"Before I formed you in the womb i knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I have appointed you..." Jeremiah 1:5
My personal story in Christ can be sumed up in a word, "indebted." I'm deeply grateful for the investment and sacrifice of others in my life. I cannot ever forget my priceless grandmother who freely gave her life at a personal cost for my good and the good of others.
She raised me from a young child and always told me "Jeffrey, there is nothing you cannot do in Jesus!" Itwas her deep love for people that had a contagious effect on me along with her switch!) As a little boy, she would often ask me to sing Jesus Loves me to her plants. She said it would keep them alive and green. Her God-ordained role equiped me for what would take place in the near future.
I left my grandparents in Ohio at the age of seven and moved to Florida to live with my mom and stepdad. Yet I would always reflect on the instructional words of my grandmother along with her deep and sincere faith.
It was a year later that my grandparents sold everything and moved to Florida, they came to bring me home with them. The transition from boy to teenager brought many challenges with it. I asked Jesus to save me at the age of 12 and I remember how real the presence of God felt at that moment.I cried for 5 or so minutes. While saying repititiously in a blubbering kind of way,"I don't know why, I am crying. I feel so light and clean." Yet, I didn't completely understand God's expectations for me as a new Christian. It was not until I met a man in the Marines at the age of 22 that I truly began to mature in Jesus Christ and deeply hunger for the word of God.
It was few months later that I completed my military service and I came home. I remember one night in 1992 I asked my grandmother, "what is a missionary?" She responded, " One who travels throughout the world to share with others Jesus!" I remember the soft inward impression/call that grew over (7yrs) time to become a strong grip to foreign missions.
Our Lord taught me many things (both formally and through life experience training) during that season I worked as a waiter for 4 years and transitioned to cleaning pools for 5 years. The preparation for service was a breaking time for me, a season of development. He released and sent me to the Phillippines. Where I can see the wealth of adversity and pain. truely all things work together for the good. I want to honor the Lord Jesus Christ along with His vessel of honor my grandmother Muriel Rice in service to others... i have been blessed By God with a wonderful mother and beautiful sisters that mean so much to me...
God has placed in me several priorities; 1. I have heart to provide opportunities for new Christians to understand and mature in Jesus. 2. I also have a heart to develop leaders who can develop others as well. 3. I have a deep resolute conviction to rescue abused, abandoned, and highly neglected children and to have the opportunity for a dignified life and to discover the deep personal love of Jesus! God is bringing these inward the convictions to fruition.