John Baldino's Story | Soles Saving Souls

There was a time when my name represented almost everything I thought I was.

John Baldino.

Businessman. Entrepreneur. Provider. Deal maker. Father. A man who knew how to buy, sell, negotiate, survive, and find opportunity where other people saw nothing.

I grew up learning the closeout business from my father, Bal.

I was the Son of Bal.

And for a long time, I believed that was my identity.

I learned merchandise. I learned people. I learned how to walk into warehouses filled with unwanted inventory and see value. I learned flea markets, closeouts, buying and selling, warehouses, truckloads and deals.

I worked. I hustled. I built. I made mistakes. I succeeded. I failed. And I kept going.

But success doesn't tell the whole story.

There were chapters behind the business that weren't visible from the outside.

There were family struggles. Financial struggles. Relationships that changed. Businesses that changed. Times when what I had built seemed to disappear.

There were moments when I wondered what all the work had really been for.

Yet through all those years, God was writing a story I couldn't see yet.

I Thought I Was Moving Merchandise

Today, I see preparation.

Looking back at these photographs now, I see something different.

Boxes. Warehouses. Food. Closeouts. Flea markets. Truckloads of merchandise other companies didn't want anymore.

At the time, I saw inventory.

Today, I see preparation.

Because my entire career taught me something that would eventually become central to my purpose:

Something the world has discarded can still have tremendous value.

I learned that lesson through merchandise long before I understood that it could apply to people.

A closeout isn't necessarily worthless. It may simply need someone willing to recognize its value.

Years later, God would show me the same thing about human beings.

John Baldino working with closeout merchandise at a flea market

Then My Life Changed

Business alone wasn't enough.

Eventually I reached a point where business alone wasn't enough.

Money wasn't enough. Deals weren't enough. Possessions weren't enough. Even the identity I had carried for so many years wasn't enough.

I began searching for something greater than myself.

And that search led me to Jesus Christ.

My life didn't suddenly become perfect. My past wasn't erased. Instead, I began understanding my past differently.

The victories. The failures. The relationships. The warehouses. The merchandise. The people I had met. Even the things I wished had happened differently.

God could use all of it.

I had spent much of my life believing I was simply the Son of Bal.

Then I discovered another identity.

I am a son of the Most High.

Thirty Years Later

God brought someone from my past back into my life.

John Longo.

We had known one another decades earlier. Nearly thirty years had passed.

And where did we reconnect?

Not in a boardroom. Not at a trade show. Not at some giant business deal.

At Fulfill's People's Pantry, helping people who needed food.

We talked. And this time the conversation wasn't primarily about business.

John told me about alcoholism, homelessness, cancer, treatment, recovery and rebuilding his life.

I shared my own journey and what God had been doing in mine.

Two men who had known one another in another lifetime were standing together decades later as very different men.

God had put us back together.

And we decided that whatever we built next needed to help other people.

Christ Inc. TV became part of that mission. Universal Closeouts became part of it too.

Business and ministry didn't have to live in separate worlds anymore.

Business could become a tool for ministry.

Then We Met Mark

He wasn't asking for pity. He was asking for opportunity.

And then came another encounter.

Mark Mossop.

A man experiencing homelessness who needed someone to see more than his circumstances.

We listened to him. We heard his story. He wanted an opportunity.

We happened to have light-up roses that could be sold. So we gave Mark some.

He sold them. He made money. He ate.

And then he came back with a simple question:

“Do you have anything else I can sell?”

That question stayed with me.

Because Mark wasn't asking for pity. He was asking for opportunity.

He wanted dignity. He wanted to work. He wanted someone to believe he still had value.

And suddenly everything God had taught me through decades in the closeout business began connecting.

The Shoes

Inventory became a doorway.

We had thousands of pairs of shoes.

From a business perspective, they were inventory.

But God gave us another way to see them.

A pair of shoes could go onto the feet of someone living on the street.

A pair of shoes could help someone walk into a job interview.

A pair of shoes could begin a conversation.

That conversation could become a relationship.

That relationship could restore hope.

And through that relationship, someone could discover the same truth I had discovered:

You are worth more than your circumstances.

That was the beginning of Soles Saving Souls.

John Baldino giving shoes through Soles Saving Souls

The Lesson Hidden in the Closeout Business

There's still value here.

For decades, I bought things other people had written off.

Overstocks. Liquidations. Discontinued merchandise. Inventory somebody else didn't want.

My job was to look at what had been rejected and say:

There's still value here.

Only later did I understand how perfectly God had prepared me.

Because Soles Saving Souls encounters people society can sometimes overlook in exactly the same way.

Homeless. Addicted. Recently incarcerated. Struggling financially. Broken relationships. People starting over. People whose worst chapter has become the label others put on their entire life.

But God doesn't see a closeout.

God sees His child.

People are not disposable inventory.

No human being belongs in society's clearance bin.

No person should be defined forever by the worst thing that ever happened to them.

And nobody is beyond redemption.

From Son of Bal to Son of the Most High

My father's lessons are still part of the story.

I will always be my father's son.

I am grateful for what Bal taught me.

He taught me business. He taught me how to recognize value. He helped shape the man I became.

So being the Son of Bal will always be part of my story.

But it isn't the end of my story.

Because eventually I learned who my ultimate Father is.

And that changed everything.

I went from building businesses primarily to create value to asking how the things we build can serve people.

From seeing inventory to seeing opportunity.

From measuring success by what we could acquire to measuring it by what we could give.

From asking: “What is this worth?”

to asking:

“Who can this help?”

John Baldino at a merchandise recovery site

Today

The shoes aren't the mission. The person is.

Today, when I put a pair of Soles Saving Souls shoes into someone's hands, I understand that the shoes aren't the mission.

The person is.

The shoes simply open the door.

Behind every pair is an opportunity to say:

We see you.

You matter.

Your past does not have to determine your future.

There is still purpose in your life.

And most importantly:

God has not forgotten you.

That is why the photographs of the warehouses, flea markets, merchandise and earlier years belong in this story.

They aren't photographs of a different life.

They're photographs of the preparation.

I just didn't know it yet.

And the photograph of me today, handing someone a pair of Soles Saving Souls shoes, brings those decades full circle.

The businessman is still there. The lessons my father taught me are still there. The entrepreneur is still there.

But now I know who I am.

From Son of Balto Son of the Most High

But success doesn't tell the whole story.

Today, I see preparation.

Business alone wasn't enough.

God brought someone from my past back into my life.

He wasn't asking for pity. He was asking for opportunity.

Inventory became a doorway.

There's still value here.

My father's lessons are still part of the story.

The shoes aren't the mission. The person is.

I was the Son of Bal.I became a Son of the Most High.

From Son of Bal
to Son of the Most High

I was the Son of Bal.
I became a Son of the Most High.