I was raised in a “Christian” home, but I never thought that God was real. In fact, I was misguided because I thought that since Jesus died, EVERYONE was going to heaven. When I was a sophomore in high school, I met some Christians who were VERY different from me. They had the real thing. I had come to a point where I could feel God requiring more out of me. And I really didn’t want to give it. In fact, I remember one night, laying in bed and shaking my fist up to heaven telling God just where He could go. Can you imagine?? How stupid I was. Shortly thereafter, I had the opportunity to go on a retreat with the Protestant Youth Of the Chapel and I felt desperate that I needed to go. I went and it was there I gave my heart to Jesus. At the close of one of the meetings, the leaders kept giving the invitation, “Do you want to put Jesus first in your life?” I did a silly thing. We were singing songs and when we started singing “I may never march in the Infantry” I stood up and did all the hand motions. (I knew them all. I was an unsaved Sunday School teacher.) I was saying yes, I’m in the Lord’s army.

Since that time, 39 years ago, Jesus has been so real in my life. There are times when life hasn’t been easy. I’ve had cancer twice, had a backslidden son, had major rejection from friends, but through it all I understand that God is a BIG God, in charge of everything, and worthy of my TRUST!

Stephanie Then & Now

I grew up in a "Christian" household, always believing in God's existence. My parents had me baptized at age 6, but it was several years before I knew what having the Holy Spirit in my life really meant.

My family stopped going to church when I was 8 years old. For many years we were out of church for one reason or another. I was always taught right from wrong but with no real reason or understanding of why; always believing in God but not really understanding Him. During this time I learned that it was okay to manipulate and push my moral values whenever I could get away with it. I saw this behavior in my friends and family and though it never felt right, I though it was okay as long as I could get away with it.

In my mid-teens I started feeling like something was really missing from my life. My manipulation and selfishness was not keeping me satisfied for long and it was causing problems in my life. I started attending a local church, knowing in my heart that it was God I needed. At the time I was attending a traditional Baptist church, and though I knew I was getting closer to finding what I needed, there was no Spirit in this place. Soon after that we moved to New Mexico. My parents started going to church again and we made some friends there. I started to see the Holy Spirit working in my fathers heart and that had such a big impact on me.

At my high school there, I made a friend who went to a church in Albuquerque, which wasn't far away. I started attending Friday night youth services there with him and made a lot of really great friends. My church was really small so I spent a lot of time with this youth group. While I was there I really learned how the Holy Spirit could fill you up and I began to see Him working in peoples' lives. Although I had asked Jesus into my heart at a younger age, I decided to do so again here so I could know my savior better. This was when I truly started my walk with Christ. I knew why I felt badly about my past behavior and attitudes and I began to understand what it meant to truly please God.

That was about 8 years ago. I was 16 or 17. I have done a lot of changing since then. I spent some of that time living out of God's perfect will. Now I am truly where He wants me to be and I am so thankful! Since I've been here at OCF, I have learned so much about how Jesus works in our lives, and how to benefit from the gifts He has freely given us. Since I began walking with God, I have found a wonderful husband who loves me so much and completes me as much as possible in this world. My life has been so blessed. God is such a big part of my life now, and I am so thankful!

Dave Then & Now

Like many, I was raised in a Christian home. My parents took us to church every week. I was baptized when I was a freshman in high school. But then, during my sophomore year, we stopped going. My parents and brother haven't been back since then, and it wasn't until I was a junior at New Mexico State that I returned to church.

I met my future wife, Stephanie Jourdan, in the music department of NMSU where we were both studying music education. She had recently begun attending a spirit-filled church in Las Cruces called Living Word Family Church. Under Pastor Jeff Sutton, I started to learn what it really meant to live for Christ. We got married in 2005.

Things went well for most of that year, but we found ourselves increasingly unsettled with the financial situation we were in, as well as the stress brought on by some personality conflicts involving some of the faculty at NMSU. Stephanie's family was living in Rock Hill, SC and she was feeling a remarkably strong urge to return home. We decided to make a new start in Charlotte, NC after the end of the fall semester. I found work with Schneider National, a long-haul trucking company where I had worked years before, and we made our move, shoving everything we had into our Dodge Neon and setting out across the country.

We both drifted away from God out there, focusing far too much on our jobs, how we could get back in school, what our long term plan should be, what WE wanted, what WE had, etc. It quickly devolved into OUR plan for OUR lives instead of God's plan for our lives. We floated in and out of church, never really settling into a congregation where we felt at home. I had become a lukewarm Christian instead of the on-fire believer I was meant to be. Not surprisingly, things began falling apart. No matter how much money I could make, it was never enough. No matter how many material possessions we aquired, we weren't happy. I sold my Freightliner and took a local job so that I could be home every night instead of once every few weeks, but I only found frustration and depression working there. I was living the kind of life that Revelations says makes Jesus want to spit me out, and I was ready to puke myself. I felt like I was headed in a downward spiral with no bottom. I felt like there was no future for me but 14 hour days at jobs I hated, financial distress, marital strife, and no hope that it would do anything but get worse. I wasted a lot of time being angry and feeling sorry for myself.

