out speaker. And a lot of speaking he has done, toting a personality that does not exemplify with a distance runner. Behavioral psychologists say he is supposed to be moody, intense and withdrawn. Stan says his personality is the opposite. He’s outgoing and postures the persona for whatever group he is communicating with.
Although his life journey is not isolated to running, it’s certainly what characterizes him. It is one of the things in his life and in this world that he is most known for. Stan has been running for sixty years, to date. He ran his first race in 1955 at a county fair in Kentucky. He was twelve years old---He won a blue ribbon.
Despite his multi-career journey, God would use the very thing he started with—the simple thing---to be his platform.
“It was all during those different things, says Stan, that I felt that there was more. I felt, I was missing what God was really wanted me to do. And, never in my wildest imagination would I ever imagine that it would be just running throughout the world.”
So far Stan has run across forty different nations. He has a non-profit organization called Friendship Sports founded in 1985.
Road to a Successful Life
Clearly exhibiting a successful life, Stan says success’ basic rule is discover what you do well and just do more of it. God gave him the ability to run. It took him a number of years to figure out that his existence was for God’s glory and not his own. Running is not what Stan set out to do not according to academics and career.
Stan says the tangibility of real success is related to the child resident in all people. He says in the world often successful people are unreachable. You can watch them from the stands, but you can't get near them. His success has taken him into the crowds. When he runs across nations, people come out by the droves. He says it's mind boggling to see how running captures the attention not only of individuals, but nations. This attention creates for him opportunity.
“For instance, said Stan, I’ve talked to tens of thousands of people, and five to six church services a day, seven days a week they would have them. I just recently ran in Ethiopia. Stop and think about this. I mean, my goodness, it drew crowds each night of twenty-five thousand, thirty-five thousand, to as high as sixty-five thousand people that filled up a stadium to have me come in and speak.
There’s just everything---from one person standing on the side of the road saying, ‘Could you stop? Can I just shake your hand or something?’ We’d stand there and there would gather a little group of people. I got one picture where they had waited for four or five hours. It was a group of three families that sat down and had a tailgate party waiting for me to come through.
It’s everything from just me meeting the well-known to the unknown, to farmers, to people that it felt like they’ve been forgotten by humanity. People that felt like well, I think God must have made a mistake when he made me because I’m just nobody.
My running has also taken to and from the palaces of the world to the White House. I mean it has just been. I just have to laugh. I just have to laugh at times, and then it’s just times I cry. I’ll be running and that the thought comes. I literally felt the presence of God so real, so much like Eric Liddell [1924 Summer Olympics runner and missionary portrayed in the 1981 film Chariots of Fire] said, ‘when I run I feel the pleasure of God.’”
The Nudge
Many equivocate "the work of the Lord" to the Sunday morning pulpit or to the posh studios of Christian television. Other's thinking is broad enough to include the unsung missionaries or even pantry worker feeding the homeless. Stan, however, is an ultra-distant runner for the Lord. He made the connection.
“I call it that nudge, says Stan, and there’s a fellow by the name of Leonard Sweet that wrote a book that I love. It’s called Nudge. And in it, it’s that nudge that we feel, and I’m nudged often by the Holy Spirit.
The Lord made it very clear---Go. Go ye therefore in all the nations. And, I’m just being obedient to Christ’s last command to go. And I go---run and walk. I mean it’s amazing.
And it breaks the running, for instance, it took me five years to get the permission to run across China. And I ran that in 1984. And, this is was when the vast majority of China was closed off. The forbidden zones, I spent forty-nine days out of fifty-three in what then was called the forbidden zone. I fell in those mountains and I broke my back in two places. I ran the last thousand miles with two broken vertebrae.
The Chinese leaders, when I finished, had a big celebration. There was a movie made on this The Chinese leaders said how does it make you feel to know that your name is being spoken on the lips of more than eight hundred million Chinese people? And your name will be written in our history books.
When I ran in China, more than one hundred thousand people came out and waited on the side of the roads to see me run through. I was the foreigner of which none had been in those parts for a hundred years or maybe more. I don’t know. I won't get caught up in the 'ego of that,' because ego’ to me stands for Edging God Out.”
Stan says it hard to entertain vanity when you’re out there running all day long averaging fifty miles. He ran across the United States and set the record there. Running as he does---shoes, shorts and a tee shirt, he averaged sixty-six miles a day for forty-eight consecutive days and broke the old record by five days. It’s a testimony, says Stan, to how wonderfully and marvelously the human body is made. He says we all are capable of doing far more than we allow ourselves to do.
“And it’s not only the running that I have found. The Chinese leaders ask me before I ran, what do you hope to accomplish by this run? Incidentally, it took me five years to get the permission. And they were holding a big banquet for me. I said oh Lord I need wisdom. I said you know the Great Wall, it two thousand years to build the Great Wall. It was built to keep the foreigners out.
I say in running, I appear as a child. I come in the spirit of those elementary school days when we had a time called recess. Somehow, we played together. It all made such good sense. We accepted people. I said this running is symbolic. It’s not only breaking down the walls that divide one country from another country, but it’s also symbolic in breaking down the walls that divide one human from another human.
