Testimonies

THE ROAD TO BIBLE TRUTH

When Judy was a girl, she almost attended church. After her mom died of cancer when Judy was only six-years-old, her father gave her a nickel each Sunday and told her to go to the church around the corner from where they lived.

Well, she knew her dad really wasn’t into church, and she didn’t want to attend either—so she snuck out each week and spent the five cents on candy instead.

Hard times came when Judy’s father remarried. Being very independent, conflicts erupted in the blended home. But after graduating from college, she moved to Seattle where she met her husband. Eventually, they found their way to Sacramento, California.

After two daughters came along, Judy was working at a hospital when she found out that her husband was killed in a motorcycle accident. She was devastated—and afraid knowing she’d face life and work as a single mother. “My life nearly fell apart,” she says …

But God, through Amazing Facts, was waiting with answers to point the way to Jesus.

First Contact
On a Sunday morning, while looking for a program to watch, Judy happened onto an Amazing Facts television broadcast. She says, “I loved it. As I listened, I found myself agreeing with what he said, except when he started saying that Saturday was the Sabbath. At this point, I didn’t know about Pastor Doug’s church, but I went to my Bible and discovered he was right!”

Soon Judy signed up for the Amazing Facts Bible School and began completing lessons and mailing them in. When she finished the introductory lessons, she quickly moved to the advanced lessons and was thrilled at all the new Bible truth she was learning. She found her understanding of Scripture growing tremendously.

Judy then discovered amazingfacts.org and once more found resources to strengthen her walk with God. When she came across difficult Bible passages that didn’t make sense, she’d type them into our search engine and found articles and sermons that cleared up her questions.

Getting on a New Path
Sometime later, two young AFCOE students, as part of their seminar series pre-work effort, knocked on Judy’s door. The young men provided her with more helpful booklets and DVDs from the Amazing Facts bookstore. She says, “Those young men taught me to pray in a meaningful way. I always prayed for my own needs, but they helped me to realize how important it is to give praise to the Lord in prayer.”

A few months later, the two AFCOE students invited Judy to attend an Amazing Facts prophecy seminar. Often, the young men brought her to the meetings because she was unable to drive herself. “I attended almost every session. God was speaking to me! He has been so good. I let go of coffee, cola drinks, and unclean food. The Lord took away my desire for these things.”

Judy was eventually baptized and says she loves her new church home. She says, “I’m so comfortable here. People accept you for who you are. It’s very multicultural without the gossip and cliques in most churches. I am learning so much and love helping out with the fellowship luncheon each week.”

“Where would I be without Amazing Facts! They basically saved my life.” Judy shares. “I have found so many answers to my Bible questions. They have led me to my church family. They continue to provide resources so I can witness to my neighbors. If there is one thing Amazing Facts taught me, it was to share my faith. You can’t just sit in front of a television and say, ‘Amen.’ Amazing Facts has helped me get out into my community and witness to others.

FINALLY, A FAITH THAT TRANSFORMS

All that Steven Hicks knew about the Bible came from the movies. “I also knew about certain forms of worship, but I didn’t know anything about Jesus.”

When his parents divorced when he was a child, he quit going to church. He went back briefly in high school, but it didn’t really “click” for him anymore.

He eventually tried out another church, where a minister told him all religions were the same. “At the time I thought it was really cool,” Steven says. “It broke down some barriers for me.”

Although Steven liked the minister, when he started college he once again quit going to church. He tried reading the Bible like a novel but never got farther than halfway through the book of Numbers.

In 2005, a friend named Hugh invited Steven to a Bible study. Hugh bought him a Bible and even had Steven’s name engraved on it, and they dove right into doctrine. “That approach might not be the best for everyone, but it worked for me,” Steven says. In the first study, they talked about the millennium. “I had never heard anything like that before. I couldn’t get my mind off it. I tried to talk to my friends about it, but they weren’t interested.”

Every week at Hugh’s Bible study, Steven learned something new. He was even using the Amazing Facts Study Guides. Finally something clicked: “I began to see the world in a whole different way.”

Shortly thereafter, Steven heard about Amazing Facts, unaware that he’d been using our Study Guides! Steven felt fairly confident in his doctrinal knowledge, but an Amazing Facts series with evangelist Jason Morgan in Santa Cruz, California, gave him a deeper understanding. “I’d been kind of scared of the church,” explains Steven, “But Jason’s ability to flesh out doctrine kept me coming back.”

Early in the series, Steven gained a deeper knowledge of Jesus. “I thought I had a relationship with Jesus, but it wasn’t a personal one,” he admits. “All of Jason’s messages moved me, but the one entitled ‘Blood on the Throne’ sent me to the front of the room!” The message drove home Jesus’ sacrifice, bearing all the pain Steven had ever experienced, along with the pain of everyone else who had ever lived. Steven found himself in front of a room full of strangers, overcome with emotion because of his love for Jesus. “That was something I never thought would happen!”

