Testimonies
The most important moment in an individual's life is the moment they come to know Jesus Christ. We believe that salvation is a life-changing, perceptible moment in time when they are brought to Christ by the conviction of the Holy Spirit. While under this weight of sin, they seek Christ and through repentance and faith, find peace and acceptance with God. We believe that God will let you know you are saved through the evidence of this experience and a change in your life. It is our desire that everyone have this relationship with God. We would like to share some of our testimonies with you in the hope that God might use them to bless you and encourage you to seek Him.
I was raised in a Congregational church where I learned the stories of the Old and New Testament. In 6th grade, our teacher gave us a list of books to prepare for college and the first book on the list was the Bible. I was an avid reader and figured I’d start with the first book. I read the whole thing. Shortly thereafter, I had the opportunity to attend an evening service at a Baptist Church in Bellevue, Nebraska and that was the first time I ever remember when I heard about Christ dying on the cross—that I realized it was for me and because of me that he died. The man who was preaching told about how God had called him to preach and he resisted. He ended up getting bounced out of the back of an army vehicle, breaking his neck and putting him in a wheelchair. That was how God got him settled down and serving Him. He preached about the need for salvation and that Hell was a real place. It had never seemed more real to me than it did that night and I knew in my heart that I had done many sinful things. Something told me that what he was saying was right. The Lord drew me to my altar that night. I called out to Him and He saved my soul. I remember feeling a huge boulder had been lifted off my back and I was just floating. That was September 5, 1971. There was no sound church in my hometown (Oakland, Iowa) but I read my Bible and used “The Daily Bread” devotional. I fell away from the narrow way and got pregnant at 17. “Nice girls” didn’t get pregnant without being married in my home town, without causing a huge scandal. But even more important to me at the time was my plans to become a lifeguard. It is incredible when I think about it now, that in order to have an opportunity to save lives; I chose not to value and save the life that was growing inside of me.
The Lord provided me with multiple opportunities to do the right thing, but I was stubborn. I knew having sex outside of marriage was wrong and it seemed like an abortion would just make it all go away. Afterwards, I felt the sin of abortion was more than a righteous God would forgive (not that He could not, but just would not). Then I felt like nothing else I did mattered because I had done the worst thing anyone could ever do, and that just kept me spiraling down. I got involved in alcohol, drugs and more unholy relationships. The anniversary of the abortion was especially difficult—usually spent crying and begging the Lord to forgive me, but I never felt relief. I think it's because He required that I tell the secret. (Confess your faults).
The Lord led me to Alaska, through another accident—this time it was my brother Kent that was hit by a train and paralyzed from the neck down. It was through this move to Alaska that I found the Anchorage Missionary Baptist Mission. The Lord tugged at my heart to check out that place—you see, in all the years I spent running, He was faithful. I found in the mission a people who loved each other and desired to serve the Lord. That mission became Northstar Missionary Baptist Church and I served there for 12 years until The Anchor Missionary Baptist Mission began in Anchorage, then I moved my membership there.
I became free from the burden of guilt and compelled secrecy of my abortion because the Lord cared enough to chase after me. I read multitudes of bumper stickers that made me cry as I drove to work in the morning, and kept getting mailers from the local Crisis Pregnancy Center. I knew the Lord wanted me to deal with this old sin, but I still was believing Satan’s lie that Jesus wouldn’t forgive that. Finally, the Holy Spirit led me to a PACE (Post-Abortion Counseling and Education) facilitator's training at CPC. I was literally shaking when I went and I had to fight hard to not just turn around and go back home. My intent was to go and hopefully find relief, but I had no intention of sharing my own abortion with those people. Several women shared their experience. I marveled at their courage and the grace evident of the Lord in them and by the time they got to me, all the pain I had held back came blubbering out of me as I shared what I had done. During the training, I was also reading Luke for my morning devotional. On April 20, 2005, as I read Luke 13:11-13, “Woman, thou art loosed!”, the Lord Jesus spoke peace to my heart about my abortion after almost 30 years of carrying the grief. As I read those words, it was as if Jesus spoke them directly to me and, I knew He not only could, but He desired to forgive me of this terrible sin. Like that woman, I could not pick myself up, but He both could and did. I experienced that same inner joy that I had felt so many years before when He saved me.