Finally one night, between Charlotte and Monroe, NC at the wheel of a gas tanker, I turned to prayer. It wasn't an appropriate prayer and it wasn't an eloquent one. It was a petulant prayer, along the lines of, "God, I still believe you exist. This isn't working. If this is your plan for me, just take me out of here because I don't want it. I'd rather die. I know you could fix this if you wanted to. But I can't." I don't recommend speaking to God in that fashion, but somehow, it was enough. I almost immediately felt like this plan was my own, not God's, and I shouldn't be surprised it was a disaster. The next day, I got a call from my mother up in Ogden, UT. She works at Weber State University, and was asking if I still wanted to go back to school. Despite my attitude, God was about to bless me beyond my own hopes.

My parents had moved into a new house and offered to let me and Stephanie live in the furnished basement so I could go back to college. She also informed me that I would get 50% off my tuition at WSU because she was an employee. And, most shockingly, they were willing to pay for the move from Charlotte, NC to Ogden, UT. After convincing Stephanie that it was not just a hair-brained scheme, we accepted. I had been talking to the Army ROTC staff at a small school in Charlotte and liked what I had heard, and now that returning to school was a reality and I was once again seeking God and praying, that feeling of interest blossomed into a call.

We have been here since April, and have been attending OCF for a couple of months now. I cannot express how welcoming and loving this church has been. For the first time in years, I am at peace. I am seeking the will of God, learning how to listen to Him, and following HIS plan for my life. His favor and grace are evident every time I step into a classroom or into the field with ROTC. My marriage is stronger than ever, and I have been given the opportunity to serve on the worship team here at OCF. And finally, I feel like I have a future, as a Christian, a husband, someday a father, and an officer in the US Army.

My name is Joann. I have always been part of a church in my childhood. Going to church was a part of the week I attended a private school sponsored by our church. However, when my grandmother died and I was around 9 years old, a lot changed. We moved north and my mother, my sister and I lived in an apartment. Our lives around church changed also. We didn't go as a family as much because my mother was a nurse.

Since I had been raised in a Lutheran Church, it was customary at around 11 or 12 years old to take Catechism classes to move on in the church and be able to take communion, etc. I decided I wanted to go back to church for that. I located a Lutheran Church and began attending the Catechism classes and the Sunday services. While attending, I was sexually abused by the minister of that church. I didn't tell anyone, even my mother, because I felt somehow responsible. After my own realization of what had occurred, a lot of inappropriate touching, I left the church and no longer felt the need to go to church again. I went sometimes on holidays but I had no passion for church or God for that matter. I just kind of grew up in lots of failed relationships, had my child at a young age, kind of defiant against the adults in my life and angry and worried a lot.

One day I went to see a very charismatic man speak. I won't say his name because even now he is famous in his own right and I am not in agreement with much of what he speaks about these days. However, on this day he was talking about the chastity and beauty of women and how they should be protected and respected. It struck a chord in my and made me rethink my relationship with men and what I allowed to occur in those relationships. I joined a community that was Islamic in it's premise, however, I learned respect for God there and I learned respect for myself. I even learned I could have a private relationship with God that was between Him and me. I didn't stay with the community mostly because I moved and I couldn't find a group like the one that had been so teaching, but I hungered for that relationship.

I tried reading at home and studying on my own. I really didn't become a church member again until after I met my present husband and he was concerned, since we were moving here, that I needed to find an African American group of friends so he took me to The Finley Temple, which was a predominately African American congregation. However, in my learning through those years without a church family, I learned that it's not so much the church family that supports you but how you support the church family. Just like in a real home, how you support your family, join in their traditions, remember the fun times and forgive them when they make a mistake.

I wasn't in to moving around in churches for small infractions or fears so we stayed there until my husband's mother, who also had strayed away from her church family and wanted so badly to be back in one, found this church, Ogden Christian Fellowship. She invited us so we came and loved the church and its willingness to make us a part of the family. We started coming and I have been here ever since. Here, my learning has continued and the Lord blesses me with wisdom and showers love on me everyday. I have no idea where, as I grow, the Lord is going to lead me but I know now to listen because God pursues us even when we have given up on ourselves. I've also learned that the Lord never ignores us but we can certainly ignore the Lord. If you have questions, problems, guilt, any of that, ask the questions and then listen quietly for the answer. He is always on time.