Tim's Testimony
I grew up in a Christian home in upstate New York. I have 4 brothers and a sister. My parents took us to church every Sunday morning, evening, and Wednesday, even though it was far away. Never missing a service, we went rain, shine, or snow. I heard the gospel regularly and made a profession of salvation as a young child. When I graduated from high school however, I turned my back on all I had learned and began to live a worldly life. At the age of 21 I went through a series of problems which made me reflect on the direction my life was headed.
I knew no peace, my life had no purpose, and felt as if there was an empty spot in my heart waiting and wanting to be filled.
I was working two jobs at that time to pay school bills I had aquired. One evening after coming home from my 2nd job late in the evening, I was in dispair. I knew my life was headed nowhere and I was a stinking worm before God. But it amazed me that God loved me just the same. I couldn’t understand why Jesus had died for me. Crying, I got down on my knees and asked him to save me. Begging for his forgivness, I pledged to serve him in any way he would have.
After accepting Christ, I felt like a new creature, a changed man. I quit my jobs and moved home to my parents. I wanted to get my life back on track and was more than willing to submit to their rules now, and they were overjoyed at the decisions I had made. I enrolled at Illinois State University to finish my college education that I had abandoned a couple years earlier. While attending ISU, I began to ask God how I could serve him best and what he wanted me to do.
I had been interested in missions as a child, but I stuttered badly. I was attending an Alliance church with my parents, but was uncomfortable with religious mediocrity. I had just gotten saved and broken free from the world and so I was discouraged with the lack of standards there.
I mentioned my desire to be a missionary to the pastor one Sunday, but he laughed me to scorn and walked away.
Even so, a desire to be a missionary kept stirring in my heart. Exodus 4:10-11 kept ringing through my mind. I knew the maker of my mouth could do anything he wanted to, and even if he wouldn’t change my mouth, I was willing to try and serve him even if I looked foolish in the process.
I knew nothing of mission work and felt I needed to visit the field for an extended period of time to know what real missionaries do. I had written to over 30 missionaries in my parents church, asking for an opportunity to visit them on the mission field, but they all wrote back and said no! Still not discouraged, I kept focused on the task at hand. I needed a solid church that would help me grow. And so began my struggle to find a church that preached from the Bible and that had college age kids that didn’t drink and party every weekend. While witnessing to my Catholic boss one day, he laughingly told me about this Bible banging, hellfire and brimstone preaching church on the other side of town that would suit me well. After one visit to this independent Baptist church, I knew this was where God was leading me. I was baptized there and grew under the preaching of God’s Word.
Some time later, a missionary from Haiti came to church and presented his ministry. He told of his need for a young man to work with him for a year to help with construction work and odd jobs around the campus. My heart lept because I knew this was what I had been praying for. God opened the door, and 6 months later I finished my degree and went to Haiti. During the seven months I spent in Haiti that first trip, God used a senior missionary to tutor me as well as sickness, hardship, and danger to weather me. All that confirmed in me God’s calling as a missionary.
I returned stateside with the missionary after the coup in Haiti in 1991 which had forced all the foreigners out. Immediately when I returned, I enrolled in Maranatha Baptist Bible College’s graduate program. While at MBBC, I met my wife, and we married during my 2nd year. We both graduated together in 1994.
While both of us felt called of God to be missionaries, I was definitely not wanting to go back to Haiti. Suffering, disease, poverty, and violence are not conducive to raising a family, or so I thought. We moved to South Carolina and joined Open Door Baptist Missions, a ministry of Morningside Baptist Church where RoseAnne’s family had been members. While we were there we got involved in the church and God provided me work in several types of construction which enabled me to pay off school debts. Little did I know the construction was another training for the work on the mission field. While at Morningside Baptist, we were praying about which field God would have us to go to. During a two year period of time we seriously considered and prayed earnestly about several mission fields, one after the other, (Lithuania, Somalia, Brazil, New Guinea, Brazil). Each time we began praying about a particular mission field and seek God’s calling, God raised up someone else to go there. Four of those families that God’s raised up were from our church, and three of those four from the same young couples Sunday school class we were a part of! Each time this happened, the thought of going to Haiti kept coming up, but I would push it aside. I had told God no way would I take my family to Haiti. After a spiritual struggle, we were consigned to visit Haiti together so RoseAnne could see just how bad Haiti really is. But during that visit, instead of being deterred, we both felt 100% sure beyond a shadow of a doubt that God was calling us to be missionaries to there.
Following that decision came deputation and our subsequent move to the field through which we saw God’s miraculous provision and extraordinary protection. We have seen the impact of the gospel and numbers of people giving their lives to Jesus Christ. We have also experienced the guiding hand of the Holy Spirit and his dear sweet presence during the dark valleys of discouragement which accompany the missionaries first term on the field.