Before taking the Forgiven and Set Free Bible study at CPC, I could barely say the word abortion. Even as I took the class I kept telling them I’m not sure if working in this ministry is really what God wants, I was just hoping for some help myself… Turns out it was what God wanted and I volunteer at the local CPC (www.cpcanchorage.com ) as PACE coordinator now. As I was going through the training, I saw one of the Silent No More TV ads. (Silent No More is a post-abortion ministry that encourages women to speak out about their abortion experience to help others.) I had never seen anything like this on TV before, and it just confirmed to me that I was on the path the Lord wanted me to be on. There is a lesson about how Jesus asked Peter to go a little further out in the boat. Am I willing to go further, I thought. I worried—what will people say and think and then the Lord showed me a song with a line that says “Whatever I do for Jesus will be precious in His sight”. John the Baptist said “I must decrease and He must increase” and Christ made Himself of no reputation, but submitted to the will of God.
In Jesus Christ, I can be a part of saving lives once again—those of women wounded by abortion. Please pray for the women the Lord leads to seek healing and for God’s continued guidance. As long as abortion continues, there will be a need for this ministry. I want to share with others the depth of mercy of Christ for all sin, including abortion. The Truth will set you free!
Sherry Wright
Anchorage, Alaska
I was raised in a strong Christian home. Because my father was a pastor, we attended every church service and surrounded our life with the things of the Lord. At about the age of 8, I realized that I was lost but I refused to seek the Lord. At that time, I lied and told others that I didn’t know where I stood before God. Many years later in 1990, I was approached during a revival service by a Deacon who asked me if I needed to seek the Lord. I finally broke down and began to seek, but I didn’t find the Lord for five more years. During the time that I was seeking, I really felt that I was doing all I could to be saved and I often became frustrated when others would find the Lord without putting forth as much "effort" as me.
As I mentioned, I was
raised in a very conservative Christian home. Even though I was lost, I was
raised to know the truth and to live a godly life. By all accounts, I was a
good kid. I even remember trying to witness to others as a young boy. When I
went off to college, I was placed into a world that did not hold the values that
I grew up with and temptation surrounded me. I began to veer off of the path
that was laid before me during my childhood and I was scared. I suddenly
realized that I couldn’t walk righteously by myself. I needed someone greater
than me! I went to a revival service the summer after my freshman year in
college as a sort of last ditch effort to find God. The first night of that
revival, I went to the altar and poured out my heart to God. I remember
having a terrible burden on my heart and praying so hard that I wasn't even
aware of what was going on around me. I also remember telling God that I
couldn’t do this by myself – and I really meant it! I saw myself as the poor
desperate sinner that I am and all the prideful feelings melted away. When I
reached that point, there was suddenly a tremendous sense of peace. The
spiritual nudge to pray was gone. I just felt like laying there on that chair
and resting. The burden of sin had been lifted from me. However, at that time,
I doubted that I had been saved because I was expecting a great sense of joy and
happiness. There was just peace. The desire to seek the Lord for salvation
wasn't there anymore.
Because I was looking for more, I didn't recognize that I had been saved and
became confused. I kept publicly seeking the Lord for a few more days, but I
didn't have the same burden that I had before. The Lord soon brought me to a
place where I knew something had happened, but I just wasn't sure. On one of
the last nights of the revival, my father approached me while I was praying and
told me that if I needed to talk, he was available. For the first time in my
life, I felt that leadership of the Spirit, and He told me to talk to my
father. After I related what was going on in my heart, my father encouraged me
to read the book of 1 John and see whether what was in my heart matched what the
Bible said about salvation. I think I read 1 John three times that night and
did a lot of praying. The next day, God made it clear to me that I had been
saved and that I didn't need to keep searching. Once I recognized that I had
been saved, there was GREAT joy and happiness. However, it didn't come until I
had realized what was in my soul.
