Finding God’s Purpose for Our Pain

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Introduction by Dwight Nisly

(00:04) This session is entitled Finding God’s Purpose in Our Pain. Grant and I both grew up on the calm plains of Kansas. We went to the same church and yet our beginnings were very, very different. I, 30 years before him, was born in a Catholic hospital called Grace Hospital. Grant, on the other hand, began with almost unspeakable trauma.

(00:44) Yet that trauma triumphed with amazing grace. Grant’s conception shook our church. I recall the morning when our head pastor shared with our church a very tragic thing that was the cause of his conception. And yet Grant’s story, though it shook our church, I’m seeing that his redemption story is shaking our world.

(01:23) His is a story of intense wrongs and intense forgiveness that paved the way to intense purpose in pain. But this is his story to tell and not mine. And I’m so delighted to have Grant here. And Grant, if you could come forward, I would like to pray for you before you share your story. Oh Lord, we honor you because you are the author of all of our lives.

(02:06) You are the one who can place purpose into stories that are so racked with pain. and so racked with unfairness and so beyond our fixing. I lift to you everyone in this audience who has experienced traumas that are hard to understand and stories that are still unfinished. And I lift to you people who may really be nearing needing to hear Grant’s story.

(02:44) I ask God that you would just anoint Grant with special unction, special anointing, special courage, a special ability to share his story once again. And especially the places that really still tear his heart. And so bless this session and do your work and we thank you in the name of Jesus. Amen.

Presentation

Well, good afternoon to all of you.

(03:26) I’ll say right up front, I’ve been doing this for about probably 10 to 12 years, and this is the biggest crowd I’ve ever been in front of. So, not quite sure what that means, but I’m very excited to be here this afternoon, to speak with all of you, especially you as youth. You are in a very pivotal point in your life.

(03:50) And I just want to challenge all of you to not get hung up in those difficult places in your lives, but to work through and find the purpose for the pain that God brings into your lives because God has a plan for that pain. And you know each one of us here has a story and each person’s story is different in some way or another you know different backgrounds different experiences in life. But there is one thing that each one of us has in common.

(04:30) We have we all have pain. We all have circumstances, things in our lives that we can’t change. But you know what’s important is how we respond to those circumstances in our lives. I’m going to be giving some background to the story before I get into it. So my grandparents, their names were Eldon and Mary Ellen Bontrager.

(04:53) They grew up, or Grandpa grew up in Thomas, Oklahoma and Grandma grew up there in Reno County, Kansas where I live now. So they got married in the probably the early mid-50s and you know all they wanted out of life was to raise a family and settle into a church and serve the Lord where he called them.

(05:18) But little did they realize the plan and the journey that God would have for their lives. Their first daughter was born about 11 months I think after they got married and her name was Lynette. They soon began to realize that Lynette was not functioning. She was not progressing like other children her age.

(05:45) And you know this was back in the day where they there really was not the support from either the church or the or even the state for situations like this. and they they began to do they did a bunch of they did a bunch of testing to see what might be the problem and they finally diagnosed her with cerebral palsy.

(06:10) So there’s there’s varying levels of severity of that condition but by the time by the time Lynette passed away at 53 years old she was so deformed that her shoulder blade could touch her hipbone. That’s how badly that she was deformed. She was functioning at around 3 to six months of age her whole life. So, you know, as first- time parents, having a child with that condition in a time where they felt very very alone, was extremely difficult for them.

(06:48) But they chose to believe that God had a plan for their lives. And you know, even even though they didn’t understand why God chose to bring Lynette into their lives, they chose to to trust God for for his leading and provision in their lives. Four more children came along. Carolyn, Lavon, Myron, and Phyllis, all showed up happy and normal and healthy.

(07:14) But then their daughter Faith was born. And all too soon they saw those same signs that they had seen with Lynette. And after more testing they they got the news that she would never be normal. She had the same condition that Lynette did. She was not quite as physically deformed but the same mental state that Lynette had.

(07:44) So, Grandpa worked in a factory full-time and farmed on the side. So, he would work, you know, he’d get to work early in the morning, work till, you know, 4:00 or 5:00 at night, get home from work, and then he would go farm until 10:00 in the evening, and you get in the house exhausted, hoping for some sleep, and the girls would be crying.

(08:09) And after about nine years of far more work than they should have had to should have had to experience and far less sleep than most people their age ever dreamed of losing, they were finally so emotionally and physically exhausted that something had to change. So they they heard about this state-run hospital about 2 hours from their place.

(08:38) And it sounded like to me it might be a possibility for the girls to go live there. They just simply could not keep going with the way they the way things were were at their place. So they went down and checked things out and it seemed like they they liked what they saw. It seemed like it might be a good possibility for them to go there.

(08:59) So they ended up placing Lynette and Faith in the hospital. Lynette would have been 9 years old and Faith would have been about five years old when they put them in the hospital. Getting them ready to go that morning was one of the hardest things that they had ever had to do up to that point because to them it felt like they were giving up on their children.

(09:22) But yet they were so desperate for something to change that they they chose to to do that. Marilyn arrived shortly afterward and she was normal and healthy, but six years later their youngest daughter was born and her name was Regina.

