SHARPSBURG, MD - It's a very special day for Sharpsburg local Sonny Mason. It's his 74th birthday, and he's in for a birthday gift that's 24-feet-tall.
"Today's my birthday and I think it'll be a very good day," says Mason.
A Pastor from Minnesota, Bill Mantel, has been building 24-foot-tall crosses since 2008.
"It was on my heart with the 150th Anniversary of Antietam to come here and put up a cross to give God glory," says Pastor Mantel.
He built the first one near his home in Minnesota and his most recent on all the way in Israel. Now he's digging Maryland dirt for the first time.
"Bill was excited in how God networked them both together and it started because he was one of the people who would come on the devotion and read it every morning," says his wife, Pastor Carol Mantel.
Pastor Bill broke his neck in a terrible car accident in 1994 and says he had to spend five days out of the week for five years in a warm rehabilitation pool.
"While still under these medications I went to South Africa and there, a man there by the name of Angus Bucket prayed for me and that's when Jesus healed me of all that pain," says Pastor Bill.
That's also when he started planting crosses like the one near the Clara Bee on Sharpsburg Pike. It's the 41st one in the world. Pastor Bill says he wants to plant a cross in every single state and country.
He says, "1 Corinthians 1:18 says for the power of the cross is what we are all about, but for those people who don't understand it, it's mere foolishness."
Click Here to check out Pastor Bill's website Christian Cyber Ministries.
"Today's my birthday and I think it'll be a very good day," says Mason.
A Pastor from Minnesota, Bill Mantel, has been building 24-foot-tall crosses since 2008.
"It was on my heart with the 150th Anniversary of Antietam to come here and put up a cross to give God glory," says Pastor Mantel.
He built the first one near his home in Minnesota and his most recent on all the way in Israel. Now he's digging Maryland dirt for the first time.
"Bill was excited in how God networked them both together and it started because he was one of the people who would come on the devotion and read it every morning," says his wife, Pastor Carol Mantel.
Pastor Bill broke his neck in a terrible car accident in 1994 and says he had to spend five days out of the week for five years in a warm rehabilitation pool.
"While still under these medications I went to South Africa and there, a man there by the name of Angus Bucket prayed for me and that's when Jesus healed me of all that pain," says Pastor Bill.
That's also when he started planting crosses like the one near the Clara Bee on Sharpsburg Pike. It's the 41st one in the world. Pastor Bill says he wants to plant a cross in every single state and country.
He says, "1 Corinthians 1:18 says for the power of the cross is what we are all about, but for those people who don't understand it, it's mere foolishness."
Click Here to check out Pastor Bill's website Christian Cyber Ministries.
Comments
Important? If you want to be part of something important, try volunteering at a homeless shelter or a soup kitchen.
Shawn B.
October 20, 2012 at 6:23 pm
The planting of this cross is actually on private property and all necessary approvals were obtained. What a blessing to have been a part of something so important. A right that our country was founded upon, that of freedom to worship how we choose. Today we chose to worship God and give him the glory by placing a cross here today! Praise God!
Edgar K.
October 19, 2012 at 7:25 pm
Sickening religious display....is it even legal to put something like that up in a National Historical site?
Shawn B.
October 19, 2012 at 6:29 pm