Going Deeper
“Later meetings brought up hard topics, but once I understood Christ’s sacrifice, I wanted a relationship with Him badly enough that it was worth working through those tough questions,” says Steven.

Another message that Jason laid out was the pattern of prophets God has used through time, which was the message that convinced Steven to be baptized. It bridged the gap between the ancient and modern worlds. “In the Bible you read crazy stories, like the sun standing still. No one I know has ever seen anything like that; it’s not in history books. It’s easy to think of the Bible as a whole different world,” he says. But when Steven understood that the Spirit of Prophecy operated in the modern world, he suddenly saw that his world was the same as that described in the Bible. “I realized that if the future is really going to be like the Bible says, I couldn’t live my life the same way anymore.”

Still, Steven had a lot of opposition to being baptized. His family, friends, and even his girlfriend wouldn’t understand. “If I was going to go forward with this, I would be the only person I knew outside of the church who understood things this way.” But after talking it over with Jason, he took the step forward. The church welcomed him with gifts and made him feel loved; some of his friends even came to witness his baptism. “It was a joyous day,” Steven says. “I felt like a totally new man.”

Even though his girlfriend Marina eventually joined him, sadly, most of his friends wanted nothing to do with Steven’s new life. And his family still doesn’t understand why, when he comes to visit, he wants to spend Saturday morning at church instead of with them. To them, religion is rules, rituals, holidays—not a relationship.

Many different cultures—Catholic, Jewish, Hindu, etc.— lived together in his home community, a suburb of New York City. “I was always proud of how we all got along,” Steven explains. “But the reason we got along was that no one actively lived whatever their faith was. But religion has totally changed my life.”

The Next Step
After his baptism, Steven sensed God calling him. At a General Youth Conference event in December 2008, he obtained information about AFCOE from the Amazing Facts booth.

He wanted to attend but first made a “deal” with God. By this time, he had married Marina, so he felt responsible to someone else. “I told God, ‘I need to be out of debt before going to AFCOE; I can’t have all these bills and no way to pay them.’”

By August of 2009, he’d paid off his last debt. “It was an answer to prayer,” Steven says. So he started AFCOE this past January. “Pray for me now,” he asks, “because I have only enough money to get me through this course! God will have to show me what to do next.”

Steven says he’s astounded by what he’s learning. “Before I came I studied the Bible a lot, but what I am learning now is how to connect with God on a daily basis: How to wake up with Him, to walk with Him, to go to bed with Him.”

Steven says God has eliminated problems in his life—both physical and mental—that he didn’t even know were there. “Watching the people here walk with God has been like looking in a mirror and seeing that I’m not quite clean.” Even his marriage has been strengthened during the short time he’s been at AFCOE.

Steven enjoys the other students’ different perspectives. “We learn from each other and lift each other up.” The instructors, he says, each have unique strengths, and seem to have been led by God into positions where they excel.

Though he’s uncertain what the future holds, Steven would like to go back to his church and start an outreach program. “I would love to help my church grow and reflect Jesus to the community,” he says. “I’ve also been writing since I was a kid and I want to dedicate that talent to God.” He dreams of publishing a book, a story based on Daniel’s prophecies. “Mostly I’m open to whatever God has to teach me, and I’ll go wherever he leads me because I know He knows best.”

Of his lifelong experience, Steven explains, “Looking back on the years since I started reading the Bible, the experiences I’ve had, the people I’ve met, the self-improvement, are all to the glory of God. The first 25 years of my life bear witness that I could not have done those things on my own. If God can take a mess like me and do what He’s done, He can do it for anyone who will let Him.”

FROM TORMENT TO PEACE!

“The word of God is living and powerful.” —Hebrews 4:12

A Jamaican Reborn
It was just another day in Montego Bay, Jamaica’s tourist-filled metropolis. Patricia was pregnant with her third child. With her first two daughters, she was bedridden the entire nine months due to her poor health. But with this baby, she had been all around town, walking, driving, on the go. The last eight months had been wonderful.

It was just another day when she tripped on the carpet at home. It was just another day when she lost her unborn baby. She was never the same again.

But through your precious gifts, God led her to a new life.

Giving Up Ghosts
After that tragic day, Patricia became extremely depressed. She saw her baby—running, playing ball—all the time. People told her it was the baby’s ghost. And she believed it. She wasn’t just seeing her baby, but also her dead grandmother.

When people need help, they try everything. That’s what Patricia did—yoga, palm readings, tea-leaf readings, hypnosis. But none of it rid her of the hauntings; none of it gave her peace. In fact, she began seeing more. Her bed became a pile of filth; then it was the desk downstairs.

Was she going insane? People thought so. There were plans to admit her to a psychiatric institution once the next bed became available. Patricia was frantic; she needed a cure. On a whim, she visited one last doctor. But unlike all the others, this doctor gave her no pills. He simply did tests and advised her to do one thing while she waited for the results: pray.

So Patricia prayed. She called every God-fearing, church-going friend she knew and told them to pray. She even called her eldest daughter, a Sabbath-keeper in her freshman year at college.