God is good for us. Serving Him is a privilege and an honor which we shall cherish the rest of our lives.
I knew no peace, my life had no purpose, and felt as if there was an empty spot in my heart waiting and wanting to be filled.
I was working two jobs at that time to pay school bills I had aquired. One evening after coming home from my 2nd job late in the evening, I was in dispair. I knew my life was headed nowhere and I was a stinking worm before God. But it amazed me that God loved me just the same. I couldn’t understand why Jesus had died for me. Crying, I got down on my knees and asked him to save me. Begging for his forgivness, I pledged to serve him in any way he would have.
After accepting Christ, I felt like a new creature, a changed man. I quit my jobs and moved home to my parents. I wanted to get my life back on track and was more than willing to submit to their rules now, and they were overjoyed at the decisions I had made. I enrolled at Illinois State University to finish my college education that I had abandoned a couple years earlier. While attending ISU, I began to ask God how I could serve him best and what he wanted me to do.
I had been interested in missions as a child, but I stuttered badly. I was attending an Alliance church with my parents, but was uncomfortable with religious mediocrity. I had just gotten saved and broken free from the world and so I was discouraged with the lack of standards there.
I mentioned my desire to be a missionary to the pastor one Sunday, but he laughed me to scorn and walked away.
Even so, a desire to be a missionary kept stirring in my heart. Exodus 4:10-11 kept ringing through my mind. I knew the maker of my mouth could do anything he wanted to, and even if he wouldn’t change my mouth, I was willing to try and serve him even if I looked foolish in the process.
I knew nothing of mission work and felt I needed to visit the field for an extended period of time to know what real missionaries do. I had written to over 30 missionaries in my parents church, asking for an opportunity to visit them on the mission field, but they all wrote back and said no! Still not discouraged, I kept focused on the task at hand. I needed a solid church that would help me grow. And so began my struggle to find a church that preached from the Bible and that had college age kids that didn’t drink and party every weekend. While witnessing to my Catholic boss one day, he laughingly told me about this Bible banging, hellfire and brimstone preaching church on the other side of town that would suit me well. After one visit to this independent Baptist church, I knew this was where God was leading me. I was baptized there and grew under the preaching of God’s Word.
Some time later, a missionary from Haiti came to church and presented his ministry. He told of his need for a young man to work with him for a year to help with construction work and odd jobs around the campus. My heart lept because I knew this was what I had been praying for. God opened the door, and 6 months later I finished my degree and went to Haiti. During the seven months I spent in Haiti that first trip, God used a senior missionary to tutor me as well as sickness, hardship, and danger to weather me. All that confirmed in me God’s calling as a missionary.
I returned stateside with the missionary after the coup in Haiti in 1991 which had forced all the foreigners out. Immediately when I returned, I enrolled in Maranatha Baptist Bible College’s graduate program. While at MBBC, I met my wife, and we married during my 2nd year. We both graduated together in 1994.
While both of us felt called of God to be missionaries, I was definitely not wanting to go back to Haiti. Suffering, disease, poverty, and violence are not conducive to raising a family, or so I thought. We moved to South Carolina and joined Open Door Baptist Missions, a ministry of Morningside Baptist Church where RoseAnne’s family had been members. While we were there we got involved in the church and God provided me work in several types of construction which enabled me to pay off school debts. Little did I know the construction was another training for the work on the mission field. While at Morningside Baptist, we were praying about which field God would have us to go to. During a two year period of time we seriously considered and prayed earnestly about several mission fields, one after the other, (Lithuania, Somalia, Brazil, New Guinea, Brazil). Each time we began praying about a particular mission field and seek God’s calling, God raised up someone else to go there. Four of those families that God’s raised up were from our church, and three of those four from the same young couples Sunday school class we were a part of! Each time this happened, the thought of going to Haiti kept coming up, but I would push it aside. I had told God no way would I take my family to Haiti. After a spiritual struggle, we were consigned to visit Haiti together so RoseAnne could see just how bad Haiti really is. But during that visit, instead of being deterred, we both felt 100% sure beyond a shadow of a doubt that God was calling us to be missionaries to there.
Following that decision came deputation and our subsequent move to the field through which we saw God’s miraculous provision and extraordinary protection. We have seen the impact of the gospel and numbers of people giving their lives to Jesus Christ. We have also experienced the guiding hand of the Holy Spirit and his dear sweet presence during the dark valleys of discouragement which accompany the missionaries first term on the field.
God is good for us. Serving Him is a privilege and an honor which we shall cherish the rest of our lives.