It started with Angie and Shawn Brahman inviting my children to Upward sports. I saw nothing but positive energy and attitude. My children enjoyed the new friends that they met. Then there was Wednesday night church and my children love it! They made their own decisions to start a relationship with God and that is what I wanted! The children wanted to be baptized and I was excited and amazed by what they were learning. I was also pleased when my wife was baptized and started her relationship with God! It was nice to see her get involved in activity outside of the home(community outreach, Wednesday night Church). I sat back and watched all the good things that were happening. I enjoy the sermon on Sundays, the words are broke down into language I can understand. The music and singing are excellent. I can see the joy on everyone's faces as the music is played and as people are singing as they praise God! I look forward to every Sunday and I miss it when I am unable to attend. I then realized I had been missing something in my life but I found it. I realized I need God in my life! I was also baptized! I need God in my life to remind me of the person, friend, husband and father I need to be (I have many faults). I feel I am a little more patient and a little more friendly with family, friends and the people I meet and even the people I work for. I also realize that we need to care for other people and do what we can to make life better for everyone!
Mario Guzman
My journey to Christ really began when I was born. I grew up in a Christian home where I was taught at a young age about Jesus. My grandparents were very strong in their faith and I knew I wanted to be like them.
When I was in 3rd grade, I went to Bible release time at school where we walked to the church and listened to Bible stories. It was at Bible release that I asked Jesus to come into my heart and was saved.
As I got into my high school years, there were times that living the Christian lifestyle was challenging. My friends started doing things that I didn’t agree with and I started feeling like an outsider with my group of friends. Luckily, I met Bryce who had the same values as I did. We began walking the path together and we are still walking that path today just with a lot more confidence that we are going in the right direction.
I always tried to live my life in ways that would be pleasing to God. I went to church, did the right things, and prayed, but still something was missing. Then our family decided to try going the Bailey Christian Church. I was very reluctant because I had attended our previous church most of my life. After our first week, I was already seeing changes in our family. Bryce was happier, our kids asked if we could go to church again next week, and I was beginning to find peace that it was okay to leave my friends at our previous church and do what was best for our whole family - including me. The Lord led us to BCC so we could grow in our faith. Though I have been walking for years with Christ in the distance, I feel that I am now walking toward the Lord and I am very excited to see where he will lead me next.
Shelly VanderWilt
I grew up in a Christian home and we attended church regularly. As I started getting older and began making my own decisions (high school and college age) I started to drift away from church. I was very fortunate, however, to have met my wife Shelly during this time because we shared many of the same values. Having that relationship with her was one of the few things that kept me from falling further away. I can’t imagine where my life could have gone if I hadn’t met her. When we were married and had children of our own, we wanted to make sure our kids grew up going to church. At that point, I believed in God but I really didn’t apply that belief to much in my daily life. If it is possible to be “on the fence” in your faith, that’s where I was living. I was very good at giving the appearance of walking on the right side, all the while I was keeping Christ at arms length. I would occasionally follow the Lord’s will, but only if it aligned perfectly with my own. I really think that I subconsciously believed that I had lots of time and I would make things right eventually.
My grandfather passed away in late 2007. He was a wonderful person and had lived his life with an amazingly strong faith. It was a great comfort to know without a doubt that he had gone to heaven. His death however brought up internal questions about my own eternal life and where I would be spending it. My life began to change. I knew that I wanted more but really didn’t know what was missing. It would be about a year and a half later before we were led to Bailey Christian Church. The change was great for our family and in the beginning it was simply Daren that kept us coming back for more. Unfortunately, Christ still needed to gain my full attention and shortly after we began attending BCC, I was involved in a pretty serious car accident. I really believe that it was my wake up call. It was one of those moments that you realize how fragile this life is and that there is no promise of tomorrow on this earth. I was now ready to stop going through the motions and fully commit. As the summer went on we found ourselves becoming more and more involved and we saw our faith grow daily. There is such a wonderful collection of believers within this church body. Your support and encouragement at every step along the way has changed my life and enriched my entire family. The process of giving my life to Christ has been a fairly long road. It was a struggle of power that I now obediently forfeit to him. His grace and persistence overwhelms me.
Bryce VanderWilt
I am proud of being baptized because I am practically in Jesus'
Kingdom. I am very happy that Jesus dies on the cross for us and now
because I am baptized, I have all my sins washed away.
Sierra Schuitema
My story starts with Jason Zimmerman at Upward 2 years ago when my daughter played her first year. He started recruiting me then. I didn't pay much attention then, but the 2nd year he remembered me and kept right at it. And I'm not kidding, I must have seen him everywhere: Target, the gas station, and grocery store. I thought, Man, this guy is everywhere. Is he ever going to give up? So, to make him happy, I came to church with my family a couple of times with no intention of making this a weekly thing. That was until my wife said she wanted to keep going with or without me. I did think of saying no but thought better and started coming every Sunday. My wife told me that it wasn't enough to just come but that I had to pay attention. I thought she was nuts, but I listened and found it was getting interesting. When we decided that we wanted this to be our church, we talked to Daren and he suggested the First Step class, so we signed up. After we completed that class, this is no joke, life just seems to be a lot easier, and after talking with Daren, I thought it was time to stop being just a face in the crowd and got baptized. The rest is history but for those who are on the fence about church take my advice and just give it a chance. It is worth it. My life was spinning out of control before, but now I have a purpose and that's to bring more people to Christ. I would like to end by saying, thank you, to Jason for not giving up. Daren, you make me look forward to church every Sunday. And, Mary, you we're the driving force. You have a lot of patience. Thank you, for not giving up.
