It's All About Him
(From Disgrace to Grace)
What follows is a brief description of God’s grace and mercy to one poor sinner named Paul Fedena. The purpose of this personal account is to give Him the glory for converting and using me in the ministry. He picked up a piece of trash and miraculously transformed me into a triumph of His matchless grace. The purpose of writing this is to encourage those who have likewise been transformed and to reveal the secret of any spiritual success He has achieved in my life. I am especially interested in exposing the means of any growth in Christ He has achieved in me and any success in the ministry He has orchestrated. The principles He has used in my life are available to you as well. They are found in His wonderful Word.
Joshua 1:8-9 This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth; but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein: for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success. 9 Have not I commanded thee? Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest.
It seems as if the Lord has especially blessed me and the ministries He has entrusted me with far beyond any natural talents or abilities. I have seen others with far more to offer Him who has failed to accomplish much, at least as far as we can observe down here. (I am sure things may appear quite differently at the Judgment Seat of Christ.) But I give Him the glory for using what little He had to work within me, and it was all by His matchless grace!
You may be reading this after I have passed on to heaven through the rapture or through the doorway of death. If it is after my death I want to encourage you that what He has done in this sinner’s life is possible for you as well. If it is after the rapture I urge you to receive Christ as your Savior and to admonish you that He has a purpose for your life and if you are not saved, to simply and humbly bow before Him and ask Christ to save and use you and under no circumstances to take the mark of the Antichrist. (Revelation 13)
I am compelled to write these things down at age 76 lest I forget the details…
B.C. (Before Christ)
I arrived on planet earth just five years after America’s Great Depression. I was born on May 28, 1934. When I was just seven years old President Franklin D. Roosevelt announced that we were entering into war in a conflagration that would be known as World War II which began for the U.S. with the surprise attack by Japan on Honolulu, Hawaii on December 7, 1941. Our nation would ultimately face a triumvirate of evil led by Emperor Hirohito (and Prime Minister Tojo) of Japan, Adolph Hitler of Nazi Germany and Benito Mussolini of Italy. It would end after the greatest bloodbath inhuman history when we finally used Atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. VE day (victory in Europe) came in May 1945 and VJ day (victory in Japan) came in August 1945. I mention these events to show how my childhood was shaped. I was born into a poor family, with many daily needs rationed during the war, but due to the war my father worked in a Shipyard in Eddystone, PA (near Chester, where I was born). I never knew we were poor and my wonderful parents, Helen and Peter Fedena, always provided for me and my two sisters Nancy and June.
Names like Frank Sinatra, Rosemary Clooney, and Johnny Ray became famous in the pop music field in my early years and Elvis Presley and Little Richard introduced Rock Music to the world in my teen years. I also became enamored with country music with the likes of Hank Williams, Eddie Arnold, Tammy Wynette, and Lorretta Lynn. I became a movie addict in those years as well. Some of my movie idols were Humphrey Bogart, William Holden, Kim Novak and Marilyn Monroe. I only mention these things to reveal something of the strong influences of my life in those formative years. I was a typical 50’s teen with the popular morality of that era.
I considered myself a Roman Catholic since my father had by that time converted from his Ukranian roots and the Russian Orthodox Catholic Church. I rarely attended services but still identified with that religion. My mother was a nominal Methodist and I was “baptized” in both disciplines. I only went to church when invited by a friend or relative. My parents were smokers and drinkers and rarely, if ever, attended their churches. They used coarse language, but not the filthy stuff you hear so often these days. They were considered normal, good Americans.
TURNINGPOINT! After a four year relationship with a neighborhood sweetheart and a broken engagement to her, I was suddenly confronted by something completely foreign to my upbringing and environment. I decided that my world had fallen apart and began to attend the Methodist church. I even joined by shaking the pastor’s hand on Palm Sunday when I was about 19 years old. He offered me baptism by sprinkling, pouring or immersion (in a local Baptist church). It was not to be. Evangelist Oliver B. Greene from South Carolina arrived in Chester, PA with a large tent and began a month long revival meeting. My Methodist pastor, Rev. Phillip Worth warned his flock not to attend these “radical” meetings. But one of my friends, Jack Eckler, did attend and got saved. He in turn invited me to attend with him and his girlfriend, and partially out of rebellion I said yes. I needed a “girlfriend” too to go with them, so I invited a young lady who was unlike any I had previously dated and whose parents would never allow her to date me because of my sordid reputation. She was sweet, pretty and clean – my opposite! Because it was a religious meeting they allowed her to go with me. I was 22 years old at the time. My life would radically change from that point on.
