My Testimony - Part I

Mark and I lead a small group, we call them community groups at our church, on Sunday afternoons.  And as way to teach people how to give their testimony and to make sure people understand the meaning of being a Christian, we take turns telling our testimony to the group.  Even tho the people in the group have changed somewhat,  not all have heard my testimony, I like to change it up a bit each time.

This time, I chose to make my focus 'where can I see God in my past'.  As I'm almost 60, as noted in my last post, this look back covered a lot of time.  I was concise as possible, but it is still a bit lengthy.  So I'll be sharing it here in 2 parts.

Part 1.

My Testimony

This testimony is a view of how God protected me in my life and sent people on that mission.  I refer to my dad as Raymond.

I was born in Mt. Vernon, Illinois.  As a toddler, I remember listening to church music on my mother’s small record player.  Raymond was the pastor of a church at Richview.  The one huge thing I remember was when a group of singers came to that church and they sang gospel music. Fabulous 4 part, tight harmony.  They sounded like angels to me!

We later moved to a tiny town in central Illinois, but were there for only a few months.  Then we moved down the road outside Decatur, IL.    While there, I was a part of a missionary, teaching group called Sunbeams.

This is the song we sang every week.

            Sunbeam

                        Jesus wants me for a Sunbeam

                        To shine for him each day

                        In every way try to please him

                        At home, at school, at play

                        A sunbeam, a sunbeam

                        Jesus wants me for a sunbeam

                        A sunbeam, a sunbeam

                        I’ll be a sunbeam for him.

This had a huge impact on me.  It really was teaching me to love Jesus and to live for him.  Though I didn’t really know what that meant yet.  Our leader in Sunbeams was Wanda Stickles.  She showered unconditional love on me. 

Later I was in Girls in Action – GA’s.  I memorized lots of scriptures and had leaders that loved on me.  We had foreign missionaries in our home and I developed a love for missions, for telling people about Jesus.

There were lots of kind, loving preachers in my life.  One in particular was Paul Higgins.  He and Raymond were close and he was at our house often.  Every time he came over, he said to my younger brother, ‘Share your toys, Karl!’.  But I heard him too and it had a huge impact on how I viewed my things.  Many years later I organized a craft group and the name of our group was ‘Share Your Toys’.

In the middle of 3^rd grade, we moved again, 30 miles down the road to another small town.  I was still involved in GA’s, learning lots.  Though, I can’t really remember anyone in particular that was pouring Jesus into my life then.  Except the preachers that came to our house, which still included Paul Higgins.

In the middle of 6^th grade, we moved to Nashville, IL.  Another small town of about 3,000 people.  Being the new kid at school in a small town where everyone had always lived there, and they knew everyone and already had friends was difficult, to say the very least!  But there were people God put in that church that lavished me with love.

While living in Decatur, Sullivan and Nashville we participated in summer church camp.  I was in my element then!  I loved it.  Lots of music, great preaching, everyone there was comfortable talking about God.  I was one of the preacher kids, so I got treated well, an unusual thing for me.  I spent all my free time in the craft room.  I made woven baskets – it seemed the world had gone full circle years later when I was selling baskets.  I made every little craft thing there was.  Every year. Church camp was always the highlight of my year.

Joanne was a single mom with younger children at the church in Nashville.  But she took on the GA’s and we spent a lot of time with her.  She loved on us, taught us biblical truths and lived an example of what love and grace was. 

There was another man who was in our home a lot.  He was so kind, so sincerely loving.  Years later after I was married and had kids, I had an opportunity to tell him what an impact he had on my life.  He had no idea.  I told him it wasn’t something specific he said or did.  It was just I felt covered in compassionate, sincere love and grace when he was around.

And then there was Eddie Kemper.  He was the church custodian and we lived next door to the church.  In the summer humidity and heat, he’d be out mowing the church lawn.  My mother would bake a peach cobbler and invite him in for a slice and some iced tea.  He was always so grateful and kind.  The church was a typical old building that had a steeple with a bell in it, which was rung at 9 am on Sunday mornings.  My younger brother was 8 or 9 and he would get ready for church early and Eddie would let him ride the large, long rope that rang the bell.  Karl loved it.

We moved again, the summer after my Sophmore year, 2 weeks before my 16^th birthday to Robinson.   I didn’t do well with this move.  I cried myself to sleep for weeks.  Recently I found a 3 page handwritten letter that Eddie Kemper’s wife had sent to me.  She said she’d heard I was depressed about moving, was crying a lot.  She told me it broke her heart to think of me so sad.  She reminded me that Jesus loved me, He would take care of me and to take comfort in that.  What a treasure!  I made Christian friends outside of our church in this town.  I was clearly breaking out of my comfort zone!  I’d always just hung out with the kids at our church.  I begin to learn that there were Christians in other denominations.  There was a high school Christian band and all my friends were the groupies.   We started a before school weekly Bible study.   Summer camp after Junior year was huge in changing how I viewed what living a Christian life looked like.  

Stayed tuned for part 2