Joel’s Salvation Testimony
From birth, I was privileged to grow up in a Christian home. Since my earliest memories I knew about the Gospel, and went to church. In the summer of 2004, God began working on my heart for my need of salvation. I had made a profession of faith I think when I was five years old. I remember some about being baptized, but it was really just a time that I was in the water. In 2004, our church went to the Youth Conference at Southwest Baptist Church in Oklahoma City. God used the preaching, and specifically the testimony of one young man on the music group. It was at that time that I certainly knew, that I needed to be saved. Through stubbornness, I didn’t respond during the invitation. Later, after we got home, conviction prevented me from sleeping, I got my parents, asked Jesus to save me, and He most certainly did! I am thankful for the grace of God upon my life. I was baptized in our church several months later.

My call to ministry has come in different stages. When I graduated high school, I enrolled at Heartland. I went with the mentality of gaining knowledge and serving within a church. I married my wife December 17, 2011. After college, we moved to Strafford, Mo in 2012. We both worked full-time jobs, and helped in the church. About two years later, God was working in my heart during our missions conference. I know this now as my call to preach. God used Bro. Richard King and Acts 8 with Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch. As time went on, we continued serving within our church, and preparing for ministry. In 2019, we moved back to my home church in Kansas City. In the summer and fall of 2021, I had been praying that God would direct us to the church He would have me to pastor. Leading up to and during our Missions Conference in October of 2021, God began directing my heart towards missions. However, I didn’t want to confuse a burden for missions with a call to missions. As coincidence, or Providence, would have it, after the missions conference I resumed studying Judges 6, in my series teaching the adult Sunday school class. God used that chapter, and specifically 6:14, to show me His strength in my call. It was at that time I surrendered to His call of missions upon my life. During the weeks to follow, I sought council from various men, and God soon began to direct our hearts toward the country of Cambodia. God worked out the details, and we were able to go on a survey trip there during April 2022. We wanted to see the field and seek God’s confirmation of where He would have us to go. I believe God used Judges 7, with Gideon’s battle, to confirm the field of Cambodia, and prove His sufficiency, despite my weaknesses.

Valerie’s Salvation Testimony
As a young child I grew up occasionally going to Catholic mass with my grandmother. It wasn’t until I was almost 5 that someone from Calvary Baptist Church of American Canyon, CA, knocked on our door and invited our family to church. My mother began taking me and my siblings to church on Sunday mornings. It wasn’t long before I knew that most of the other kids had something I didn’t. They would raise their hands when the teachers asked if we were saved. I knew enough about being saved that I had never done this and I couldn’t lie about it since the workers would likely know. So when I was 7 years old I raised my hand that I wanted to get saved. I knew if I did this I would be able to raise my hand to say I was saved. So a worker took me aside and had me repeat the sinner’s prayer after her. For 6 more years I “played church.” Everyone thought I was saved and I could almost convince myself that I was saved. On the night of Tuesday, July 11, 2000, I couldn’t tell you what the camp speaker preached about, but one of my friends got saved. She was one that I thought was already saved. It got me thinking about my own salvation. During cabin devotions that night our youth pastor’s wife asked everyone to share their salvation stories since everyone proclaimed to be saved. We started at the oldest. I was second to the youngest. As we got closer to my turn I kept trying to inch farther and farther into a corner, hoping they would forget about me. You see, at this point the LORD had already been convicting me that I had no relationship to the Father. I was not His child. It was finally my turn and before I could start speaking the youngest girl began speaking. I had gotten skipped. I thought I was in the clear and would not have to share that I wasn’t really saved. After she finished, everyone was about to head to bed, but someone realized I had been skipped, so I admitted that I honestly didn’t believe that I was saved. One of the youth workers took me into the side room and it was there that I truly admitted that I was a sinner and needed God to forgive me of my sins and to come into my heart. I praise the Lord that He gave me that chance and that I was brave enough to take it.