Patricia was no stranger to Christianity. She had been baptized into a Baptist congregation at 12 years old. But after moving into the city, with its high sheen and seductive sparkle, church had become like chaff in the wind. She had been furious when her daughter had decided to get baptized. She’d even flown all the way to Florida to stop her—to no avail.

“If you get baptized, I don’t want anything to do with you anymore,” she remembered saying.

Tent Crusade
I don’t know what would have happened to me if I didn’t study the Bible.

Now, she was the one searching—first with the Baptists, then the Pentecostals, Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Catholics. But it was the same fruitless cure; she had merely traded hypnotism for speaking in tongues and tea leaves for rosaries. She was more confused than ever. 

She asked God for a sign pointing to His true church. She even picked the location for it, a certain stretch of land by the seashore. Several weeks passed—then the sign came. Right in that very spot by the sea was erected a tent that was to host seven weeks of evangelistic meetings. At the end of that tent crusade, Patricia was baptized into the same Sabbath-keeping church as her daughter.

Funny enough, her husband tried to stop her, just like she had done to their daughter. And funny enough, she gave him the same answer her daughter had given her: “I love Jesus.” She never followed up with the doctor for her test results. She had found her cure—in Christ.

She next discovered the Amazing Facts television program and the ministry’s online store. She ordered DVDs and books. Pastor Doug Batchelor’s testimony was the first she had ever heard; from it, she realized that the Lord meant for her to share her own experience with others. For nearly three decades, she has done so joyfully—even bringing Study Guides to her old spiritualist practitioners. And through her intercessory prayer, the Lord finally brought her husband into the same faith. “I praise God for the Holy Spirit, who taught me all truth through Amazing Facts,” Patricia writes. Thank you for your part in sending that truth into all the world!

UNLOCKING HEARTS

Pastor Rafael Fernandez needed real help for an incredible opportunity.

He had been conducting a monthly worship service in the local prison in Okeechobee, Florida. When the handful of men attending his chapel meetings grew to more than 200, inmates began asking for something to feed them spiritually between his visits.

So Pastor Fernandez turned to church member Denise Cheshire for help.

The plan they developed was to send Amazing Facts Bible Study Guides to interested prisoners. After completing the lessons, the inmates would mail the answer sheets back to the church to be corrected. Denise recruited a team of 15 members to grade the lessons and mail back two more, along with encouraging notes. (Names of church volunteers are kept anonymous.)

The response was overwhelming! When she sent 240 inmates the first two lessons, 100 of them immediately responded. On Sabbaths, Denise distributes answer sheets to her volunteers who correct the lessons. In the last two years, more than 300 inmates have completed (or are completing) the lessons. Denise says, “We can hardly keep up!”

Most exciting is that 80 inmates have been baptized as a result of going through the Amazing Facts Bible Study Guides and another 18 are preparing for baptism. Pastor Rafael believes candidates should be carefully prepared. They must have a clear understanding of salvation, the Bible, and the meaning of baptism. He feels the Amazing Facts Bible Study Guides are an excellent tool for leading inmates to Christ.

Denise shares, “Prison inmates take lots of Bible studies from many different ministries, but the ones they love the most are the Amazing Facts Bible Study Guides. They appreciate how they are topically organized. They find the questions relevant and the answers solidly based in the Bible. It’s easy for them to follow because they build on each other.”

When inmates send answers sheets back to be corrected, they sometimes have more questions. Church volunteers have used Amazing Facts websites like Helltruth.com and Sabbathtruth.com to print off answers and mail them back, since these prisoners do not have access to the Internet.

Because of the Amazing Facts Bible Study Guides, almost one-fifth of the prison population has studied these lessons. There is now a Sabbathkeeping Church that meets in the prison, and inmates are writing back and saying, “I’m giving these Bible studies to my cellmate.” They are becoming evangelists themselves. Denise and her team are currently working to get Amazing Facts DVDs into the prison.

The Okeechobee Church also uses the Amazing Facts Bible Study Guides, along with other resources like the Millennium of Prophecy DVD series, the Cosmic Conflict DVD, and the new Revelation: The Bride, the Beast & Babylon DVD to share in their community.

Denise’s husband, Eric, also finds Amazing Facts resources helpful to share with others. He is a lawyer practicing family law and often finds himself ministering to people during some of the most difficult times in their life. Eric shares the Amazing Facts Bible Study Guides with clients, along with Amazing Facts DVDs. He finds that the Amazing Facts resources appeal to all types of people.

“We had no idea how much God would bless our prison outreach,” Denise shares. “Other churches have written to ask about our work. A prison is a mission field full of forgotten men. When we reached out with the Amazing Facts Bible Study Guides, they felt cared about. These lessons have been a key resource to unlock prison doors. We love using them because they have touched men behind bars and given them freedom in Jesus.”

Call +1-916-434-3880 to learn more about how your church can use Amazing Facts Study Guides to reach prisons and communities in your area.