When we come together in the Spirit, and you look at it, it's a non-threatening type of spirit. I meet people right where they are. It's non-judgmental. One fellow came out and ran with me one day in a certain country. There were others with him. He only took a bath once a year and braided his hair with cow manure.
Here I’m out there running with this fellow and the stench it burned my nose. I mean even his own people wouldn’t run with him. And for a second, I was almost, I guess a bit judgmental. And quickly it came over me Stan, you can’t imagine how horribly you smelled to me. You smelled to me before Jesus Christ became your Lord and Savior. Now you manifest a sweet aroma. I want to tell you, it just changes your perspective.
Run Stan Run
Stan wears many titles and accolades as he runs around the world--- minister, ambassador, evangelist, teacher---including The Goodwill Ambassador of Georgia. He considers himself a servant-like the Apostle Paul---a bondservant of the Lord. One who moves by the nudge of the Lord [his terminology] Paul would have called it "the unction."
I allowed the moment to interject my own unction to run. “I love to run. I don’t run the distance you do. In school, I ran short distance. I was a sprinter, but I still just love running. I love to feel the air. I love the perspiration behind it and the accomplishment of the goal. Connectively, I’m a big Forest Gump fan. I quote Forest Gump in my sermons. I think of you as a real life Forest Gump. Do you feel a relationship with the character?
“Well yea, replied Stan. I wasn’t sure how he was going to respond to my comparison or if he ever had time to see the movie. See, I ran across the United States twice. Forrest did the same thing. I mean the character Forest did. I’m still running. I’ll be 72 on Thursday, and I’ve run in total distance about ten times around the Earth--- two hundred and forty thousand miles.
That’s what I was talking about in the very beginning, some people label distance runners as moody, intense, withdrawn, and something I call it ADR, something Ain’t Doing Right. They say that person lost their mind. No, no, I am wonderfully alive because I have a passion.
God loves all people and his Spirit is right there. Each one is a divine original and has God-given purpose. But somewhere along the line ninety-six percent started listening to other voices. They’re out there and it’s called survival.
Clearly exhibiting a successful life, Stan says success’ basic rule is discover what you do well and just do more of it. God gave him the ability to run. It took him a number of years to figure out that his existence was for God’s glory and not his own. Running is not what Stan set out to do not according to academics and career.
Stan says the tangibility of real success is related to the child resident in all people. He says in the world often successful people are unreachable. You can watch them from the stands, but you can't get near them. His success has taken him into the crowds. When he runs across nations, people come out by the droves. He says it's mind boggling to see how running captures the attention not only of individuals, but nations. This attention creates for him opportunity.
“For instance, said Stan, I’ve talked to tens of thousands of people, and five to six church services a day, seven days a week they would have them. I just recently ran in Ethiopia. Stop and think about this. I mean, my goodness, it drew crowds each night of twenty-five thousand, thirty-five thousand, to as high as sixty-five thousand people that filled up a stadium to have me come in and speak.
There’s just everything---from one person standing on the side of the road saying, ‘Could you stop? Can I just shake your hand or something?’ We’d stand there and there would gather a little group of people. I got one picture where they had waited for four or five hours. It was a group of three families that sat down and had a tailgate party waiting for me to come through.
It’s everything from just me meeting the well-known to the unknown, to farmers, to people that it felt like they’ve been forgotten by humanity. People that felt like well, I think God must have made a mistake when he made me because I’m just nobody.
My running has also taken to and from the palaces of the world to the White House. I mean it has just been. I just have to laugh. I just have to laugh at times, and then it’s just times I cry. I’ll be running and that the thought comes. I literally felt the presence of God so real, so much like Eric Liddell [1924 Summer Olympics runner and missionary portrayed in the 1981 film Chariots of Fire] said, ‘when I run I feel the pleasure of God.’”
The Nudge
Many equivocate "the work of the Lord" to the Sunday morning pulpit or to the posh studios of Christian television. Other's thinking is broad enough to include the unsung missionaries or even pantry worker feeding the homeless. Stan, however, is an ultra-distant runner for the Lord. He made the connection.
“I call it that nudge, says Stan, and there’s a fellow by the name of Leonard Sweet that wrote a book that I love. It’s called Nudge. And in it, it’s that nudge that we feel, and I’m nudged often by the Holy Spirit.
The Lord made it very clear---Go. Go ye therefore in all the nations. And, I’m just being obedient to Christ’s last command to go. And I go---run and walk. I mean it’s amazing.
And it breaks the running, for instance, it took me five years to get the permission to run across China. And I ran that in 1984. And, this is was when the vast majority of China was closed off. The forbidden zones, I spent forty-nine days out of fifty-three in what then was called the forbidden zone. I fell in those mountains and I broke my back in two places. I ran the last thousand miles with two broken vertebrae.
The Chinese leaders, when I finished, had a big celebration. There was a movie made on this The Chinese leaders said how does it make you feel to know that your name is being spoken on the lips of more than eight hundred million Chinese people? And your name will be written in our history books.