Much of my life, I believed in God, but I never felt like I had a close relationship with Him. And I still felt an emptiness that I could not fill with friends or school or sports. It was not until I went to college my freshman year that I learned more about God and who He really is and can be to me.
I had a roommate that was saved and read the Bible everyday. The Lord really used her to show me the Bible. I had never really read the Bible. I mean I had read parts of it, but never realized how much it had to offer me. By reading the Bible, I began to question who I was before God and God used this to show me that I needed Him in my life more than anything else in the world. He could fill the void that was within me.
I continued on reading, but without the Holy Spirit to guide me (because I still was not saved yet), I still had many questions unanswered. I sought assistance from others. I talked with my roommate a lot.
One day at a retreat that I attended with my roommate, I heard a
preacher preach about repentance. (This was the fall of my sophomore year in
college.) After hearing about repentance, I was so convicted. My heart was
heavy with burden because I knew how low I was before God. I knew that I had so
much sin in my life, and this saddened me because our God is so AWESOME and
PERFECT. I wanted His forgiveness. At the time, that was the only thing I
could think about.
The next couple of weeks I was praying and reading the Bible more than ever.
Then, one afternoon in my bedroom, I felt an overwhelming burden to pray. I
knelt down and prayed and my repentance sprang forth in my prayer. I was
handing my entire life over to the Lord through Jesus Christ. I wanted Him to
be in control and I sought His forgiveness. I can't explain all that I said,
because it was much the intent of my heart that I believe that Jesus heard that
day. He granted me that peace that I had been seeking after. After that day,
my life changed. My motivation was to serve Him and not myself. My focus
became clearer and my life was not empty as it was before because it was now
filled with the Lord.
I was saved during a revival service in July of 1995 at Friendship Missionary Baptist Church in Russelville, Alabama. I had realized that I was lost during a service earlier that week, but I didn't do anything about it at the time. During the altar call on the night that I was saved, I was under heavy conviction. I knew that I needed to pray to God, so I went to the altar and I began to pray. I don't remember what I said to Him or how long my prayer lasted, but I do know that God saved my soul there in the altar that night.
While I was in Japan I started doubting my salvation. I kept trying to tell myself I was saved but the Lord kept putting it on my heart that I was lost. When I got back to Alaska I continued to do devotionals as I had before I left. I did not tell anybody I was lost, because I was embarrassed and ashamed.
Early in the morning on August 5th, the Lord convicted me so hard, I knew if I went to bed I was going to wake up in hell. As I was laying in bed I couldn’t find peace. I asked Jody to pray with me. I was praying for almost an hour and then I had a wonderful feeling enter my body. I knew I was going to heaven and I wanted everyone to know.
I thank Jesus Christ for saving my soul! As a young child, I was raised Catholic, going to church every Sunday and Bible classes once a week. But, as a teenager I started to rebel against God and stopped going to church. I headed down a path of darkness and destruction, experimenting with every kind of drugs and alcohol available. My behavior brought on a lot of hard times until one day, I cried out to God with desperation, knowing that I couldn’t live this way any longer.
I moved from Florida to Alaska to once again try to escape my life of darkness and despair. Then a blessing came from the Lord, my daughter Charlee. That’s when my life started to change. I met Loree Williams through a friend at work. She was my daycare provider for my daughter Charlee. She kept inviting me to go to her church, The Anchor Missionary Baptist. I had been searching for a church to attend so I finally decided to go. I started attending regularly, learning about something they had called salvation. This was all new to me. I can’t recall ever hearing about salvation in the Catholic Church I went to as a child. I began diligently seeking and praying. I was very hungry for salvation.