(09:45) And there again, they began to notice those same signs that they had seen with with the other girls. And they were just devastated at the thought of another daughter who would never be normal. They had a family meeting to discuss what they should do with Regina. And by this point, the rest of the children were old enough that they could help take care of the chores around the place. And the children said, “We’re not putting another sister in the hospital.” So, they chose to care for her there at home.

(10:14) So, you know, as as a family growing up in that culture, in that time, they like I said, they didn’t have the support from the state or from the church that they really needed. So, it finally got to the point the the children were being bullied in school because of their siblings.

(10:41) So, it finally got to the point they actually moved to a kind of the far western edge of the community. And when they moved there, everybody thought they had moved to the far western edge of civilization. But now there’s a thriving Mennonite community down there and that’s where I call home. So life went on. They had a lot of really good experiences, enjoyed their time together as a family.

(11:05) But you know they faced a lot of questions, a lot of pain because of their sisters and their daughters just, you know, asking God why why are we the ones that have to have these children, these sisters who are handicapped. And yeah, it was very difficult for them to go through life to process some of those things.

(11:27) So life went on. The children grew up. Those that got married were married and raising families of their own. It was about 25 years or so after they had placed the girls in this hospital that they got a phone call one afternoon from the president of the hospital. He said that there was an emergency situation that had come up with one of the girls and they were coming out to their place for an emergency meeting.

(11:56) Now, they really had no idea what to expect. They knew that Faith had been having some health issues in the months prior. So, they thought it might have something to do with that. So, they they got the rest of the local children around for this meeting. And so, the president and the head nurse came out.

(12:17) It was about a two-hour drive and they came out there and they sat down at the kitchen table for this meeting and the president told them that Faith had been sexually assaulted by one of the nurses. I was now six months pregnant.

(12:41) Now keep in mind she was functioning at 3 to six months of age her whole life and only weighed 60 pounds when she got pregnant and everything that she ate went through a straw. So they were — the president said it’s a very high-risk pregnancy. Obviously he was extremely sorry for what had happened. He said it’s a very high-risk pregnancy. The drugs that she was on caused spina bifida in children.

(13:02) You know all the different things plus her condition alone. They said it’s very high risk. And he said he recommended an abortion bringing the man to justice who had done this and going on with their lives as best they could. He said they were planning to do DNA testing on all the male nurses there at the hospital to find out who had done this.

(13:22) So they as a family — obviously this was the hardest thing they’d ever experienced in their lives. And they knew they were facing something that probably nobody before them ever had before. But they also knew that they served a God who was bigger than what they were facing. They had a meeting with the doctor with her doctor the next day.

(13:49) And my Grandma, she told the doctor that two wrongs don’t make it right, and that abortion is out of the question. They didn’t know what to expect. They never they didn’t know what would happen, but they chose to believe that God could somehow redeem the situation that they found themselves in. They could have taken the easy route. There were people from their church who were who told them that they should have an abortion because they didn’t believe that God could spare that child.

(14:19) But God did spare that child. And I’m here today because of that choice that they made because God has a plan. Do His plans make sense? No, they don’t. But God has a reason for everything that He allows in our lives. And sometimes, like for my grandparents, they didn’t understand why God would choose for them to have three daughters and why one of their daughters had to be violated.

(14:51) But they chose to believe that God could redeem. And at the time, they didn’t know how that would ever look, or what that would ever look like. So at that initial meeting, he had said they were planning to do DNA testing on all the nurses. So my biological dad, his name is Jeff Walker. He knew there was no way he’d get by with what he did.

(15:20) He was 21 years old, about 20, 21 years old. And so he went to his mom. He told her that he was the one that had done this. And together they went to the police and he turned himself in. He was charged with one count of rape and he served one month short of 10 years in prison for what he did. And if you know anything about prison, there is a pecking order in there and those guys are pretty much on the bottom. So he got moved around a lot just simply for his safety.

(15:46) There was a nurse who yeah there was a nurse who became my became Faith’s kind of personal attendant basically after everything came up and the doctors had to figure out or so the family had to find a doctor who would be willing to take the case on and there were many doctors who they found who they said we’re not going to they they refused to take the case they said it’s too high risk we don’t we’re we’re not going to mess with that but there was a doctor that they found who said that, you know, there are Asian ladies who are not much bigger than she

(16:20) is having children of their own. He said, “We’re going to let nature take its course and we’ll do a C-section if we have to.” So, they found out about everything the end of November of 1991, and I was born about exactly two months later. So, she went into labor. They called for the ambulance.

(16:50) Ambulance showed up at the hospital where she was living to take her to the hospital. And somehow after this whole thing came up, the news media got a hold of the story, because it’s a story you don’t really hear about. So it was in all the local newspapers there and it made national news. One of my grandma’s cousins saw something about it on television in Oregon. So it made big news back in the day.

(17:15) So this nurse, so they they got her loaded up or they came to take her to the hospital and opened up the doors to the hospital to load her up in the ambulance. There was a whole group of news reporters there. I don’t know how they found out, but there was a whole group of news reporters there. And this nurse, she pushed them back until they got her loaded up in the in the ambulance.

(17:42) Then they’re like, “So which hospital are you going to?” and she said St. Francis, which is some heart hospital there in Wichita. So they all jumped in their vehicles and they go roaring off for St. Francis and she said she jumped in the ambulance and she said get to Wesley as fast as you can which Wesley is the regional hospital with the NIC unit in it.

