I grew up at FBT, but didn’t fully realize how amazingly God blessed me through my church home until adulthood. I truly don’t know where I would be without my church family.
Due to the Biblical preaching and teaching at FBT, I was saved at a young age. Around my middle school years, the Lord blessed me with a very wise mentor. She spent a lot of time with me over the course of many years and poured deeply into me. She had and continues to have a profound impact on my life. That mentor now serves with her husband and children as missionaries in Hong Kong. Throughout my middle and high school years, Biblical wisdom was sewn into my heart through my Sunday School teachers, Youth Pastor, Pastor, and many others. This wisdom served me well not only throughout high school, college, and still to this day.
I learned two-way communication with God, how to pray, how to study the Bible for myself, and how to recognize the prompting of the Holy Spirit.
The summer before my senior year of high school, FBT started an addictions ministry. I wondered why our church needed yet another ministry! However, while I never struggled with an addiction, God used this ministry to impact my life. He gave me the privilege and opportunity to be an part in leading Kidz Club, which ministers to the children of the addicted every Friday night. He used this ministry to teach me how to have an active, growing relationship with the Lord. I learned two-way communication with God, how to pray, how to study the Bible for myself, and how to recognize the prompting of the Holy Spirit. I served in this ministry for 16 years.
Towards the end of those 16 years, my relationship with the Lord went through some difficulty as I struggled with bitterness and other negative emotions towards God. He was faithful and brought me through those difficult times. I grew when I learned to obey God out of a love for Him – and not out of what I could get from Him. All this time, the Lord was working in ways I did not realize. He used FBT’s addiction ministry and the House of Hope, to bring about a change in a man who is now my husband. I’m now back serving in our addictions ministry, in a different role, alongside my husband who is a product of the same ministry. The ministry I was initially not fond of, has played a defining role in my life since I was 16 years old. I will forever be grateful beyond words for my church home, Florence Baptist Temple.