A.D. (After Deliverance)
The tent meeting was unlike anything I had been exposed to up to that time. The singing was loud, the atmosphere was almost circus-like. The preaching was even louder! I had never heard real Bible preaching before. People were very friendly to me, even though they didn’t know me and I looked and dressed differently. The tent was packed with standing-room only crowds every night. Because we arrived early we were able to get a seat on the board benches just a few rows from the front – much to my dismay. When Oliver Greene walked onto the platform I noticed how sharp he looked. His suit was pressed and his Bible matched its color. He had on a tie in spite of the oppressive heat of that July night. After the never-ending music, which I was totally unfamiliar with, he mounted the pulpit like a lion about to devour his prey. He was intimidating! And he was loud! But something he was saying resonated in my heart.
TURNINGPOINT! He preached for what seemed an eternity to me. Then the choir began singing the invitation hymn. It must have had at least 200 verses, or so it seemed. I looked around and my new “girlfriend” didn’t raise her hand and so I was embarrassed to raise mine when the call came for salvation, even though I was under conviction. I vowed that if I ever escaped that meeting I would never return. The Lord had other plans. In the car safely and on the way home the girl I was with asked me if I was planning to come back the next night, and I didn’t want to turn her down, so I agreed. We again found a seat just four rows from the front (ugh!) and Oliver Greene began his sermon, which seemed to me to be more of a tirade against me. I suspected that someone had told him I was there and that he knew all about me. When he gave the invitation that night, I didn’t hesitate or look to see what my companions were doing but raised my hand almost immediately, and when he invited sinners to come to the front, I almost ran toward the pulpit. I believe I was the first, or definitely one of the first, to come forward. I shook the loud preacher’s hand and was introduced to a Christian & Missionary Alliance preacher with a bass voice named Rev. Olin Jones who took me in back of the platform to explain the plan of salvation. I don’t know what he said exactly, but we knelt in the sawdust and I got born again! Whew! What a night. What a life-changing experience. It was July20, 1956. I was a “new creature.” (Shortly thereafter my mother, my grandfather and grandmother on my mother’s side also received Christ. My sister Nancy had received Christ earlier in life, although I was unaware of that till later. My other sister, June, made her profession sometime later. It was ten years after Igot saved that my father trusted Christ in the parsonage of my first full time church ministry.)
TURNINGPOINT! After this “earthquake” experience in my life I was directed to a table where the details of my decision were to be recorded by a young lady who would later become my wife! (I not only got a new life, but I would get a new wife!) We didn’t officially meet, but she caught my eye and I later found out that she played the organ at Youth for Christ rallies on Saturday evenings. I was invited to attend by another man by the name of Dan Darling who played the saxophone there. I didn’t go to hear him or my future wife play their instruments, but with the hope that I could officially meet her and possibly get to know her. Then I discovered that they had Friday night prayer meetings with some of the teens there and even though I (nor she) were teens, I decided to attend. I even remember what she wore that night(some 54 years later)! I was smitten. Her name was Shirley Bell and she was in charge of writing college students and young men who went into military service. As God would have it, within six months I would be in the U.S. Army, after having already served 5 years, 1 month and 5 days with the U.S. Navy. I took the oath of allegiance (again) went to basic training (again) in Ft. Jackson, SC and arrived there in a horrible ice storm! (I thought the south was supposed to be warm. It was the coldest 6 weeks I can remember. Bone-chilling cold!) I then went to Ft. Bragg, North Carolina, home of the 82nd Airborne, for more training after which I was shipped to Germany. (Almost immediately upon arrival in Germany I was asked (told) that I would be the new Post Adult Sunday School teacher. I assumed that responsibility in spite of the fact that I had only been saved a short time; but there was no other born-again men in my unit. I was working long hours on the base and using all my free time to study the Bible and prepare. I was only a Private First Class and I would be teaching everything from privates to a Lt. Colonel. It was good discipline and would help me when I went into the ministry. I also led my first soul to Christ while in Germany. He was a Texas senator’s son who had gotten into trouble with the local German police and was also being guarded night and day in our barracks by the military. He turned to me for help and trusted Christ.)
