Testimonies

I was saved on September 8, 1970.

I was saved on September 8, 1970. I was born and raised in a small town in the panhandle of Nebraska. Because we had only one church in our town, which happened to be a Presbyterian church, I was sprinkled as a baby and my family became faithful Presbyterians. As I grew older, I received awards for perfect attendance. One award was a Bible, which I still have today. I was very active in the church. I even became president of our youth group and was a member of a few committees to help with church improvement.
     I remember one year going to summer camp, and I felt the need to go forward at the bonfire service. I remember one of the counselors took me aside and talked to me; but for the life of me, I can't remember why I felt the need to go forward. What I remember to this day is that I always felt a commitment to "the church," but many times I wondered if that was all there was to religion. It seemed to me that there should be something more spiritual.
     After graduating from high school in 1966, I went to Denver to attend an electronics trade school. Being away from home gave me a freedom that I was not mature enough to handle. This freedom introduced me to two new influential friends, Smoking and Drinking. These two new friends introduced me to partying, and I became addicted to this new activity; so much so that the things that used to be important to me became almost non-existent.
     In a brief moment of clarity, I took a serious look at the realization that my life had no meaning. I concluded that I needed to make a major change, so I joined the Navy. The Navy gave me some structure in my life, but it also allowed me to add more friends to my partying and drinking lifestyle. Overseas ports made way for me to add girls to the mix. All of this pretty much obliterated the spiritual thoughts I had as the former youth department president. Now, my perfect attendance Bible lay untouched at the bottom of my bunk locker.

Back in the United States, I met up with some female acquaintances from my trade school days. They had joined a modern group and became Hippies. They introduced me to drugs and convinced me that my life could become better than I had ever imagined. I had no trouble enjoying my new life, because when I was high, nothing else really mattered. I started introducing my fellow sailors to drugs, and that is how I became a dealer.
     All of a sudden, I had ascended to the top of my world. I had money. I had women. I had liquor. I had drugs. Everywhere I went, I found a party. The parties were different than my trade school days, because now we just sat around and got wasted. A big problem was that I still had to deal with NAVY restrictions.
     Everything seemed well until I had another moment of clarity, and I discovered that I was on the fast track to nowhere. At that point, my world fell apart. I became despondent and had continuous thoughts of suicide. I went in to talk to the Protestant chaplain, and he told me that he could not help me. While walking down the corridor from his office, I concluded that I had become so wicked that even God couldn't help me. As I passed a doorway that led to the outside of the ship, I looked over the railing to the concrete one hundred feet below. To this day, I don't know what stopped me from climbing over that railing and just ending it then and there.

Hope Arrives

A few days later, I was called to a compartment to fix a light that would not come on. While there, I met a man named John Brownell. As I was repairing the lights, he asked me a question. He said, "Are you a Christian?" I answered, "No, but I have a brother who is." I thought that would gain me some credit. He gave me a gospel tract and asked me to read it. It was a Chick tract called "A Demon's Nightmare."
     That night, when I got back to my rack, I lay there and read about "A Demon's Nightmare." A few days later, I had to go to the XO's Mass, because I got in trouble for giving a civilian hippy a piece of my uniform. At XO's Mass was John Brownell. I knew I was there because I was in trouble. So I assumed he must have been there because he was in trouble too - that hypocrite. Yes, I had disrespected my military uniform. John's crime, however, was telling everyone on board the ship about Jesus Christ and the change He could make in their life. John and I had both been on the same ship for over two years. Yet, to my knowledge, I had never seen him before this week, and now I had seen him twice in the same week.
     A few days later, as I was walking in the hanger bay of the ship, I saw John standing on a pile of pallets, preaching to the civilian workers as they were waiting to get off the ship. The thought occurred to me that maybe this guy was a real Christian. Not wanting to hear what he was saying, one of the civilians ran at John and shoved him off the pallets he was standing on. John went sprawling. When he got up, one side of his face was bleeding as well as the palms of his hands. He reached into his shirt pocket, pulled out a tract, walked up to that man, and said, "Jesus will forgive you, and I forgive you."

It seemed strange to me that I kept running into John. On a ferry between Bremerton and Seattle, I saw him preaching to all those who would listen. He was not afraid to walk into a bar and proclaim that booze is not the answer - the Lord Jesus Christ is. I noticed that public restrooms often had a tract on every fixture. Presumedly, John had been there.
     For the first time in my life, I observed someone who was a real Christian. I realized that in a world of plastic people, (1970s vernacular) John Brownell was the real deal. He had something worth living for besides himself.
     One evening, as I was walking back to the compartment, I overheard John talking to a group of guys who were congregating after their duty hours. I listened to the conversation that he was having with a few of the men that I worked with. To my surprise, they seemed to be genuinely happy. When he started to leave, I stopped him and said, "John, I don't know what you have, but I have to have it." He said, "I can show you how to get it." At my request, we went to the other end of the ship to the chapel. There he read the tract "The Four Spiritual Laws" to me. When we got to the prayer, he said, "If you will pray this prayer, God will save you."
     I read the prayer word for word, and then I said, "Lord, when you get me, You are not getting much; but I promise You - You are getting all of me." I felt like God cut off the top of my head, reached down inside of me, pulled out every wicked thing that I had ever done, and threw it away. I felt clean. I wept like a baby. I knew right then that God had saved me.
     That night, John introduced me to Jim Lucatorta, who was another Christian. The next morning, when I woke up, I sat up quickly and hit my head on a pipe. I took the Lord's name in vain and was instantly heartbroken. I knew where Jim worked, so I went to see him and told him what had happened. I assumed I had lost what I had gotten the night before, but he laughed and said, "If I doubted that you had gotten saved last night, I no longer doubt it."

With confidence, he shared with me the assurance of my salvation, and I have never doubted it since that day.