My Testimony

Growing up in a Southern Baptist Church, I had many opportunities to be saved and made a profession at age 6. However, God put me under such great convicition in the fall of 1987 that I decided to make my salvation sure. I had just joined the US Navy but had gotten off to a somewhat rocky start. One of my roommates invited me to attend a Bible study for servicement. Shortly after I began attending, on a back road in Millington, Tennessee, I put my religion aside, bowed my head, and trusted Christ as my personal Saviour.

Robin, my wife, grew up in an unsaved home in Ontario, Canada. Her older sisters were saved and married Baptist men. That gave her the opportunity to attend Sunday School and Vacation Bible School. She heard the gospel and received a "Good News" gospel tract. Through reading that tract, she accepted Jesus Christ as her Saviour at 8 years of ag. Since her teenage years, Robin has been priviledged to teach and work in many children's ministries in each church and Bible college in which she has been a part.

God called me to preach near the end of 1988 in Redwood Baptist Church in California. Through the Pastor's counsel, I decided that Bible training was necessary. I receive a Bachelors degree in 1996 from the Pensacola Bible Institute.

On an invitation from Pastor David Millar, I set out for Pickle Lake, Ontario with plans to work in the Christian school there and help Bro. Joe Newman on the Osnaburgh Indian Reservation (now called Mishkeegogamang First Nation). God did some great things there: a new Bible study opened up farther south of the reservation; souls were saved; a Bible believing Baptist Church was started and incorporated with the Charlie Neekam Memorial School. Through all this, I began to realize that I lacked the necessary administration skills to be all God needed me to be.

That was when God directed to send us to the Golden Plains Baptist Church. While at Golden Plains, my family got more involved in the ministry. Our children have found places to serve as well. In our first year, the church began a building program in which I was able to use some of the carpentry and tile setting skills I had picked up while in Bible Institute. Later, I was able to help with the sound system and tape duplicating ministries as well as attending classes and teaching in the Golden Plains Baptist Bible Institute.

After five years as a teacher and administrator of an ACE school on Huron Colony of Hutterian Brethren, God impressed on my wife and me through our daily devotions that something new was on the horizon. I had made a commitment to stay at the school but, during summer break, I received a call from the colony telling me that the school was closing and they were returning to the public school system. My job was no longer there.

Through circumstances and some closed doors, the Lord redirected us back to the Mishkeegogamang Reservation.