I had gotten Miss Bell’s address and had given her mine. I wrote to her almost immediately. I was lonely. Weeks passed without a reply. I thought she wasn’t interested in corresponding. Finally after many weeks I received her reply. It was delayed because instead of using an “air mail” stamp, Shirley’s letter came by ship across the Atlantic Ocean. (She still has a copy of my original letter to her in a frame on her bedroom dresser.) We began writing to each other and we “courted” by mail. When I returned to the states a year and a half later, we began to immediately date. Mostly we went to church services. We continued to attend Youth for Christ for some time and even went to Ocean City, NJ for an annual rally there where Dr. Hal Webb and Dr. Theron Babcock were the special speakers and music. But YFC began to deteriorate and become more liberal and my Pastor Donald Guarnere advised me to stop going there. We became youth leaders in the First Baptist Church of Aston, PA right near my home and a year later we got married there. While in that church I surrendered to preach with the idea of becoming a pastor.
P.S. (Post Salvation)
TURNINGPOINT! My pastor and his wife were godly people and great examples to Shirley and me. It was their example that God used to help lead us into the ministry. Although I preached my first sermon in Germany in the city of Stuttgart for a missionary named Baumeister who was on a retreat in southern Germany on Thanksgiving night to a mixed crowd of American military and German nationals – obviously with an interpreter – my pastor encouraged me by giving me the opportunity to preach my first message in America. It was entitled “Final Exam” and was on the subject of the Judgment Seat of Christ. It was awful as I stuttered and stammered my way through it! But God graciously used the message and me nonetheless. After my call to preach Pastor Guarnere counseled me to attend Baptist Bible Seminary (BBS)in Johnson City, N.Y. where we would spend the next four years and meet some of our best friends with whom we continue to correspond, including Pastor Carl LoTurco and Evangelist Herb Brail and their wives. (The Seminary was somewhat Calvinistic and liberal as to Bible versions, especially in the Greek department, and is now known as Baptist Bible College and Seminary in Clark’s Summit, PA. I would not recommend it today, but when I attended I was taught excellent theology and received a great foundation for ministry.) Upon graduation I was ordained in my home church in 1963 after being thoroughly examined by an illustrious Ordination Council with several solid Baptist preachers and even the President of my Alma Mater, Dr. Arthur Woolsey.
Student Ministry – Pinesbrook Community (Baptist) Church of Walton, N.Y.
TURNINGPOINT! While there as a student I was invited to preach in a little chapel in the hills of Walton, N.Y. state called Pinesbrook Community Church. It was extremely rural and you could only see two houses from the church and it was a 60+ mile drive each way from college. I was the interim, student pastor there for about two years in my junior and senior year in college. It was a great learning experience. I led the church out of the non-denominational position by preaching a series of messages on the Baptist distinctives, after which I baptized 19 of the former church members and re-chartered the church. It became the Pinesbrook Baptist Church. That baptism was a great small community event and townspeople, as well as church folks, came for the baptismal service in a farm pond in June when the ice finally melted and the water warmed up. The church grew dramatically during those two years. It was a one-room building with no running water, no indoor (or outdoor) bathroom facilities(don’t ask!), and a pot-bellied stove in the back corner and one small pew in the tiny balcony, but the Lord filled it up until the congregation spilled out the front door in the summer. It was a wonderful “basic training” ministry for our future.
It was also while there we had our first baby, a girl, we named Crystal. Before leaving Johnson City we also had our second daughter named Dawn.
First Full-time Church - Calvary Baptist Church of DeRuyter, N.Y.
The sweet folks at Pinsebrook invited me to become their full-time pastor. One of the members even offered us his home as the parsonage, but I declined. I then candidated in several churches and accepted a call to the Calvary Baptist Church in DeRuyter, N.Y., about 20 miles northeast of Cortland and 30 miles south of Syracuse. They had a nice new building where the public school met in the basement to help pay the bills. Sadly I found that they were tremendously in debt and hadn’t paid local merchants or missionaries in years. That was the first major hurdle we had to overcome before we could knock on doors in the small (population about 500-550), community. After the first year the Lord met the financial burden and all bills were paid to date. I then invited an evangelist named Warren J. Perkins to preach a week of meetings.