When I ran in China, more than one hundred thousand people came out and waited on the side of the roads to see me run through. I was the foreigner of which none had been in those parts for a hundred years or maybe more. I don’t know. I won't get caught up in the 'ego of that,' because ego’ to me stands for Edging God Out.”
Stan says it hard to entertain vanity when you’re out there running all day long averaging fifty miles. He ran across the United States and set the record there. Running as he does---shoes, shorts and a tee shirt, he averaged sixty-six miles a day for forty-eight consecutive days and broke the old record by five days. It’s a testimony, says Stan, to how wonderfully and marvelously the human body is made. He says we all are capable of doing far more than we allow ourselves to do.
“And it’s not only the running that I have found. The Chinese leaders ask me before I ran, what do you hope to accomplish by this run? Incidentally, it took me five years to get the permission. And they were holding a big banquet for me. I said oh Lord I need wisdom. I said you know the Great Wall, it two thousand years to build the Great Wall. It was built to keep the foreigners out.
I say in running, I appear as a child. I come in the spirit of those elementary school days when we had a time called recess. Somehow, we played together. It all made such good sense. We accepted people. I said this running is symbolic. It’s not only breaking down the walls that divide one country from another country, but it’s also symbolic in breaking down the walls that divide one human from another human.
When we come together in the Spirit, and you look at it, it's a non-threatening type of spirit. I meet people right where they are. It's non-judgmental. One fellow came out and ran with me one day in a certain country. There were others with him. He only took a bath once a year and braided his hair with cow manure.
Here I’m out there running with this fellow and the stench it burned my nose. I mean even his own people wouldn’t run with him. And for a second, I was almost, I guess a bit judgmental. And quickly it came over me Stan, you can’t imagine how horribly you smelled to me. You smelled to me before Jesus Christ became your Lord and Savior. Now you manifest a sweet aroma. I want to tell you, it just changes your perspective.
Run Stan Run
Stan wears many titles and accolades as he runs around the world--- minister, ambassador, evangelist, teacher---including The Goodwill Ambassador of Georgia. He considers himself a servant-like the Apostle Paul---a bondservant of the Lord. One who moves by the nudge of the Lord [his terminology] Paul would have called it "the unction."
I allowed the moment to interject my own unction to run. “I love to run. I don’t run the distance you do. In school, I ran short distance. I was a sprinter, but I still just love running. I love to feel the air. I love the perspiration behind it and the accomplishment of the goal. Connectively, I’m a big Forest Gump fan. I quote Forest Gump in my sermons. I think of you as a real life Forest Gump. Do you feel a relationship with the character?
“Well yea, replied Stan. I wasn’t sure how he was going to respond to my comparison or if he ever had time to see the movie. See, I ran across the United States twice. Forrest did the same thing. I mean the character Forest did. I’m still running. I’ll be 72 on Thursday, and I’ve run in total distance about ten times around the Earth--- two hundred and forty thousand miles.
That’s what I was talking about in the very beginning, some people label distance runners as moody, intense, withdrawn, and something I call it ADR, something Ain’t Doing Right. They say that person lost their mind. No, no, I am wonderfully alive because I have a passion.
God loves all people and his Spirit is right there. Each one is a divine original and has God-given purpose. But somewhere along the line ninety-six percent started listening to other voices. They’re out there and it’s called survival.
Tents Along The Way
The Apostle Paul made tents along the way. He had taken time out. They said he was a pretty good tent maker and he would be. He had to help pay for his missionary journey. So, I wake up every morning and sometimes my wife. I’ll be jumping up and down in the bed. She says, if you’re going to have one of those attacks in the morning go in there and sleep in the other bedroom. And so, I’m just jumping up and down in the bed and just hollering--yes. Yes, Lord. You’re not finished with me yet. Here’s a brand new blank piece of paper. Now go out there and write on it. So, I am a piece of God’s puzzle in this big super puzzle that he has. Each one of us has a little bitty piece. Every day I report for duty. I say, Yes Lord, Stan here reporting for duty. Now the afterward of obedience is not up to me. It's up to God, but at least I’m reporting for duty.
And I want God’s perfect will in my life, not his permissive will. So many people do not ever discover the potential within themselves. This is not pointing fingers at anybody, this is just the way it is. We have to do our own tent making, but there’s has to be passion in our lives. People say, Oh, I couldn’t do that. I could never do that and they’re right. They can’t, because they already committed partial suicide. I call it psycho-sclerosis. A hardening of the mind.”
One of the titles, Stan does refer to himself as, is an exhorter. He encourages people in their life’s walk or run. “Come on, come on. Lift your cerebral machinery, he shouts. Get beyond the end of your nose. Just look how wonderful you’re incredibly made. You’re a center of influence. You don’t have to go running all over the earth. But, there’s something you can do within your community, within your own home, your own neighborhood. You’re a voice. A voice that has something significant to say. Find your message. Right beside me, when I run, the Lord is right there beside me.
