Growing Together

Pastor Barry Jones

Our home was a Christian home. My parents not only sent us to church and Sunday School, but came as well. And so, with church and Sunday School part of the routine every week, I grew up knowing all the familiar stories from the Bible - David and Goliath, Daniel and the lions' den, etc.

But that's all they were to me-stories-exciting, full of adventure, but stories nonetheless. Until something happened to me. At 9 years of age, I was diagnosed with a congenital heart defect, which required pioneering, open heart surgery when I reached the age of 10.

The night before the operation, the Pastor of our church came to my hospital bed to pray with me. I cannot remember one word of his prayer, but I vividly recall the sense of peace that came over me as he prayed. This was really my first experience of the reality of God in my life. God was no longer just the key character in the Bible stories that I enjoyed; He was personal, and interested in me and my welfare.

The operation went extraordinarily well, which I saw as a direct and definite answer to prayer. It was that operation, and the impact of the Pastor's prayer, that started me thinking about the place of God in my life.

But being a typical kid, I really didn't think about it too much until 3 years later, when for the first time in my life, I attended a Christian summer camp.

I was desperately homesick, and went whining to the Camp Director one night. He told me basically to go back to my tent and "enjoy" my time at camp. SURE! But the very next night after supper, before all the campers left the dining room, the Camp Director told a story.

A widow and her two small sons were destitute, with no food in the house. On Sunday, the two sons went to Sunday School, and learned how God sent ravens to feed Elijah. The boys came home, telling their mother to leave the front door to the house open so God's raven could come in with food. Mother wisely agreed to do so. All day the door stayed open. Just as she was about to close it at nightfall, in walked a minister dressed in black. He saw the open door, came in to see if there was need, and returned with lots of food. The two boys said, "He was dressed all in black-just like God's raven."

The Camp Director talked to me later that night, explaining how I was as helpless to deal with my sin as that family was to provide food. But God made provision for the forgiveness of sin through His Son Jesus Christ.

That night, I asked Jesus to come into my life, to be my personal Saviour. On the last day of camp, I professed faith in Jesus openly, when the Camp Director asked all who had accepted Christ while at camp to stand. A few months later I was baptized.

Since then, I have grown in my relationship with Jesus. I felt God's call into ministry after a teaching career, and am now pastoring a church. Through all of life's hills and valleys, Jesus has been with me. And the greatest assurance is to know that when I die, I will go to Heaven forever.