If you listen He will direct you where you need to be!

If you listen he will direct you where you need to be!

I am somewhat of a new/old Christian. I was raised in the Catholic church. I was an altar boy, went to Bible school, had my first Holy communion and was confirmed. I attended church on a semi-regular basis including all of the major holidays. But, somewhere along the line I stopped going. God became secondary in my life, and if you look you can see where my life started its downward spiral. I don't have any horror stories but you can see where I lost my faith and my relationship with God. I will not burden you with the play by play, but rather fast forward to about 3 months ago.

My neighbors and good friends lost their 6 month old little boy Alex junior. Talk about putting your life back into perspective. As hard as I know it was for them to deal with, it was equally hard for myself and my family. Claire and I have 2 small children, Noah Frederick and Clarke Ann. We were amazed at how Alex and Ronda were handling their loss. On several occasions they were comforting us. We attended Alex's services at Aberdeen Bible Church and that's where Claire and I were moved by the Holy Spirit. Wow!! It gives me chills just thinking about it. We left service that day and started on our trek to find God again.

As we all know God works in wonderful and mysterious ways. If you listen he will direct you where you need to be. Bel Forest here we come! Claire found Bel Forest on the internet, and we (God) decided we should attend. Our goal was to visit several churches and then make our decision, but once we went to Bel Forest our decision was made. Fast forward a little more.

I was approached to attend men's study on Saturday morning. With some hesitation I decided to participate. I expected for all of these professionals to be there quoting from the Bible and here would be me fumbling through finding the passage only after they had moved to the next. How wrong was I!? It was wonderful!! Something started to change within me. I couldn't put my finger on it, but I think we know who was at work here. On the second Saturday meeting, Jack mentioned that there was an open house for the school that day. Having 2 small children, I rushed home to tell Claire and we would go take a look. Here's where the story gets cool!!

The previous evening I had had a dream. My dream was that I was at the Saturday meeting and Jack had asked If I had been saved. I replied no. He asked if I would like to pray with him and accept the Lord into my heart. I replied that I really wanted my wife to be present. He said no problem (End of dream).

We attended the open house and can you guess what happened? You got it!! Jack was handing out brochures at a table and I stopped over to say hi. He proceed to ask if I Had been saved, and if not would I like to. I got Claire's attention, and Jack, Claire and I held hands and I accepted the Lord into my heart that day. Wow!! What an amazing God we have!! My life has not been the same ever since. I feel like I'm newborn. I have so much to learn and quite a relationship to build. The most exciting thing for me is that I can pass my experience on to my children and hopefully they will want to build a relationship with God too.

I want to thank everyone at Bel Forest! It is like having an instant family. We love you all, and we look forward to sharing in God's greatness with you.

Fred Haas