In a movie that I did, I was running in China and I was hurting. I was saying oh Lord, I’m hurting so bad. Oh, I hurt. There were times that I want to quit. I’m a human being just like anybody else. Every time, I want to quit or give up, I say Lord just give me the strength to go just five more minutes. Lord give me the strength to get to that next telephone pole or whatever it is. There are many of days that I run…I just ask the Lord for five more minutes. Five more minutes. That’s the difference between victory and defeat. And that’s the message that I’m out here. I’m an encourager. Am I an Evangelist? Well, yea I’m evangelical in what I do. Am I a preacher? Well, I have a message. Am I a market place missionary? Then, that’s what I do.
Somebody asked this person one time, ‘So you’re a Christian? He said, No sir. I’m a Baptist and they ain’t going to make nothing else out of me. Well, I am a follower of Jesus Christ. And, I speak in all different kind of denominations.
It’s just meeting people where they are because all are created from the same clay. We all deal with the same themes. We all go through the parade of the same seasons. When you really get down to it, there may be two or three percent of things that separate one group of people from another---these might be cultural differences. But, we are all created from the same clay. There’s a time to be born and a time to die and then the judgment.
Every person that I meet, my prayer is, Lord may all I meet this day feel your love flowing through me into their lives. And Lord, help me to see that person from your perspective. And I tell you, when you pray this, you just start looking at people differently. I’m having a wonderful life. Now some of the circumstances haven’t always been so wonderful. But, that doesn’t take away from the fact that I’m having a wonderful life in Christ. I am just so thankful for this journey.”
The accomplished runner believes his life’s greatest experience still has happened. Although there have been some significant markers along the way.
The Apostle Paul made tents along the way. He had taken time out. They said he was a pretty good tent maker and he would be. He had to help pay for his missionary journey. So, I wake up every morning and sometimes my wife. I’ll be jumping up and down in the bed. She says, if you’re going to have one of those attacks in the morning go in there and sleep in the other bedroom. And so, I’m just jumping up and down in the bed and just hollering--yes. Yes, Lord. You’re not finished with me yet. Here’s a brand new blank piece of paper. Now go out there and write on it. So, I am a piece of God’s puzzle in this big super puzzle that he has. Each one of us has a little bitty piece. Every day I report for duty. I say, Yes Lord, Stan here reporting for duty. Now the afterward of obedience is not up to me. It's up to God, but at least I’m reporting for duty.
And I want God’s perfect will in my life, not his permissive will. So many people do not ever discover the potential within themselves. This is not pointing fingers at anybody, this is just the way it is. We have to do our own tent making, but there’s has to be passion in our lives. People say, Oh, I couldn’t do that. I could never do that and they’re right. They can’t, because they already committed partial suicide. I call it psycho-sclerosis. A hardening of the mind.”
One of the titles, Stan does refer to himself as, is an exhorter. He encourages people in their life’s walk or run. “Come on, come on. Lift your cerebral machinery, he shouts. Get beyond the end of your nose. Just look how wonderful you’re incredibly made. You’re a center of influence. You don’t have to go running all over the earth. But, there’s something you can do within your community, within your own home, your own neighborhood. You’re a voice. A voice that has something significant to say. Find your message. Right beside me, when I run, the Lord is right there beside me.
In a movie that I did, I was running in China and I was hurting. I was saying oh Lord, I’m hurting so bad. Oh, I hurt. There were times that I want to quit. I’m a human being just like anybody else. Every time, I want to quit or give up, I say Lord just give me the strength to go just five more minutes. Lord give me the strength to get to that next telephone pole or whatever it is. There are many of days that I run…I just ask the Lord for five more minutes. Five more minutes. That’s the difference between victory and defeat. And that’s the message that I’m out here. I’m an encourager. Am I an Evangelist? Well, yea I’m evangelical in what I do. Am I a preacher? Well, I have a message. Am I a market place missionary? Then, that’s what I do.
Somebody asked this person one time, ‘So you’re a Christian? He said, No sir. I’m a Baptist and they ain’t going to make nothing else out of me. Well, I am a follower of Jesus Christ. And, I speak in all different kind of denominations.
It’s just meeting people where they are because all are created from the same clay. We all deal with the same themes. We all go through the parade of the same seasons. When you really get down to it, there may be two or three percent of things that separate one group of people from another---these might be cultural differences. But, we are all created from the same clay. There’s a time to be born and a time to die and then the judgment.
Every person that I meet, my prayer is, Lord may all I meet this day feel your love flowing through me into their lives. And Lord, help me to see that person from your perspective. And I tell you, when you pray this, you just start looking at people differently. I’m having a wonderful life. Now some of the circumstances haven’t always been so wonderful. But, that doesn’t take away from the fact that I’m having a wonderful life in Christ. I am just so thankful for this journey.”
The accomplished runner believes his life’s greatest experience still has happened. Although there have been some significant markers along the way.
Read These Great Books
The Red Blanket
I need to tell you this one, smiled Stan. “I was running [he paused] it is so significant to me, but it is symbolic. I was in Bulgaria. It was so freezing and cold and everything. And this little ole pastor wanted me to spend the night there. He says we don't have much, but I would just love to have you be at our home. Well, I went to his two-room house. They had a little bitty place, they just huddled in.