After about a year, I was feeling frustrated and worn out, just beating myself up with my need for salvation until February, 2004. The Anchor had a revival. I’m not sure what day it was but I was seeking again and crying out to Jesus to save my soul. That night I felt a great rush and my heart started beating violently; it was amazing. Then just pop, it was over. I felt a calm like a feeling after a wild storm. After that night, I lost the feeling to seek salvation anymore. I was confused, not sure if I was really saved or not. I wanted to be sure, so instead of praying for salvation, I started diligently praying to God to let me know if I really was saved. About a month later during a Sunday service, I felt that strong and awesome feeling once again and I realized Jesus had saved my soul. I thank the Lord Jesus Christ for saving this unworthy sinner’s soul.
I grew up in small towns in interior Alaska. We moved 3 or 4 times before High School because of my Dad’s job. In every place we lived my mother always made sure we had the influence of the Catholic church. I remember going to church and memorizing the catechism at a young age. As I got older our church attendance dropped off to just the holidays. In my young adult years I attended the Lutheran church regularly and devoted a lot of time to maintaining the church building and sitting on committees. In both my Catholic and Lutheran experience I never deeply applied myself to learning about the Bible and trying to get close to the Lord. I went to the Bible studies and attended church regularly and gave what I could to the church in time and money. In that I thought I was doing a pretty good job and that God would just have to be happy with that.
After struggling with divorce in my life, I realized there must be something I'm missing. I looked back at all the low times in my life and saw God carried me through some very rough times. At that time the Lord made my path cross a very special person, Aimee. I know the Lord knows my every need and He provided for all of them.
I attended the Anchor Baptist mission and the Pastor James Keen, through his sermons, told me I needed to repent of my sins and give my life to the Lord. The Lord put it in my heart to start seeking Him. At first I didn’t know how to get close to God so all I could do was pray for my salvation. I started reading the Bible and listening to Christian radio and was hungry for every sermon. I thought that once God saw me putting forth effort that He would come and save me. As time went on and it seemed like I was getting nowhere I wondered what I was doing wrong. I started praying out loud by myself and praising the Lord and asking his forgiveness. I started reading more and getting hungrier for the answers to why I was not saved yet.
One night after praying for my salvation I felt frustrated and fell asleep on the couch. In my dream, the Lord told me to bow down to Him. I awoke right away and remembered thinking that I thought I was already bowing down to the Lord, I got down on my knees and prayed again. In another dream I saw the pages of the Bible flipping in front of me. I was still seeking the Lord and trying to figure out my dreams.
It wasn’t until the camp retreat last August that the Lord would bless my life with salvation. I remember going to the service tired from the activity filled day. I listened to the sermon and went to the alter for prayer afterward. I was praying for everyone at the camp including myself. I didn’t come go up to the altar thinking this could be the day, I just came up to bow down to the Lord and give him all my sins and praise him for the beautiful day. In the background I could hear people praying and songs were sung. After some quiet time I was just about to get up and tell James I wanted to hear the song Ten Thousand Angels. Right at that moment Aimee requested the song. It was then God made me realize I was saved, there was a peace in my heart and I was filled with so much joy that I couldn't stop the tears. It wasn't until I realized I couldn't save myself that the Lord saved me. I knew that all I needed to do was bow down to Him and have faith in his Word. The dreams now made sense.
I have a love for the Lord and I am still hungry for his Word and thank him everyday for saving my soul.
When I was around ten years old, my mother started going to church in California. It was an Episcopal church. My father was a non-believer. Both my brother and I began going with her each Sunday for the morning Service. My father was off from his job on the weekends and so my brother and I would have to work out in the yard all day. That’s when we joined my mother at church, basically to get out of having to work. We didn’t know hardly anything about religion or Jesus Christ, it was more like a get-away from home type of thing. Eventually my brother and I became Acolytes. We would help by lighting the candles at the beginning of each service and putting them out at the end of each service and some other small tasks as well. To become an Acolyte, I had to take some classes at our church. I had to memorize the Lords Prayer, The Nicene Creed, and the basics of Jesus Christ's life. My brother and I went on doing this for a few years. My father wasn't really negative about it. He didn’t really talk much about religion. He had only mentioned that he didn’t believe in "that kind of stuff".
