Keith's Testimony

I was born in Lexington, Kentucky on 15 December 1977. Both of my parents were born again Christians since before the time I was born. They both went to Central Baptist Church (Southern Baptist) in Paris, Kentucky. I like to tell people that I had a drug problem when I was young. From the time I was born, I was drug to church Sunday morning, Sunday evening and Wednesday evening, and any other time the doors were open.

I remember enjoying going to church and it wasn't until I got to be about 11 or 12 years old that I didn't always want to be at church. Our family was involved in many different ministries of the Southern Baptist Church/Convention. My dad was at some point in time a deacon, an usher, a bus driver for the "young at hearts", a Sunday school teacher, a choir member, a hand bell player, a member of the men's quartet and as I recall he was a trustee. My mom fulfilled many of the female equivalents of these positions with the exception of course of deacon, trustee, usher and bus driver. My mom was also in the WMU and some other three-letter organization that started with a "B", I think. My parents were always busy with the work of their church.

Our church was a Gospel-preaching church where people got saved on a regular basis. I remember when I was 8 years old, I began to understand that there was something to this getting saved business. I began asking questions and sat down with my pastor in his office and talked to him about salvation. Although I don't remember what was said in this meeting, I do remember that he sent me home with a little Gospel tract with a green cover that was about the size of a Chick Tract. I'm quite sure it wasn't actually a Chick Tract though. I remember it was mostly text. I took the tract home and was reading it while sitting on the couch in my living room by myself. When I got to the end, there was a model sinner's prayer. I knew right then and there that I needed to take care of this. I prayed and asked the Lord Jesus to save me. I can't tell you the exact words I said, but I can tell you that I know I was saved right then. Many people I have talked to or heard from say that they had no real feeling when they got saved. Or that the feeling didn't come for a few weeks after they got saved. Buddy, I knew it right as soon as I said amen. I could feel in my chest that something was different. I felt very light and free. I didn't know much about doctrine at that time, but now I know enough to be sure that that feeling was the Holy Spirit of God moving in and unpacking His bags inside of me. What a feeling!

My mom decided that it would be good for me to wait a while before I got baptized. Although I don't remember the exact date that I got saved, I do remember the date of my baptism. It was 7 Dec 1985. There are two reasons that I remember that. Number 1 is because it is Pearl Harbor day, and somehow I had actually learned that through the Kentucky school system. Number 2 is because it was written down in the front of the "Bible" the church gave me after I was saved. The reason I put Bible in quotes, is because they gave me not a Bible, but a Bible-like book called the NKJV.

I continued going to church with my family and stayed busy with Royal Ambassador's (RAs), the youth group, VBS, children's choir and all the rest. I remember being so proud when my mom or my dad would sing in the choir or a special. I took piano lessons for a few years and played at the church from time to time during a service. This continued until we got word that my dad had leukemia, and our world got turned upside down.

My dad fought cancer for 10 months before the Lord took him home. It was a tough time for all of us. My mom spent most of her time in the hospital with my dad, which was in Lexington, Kentucky. I can't remember exactly how long of a drive it was, but I think it was about an hour away from our home. My grandparents on both sides of the family and my Aunt Cherryll took care of my little brother, Alan, and I while my mom took care of my dad. I was 11 when my dad died and my little brother was 8.

When things began to settle down after my dad's death, my mom began to take classes to work on her associates degree. She was working, taking classes and trying to raise two boys all by herself. This was the time when I started becoming rebellious. I was in junior high school now and had begun to hang out with some kids that I shouldn't have and they were not a good influence on me. Instead of stepping up and helping my mom, I was selfish and did what I wanted. This must have been extremely difficult for my mom. She began to fall out of church during this time and Alan and I went to church with some folks that lived down the street from us. After awhile, we began attending the Christian church that was right next door to our house. I don't remember too much about this church, but there is one thing in particular that sticks out in my mind. During one service, the youth were in the auditorium and we were learning about Jesus feeding the 5000. Whoever the leader was at the time was trying to show how everyone was fed with only the 5 loaves and 2 fishes. He passed around a doughnut to all of the kids and told us to eat some of it. Each of us took off a little piece and ate it and when we were done there was some left. He explained that this was what happened when the 5000 were fed. I don't know how many of the kids actually bought this load of bunk, but I knew in my heart that this was not true. I didn't speak up about it, but that has always bothered me. Here was this guy, who was supposed to be teaching the Bible to kids, and instead he was casting doubt on one of Jesus' miracles. Sickening.

In 1992 my mom remarried. My little brother and I got along very will with our new step dad, Peter. He was not a Christian and was very young when he and my mom married. He was 25 and my mom was 37, but he took very seriously the job of raising us boys. Peter's job took us to Bloomington, Illinois when I was 14. We started going to a church called Vale Baptist. It was an NIV positive, praise hymn singing, ecumenical waste of space. As I look back on my time at this church, I can't remember one thing I learned the whole 4 years we attended. I was involved in the youth group all through high school, but it didn't have much affect on my life. I spent quite a bit of time in trouble and not much time studying.

A lot of the sinful habits that hurt me so much later on had their beginnings while I was in high school. I began listening to hard rock music by bands that openly hated Jesus Christ and everything that He stood for. At the time I knew that this music was bad, but I felt that I was in control of my life and this music wasn't affecting me or controlling me. This was also the time in my life where a few other awful sins began to grow roots in my life that would later cause me a lot of strife to pull out of the ground.