He had four daughters---one year apart from each other in age. They had one-bed place with a big huge king size mattress on the floor. They had all these plastic curtains around trying to keep out the cold. And I had on all my clothes and a big ole heavy coat. The pastor said we all would have to get in this bed together. And they had one big red quilt. There cuddled together was he, his mother-in-law, his wife, and the four daughters and this night---me. We were all just laid up beside each other just to keep warm in there.
They had that red quilt on top. In English he said, ‘Stan I am so sorry. This is the best we can do. This is the way we live.’ I said, You know pastor, I love it. I love it. Just look, we’ve got this big red quilt. We got a roof over our heads. We all are warm. You’ve fed me a good meal. Look at this fellowship that we’re having. And this blanket, this big quilt, is symbolic that we all are covered by the blood of Christ. And that night, just turned out to be one of the most… It was just shouting time in Heaven. I mean it was praise time, baby.”
I was still wrapped in the blanket while we progressed to our next question. I ask Stan if a book with that title was in the works.
Stan wrote his first book thirty something years ago titled No Mountain Too High based on his adventures, but paved with Philippians 4:13. He writes, there is no mountain too high when scaled by the strength that comes through Christ. His new book in the works, with the help of renown, accomplished, writer Cec Murphey is titled, Still Climbing Mountains. It’s a reminder that it’s in arrogance to have overcome a mountain and think that the road ahead to be traveled will be all smooth sailing
“It’s like the time I was running China, in the beginning things were all so wonderful. All your energy is there. You’re just all excited. Then, you get on down the road and that road gets longer. Those hills seem to get steeper. The heat comes down on you. The rain storms and the hail storms are just beating you to pieces.
I learned that when I ran across Europe. I ran from Edinburg, Scotland to Rock of Gibraltar. It was an eighty-day run---twelve countries. And then, I almost had kind of a pity party. The Lord spoke through the Spirit and said, ‘Stan I know how you feel. I know exactly how you feel. Let me tell you about a mountain I went up one time. It was called Calvary.’ I’m sitting there and all of a sudden He said, ‘I loved you so much that I literally went to a cross for you. So, I know how you’re suffering here. I created you. I know pain.’ And I want to tell you, all of a sudden I’m out there and that’s why I can run a thousand miles with a broken vertebrae. Doctors found it to be kind of mind boggling. Thinking about it now, that was a miracle.”
I thought Stan story was awesome broken vertebrae and all, but I was still back at the red blanket. I had just watched again, the movie Where the Red Fern Grows. I’m thinking---Where the Red Quilt Lays.
Loving the idea, he continued, reminiscing of some accomplishments---
Healthy American Fitness Leader - Oscar of Fitness, Sport's Illustrated Award of Merit, Stan Cottrell Appreciation Week-Georgia, Kentucky's Ambassador of Goodwill, Outstanding Display of Patriotism award-U.S. Army, United Nations Excellence in Performance Award, Honorary Presidential Sports-Fitness Award-Pres. Reagan, US Senate and House of Representatives resolutions to name a few.
I need to tell you this one, smiled Stan. “I was running [he paused] it is so significant to me, but it is symbolic. I was in Bulgaria. It was so freezing and cold and everything. And this little ole pastor wanted me to spend the night there. He says we don't have much, but I would just love to have you be at our home. Well, I went to his two-room house. They had a little bitty place, they just huddled in.
He had four daughters---one year apart from each other in age. They had one-bed place with a big huge king size mattress on the floor. They had all these plastic curtains around trying to keep out the cold. And I had on all my clothes and a big ole heavy coat. The pastor said we all would have to get in this bed together. And they had one big red quilt. There cuddled together was he, his mother-in-law, his wife, and the four daughters and this night---me. We were all just laid up beside each other just to keep warm in there.
They had that red quilt on top. In English he said, ‘Stan I am so sorry. This is the best we can do. This is the way we live.’ I said, You know pastor, I love it. I love it. Just look, we’ve got this big red quilt. We got a roof over our heads. We all are warm. You’ve fed me a good meal. Look at this fellowship that we’re having. And this blanket, this big quilt, is symbolic that we all are covered by the blood of Christ. And that night, just turned out to be one of the most… It was just shouting time in Heaven. I mean it was praise time, baby.”
I was still wrapped in the blanket while we progressed to our next question. I ask Stan if a book with that title was in the works.
Stan wrote his first book thirty something years ago titled No Mountain Too High based on his adventures, but paved with Philippians 4:13. He writes, there is no mountain too high when scaled by the strength that comes through Christ. His new book in the works, with the help of renown, accomplished, writer Cec Murphey is titled, Still Climbing Mountains. It’s a reminder that it’s in arrogance to have overcome a mountain and think that the road ahead to be traveled will be all smooth sailing
“It’s like the time I was running China, in the beginning things were all so wonderful. All your energy is there. You’re just all excited. Then, you get on down the road and that road gets longer. Those hills seem to get steeper. The heat comes down on you. The rain storms and the hail storms are just beating you to pieces.