The church services that I attended, now that I think about it, were pretty much a routine every Sunday. The hymns were all assigned each service. There was a devotional time. And there was a Sermon, then Communion, then a closing song. It all seemed like I said "routine". It just seemed like something was missing. Little did I know that I wouldn't find that out until twenty or so years later!
I moved up to Alaska in July of 1996. Shortly after that (now my wife) Loree wanted to take me to a church service out in Eagle River at North Star. I agreed and off we went. The service started out with song requests, which I thought was kind of cool. Then when people started to pray, I was shocked! People were crying and really calling out to God. I got apprehensive and told myself that these people were really weird! After the church service I told Loree that I was never going back. She asked me why and I told her that I thought that those people were weird and that something was wrong with them. She told me that "they just have Jesus Christ in them". I said "whatever" and that was the end of the conversation at that time. After a period of time went by Loree asked me if I wanted to go back to another Church service. I told her no. She said to me "just give it a chance", and "that it just takes some time getting used to". I agreed and I went with her. The same thing happened again but this time I went with a half opened mind.
For the next few years I went to church off and on with Loree. We went to services out in the valley and at North Star. Loree introduced me to Brother Jeff Elliott, and we got to talking. I had a lot of questions about God and about the Bible itself. I had a lot of doubts and a lot of questions. I think at that point in time my father had rubbed off on me to the point that you could categorize me as a non-believer too. Brother Jeff Elliott also talked to me about salvation and about pursuing the Lord. I remember a lot of the time; I just wanted to be left alone on the subject.
Then Brother James Keen opened the Anchorage mission (now the Anchor) in Anchorage. We had services at Sister Debra's house for a while and then at our house for a period of time. Then the mission moved to the college campus in Anchorage. I went to almost all the weekly services along with the men’s and family bible studies, while still wrestling with the fact about God. During that time, I had seen a lot of positive changes in my wife and in my family and they had all contributed them to Jesus Christ. Everyone that I talked to about the Lord told me to, "Take my questions to him". So I eventually started praying and repenting, reading and studying the bible about Jesus' life. It hit me all of a sudden! I was standing in my own way of salvation. One of my biggest contributions to that was "Pride" and "Control". I had so much pride in me and I had to be in control of everything. But even after knowing that, it was still so hard for me to give my pride up.
Then it was on a Saturday. August 9th 8:36pm during the evening service at our yearly retreat at Camp Maranatha, "MY SOUL WAS SAVED"!!!!! Leading up to that point, I remember people were singing. Then Sister Kathy Martin asked me if I wanted to go up to the alter and pray with her. It was my first time to go up to the alter and pray. It was like God telling me to go up there even though I was scared. So I went up there and got down on my knees and just started praying really hard! I remember crying and repenting of all my sins. Talking to God and just giving up everything I had to him. Then I remember the wonderful feeling that I had all over my body. And I went from crying to laughing to feeling so much peace and tranquility. I felt after all these years he was up in my head and finally he was down in my heart! After the service was over, I felt drained but at the same time I knew I was a brand new person and I knew he saved my soul!!! And since that evening He has been and always will be number one in my life.
My family attended a Baptist church for several years. I even went to a Christian school. However, I did not experience true salvation until I attended Northstar Mission in Eagle River, Alaska. Brother Pratt was preaching and I remember this was one of the first times I really understood the message. I could follow the scripture, and I really learned. After services, I began to pray while the church was singing. I don’t really know how long I was praying, but I finally felt a sense of security, peace, and love that felt intense. I really was not scared anymore. I was baptized and joined the mission. Within a couple of months, I started to doubt my salvation and I prayed for weeks. I spoke to Jeff and Judy Elliott, but I again felt scared. I didn’t want to be wrong about this. One evening after service we began to sing, “I Know I’m Saved” and I had a very assuring feeling from the Lord. I literally felt as if all the worry and pain was removed and a great peace replaced it. I still have that wonderful peace and I thank God for that!