(18:04) So they got sent to the wrong hospital, and I’m really glad they did because I didn’t need a group of news reporters following me around as I grew up. I had enough of things to process in life without that. So, after they found out about me coming along, the the family, they talked about it and my uncle Lavon and his wife Mamie agreed to adopt me. It took “dad,” Lavon, some time to, I guess, to come to grips with the idea of adopting this child because he saw he knew firsthand what it was like to care for a handicapped child and they knew there was that distinct possibility

(18:48) that they may have to do that. So they agreed to adopt me. They were only able to have two children of their own. So I was I’m four years younger than my than my sister. So I was born way early. They’re not sure how far along I was when I was born. I weighed 3 lb and 6 ounces when I was born.

(19:12) And I was actually born naturally, which is a miracle in and of itself. So I weighed 3 lb and 6 ounces when I was born. And now I’m 6′ 3″. So, something got changed. And it took a lot of food to get me here, I’ll tell you that. So, growing up, for as far back as I could remember, I always knew that I was adopted. And I always knew that my biological mother was very different from other people.

(19:44) You know, I knew that she was not a normal person. She was this shriveled up little lady in this wheelchair. And as a, you know, a four or five six year old boy just knowing these details, I began having questions, you know, why is my mom the way she is you know? why am I adopted? why can’t my mom take care of me? who is my dad? where did he go? why can’t I see him? you know, why can’t I just be like other normal people and have a normal mom and dad? and it I had a good loving home life, mom and dad treated me like their own. I had nothing to complain about there, but there was just those those questions that I was that I began having as a

(20:26) very young boy. And, you know, I knew very very little about the situation, but I knew just enough to know that it was very painful for the family to talk about. So, I didn’t want to be a burden. I didn’t want to be a bother. So, you know, I had all these questions, but I didn’t know where to go for my answers.

(20:50) So, I took all this all these questions that I began having, and I just kept them all inside. And I didn’t let anybody know what I was actually feeling, what I was actually going through. And I found out far too late in life that does not work, bottling things up, holding things in does not work because all that does is create bitterness and anger.

(21:18) I gave my life to Christ when I was eight. It was a really good experience for me, but I still struggled with all these questions that I was feeling that I was facing. When I was 12, my dad took me aside one morning and he told me the circumstances around my birth and how I came to be.

(21:50) And as a 12-year-old boy who was already struggling with questions, with why questions, with abandonment — and the abandonment didn’t come from having a bad home life. It was because that was something I found out later that a lot of adopted peoples can’t can’t tend to struggle with. And that’s just because of that that disconnection from their biological parents.

(22:12) So, dad told me the story and how I came to be, you know, and suddenly I had all these new questions, bigger questions, deeper questions. Why did my dad do what he did? Where did he go? Why can’t I see him? Where was God when this all took place? And why would God allow this to happen? I felt like God had brought me onto this earth and abandoned me. I felt like an accident.

(22:42) And my early teen years were very, very difficult for me. I began I became very bitter, very angry at God for allowing me to be brought into the situation. And I didn’t know what to do with all this hurt and all this pain that I was feeling. So I began doing what so many people today in this world do with their pain.

(23:11) I began running from my pain, looking for something to try to drown out this hurt and this pain that I was feeling. For me, I found my band-aid, so to speak, in sexual immorality and that type of thing because it helped me forget the pain that was in my heart. But all that did was create more guilt and shame, self- condemnation, all those different things. And I felt I felt awful. I felt horrible. I felt dirty.

(23:47) and all those feelings I had piled on top of all those questions and all that pain and it was not good. But to the rest of the world, I was trying, you know, that was a part of my heart that I never wanted to go to. I said, I’m never going to go to those questions. I’m never going to that spot. I don’t want to talk about anything that has to do with my mom or anything like that.

(24:16) So I tried to live my life as smoothly as I could so that nobody would actually know what’s what’s going on in my heart. When I was 15, I joined the church. I was baptized. It was a really good experience for me, plugging into a church, becoming a part of a church, but yet I still was going through life dragging all this baggage, all this pain, all these questions that I had.

(24:42) And I didn’t feel like I ever had a safe place to go to those to go to those questions and ask those hard questions. When I was 17, most of the youth group that I was with at the time went to lot, Texas for the youth fellowship meetings. And on the way down, we picked up a young girl from Thomas, Oklahoma.

(25:08) Her name was Stephanie Wingard. And I knew her fairly well. I knew her family fairly well. They lived it was about three hours from our place and so their family was in our community quite a bit. So I knew her fairly well. Went down there together. Had an enjoyable weekend at the youth fellowships.

(25:28) But Sunday afternoon she went on a ride on a motorcycle ride with one of the guys from down there. And they had a freak accident. She wasn’t wearing a helmet. Suffered serious head injuries and passed away later that night at the hospital. Being there that night was one of the hardest nights of my life. Just asking God why. I mean, it just didn’t make sense why God would choose to take her.

(25:54) She was 16 years old, beautiful young girl. She had her whole life ahead of her. And she had wanted to go into missions. She wanted to be a missionary. And here God just took her home. And I just couldn’t understand what God was doing, why God would choose to take her. And I also knew that if that had been me on that bike, I didn’t know where I was going.