I learned that when I ran across Europe. I ran from Edinburg, Scotland to Rock of Gibraltar. It was an eighty-day run---twelve countries. And then, I almost had kind of a pity party. The Lord spoke through the Spirit and said, ‘Stan I know how you feel. I know exactly how you feel. Let me tell you about a mountain I went up one time. It was called Calvary.’ I’m sitting there and all of a sudden He said, ‘I loved you so much that I literally went to a cross for you. So, I know how you’re suffering here. I created you. I know pain.’ And I want to tell you, all of a sudden I’m out there and that’s why I can run a thousand miles with a broken vertebrae. Doctors found it to be kind of mind boggling. Thinking about it now, that was a miracle.”
I thought Stan story was awesome broken vertebrae and all, but I was still back at the red blanket. I had just watched again, the movie Where the Red Fern Grows. I’m thinking---Where the Red Quilt Lays.
Loving the idea, he continued, reminiscing of some accomplishments---
Healthy American Fitness Leader - Oscar of Fitness, Sport's Illustrated Award of Merit, Stan Cottrell Appreciation Week-Georgia, Kentucky's Ambassador of Goodwill, Outstanding Display of Patriotism award-U.S. Army, United Nations Excellence in Performance Award, Honorary Presidential Sports-Fitness Award-Pres. Reagan, US Senate and House of Representatives resolutions to name a few.
Team Meet
“I am appreciative said Stan,” but like Forrest, in a moment, we were whisked away to another adventure. Can I tell you one other quick,” quick story asked Stan? I am running across Europe, and we had different people that would be on the support team. And I’m running across Holland and Belgium it had been twenty straight days. Twenty straight days, day and night, it rained constantly. It was cold. I took plastic bags to put around my feet, put in my shoes and tape it up, to keep my feet warm and dry from all that rain.
One of the members of the support team was from Holland. He stayed on the run with us for about thirty-five days. And then, one morning, we knew he was going to have to go back. He came to me that morning. Tears were coming down his face. I was all choked up too because you bond in these situations in a unique way. He had in his hand a wooden shoe. He says, ‘Stan, I love my grandfather very much. I loved him. He was so everything to me. He said, all I had of his was his wooden shoes to keep him warm. And he said, I would be so honored, I want you to have one of these wooden shoes that were my grandfather's. I have the other.’ And I mean in my man cave, that wooden shoe is displayed so prominently.
And I mean, yeah, I got the Guinness certificates hanging up. I have all that kind of stuff all around. But the things that stand out are those kind of things right there along with the red quilt experience. I got so many of those things. I mean these are just nectar drops from heaven.”
I admit that my interview with Christian’s runner Stan Cottrell had gone a little differently than expected. I thought I'd be interviewing another Christian athlete with some thrown in good feeling stuff. This interview was far from mechanical. it was full of passion. Running apparently gave Stan a platform. I had moved from the red blanket in my thoughts and was now meditating the mention of a support team.
“I can’t run my race alone, paced Stan, and nobody can run their race alone.
I know that’s philosophical, but, that how we’re designed. When God made Adam, he said that’s not enough and so he made Eve. And so, there is two. And when the disciples went out, they went out by two’s. And you know, Christ had the twelve and he’s our example.
So, when I run across these countries, it’s not like I put a backpack on and a canteen and just run down the road hollering Hi. Y’all want to be my friend? There’s a lot of coordination. The easiest thing I do is to run forty or fifty miles a day. But, it takes people. You got your drivers that go ahead. You got the people that's working in advance, working months. It's kind of like a Billy Graham crusade. It's months before you get there. There’s been church leaders, runner groups, and people just come out. And, people can run with me as little or as much as they want to.
I ran through one little community one time. they had all these little children. They were five and six years old---about a hundred of them. And that community was so blessed.
Everyone of them had a t-shirt on that said runners for Jesus. And all I was, was just the vehicle for them. So you got your drivers. You got to know where you’re going. They’ll have a place for me to stay at night. They tell me if I’ll be here or there.
It’s not just loosey goosey. It’s just you have a plan and you work that plan. For instance, I ran two times in Korea. One, for the pre-opening ceremonies for the Olympic Games and the other for the Asian games. And for instance, I ran ten days and forty-eight miles a day. In that ten days, in total, I spoke, in addition to the total amount of distance I ran, thirty churches, eighteen schools, and four military installations. In addition, stopping to have a picture made, kissing babies, hugging people, meeting with the local dignitaries, and having tens of thousands of people who literally came out and ran with me.”
Tom Hanks’ character, in the movie, passion, wasn’t running, it was the childhood love of his life---Jenny. Carol is Stan’s wife name. They have three children and two grandchildren. A great-grandchild. His granddaughter calls him Pa-paw.
He remembered, it was a mountain experience, his wife called him. His son thirty-nine years old died in his sleep. “That rips your heart out, said Stan” Yet, it was there the Lord spoke to him again.
‘Stan I know what it is to lose a son. But I also know that He’s alive and your son is wonderfully alive. I know what I’m doing. A lot of things about my ways you don’t understand, but trust me.’
Stan had answered my question of what was his most hurtful moment while running. He added, “Two broken vertebrae, toenails bleeding, feed bleeding, and all this other kind of stuff is a Sunday school picnic compared to losing a child. I understood having an eight-month-old granddaughter in Heaven.
