My Story/Testimony

I have not always been a Christian, in fact I was over 30 before I truly accepted Jesus as Lord and Savior.  I was raised in a Christianity based church that most orthodox Christians would consider a cult.  I am not going to name them, because it is simply not that important and I don't wish to deal with their hassles.  When I was about fifteen I left that church and turned totally to the world.  I eventually reached a point where I had accepted humanism/atheism as my faith.  I believed that  this was all there was, and the best that we humans could hope to achieve was what we created for ourselves.

Fast Forward............

After almost 6 years in the military I met my wife at a night club in Great Falls, Montana.  We fell instantly in love and were married three months later.  It was not until after our first year of marriage that  my family would believe that we didn't have to get married.  She was from the Lutheran faith, but was far from a practicing Christian.

About three months after we got married, I had an allergy attack,  while guarding ICBM Missiles, that almost killed me.  I went unconscious at least three time, and was pretty sure I wasn't going to wake up, but I did.  Funny thing was that there was a couple of Christians on my security team that, while I was being cared for by other members of my team, went into the back of the facility to pray for me.  I became very offended by this and couldn't understand why they would waste their time praying when I needed medical attention.  They joined my team about two months earlier and had tried to "share their Faith" with me, only to be ridiculed by me for their efforts.  That was the last day I worked security and ended as a medical administration person at the base clinic.  Apparently the Air Force felt I could be a liability in a combat or crisis situation if I were to have another allergy attack especially since we never discovered what caused the first one, but at least I was away from those Christians.

After three years in the clinic I realized I didn't like the service anymore.  Those people that worked in the clinic were not military enough for me.  I took the early separation bonus that the first President Bush was giving out to reduce the military that President Reagan spent eight years building up and I ended up as a drillers helper on a track mounted drill rig used to drill holes in the sides of mountains looking for microscopic gold.  The hours were long, the people I worked with were not always the brightest or most refined, but the pay was great.  We were able to afford a nice house, two cars, and all the extras.  What I didn't know was that my next life changing event was just around the corner.

In the spring of 93 my wife became pregnant with our second child.  I was on a road crew drilling in Utah and she wanted to be with me so we sold our house and bought a motorhome that we and my 2 year old son lived in at this little bitty campground in the little bitty town of about 100 people in northern Utah.  In her sixth month of pregnancy she started getting sick and would spend most of the day in bed.  Once I had to drive her 40 miles to the nearest town with a hospital because she was very sick.  The Dr's suggestion was that we find some place more permanent to live for her to have the baby.  At this point selling the house turned to be not such a great idea.  We looked for some apartments on the 2 days I got off that month but were unsuccessful. 

She continued to get larger and sicker.  She was from Montana and new some people back near her home town that had a house she could rent for $150 a month.  She told me one day that she was moving back to Montana and wanted to know if I was coming.   I wasn't fond of the idea but agreed to move her up there and come back to work until the baby was born (she was due in mid December) or winter layoffs, whichever came first.  I arranged for a week off and we started the voyage. I needed to have one vehicle to drive back with and she needed a vehicle up there so we both had to drive.  She could only drive for about 5 hours a day and then would swell up like a balloon.  We would stop and get a motel, she would go to bed and rest until the next day and we would go again. 

It took us five days to travel from near Logan, Utah to Opheim, Montana and arrived on October 29th, 2003.  She was pretty sick, but hadn't seen her family in a long time so we drove into Scobey and stayed with her sister.  She wasn't able to do much visiting and spent most of the weekend in bed and when we got back to our new house on Sunday she was really sick.  The next morning I again drove her 50 miles to the nearest hospital, she was so swollen that she had to wear my clothes and shoes, because she had nothing that fit.  Long story short - she was air evacuated to a regional hospital, had a stroke on the plane, our daughter was born c-section 6 weeks prematurely and only weighed 4 lbs 9 ounces of which she lost 6 ounces her first 6 hours of life.

My wife was in ICU for almost 9 days, with blood pressures so high the doctors were amazed she was alive.  Our daughter was in ICN for 14 days and still did not weigh 5 pounds.  They reluctantly let us take her back to our new home because there was a major storm about to hit the area and were worried we would not be able to travel with her again until spring.  Because of the stroke my wife had she would not be able to drive for at least 6 weeks and they both were going to have Dr visits during that time.  Needless to say we now found ourselves in a town I was not familiar with, unable to return to my $800 a week job, not having another job and a wife and newborn baby that were both sick.

We learned how to live on food stamps and the $900 a month unemployment I was able to get only because I was able to convince them that I would not be able to return to my job and the state of Montana wouldn't actually have to pay for it because they would be able to bill Nevada for it (the state I was employed in).  That year's Christmas for my children would have been nothing had it not been for a few Christians that heard about our situation and provided gifts for my children.

That spring I found a job cooking in a restaurant for $6.35 an hour and my wife was able to bartend at a local tavern.  We were not living the lifestyle we were used to in fact we lost everything.  Both our cars were repossessed.  We ended up driving a car we bought from a local woman for $350 and she allowed us to pay for it over a three month period.  Looking back it was one of the most dependable cars we ever owned.  I now believe it to be God's Grace.  All our credit cards defaulted, and our share of the medical costs were almost $20,000.  We ended up filing bankruptcy.

The Holidays came around again, and we were still poor.  Again it was the Christians that provided us with a holiday meal and gifts for my children.  The next year I got another job fixing cars for $7 an hour but that didn't change our situation much and our children were still looking at another tight Holiday season and again the Christians were the ones to provide us with a meal and Christmas gifts for my children.  I was actually starting to notice a pattern and it was that Christmas that I started seeking and thinking there may be more than just us humans. 

I was also influenced by members of my wife's family that I had spent the last two years with and that also were Christians, but seemed very different from many of the Christians , or so called Christians (members of the church I was raised in - included) I was accustomed to.  They seemed to be very different and that made me more curious. 

What I didn't know was that curiosity would lead to the most life changing experience I have known to date.

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