(26:20) And that was the part that scared me the most was not knowing where I would have ended up had I died. So instead of allowing God to use her death to bring me back to him, I did the only thing that I knew to do with my pain, and that was run. And I finally got to the point in my life where I was ready to leave home.

(26:54) I was done with this so-called Christian life because it sure didn’t seem to be working very well. But by the grace of God, mom and dad came to realize that I was struggling with something. They didn’t know what. They just knew that I was struggling with something from my past. And they knew I needed help.

(27:18) And I knew I needed help. Deep down. I was desperate for help, but I didn’t know where to go. I didn’t know where that safe place was where I could open up and share my heart. And I had buried so many of those those things from my past. And so, mom and dad signed me up for counseling with a local couple in our area that uses the — they have a small office there — they use the Caring for the Heart counseling concept.

(27:52) And I know there’s people that that have reservations about counseling because there are some there’s some very sketchy places out there. I agree. But this is a different type of counseling. It’s called Caring for the Heart and it’s a very it’s just a very, very simple biblical type of counseling where we identify the pain and then later on take that pain to Jesus.

(28:17) So, they signed me up for this thing and I decided, okay, I’m going to go I’m going to go see, I’m going to go see if this works. And if this doesn’t work, I don’t know what I’m going to do. And praise God, it worked. I went to them and I remember going every night. I would go just absolutely terrified of what I would experience.

(28:48) And every night I would come home just almost just almost floating just because of the freedom that I found and just simply opening up and sharing those dark places in my heart, those painful places, things that I had places that I hadn’t gone to in 10, 15 years. But you know, we didn’t just go to those places, dig that pain out, and leave it there.

(29:18) We took that pain and that hurt to Jesus, the true, the ultimate healer. The counselor led me in this prayer and it was a prayer like I had never experienced at all up to that point in my life. I tended to think of God as the big man upstairs. And you know, I you know, you’d pray to God, but it was just like I didn’t realize, I guess I never I guess I never understood that Jesus wants that close relationship, that intimate relationship with each one of us. So the counselor led me in this prayer.

(30:04) I would ask Jesus a question and he would respond with a thought or a picture in my mind. And I don’t remember the whole prayer. I was pretty much a puddle by about a third of the way through it. But there are some parts of this prayer that I’ll never forget as long as I live. The first question I asked Jesus, so we went back to that little boy, that little six-year-old boy with all these questions, all this hurt.

(30:36) First question I asked Jesus was, “Why am I here? Why was I created? He said, “You’re here for a purpose.” For the first time in my life, I realized that I wasn’t an accident. I asked him, “What is that purpose?” He said, “So I could be glorified through a bad situation.”

(31:09) And in my mind, I’m thinking, “How in the world is God ever going to redeem a story like mine?” I asked him when I was in the hospital when I was born, “Were you there?” He said, “Yes.” And he gave me a picture of him holding me there in the hospital. Just so beautiful. But the probably the biggest question that I had for Jesus was why? Why didn’t he protect my mom? So I asked him, “When my mom was being violated, were you there?” He said, “Yes.”

(31:48) I asked him, “What were you doing?” He said, “I was crying.” I asked him, “Why didn’t you stop him?” He said, “Because I have a plan and a purpose for your life.” I asked him, “What is that plan? What is that purpose?” He said, “I want you to go to prisons and churches and share your story.”

(32:20) I don’t remember anything of the rest of the prayer. I was a complete mess by that point. But at the end of the prayer, the counselor asked me if there’s anything else I want to tell Jesus. And I just thanked Him for saving me, for giving me a plan, for giving me a purpose. And then I just said, “Take me. I’m yours. Wherever you want me to go, I’ll go.”

(32:53) The only thing I didn’t realize was where God would take me. I’ve been to places I never would have imagined my wildest dreams, you know, and I’ve often wondered, you know, why prisons? Why churches? I believe that’s where God brings us to slow us down enough to help us identify and deal with and process those painful areas in our lives.

(33:21) Because if we never process those painful areas in our lives, if we never deal with that pain, it’s going to drag us down and it’s going to drag those around us down. And it’s we’re going to cause so much pain to other people unless we’re willing to process and deal with those with those painful experiences in our lives. Several months later, I was having my devotions one evening, still trying to process some of the things that I had gone through in counseling.

(33:46) And just thinking about the calling that God had placed on my life and it just it just seemed overwhelming. Like I had turned 19 the week that I went through counseling and I’m just like how in the world am I supposed to go out and do this? I just cried out to God.

(34:11) I said, “God, how can I do this? Who’s going to support me in my ministry?” Well, God came back with the biggest answer that he could. He said, “All of heaven is behind you, cheering you on.” You know, when I think about that, there’s many people that I know that have gone on before, but I think especially of the millions and millions of babies who never had a chance because they were an accident. They were unplanned.

(34:38) And I’ve had the opportunity to go to some pregnancy care centers for their banquets. Those are very special times. And I’ve also had the the incredible opportunity in prison to stand in the place of children that have been aborted, for these women that have had these abortions, and the guilt and the shame that goes with that. and they’ve had the opportunity to stand in the gap for their children and offer forgiveness for those abortions.

(35:20) And the healing and the tears that flow from everybody there is just just incredible. Incredible to see. So healing for both of us, for all of us. The first time I actually did that was in a prison in Florida. And this lady, she she said that she’d had four abortions and three that she had kept.