The Biggest Question
It was time for the biggest question in the interview and Stan race right into it.
“Jesus Christ is my all, answered Stan. He’s my motivation. He is the reason I live. I’m not here for Stan’s glory. I’m here for God’s glory. Still, it’s through my life and everything I do, Jesus Christ is magnified. He is exalted. He the greatest friend humankind will ever have. He is trustworthy. He is dependable. He sustains. He heals. And, he forgives.
Some of the songwriters write songs about their girlfriends, saying you are my reason for living. No, my reason for living is Christ. And this has been about since 1980. And the more I run, the more I live. The things that I have done, I haven’t even scratched the surface yet.
I’m asking God if I can live to be at least two hundred and fifty years old, so I can do the things that’s in my mind and heart. And the things, I like to accomplish. I say to people, even if I fall short of two hundred and fifty years old, I need you to pick up the baton. It’s been passed to you to run.
I do not want to be involved in anything that’s not going to outlive my own life. Christ is alive. He is waiting for me. I’ll never die. None of us will ever die. Life as we know will come to an end someday. But it’s absent from the body, present with God. I don’t want to even think of the other. People say I can’t run like you do. I say, well, nobody can do what I do, and I can’t do what you do. But when we get to Heaven someday, I know you’re going to have a perfect body, so we’ll go and do a fifty mile run on the fairways of glory, by the river of life.
Stan answer had started me up again. I was reminiscing of Elijah who out ran the kings horses and Enoch who walked with God until he was caught up. I was thinking he may have been running with God. I felt like I was a part of the heavenly track team along with them, Stan, and Forrest
Stan has an earthly team named the Friendship Sports Association, incorporated nonprofit in 1983. The vision is to develop true friendship world over---in thought heart and spirit, to point to the greatest friend of all Jesus Christ. The foundation uses the forum of running to reach countries and cultures all over the world with this message. The next journey is doing a friendship run in every country, in every colony and every territory in the world to promote just the spirit of friendship.
The second goal of the alliance is to bring awareness to the hundred and forty-three million orphans in the world. Stan says, “Every night these children go to sleep and they lay their little heads down and they cry their little hearts out.”
Stan says a five or six-year-old child doesn't understand their circumstance yet they psychologically try to reason it out. All they really know is they just hurt. So he runs to promote friendship and to help orphans. He’s been named ambassador of one of the largest orphan organizations in the world.
“There’s so many horrible scenarios that take place, explain Stan. Typically so many of these children end up dead. Others are recruited into prostitution or other kind of things.
The book of James says pure and undefiled religion is taking care the widows and the orphans. That’s my passion, I’ve been there. I’ve visited so many of those little orphanages in the world and have come home crying my eyes out. I wish I had a thousand acres that I can bring thousands and thousands of these children.
As long as there is a child that is crying its little eyes out, I’ll run and run and run. I’ll continue to run to carry that message of hope, bring relief and awareness. I’ll run to deliver a message to this generation that God has in His divine wisdom allowed me to be in. Since the beginning of time, has been waiting our arrival to try to ignite people to in their minds. What are you going to do?”
For more about Stan Cottrell and his mission visit his organization - http://friendshipsports.org/
“I am appreciative said Stan,” but like Forrest, in a moment, we were whisked away to another adventure. Can I tell you one other quick,” quick story asked Stan? I am running across Europe, and we had different people that would be on the support team. And I’m running across Holland and Belgium it had been twenty straight days. Twenty straight days, day and night, it rained constantly. It was cold. I took plastic bags to put around my feet, put in my shoes and tape it up, to keep my feet warm and dry from all that rain.
One of the members of the support team was from Holland. He stayed on the run with us for about thirty-five days. And then, one morning, we knew he was going to have to go back. He came to me that morning. Tears were coming down his face. I was all choked up too because you bond in these situations in a unique way. He had in his hand a wooden shoe. He says, ‘Stan, I love my grandfather very much. I loved him. He was so everything to me. He said, all I had of his was his wooden shoes to keep him warm. And he said, I would be so honored, I want you to have one of these wooden shoes that were my grandfather's. I have the other.’ And I mean in my man cave, that wooden shoe is displayed so prominently.
And I mean, yeah, I got the Guinness certificates hanging up. I have all that kind of stuff all around. But the things that stand out are those kind of things right there along with the red quilt experience. I got so many of those things. I mean these are just nectar drops from heaven.”
I admit that my interview with Christian’s runner Stan Cottrell had gone a little differently than expected. I thought I'd be interviewing another Christian athlete with some thrown in good feeling stuff. This interview was far from mechanical. it was full of passion. Running apparently gave Stan a platform. I had moved from the red blanket in my thoughts and was now meditating the mention of a support team.
“I can’t run my race alone, paced Stan, and nobody can run their race alone.
I know that’s philosophical, but, that how we’re designed. When God made Adam, he said that’s not enough and so he made Eve. And so, there is two. And when the disciples went out, they went out by two’s. And you know, Christ had the twelve and he’s our example.
