A business acquaintance of mine had been telling me about the Lord since early spring of 1980. His Christian testimony had impressed me so much that I was ready to hear the Gospel as he presented it to me. He told me that I needed Jesus and needed to be born again. He said that Jesus was the answer to life's disappointments. Something inside of me was in complete agreement. I knew that Jesus was what I'd been looking for-the answer to my void and emptiness. Later I found out that God was wooing me to Himself for the Bible says in I John, chapter 3, verse 10, ''Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His son to be the propitiation for our sins.''

After a few short weeks I knelt down in the privacy of my bedroom and prayed this prayer, ''Dear Lord Jesus, I don't understand everything about the Bible or Christianity, but I know I am unsaved, I ask you to come into my heart, save me, forgive me of my sins. I receive you now as my Saviour and thank you for it. Take me to Heaven when I die. In Jesus' name, Amen''. According to Romans 10:13, ''Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved, God on that very day miraculously saved my soul. Since that time I have never doubted my salvation. Mini From the very first day I was saved, I wanted to serve the Lord to show Him how much I loved Him and how much I appreciated what He had done for me. I witnessed, studied my Bible, and prayed trying to please my Lord. I was unchurched for a while after I was saved. Being raised Catholic, I didn't know what a true New Testament church was.

After much prayer, God literally brought a Bible-believing Baptist church across my path. After we were baptized and became members, it wasn't long before I felt a tugging upon my heart to preach the Gospel and do something for Christ, but I didn't know what nor how to find out. I felt I needed to be faithful to what I knew God wanted me to do-faithful to the church services, soul-winning visitation, and to my Pastor.

By the winter of 1985 the call was not answered and God's voice was louder than ever. After a church service one evening that winter, I went forward and surrendered myself to full-time Christian service and whatever God would have me to do.

I started selling off my business assets not knowing for sure how God was going to use me. I had a strong impression form the Holy Spirit that God was going to use me by the time I'd reached the age of 33. By this time the swelling of the Gospel message of Christ within me was ready to burst. I knew God wanted me to preach and that I was anointed by the Holy Spirit to do so according to Isaiah 61:1, ''The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me; because the Lord hath anointed me to preach.''

In the spring of 1987 God called me to be the Youth Director of the Crossroad Baptist Church. Almost exactly one year after that, God called me to be the Associate Pastor of that same church. Totally content in what I was doing as Youth Director, Visitation Pastor and Associate, with many opportunities to preach in our church, school chapels and holding special outreach meetings around the State, God called again. This time it was not so easy to answer for God was calling us away to the mission field to reach mine own kinsmen according to the flesh-GYPSIES. On August 6, 1989, my family and I surrendered our lives to answer God's call to the mission field.