(35:44) And she just could not forgive herself for those abortions. And my counselors were actually there for that week. And she was there with me. My counselor Joanne Nisly was there with me that weekend. She was there with me when when I was with this lady. And so I stepped in the place of her children and forgave her for that.

(36:09) And this lady is just balling her eyes out. And then she’s like, Joanne asked me, she’s like, “So who’s caring for her children now?” And the thought instantly hit me that Faith, my mom, is caring for her children up there. Then it was my turn to weep. In January of 2012, I went to Calvary Bible School in Arkansas. I was signed up for three weeks.

(36:40) I came home after two weeks because of dad’s health. He was struggling with cancer for about seven years. And it had returned the August before. So I knew going down I may have to come back, come home early. But the one night before the evening service, I prayed. I’m like, God, you know, I’m down here at Bible school. I’m really in the Word.

(37:00) Give me a verse or a passage of scripture that I can use for when I share my story. And that night, the man who was preaching, he read from Jeremiah 1. I’m going to read verses 5-10. Says, “Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you. Before you were born, I sanctified you.

(37:22) I ordained you a prophet to the nations. Then said I, ‘Ah, Lord God, behold, I cannot speak, for I am a youth.’ But the Lord said to me, ‘Do not say, “I am a youth,” for you shall go to all to whom I send you, and whatever I command you, you shall speak. Do not be afraid of their faces, for I am with you to deliver you, says the Lord.’ Then the Lord put forth his hand and touched my mouth. And the Lord said to me, ‘Behold, I have put my words in your mouth.

(37:46) See, I have this day set you over the nations and over the kingdoms, to root out and to pull down, to destroy and to throw down, to build and to plant.’ ” Those verses have meant so much to me over the years as I continue to to reread them again and again. So, like I said, dad was struggling with his health and passed away. He passed away about a month after I got home.

(38:09) That was a very difficult time for us as a family. He was 53 years old when he died. So in our in our minds, he had a lot of a lot of time left. So it was around it was around the time of his death that I decided that I wanted to try to find my biological dad.

(38:42) I u I really had no idea where to start. I knew he’d been in prison and that was that was basically the extent of it. But the place I was working was a storage barn shop. And I found out that I had a co-worker that had been in prison with him and he was an older gentleman. So one day we were working together.

(39:05) We happened to be working together on this project and I asked him if he knows my dad, Jeff Walker and he’s like, “Oh yeah, I know him very well. We’re friends on Facebook.” I got his phone number and everything. They had stayed in contact after they were both released. And he’s like, “Man, if you guys ever want to meet, just let me know.” So, he was a lot more excited about the idea of it than I was.

(39:29) So there was my avenue to find him. It took me about a year before I actually got back with him about that. And in the meantime, I had talked with Grandpas, I had talked with Mom, the rest of the aunts and uncles, just to get their blessing to go do this. And, they they gave me their blessing.

(39:51) It was pretty hard for the some of my aunts especially to think about the the idea of me going to try to find him because they were concerned that I would just leave everything I’d ever known and go move in with him, which was not my intention. I just wanted to know who he was. So it was about a year later — I, at the time, I was working on-site building garages and barns and stuff.

(40:16) But this particular day, it was a Thursday morning. I was on my way to work and I prayed. I’m like, “Okay, God, if this is actually supposed to happen, have Dale, my coworker, and I meet it in private.” Because I didn’t really want to ask him in front of the rest of the co-workers. So I went on to work.

(40:32) Didn’t think nothing of it. and first break came and we were all walking up to the breakroom and here came Dale, my co-worker, walking through the shop and I’m like, “Oh, great.” So, I stopped him and we started chatting a little bit and everybody kind of disappeared and I said, “Hey, as far as meeting Jeff, I, uh, I feel like I’m ready to meet him whenever it works for you guys.

(40:56) ” He had offered his place that we could go meet at. And oh, he was all excited. All right. Yeah, I’ll see what I can do. So, you know, I assumed it would be, you know, a week or so before he gets back with me. Well, he got back. He came back about 10:45 and he’s like, “Yeah, well, Saturday at two work.” And I about had a heart attack on the spot.

(41:17) I was like, “Well, here’s my opportunity. Yeah, let’s do it.” So, Saturday came and I was a complete mess. I mean, I was on an emotional roller coaster like I hadn’t been on in years. So I went up there by myself. Went up there and met him and his wife. And I remember I walked in and I shook his hand and I just had a piece come over me like I had never felt before.

(41:44) It was just like that part of my puzzle was in place. I knew who he was. He knew who I was. That was really special being there and meeting him. When we met that first time, I asked him if he’d be willing to meet any of the rest of the family; some of the aunts and uncles had expressed interest in meeting him sometime and he said, yeah he said he’s willing to meet whoever the family family would like to meet him.

(42:12) So several months later we had a family reunion in our area and all the aunts and uncles from out of state and those local — except for my uncle Myron who lives there locally, he had to work for some reason — but all the rest of us, grandpas, all the aunts and uncles, mom and I, we were all able to go meet Jeff and his wife there at Dale’s place. It was probably the most intense meeting I’ve ever been a part of. I mean, that air was there was so much tension in that air.