So, when I run across these countries, it’s not like I put a backpack on and a canteen and just run down the road hollering Hi. Y’all want to be my friend? There’s a lot of coordination. The easiest thing I do is to run forty or fifty miles a day. But, it takes people. You got your drivers that go ahead. You got the people that's working in advance, working months. It's kind of like a Billy Graham crusade. It's months before you get there. There’s been church leaders, runner groups, and people just come out. And, people can run with me as little or as much as they want to.
I ran through one little community one time. they had all these little children. They were five and six years old---about a hundred of them. And that community was so blessed.
Everyone of them had a t-shirt on that said runners for Jesus. And all I was, was just the vehicle for them. So you got your drivers. You got to know where you’re going. They’ll have a place for me to stay at night. They tell me if I’ll be here or there.
It’s not just loosey goosey. It’s just you have a plan and you work that plan. For instance, I ran two times in Korea. One, for the pre-opening ceremonies for the Olympic Games and the other for the Asian games. And for instance, I ran ten days and forty-eight miles a day. In that ten days, in total, I spoke, in addition to the total amount of distance I ran, thirty churches, eighteen schools, and four military installations. In addition, stopping to have a picture made, kissing babies, hugging people, meeting with the local dignitaries, and having tens of thousands of people who literally came out and ran with me.”
Tom Hanks’ character, in the movie, passion, wasn’t running, it was the childhood love of his life---Jenny. Carol is Stan’s wife name. They have three children and two grandchildren. A great-grandchild. His granddaughter calls him Pa-paw.
He remembered, it was a mountain experience, his wife called him. His son thirty-nine years old died in his sleep. “That rips your heart out, said Stan” Yet, it was there the Lord spoke to him again.
‘Stan I know what it is to lose a son. But I also know that He’s alive and your son is wonderfully alive. I know what I’m doing. A lot of things about my ways you don’t understand, but trust me.’
Stan had answered my question of what was his most hurtful moment while running. He added, “Two broken vertebrae, toenails bleeding, feed bleeding, and all this other kind of stuff is a Sunday school picnic compared to losing a child. I understood having an eight-month-old granddaughter in Heaven.
The Biggest Question
It was time for the biggest question in the interview and Stan race right into it.
“Jesus Christ is my all, answered Stan. He’s my motivation. He is the reason I live. I’m not here for Stan’s glory. I’m here for God’s glory. Still, it’s through my life and everything I do, Jesus Christ is magnified. He is exalted. He the greatest friend humankind will ever have. He is trustworthy. He is dependable. He sustains. He heals. And, he forgives.
Some of the songwriters write songs about their girlfriends, saying you are my reason for living. No, my reason for living is Christ. And this has been about since 1980. And the more I run, the more I live. The things that I have done, I haven’t even scratched the surface yet.
I’m asking God if I can live to be at least two hundred and fifty years old, so I can do the things that’s in my mind and heart. And the things, I like to accomplish. I say to people, even if I fall short of two hundred and fifty years old, I need you to pick up the baton. It’s been passed to you to run.
I do not want to be involved in anything that’s not going to outlive my own life. Christ is alive. He is waiting for me. I’ll never die. None of us will ever die. Life as we know will come to an end someday. But it’s absent from the body, present with God. I don’t want to even think of the other. People say I can’t run like you do. I say, well, nobody can do what I do, and I can’t do what you do. But when we get to Heaven someday, I know you’re going to have a perfect body, so we’ll go and do a fifty mile run on the fairways of glory, by the river of life.
Stan answer had started me up again. I was reminiscing of Elijah who out ran the kings horses and Enoch who walked with God until he was caught up. I was thinking he may have been running with God. I felt like I was a part of the heavenly track team along with them, Stan, and Forrest
Stan has an earthly team named the Friendship Sports Association, incorporated nonprofit in 1983. The vision is to develop true friendship world over---in thought heart and spirit, to point to the greatest friend of all Jesus Christ. The foundation uses the forum of running to reach countries and cultures all over the world with this message. The next journey is doing a friendship run in every country, in every colony and every territory in the world to promote just the spirit of friendship.
The second goal of the alliance is to bring awareness to the hundred and forty-three million orphans in the world. Stan says, “Every night these children go to sleep and they lay their little heads down and they cry their little hearts out.”
Stan says a five or six-year-old child doesn't understand their circumstance yet they psychologically try to reason it out. All they really know is they just hurt. So he runs to promote friendship and to help orphans. He’s been named ambassador of one of the largest orphan organizations in the world.
“There’s so many horrible scenarios that take place, explain Stan. Typically so many of these children end up dead. Others are recruited into prostitution or other kind of things.
The book of James says pure and undefiled religion is taking care the widows and the orphans. That’s my passion, I’ve been there. I’ve visited so many of those little orphanages in the world and have come home crying my eyes out. I wish I had a thousand acres that I can bring thousands and thousands of these children.
As long as there is a child that is crying its little eyes out, I’ll run and run and run. I’ll continue to run to carry that message of hope, bring relief and awareness. I’ll run to deliver a message to this generation that God has in His divine wisdom allowed me to be in. Since the beginning of time, has been waiting our arrival to try to ignite people to in their minds. What are you going to do?”
For more about Stan Cottrell and his mission visit his organization - http://friendshipsports.org/