Anna

I grew up in a Christian home, going to church twice every Sunday, AWANA every Wednesday night, and any other time the church doors were open. My parents told me that when I was four years old I accepted Jesus Christ as my Savior, but I don’t think I truly understood at the time what that meant. I knew that I was a sinner and had no hope of saving myself, and I knew that God sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to die in my place as the only sufficient substitute for the sin penalty that I owed. I was not certain, however, that those truths had been applied to my life, that I had truly believed for myself rather than trusting what my parents told me. I remember coming home from church one Sunday afternoon, going up to my room, and praying by myself. I confessed to God that I was a sinner in desperate need of salvation, and I couldn’t rely on the fact that my parents told me I had already gotten saved. I can’t say for certain whether I was saved at age four or at age seven, but I do know this: today I have the assurance that I am a child of God because Romans 10:9 says, “That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.” I am so thankful to God for the unfathomable love he has shown me by sending His Son, Jesus Christ, to suffer and die to pay the punishment for the sin that I am guilty of. I was baptized shortly after that in August of 1993, and in doing so, made a public statement of my new position as a follower of Christ. God has taught me many things by bringing various trials and challenges into my life, and I am extremely thankful for His working. After graduation from Faith Baptist Bible College in 2008, I spent one year teaching in Eucon International School in Saipan. The door opened for me to begin working on my MA degree at Iowa State University in Teaching English as a Second Language and Applied Linguistics. My hope is to go overseas once I’m finished with this degree and teach English while seeking to share the gospel of God’s love with those who have no hope beyond this life. However, I must remember Proverbs 20:24, which says, “Man’s goings are of the LORD; how can a man then understand his own way?” I don’t know or understand for certain which direction God is leading me, but I do know that He has given me a desire to teach and a passion to serve Him with my life. I thank and praise God for how He has led in my life up to the point I am at today. I trust Him to continue to work in and through me in ways that I can’t even imagine for the purpose of bringing glory and honor to His name.