(42:37) You could have about cut it with a knife. It was just there was so much tension, so much pressure in the air. But you know, it was also the most beautiful meeting that I’ve ever been a part of just to see the power of forgiveness. I remember my aunt Marilyn just just weeping as she tells him that she forgives him for what he did.

(43:01) And that spoke to him so, so strongly because that was something that he struggled with for years was forgiving himself for what he did. He was 21 years old when he went to prison. So the prime of his life was spent behind bars. I met his parents about a year or so later. Then had an interesting time there. In June of 2015, he texts me again. He said that he and his wife had become Christians.

(43:30) He had given his life to Christ while he was in prison. He had written Grandpa’s a letter of apology, through the local Offender Victims Ministries. They got that letter right over the time that Regina, the youngest of the girls, right over the time that she passed away. And it was a very difficult time for them as a family and it took grandma two years, but she wrote him back forgiving him for what he did.

(43:53) That spoke to him so strongly that he gave his life to Christ because of it. And he and his wife had begun going to church again. And the pastor had come to visit with them about their faith. And he had given his life to or he had rededicated his life to Christ at that meeting.

(44:13) And his wife had given her life to Christ, had accepted Christ there at that meeting. In the text, he said that the next thing other than Bible study was to be baptized. And he wondered if I’d be willing to come be there for the baptism. It was like a month away or so.

(44:29) wondered if I’d be willing to to come down and be there for the baptism. And I’m like, “Yeah, sure.” And so I was planning to go down for this baptism. And a week before the baptism, he texted me again. He said that he’d been visiting with his pastor about it. And his pastor had told him that if there’s anybody that he’d like to have help baptize him, would I would be all right. And he wondered if I’d be willing to do that.

(44:51) And I’m like, “Yeah, sure. I’d be glad to do that.” So this was not a baptism that we as Mennonites or Anabaptists are used to. You know, we have our various solemn services and things and that’s great. But this was a baptism at the town pool with a swimming party and ice cream social afterward.

(45:12) So it was very, very interesting. I felt very out of place in my blue jeans, but we, I went down there and elderly friend of mine went with me went down there and I went down in the water and I helped baptize him. And that was really special being there for him as he took that step in his Christian life. So it was about three weeks after his baptism that Faith passed away, my biological mom.

(45:40) We were in Montana when we got word that she wasn’t doing well. We knew that she had been declining, but she had kind of taken a turn for the worst. So, I almost flew home because the one thing that I wanted probably more than anything was to be there when she passed away. So, it sounded like she’d probably make it till we got back. So, I decided to stay stay out there with the rest of the family. And God chose to take her home before I was able to make it back.

(46:06) That was really hard for me not being able to be there when she passed away. She was the last of the handicapped girls to pass away. So, it was it was almost the end of an era for the family really. And it was it was the hardest funeral that I’ve ever been at. Just there is there’s just something about our biological parents. We all want that connection.

(46:34) We all want that relationship with our biological parents. And that’s something that I was never able to have with her because of her condition. I’ll never forget what my uncle Dan said at the family service there before the funeral. He said he knows that of all the people who support me in my ministry, he knows that she’s my number one supporter.

(46:54) And that means so much to me because, you know, just in spite of everything that she went through in life, her condition, everything she went through with me, she gave me life. And I dream of that reunion someday. God has given me many unique opportunities to share my story different places. One of those places was a customer that we were working for.

(47:30) He this was down in Ark City. It was the town that he was that Jeff was living in when everything went down when everything when everything came out. So, you know, I knew it was a very high high-profile case and the guy that we were working for, said that he’d lived there like 30 years or something. I was really curious to know whether this guy actually remembered the whole story.

(47:55) So, it was a two-day project. And the second day we were there working, we stopped for lunch and I asked him, I’m like, “Do you remember a case about 24 years ago or so, whatever it was, that there was a lady that got that was assaulted by a nurse and got pregnant?” And oh yeah, I remember that very well.

(48:12) Like, what do you know about it? I said, “That’s very interesting because I’m the baby.” That poor dude spent the next five minutes picking his jaw up off the floor. It absolutely blew his mind. And several years several years later, I delivered barns for seven years. And I delivered a building down the same town where, it was for a kind of an assisted living center type of thing for people who can’t quite take care of themselves, but aren’t aren’t bad enough to be in a hospital, kind of an assisted living

(48:48) living center type thing. And I got to visiting with the maintenance guy and I asked him the same question and turned out that he knew he lived like next door neighbors with Jeff for many years and knew him very well and we were there visiting and then the one of the nurses came out and he’s like “Hey do you remember that case back there, whatever,” and asked her and she’s like, “Oh yeah, yeah I remember that very well.”

(49:14) He’s like, “Well, this is the baby.” And this lady just about had a heart attack. Because she said that she remembered the case very well. She didn’t work at the hospital when it happened, but she remembered hearing about the case very, very clearly. And she said that the news had said that I had died.

(49:33) And so suddenly, 20 some years later, here this guy shows up and it’s the baby. It just blew her away. So, it was very interesting conversation there. You know, life hasn’t always been easy for me. I went through a real kind of a desert time in my life in my probably my mid-20s. I felt like God was very far away.

(50:03) I felt God leading me to getting married, but he wasn’t leading the girls, if you know what I mean. And those were very disappointing, difficult times for me. And finally I told God, it was in January of 2020, I told God, I’m done looking for a wife. If you want me to get married, you’re going to have to bring her here.

