As iron sharpens iron,
one person sharpens another. (Proverbs 27:17)
In a couple of days I’ll board a plane and fly to Fortaleza, Brazil. The trip is not about SharperIron, but it is about iron sharpening iron. Some months ago, a missionary our church supports financially contacted me and asked if I’d be willing to preach at the regional conference for Baptist Mid-Missions (BMM) in northeast Brazil. I felt honored by the invitation and was eager to go if the Lord provided the funding.
I grew up on a farm without animals—domesticated animals, that is. Wild cats came and went like vagrants seeking shelter for a few months before setting off in search of something better. Those cats especially liked our classic circa 1900 red barn. As a boy, I remember sitting in the barn’s hayloft while dust motes danced in shafts of sunlight at my feet.
I have been thinking about how to include my story of how I came to know Jesus Christ as my personal Savior in this blog since I began writing it back in October 2007. I wasn’t sure if I could do a good job of it without writing a novel, but I am going to attempt to cover the important elements that I believe brought me to the place I needed to be for God to shine the light of truth on my heart and reveal to me how much I needed Him.
I was asked to provide my testimony for SharperIron. I am trusting that God might use this to bless a reader. I was saved in November 1969 through the ministry of Hebrew Christians at the University of Cincinnati and the ministry of Westwood Baptist Church in Cheviot, Ohio (Metro Cincinnati).
Six months ago, Jason Janz made an appeal for financial help for SI, and quite a few of you rose to the occasion. He was able to recover his personal investment in SI before passing the site on to me. At the time, he estimated the cost of running the site to be around $750 a month.
As of Friday morning, SharperIron member profiles are no longer visible to the public. Unless unforeseen problems arise from the change, they’ll stay that way. Many have expressed concern over public exposure of personal information, and the Admin Team became convinced some time ago that, if possible, we should aim for non-anonymity among members while retaining identity privacy from the Internet as a whole.
Discussion