Jeremy Maycroft
Like anything that is out of my comfort zone I would like to decline telling others who I was and who I am now. Our Father in heaven has let me know that as his child I must step out of my comfort zone and ask for his guidance in letting others know me through Him. So as I was asked I will attempt to write the words I now ask Jesus to write for me so that others might see we are not as different from each other as we often believe. If only one person can relate and draw from my life, then the fear of writing this is well worth it even if I never know it helped anyone. I will know I did what I was asked to do, and that in itself brings me closer to being the Christian I need to be.
The first words that come to me right now are "full circle". When I was young, I believed in Jesus like a 4 year old believes in Santa, with excitement and longing. Because of one person who always stands out in my mind, I wanted to be with God. That person would be my Grandmother. How I always wanted to be like her. She shone of the Lord in her words, in her eyes, in her every move to me. Sadly, she lived very far away, and my time with her was always too short.
Please, the first thing I want you to know is that I don't want anyone to get me wrong. I did not have a life that was even close to being as bad as many people do, and I did not have a life as Christian-based as others. I set somewhere in the middle, the way I see it. My parents never discouraged or encouraged me highly in the ways of the Lord. As I grew, I knew one thing. I did not want to grow up and be like them. I wanted to live a Christian life.
Then life changed, and I grew up to repeat the life I came from, and in some ways I believe it was worse then where I came from. I married a man that, in the eyes of my Lord, I should have never married. Part of me wished I could tell you I did not know better, but this is a writing of truth. So, yes, even then inside I knew better. I allowed this man to beat me and live in sin with other women, and I stayed with him…then left…then went back over and over. I did not go to the Lord like I should have. Instead I went to the world I never wanted to be a part of. I grew to believe that God had put me there on earth for that purpose (which made the sermon given the day I was baptized so fitting for me). Again God reinforced the day I was baptized that He gave me free will. It is up to me to turn my life over to Him. He did not put me in some puppet show where my life was set up to fail.
At one point and time I can remember my husband holding a gun to me, and I said to him, "Please, go ahead and shoot me. I want it to be over". By the grace of God, he did not, and God showed me the face of my children. It was then that I started my baby steps back to the Lord, and I would never put up with being hit by my husband again. I did not want my children to see that, and I got stronger for them. My life became a bit better. I still did not go back to the Lord like I should have, and my children still grew up in the world I came from. This was my fault, not my parents. The Lord was there for me, but I would not open my eyes wide enough to see that. What I would give today to have gone back to my childhood belief and made a world for my children that my heavenly Father wanted me to provide for them is beyond words that I can say.
Time within that lifestyle brought great pain to my children, and through their pain I grew more determined to change it. I could not live with the things that were happening to my children, so I left my family one after the other each time one of my children was hurt badly by them. The first person to be cut out of our life was my father, then my brothers, and my mother was kept at arms length. Then I left my husband. I knew then that the Lord, my God, was not pleased with me. I knew just as I did when I married him that was wrong. I also knew that divorce was not right (19 years of marriage, and I quit). I did not go to my true Father and give it all to Him. I was trying to fix things myself, letting my Lord God only into bits of my life.
My life has been slowly changing for so many years, small baby steps back to my Father by seeing through the eyes of my children, through the eyes of my grandchildren, through the eyes of my new husband, and through the eyes of Bailey Church. I know that the ONLY way to have a life worth living is to go to my Father through Jesus, and He will show me the way if I just let go, listen to His words and do as He tells me, and I can now be in Heaven some day. He forgives me, and I can still be the good person I wanted to be when I was young, and maybe this will help just one person get back to the Lord faster then I have. All of the people I was running from to make life better, it was not them that separated me from God. It was me.
Within the last few months, the Lord has been doing things in my life that are hard to explain. He has, in our words, been working overtime on me. In the strangest of times and the strangest of places, He has been yelling out to come home. You're almost there, but you need to work harder, and listen, and I will fill your life in ways that only I can if you just turn it all over to me. I am now listening and asking and talking and doing and praying that I hear what I need to hear and do what I need to do and grow like I need to grow even when it is not easy.
I know I am still a work in progress (at the age of 54) and that God has a plan for me, and I know that you do not have to wait until you're my age to have a full and truly meaningful life. God has blessed me over and over and over again in my life. Even when I did not turn my life over, He loved me and kept showing me. He loved me and was waiting for me to come to Him. Life will always be better when you go to the Lord. If times are hard, He will make it better, and when times are good, He still makes it better.
One last thought. In all fairness to my ex-husband, he would be more than happy to tell you he is an alcoholic and has now not had a drink for many years. His life has changed also. To tell you where he stands with God at this point would only be for him to say. We have a very good friendship now, however.
Doreen Smith