(50:26) Bring her to Kansas. ’cause I said, I’m done looking for a wife. And you know, that was one one of the lies that I believed about myself, was that I would never get married because of my circumstances, because of my story. And you know if I ever would get married, would I ever have children? And if I did, would they ever be normal? So I told God, “If you want me to get married, you’re going to have to bring her to Kansas.”

(50:49) I’m just going to live my happy bachelor life. And if God brings somebody along, well, praise the Lord. Well, little did I know that God was working in someone else’s heart. There was a girl from Richmond, Missouri, grew up in a fellowship church and she had two brothers that lived in our area and I knew them fairly well. She moved out March 1st of 2020. Her name was Jennifer Eicher. She moved out to our area March 1st of 2020.

(51:24) And I kind of it was my buddies were telling me that I should do something about this. Well, due to prior circumstances, I wasn’t real excited about getting burned again. So, it took me some time to actually process this. And I thought it’d be nice to get to know her a little bit before I actually did anything about it.

(51:45) Well, this was COVID and you couldn’t get to know somebody if you wanted to. So, we saw each other twice over that summer and kind of felt like I should do something about it. So, ended up we went out for coffee December the 5th of 2020, got engaged February the 21st and got married June 12th. So, all I can say is when you know, you know. And she’s an amazing lady. Babe, would you come up? I want to introduce them to you.

(52:18) One of the things I always told myself was if I would ever have ever get married and ever have a little girl, I would name her after Faith. So this is my wife Jennifer, and Spencer is almost four and little Zalah Faith is about 18 months old. So, they mean so much to me and yeah, my wife does so much for us as a family. Thank you. I’ve been doing a lot of I’ve been speaking at different prisons and churches throughout the United States here, and a lot of different places and things.

(53:25) And in 2019, I went with Duane and Cindy Mullett and their family into a prison in South Carolina and they were they decided they wanted to they felt God leading them to a deeper discipleship. I don’t know how many of you know there them and their family.

(53:50) they’ve been with Gospel Express for about 40 years and they felt they felt God leading them to a deeper more intense discipleship within the prisons and they they got in contact with Jeremy Chupp. He was one of the counselors of Freedom Hills in Holmes County, Ohio for about 14 years and and they wanted to try to bring the Caring for the Heart counseling concept into a prison in a small group setting.

(54:12) They had no idea how it would work. So, we tried it and it has been unbelievable to see how God has used that ministry within the prison. I’ve been volunteering with them for a number of years, sharing my testimony at their week-long Prison Intensives is what it’s called. So, we go into prison for a week and then we have graduation and then go back in several months later for a three-day follow-up, just continuing to process life with these inmates, and then several months later going in again for a training, two days of just teaching these basic concepts.

(54:54) And then going in a year later, same prison, new group of inmates, but this time we’ll use about a dozen to 15 inmates that have got this concept and are using it in the prison. And we use those guys, those inmates as co-leaders of small groups. And it has just been so beautiful to watch how God has multiplied that within the prison.

(55:18) It’s so beautiful. Here about nine years ago, I was in Oregon working out there on a hay crew for a summer and I spoke at a couple different churches and one of the churches I was in the back visiting with some people and somebody’s like, “You need to go talk to that lady over there.” And that lady’s name was Laura Smoker, an author.

(55:47) and I wasn’t quite sure whether that was something I wanted to dive into or not. We as a family had talked about it in the past. We weren’t sure what we should do. So we ended up having a conversation and through that it we decided we as a family talked about it. We’re like, you know, if if we’re actually going to write a book, we should at least get the process started before Grandpas are gone because Grandpa had a very very good memory and he remembered things from 50–60 years ago.

(56:16) So, we began the interview process and it took a number of years, but last fall our family’s book Faith Child was released. Laura was the author and my first cousin Kaylene Bontrager, now Stoltzfus, was the co-author of the book. CAM is the publisher and Kaylene, my first cousin, was the co-author of the book and it was the first book that CAM had ever had co-authored.

(56:48) So it was kind of a new a new era for them I guess. And I’m curious how many of you have read that book. Oh, wow. Gotcha. Well, if you haven’t got the book and would like to to purchase them, we have a table on the front side of this first building all the way at the end. There’s a banner from Pain to Purpose and there’s some books back there as well.

(57:10) There’s also another the other bookstore has them as well if you’re interested. I wanted to very quickly here share just a little bit just kind of to wrap things up. I want to share a couple prison stories. So we’ve been very involved with that. And here several months ago, God very clearly showed us that it was time to go full-time ministry.

(57:36) And I wasn’t quite sure if it was the right thing. And God just very, very clearly opened the doors for us to go sign on with From Pain to Purpose, Duane and Cindy Mullett. So I work for them full-time now. Very involved in the ministry. We’re doing a lot of traveling, different tours and stuff. And one of the first things that we needed to travel with or to to go around was something to travel with and get around in.

(58:14) So we began looking and God provided a 2006 Holiday Rambler 40ft diesel pusher. Exactly what we were looking for. Found the thing an hour from home. It had 17,000 original miles and it was stored in a climate controlled storage for 10 years. It was like God was just holding that thing there for us. And it’s been such a blessing. So I want to share just a few stories here.

