When I First Accepted Christ...

Grandma Grace and Grandpa Harry 

For me the first time I knew that Jesus was real was when I was little and living in Grovertown Indiana where my grandparents lived... I would go to a little Nazarene Church in Knox, that was just over the bridge from Grovertown... But us kids would get picked up from the pastor each Sunday and then he would pick us up for church on Weds... I don't remember his name, but I guess that doesn't really matter... But my Grandma Grace was a Sunday School teacher and I would learn alot from her about what the Bible said and the fun stories in the Bible... I believe that the Nazarene Church in Knox was the first church and the first church camp I went too... I was only in 2nd grade I believe... I was young, so I am remembering as a child on this one... I asked the pastor about being baptized when we still lived there... In the Nazarene Church, you didn't get baptized till we were atleast 14 and we had to make sure we understood what it meant to be baptized... There was one on one meetings with the pastors and such... Let's say I didn't get to be baptized... Remember I was only in the 2nd grade... My Grandma Grace passed away when I was 10 and we moved to AZ...

Hyder Arizona

I will skip all the little stupid drawn out stuff... But eventually we moved to a place called Hyder Az... It was between Gila Bend and Yuma... You had to go what seemed like an eternity to get to where it was located at in the middle of the desert. Not sure what got my parents to think this was a good idea... I think my parents thought hole in the wall places was the place to be... It was all cotton farms and close to hell temperatures... But I happen to make some friends there and found a little church that had maybe 25 people in it... They came from the areas around Hyder like Dateland, Sentinel, Ajo and other hole in the wall places... Hyder now is a ghost town... Should have been then too... I think peoples brains had to be fried to live there... But back to my topic... My friends and I would swim in the irrigation ditches there... That was really the only way to cool off there... It would be 125 plus during the summer time... But my friends went to church with me and we would act like we were baptizing each other... We would take turns and we did this every time we went swimming, which was every day unless they put sulfur in the water for the farms... We would do the whole thing like we seen in church... We dunked each other in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit... We wanted or I wanted to make sure that I got baptized... So I must have really wanted this... It was the first thing we did when swimming...

Irrigation Ditches

If anyone has ever been to Hyder AZ, you would know there was bad things lurking around there. We would have to be bussed about 30 miles to go to school in a little town called Sentinel AZ... Our school had about 25 or so kids and it went from 1st grade to 8th grade... It was two trailers and two teachers...  I tell ya, there was evil stuff on the drive to that school and all around us... Protection is what we all needed from my point of view... There was this one group called Children of Light where we would go swimming.  As little kids, we didn't realize that we were already protected by God...I count those baptisms that we did every day as my first time and  many times I got baptized...

Our family moved to Willcox AZ... For me this was the first real sign of civilization... It has a population of  2000 or so... But I went to the Willcox Church of the Nazarene... My best friend was the pastors daughter... Her father retired by the time I was able to be baptized... But I remember when some missionaries came to our church... Pastor Harry was still there as the pastor... But they asked a question about what would be the one question that God would ask when you get to heaven that you feared... My friend's sister stood up and said that she would be afraid to stand before God and asked her why she didn't talk to her friends about Him... And she would say that she thought they already know... She was a pastors kid, so they knew that... And then come to find out that nobody talked to her friend and they lost their place in eternity because of it... This stuck with me all the way through my life... I guess that's why I'm not really afraid talk to others about Christ and what He can mean to them...

I got baptized on my 14th birthday and the 1st Baptist Church in Willcox, AZ and I wasn't going to wait till I was 14 yrs old 1 day... I was waiting for years for this to happen and the day was finally here... I am sure my pastor was tired of me hounding him about it, lol... Pastor Randy Tipton was my pastor at the time and he did my official baptism... I don't know if the Nazarene Church is still that way... If they lowered the age, it is probably because of me and giving them a hard time... But it finally happened and I was happy... Now the hundreds of baptisms in the water in Hyder and this one made it complete...

I really like the Nazarene Church... It seemed to be where we were always doing something to reach out to those around us... We had prayer meetings every Weds... There was a sermon, but it always ended in prayer at the alters at the front of the church... Those who were too old or unable to, would move to the front pews to pray and everyone took turns to pray... Whatever was on your heart... There was invitations to accept Christ... I think I compare alot of churches to the Church of the Nazarene... I will always be a Nazarene at heart.  I also liked that there was alot of focus on Missions and Outreach... We were always doing something in our community or for someone else... Or atleast the ones I went too... I think society is laxed in wanting to conform to the ways of the world rather than God... I know I would love to have God conform to my way of thinking at times... But then  again, the world would be even more messed up and dysfunctional... I guess everyone has their thing and how a Christian should or shouldn't be... I think though that alot of churches through out the world and my area are more as a social event than worshiping... Maybe I think that because of how I grew up and my own way of thinking... Who am I to say...I love the people where I go to church at now... It isn't a Nazarene Church, but they are awesome...  I guess each person chooses to worship the way that they do and they all have their own normal... But should we have our normal or God's normal? Maybe I am wrong, which I probably am...

Nazarene's Believe: Nazarene's believe that Christians can experience a deeper level of life in which there is victory over sin, power to witness and serve, and a richer fellowship with God, all through the infilling of the Holy Spirit.

There has been alot of things throughout the years that has happened and I have made good and unfortunantly bad choices... Accepting Christ was the smartest choice I ever made.  But I know that God knows that no matter what that He is first in my life, even when I forget that and do my stupid things...

I would like to thank my friend who edited this post and she helped it sound like it should... :) I have been working on this post for a month or more now and it is finally done... Good thing I can save my drafts on here, lol...

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If you want to read a little article about the Children of Light from Dateland, AZ... You go here... I remember this group because when we wanted to go swimming in a real pool, they had the only one... They lived only a few miles from where we lived... Or atleast in my mind it was a few miles... This link has a number of pictures from this group and I remember most of them...