This is Janet's testimony
I accepted the Lord when I was seven. A girl at school was talking about Jesus, so I asked my
mom about Him. She told me all the Bible stories she could remember learning as a child, but I
kept wanting to learn more about Him. So she enrolled me in a Sunday School where the bus would
pick children up. I loved it & would go home raving about church & telling her all I had learned
about God. I told her she should come with me. She finally did. While going to church I answered
an altar call at a night service. I remember feeling totally sure that the gospel was true &
felt a very strong urge to respond to the love Christ has for us & the sacrifice he made for us.
She committed her life to the Lord as well. My mother, my sisters & I got baptized the next year.
During my preteen years I stopped attending church. When I was 14 a friend of mine invited me to
Young Life (a youth group/parachurch organization) It was very fun & I continued to go, not being
too impacted by the gospel until I went to summer camp. They presented the gospel very clearly
& challenged us to think about what Jesus had done for us & consider what our response would be.
We were sent out for a half hour of silent reflection. I was reminded of all He had done for me
& how little I had done for Him or even thought of Him over the years. I felt ashamed, but also
committed to making a change in my life. I continued to attend Young Life meetings & their Bible
studies.
A couple of years later they introduced us to different churches in the city & a whole group of
us chose the same church. During this tiime, my best friend & were also being discipled by a
wonderful woman of God who was a Young Life leader & also worked with Navigators. My husband
(who I had met there) had recommitted his life to Christ as well. He was also being discpled by
a male leader during this time. We attended church every Sunday & got involved in the youth
group. Our faith began to grow in leaps & bounds. My husband (obviously my boyfriend then) & I
grew very close to our youth pastor. My husband felt the call of Godto go into the youth
ministry. He went to Bible college & got his BA in pastoral studies. We worked in the youth
ministry from 1988-1996.
Since that time we have really had our faith shaken by a number of things that happened to us.
We felt betrayed by our pastor, our church, etc. We even felt as though God had abandoned us. We
are gradually coming back to the closeness we once had with God, but it is a long road. We began
going back to church this year after attending intermittently over the years. Please pray for
our relationship with God to continue to grow.
Janet
        
        
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