(58:35) The first story I kind of have to share to kind of lead into the next one. This this first one is a story from a prison in northwest Florida. A lot of the prison work that we do is in Florida because they’re just more open to to rehabilitation type of things. So, we were in this prison in northwest Florida and my co-leader, the volunteer co-leader at the beginning of the week had a very close connection with the Holy Spirit. He felt things very deeply and he felt very strongly like that somebody from our group was going to be anointed and he didn’t know who.

(59:12) He just felt like God was saying, “Somebody from your group is going to be anointed.” Well, about Thursday, there was a guy that began sharing some of the dreams and visions that he was having. He was he was very closely connected with the spirit world. God gave him God gave him the gift of visions, the gift of dreams.

(59:35) And some of these dreams had very deep spiritual meaning, but there was also some very dark dark things in those dreams as well. and he felt like this was and my co-leader is like, “Okay, this is the guy we need to anoint.” So he went he goes off to try to find some oil. Well, this is prison. This is not your kitchen. And he looked all over the place and there is no oil anywhere.

(1:00:03) And he’s like he talked to two of the other guys from his church about it and they’re like, “What do we do?” And he’s like, “What do we got?” He’s like, “Well, we got water, bottled water.” So, they’re like, “Well, we don’t know if this is going to work or not, but we’re going to we’re going to go in faith and and try it.” So, they went and they anointed this guy with water. They sit down. Everybody, it was the very end of the small group time.

(1:00:26) Everybody else had gone back into the main group. And they’re standing in the back just asking God, “Did this is actually was this actually legit? Did this actually work?” And Jeremy Chupp, he leads that in a lot of the teaching times. He opened it up.

(1:00:50) He’s like, “Does anybody have any testimonies or anything that God is laying on your heart?” And some some inmate from another group jumps up and he’s like, “I have no idea why. I don’t know if I’ve ever even read out of this passage of this script or this this book of the Bible.” He’s like, “I feel God leading me to read Ezekiel 36:25 and 26.” And it says, “Then I will sprinkle clean water on you and you shall be clean. I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you.

(1:01:14) I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.” And those three guys in the back are just going absolutely nuts. That was exactly what the confirmation that they needed that that what they had just done was was okay. So, fast forward to this past June.

(1:01:36) We were in a prison in in Florida and we were in there for a three-day follow-up. And at the end of the follow-up, Dwayne’s family came in and sang or they had a program and all the alumni, all the guys that had been through the program came back for that and then we had donuts and coffee afterward.

(1:01:53) And we get done and we were there just visiting and this guy, this old guy comes up to me, an inmate. He’s like, “I need you to pray with me.” He said, “I’m struggling with depression. I’m struggling with assurance of salvation. He’s like, I don’t want to have to go back to the psych ward again.” I’m like, yeah, I’ll pray with you.

(1:02:13) And so, for sake of time, ended up, we got a couple that has is very has been very involved in our ministry. The guy’s struggled with depression for many years, very nearly committed suicide, and God intervened in his life, and now they’re very involved. So, Paul and Maryanne, there are their names, very involved in our ministry. So, we went back, Paul, Maryanne, myself, and this inmate went back to this room to go pray.

(1:02:37) And Maryanne begins leading this guy in this prayer. And he’s like, “So, what do I do? What do I, you know, how do I do this?” And we’re like, “Just just let go. Just give Jesus your pain. Just give Jesus your depression.” And he’s he’s kind of battling through this. And he gives Jesus, he invites Jesus to come take that depression.

(1:03:01) And suddenly he’s like I see Jesus. And his arms are wide open and his eyes are so full of love and he’s telling me to come sit in his lap. And he’s like what do I do? And we’re like go. It’s okay. You can go. So he goes and he sits in Jesus’ lap. And he is just having this Jesus moment like he’s never had in his life. And I had gone, Maryanne had told me to go get a bottle of water because we were going to anoint this man. So we get done with this kind of wrap the prayer up.

(1:03:30) And then I was standing in front of the guy. I read that passage out of Ezekiel and Paul was anointing this guy with with this water. It was a full bottle of water. Just, you know, sprinkled some water on his head and and anointed him. And and Maryanne looked at this guy or looked at Paul as he’s dumping this water and she said it looked like there was a fountain coming out of this guy’s head.

(1:03:55) She’s like, “Man, Paul’s really dumping the water or something today.” We get done and this guy’s lap, we help him up, his lap is all wet. And Maryanne looked at that bottle of water. There was hardly any water taken out of it. Like the Holy Spirit had just anointed that man. I mean, it was the most beautiful experience I’ve ever had in prison,

(1:04:18) I think, just incredible to watch God work and use us in our in our inabilities and and just and just allow him to work there. So, my challenge to all of you today is, are you like that man? Are you struggling with depression? Are you struggling with pain in your past? God has a plan for that pain. Jesus wants that pain. Don’t waste it. Don’t waste your pain.

(1:04:49) God has a reason and a plan for your life. And he wants to use your pain to help others who are hurting. Because the biggest lie that we believe about ourselves is we’re the only person that’s struggling with something. If we’re willing to open up and share, we’ll find out that we’re not the only ones who are struggling. So maybe tonight in your small group can be the time where you can open up, go to those places in your heart and find Jesus in those moments. God bless you.