About a month after graduation I headed off for basic training in the Air Force. My first duty station was Shaw Air Force Base in South Carolina. I got my first roommate about 2 weeks after I arrived on station and he was the person most responsible for my introduction to alcohol. I spent the next three years not stepping foot in a church or touching a Bible, but drinking, partying and having a "great ol' time". The sins that had begun to grow in my high school years were now flourishing like Jack's Beanstalk.

I met Erin, who is now my wife, in early 1998 and we began to date. We got married on 29 Jan 1999 at the JOP in Steubenville, Ohio. We lived apart because she was going to school in WV and I was still stationed in SC. So for the first year and a half of our marriage I was still living the life of a single guy as far as going to parties and clubs and such. I can thankfully say that as much sin as I was living in at the time, none of it included adultery.

In early 2000 I began to feel that since I was now married, I should probably attend church on Sunday mornings. That's what you are supposed to do when you're married you know. I thought this would help ease the trouble my conscience was giving me. And I think it did somewhat, but the church I was attending wasn't having enough effect on my life to keep me from drinking and going to bars and such. After all, how much power is there in an NIV positive, praise-band, sharing, caring and coping church anyway? Not much, that's for sure.

In May of 2000 I moved to Goodfellow Air Force Base in San Angelo, Texas for training in my new job. Erin was now living with me and it was great. We were basically still newlyweds since we hadn't lived together for longer than about 2 months since we got married. We found a Southern Baptist church in San Angelo to attend and went on Sunday mornings sometimes. We even started to go to Sunday School sometimes. We were really spiritual when Sunday mornings came around. I remember feeling guilty about listening to my rock music on the way to and from church on Sundays. But did I stop? Of course not. Again, this was a sharing, caring and coping, NIV positive church with no power to change anything in anyone.

We then got sent to Mountain Home Air Force Base in Idaho. Where in the world is Idaho? That's what we thought at least. I remember being really spiritual when it came to where my next assignment would be in the Air Force. I would always pray and tell God to send me wherever He wanted me to go. It wasn't long after arriving at Mtn Home that I realized that for this assignment God answer that prayer in such a way that I could never have imagined.

For about the first year at Mtn Home, Erin and I went to another Southern Baptist Church. This church wasn't as bad as the others we had been to. They actually did use their hymn books although they were NIV positive.

In September of 2001 I met a new guy in my shop at work. Right after the attacks on the 11th we were working very long hours and some of the time we spent at work there were short periods with little to do. I noticed that this new guy, Aaron, kept a Bible on his desk along with some other literature (tracts). I would occasionally stop by his desk to chat and would pick up some of the literature on his desk. I don't remember all the specifics about what we talked about, but I don't doubt that he started to witness to me but stopped when I told him I was saved. We usually talked about the King James Bible issue. He invited me to come and visit his church in Mtn Home with him on the 23rd of September 01. I told him I would come, but ended up not going because I took my Private Pilot Check ride that morning instead. But the next Sunday Erin and I went to Bible Baptist Church of Mountain Home for the first time. Aaron had already convinced me that the King James Bible was the only true Word of God and that all the other "versions" were really just perversions of God's words. I don't remember what the sermon was about that first Sunday morning at Bible Baptist, but I remember that I had never experienced a church like this before. People shouted "amen" and "preach it" and "that's right" during the sermon! I had never heard anyone do that before. All the churches I had been to before, you didn't talk during the sermons. If you did, you would be weird.

A few weeks after that first trip to Bible Baptist I got deployed in support of Operation Enduring Freedom. I was gone for nearly four months and during this time was my first ever experience with witnessing to someone. Of course I couldn't have picked a harder target. I chose to witness to my boss who was a Mormon. The witnessing session basically consisted of me talking about 5 minutes and then him talking to me for about an hour. I was out of my league, but I didn't let this keep me from ever witnessing again.

When I got back from the deployment, Erin and I started going to Bible Baptist regularly and joined after a few months of attending the church. This is where, for the first time in my life, I actually began to grow as a Christian. I started reading my Bible, going to church on Sunday and Wednesday nights instead of just Sunday mornings and took a soul-winning course through the church. I began to grow even more by purging my music collection, discontinuing going to the movies, stopping drinking alcohol and beginning to witness to people on a regular basis.

Later in the year I believed I felt God's call on my life. It took me a while to come to terms with this and realize what it was. I sought the counsel of my pastor and eventually talked to Erin about it. After participating in a prison revival in Boise I thought I was being called to be a full-time missionary to prisons, but soon found out that I wasn't so sure about this being my calling.

At the beginning of 2003 Erin and I began going to Treasure Valley Baptist Church in Meridian, Idaho. We loved our church in Mtn Home, but felt God leading us to Treasure Valley for several reasons. I enrolled in Treasure Valley's Bible Institute for the spring semester and have taken a few courses since then as I was able.

Since I started going to a church that believes and teaches the actual true Words of God (the KJB), my life has changed. God has pulled me through many trials and has guided me through cutting down beanstalk sins and pulling up the roots. I still struggle with some of the things of my past, but God is giving me the victory and one day I'll never have to worry about those or any sins again.