TURNINGPOINT! He not only helped the church but challenged me and taught me soul-winning! Every day he would ask when we were going to knock on doors. I studied his approach and when we visited homes where I could not get past the front door, folks were inviting us in and listening to a gospel presentation. Several local folks got saved that week. He “baptized” me into a whole new approach and showed me how to “draw the net.” Soon the church was thriving and people were driving 30+ miles south from Syracuse to come to our services. God was moving in a special way. DeRuyter Lake was a tourist attraction in the short summer months and people on vacation or who had summer homes on the lake would also fill the building. These were great years of advanced training after my boot camp experience in Walton, N.Y. and Baptist Bible Seminary.
Our stay was only a brief 2+ years in this tiny town. I never was a “farm boy” and was uncomfortable in that environment so the Lord moved us on.
Second Full-time Ministry – Calvary Baptist Church of Glen Burnie, MD
We happily packed the station wagon and U-haul trailer with all our earthly possessions and moved SOUTH and away from the sub-zero and snow-filled winters of N.Y. to go to Maryland. We sang “psalms, hymns and spiritual songs” on the way!
Those hymns died down rather quickly as we moved into this new ministry which had just gone through a major church split. The former pastor had left after a bitter showdown and as a wet-behind-the-ears preacher I was left to pick up the pieces. The church had three sections of pews; two small side sections and a large center section. The center section was nearly empty and the folks who sat in the side sections didn’t speak to each other. The Lord led me to begin preaching a Sunday night series of messages in 1 John verse-by-verse and the people heard “love one another” every Sunday evening for over a year. Slowly the side sections began to empty into the center section and people began to obey the command. Next Shirley and me attended our first Pastor’s School under Dr. Jack Hyles in Hammond, Indiana and came back fired up.
TURNINGPOINT! In spite of Dr. Hyles’ warning to the preachers not to go back to our churches and force feed our congregations the whole bottle of “medicine” taught in Pastor’s school at once, but to just give them one dose at a time, I decided to go all the way. It changed the church and we became a lighthouse in the community and stirred the area for the Lord. The church began to fill up as we went door-to-door and we saw folks saved, baptized and joining the church and “the Lord added to the church daily such as hould be saved.” We added to the building and installed a baptistery and the church continued to grow, add missionaries, reach our Jerusalem with the Gospel and we continued to “feed the sheep” a steady diet of the milk and meat of the word. We also began a bus ministry and it too grew with God’s blessing. We were able also to help start 4 new churches in the Del-Mar-Va area. While there I became the Moderator of the GARBC Del MarVa Baptist Fellowship of preachers and churches in the area for five years. (GARBC stands for the General Association of Regular Baptist Churches and was, at the time, a fine, separated, fundamental and Bible believing ministry. Like Baptist Bible College it too has changed and deteriorated and we no longer recommend it.) We stayed over seven years in this blossoming ministry. What a blessing these folks were (and are), in many ways to us! We tearfully left Glen Burnie and moved reluctantly north again to Fairless Hills, PA in January of 1971.
While in Glen Burnie God gave us two sons, Dan and Dean. (Of course, all four of our kids married and we now have 11 grandchildren and 4 great-grandchildren. Sadly, Dean went home to heaven when he was only 39 years old; just three years ago at this writing. It still hurts!)
Third Full-Time Ministry – Faith Baptist Church of Levittown/Fairless Hills, PA
Our final ministry came when we were called (without candidating) to the above church. The former pastor before us was a Calvinist and the church was not used to an evangelistic ministry like I would be presenting to them. It too was a GARBC church. I was completely upfront with them regarding my reservations about the direction I observed in the GARBC. But they had sent some “spies’ to the church I pastored in Glen Burnie and they liked what they saw and like Joshua and Caleb brought back a positive report. I was also very forthcoming about my vision of reaching the area with the Gospel using Bible principles. If the other churches I had pastored grew, this church would explode. The Sunday I filled the pulpit there, before even praying about a move, we had 42 in the congregation and 22 adults came forward indicating they wanted to learn how to reach the lost, after I preached a message on soul-winning from 2 Cor. 2:14-17 called “The Many Voices of God.” Some asked me how to go about this task of reaching the community and so that day, as a visiting preacher, I organized a community canvas just to look for prospects for later since no one had any soul-winning experience. We couldn’t even find 3 X 5 cards to use.
They reached out to me to become their pastor. I prayed much and at the same time I had candidated in a church in Iowa that had a great deal more to offer physically and financially and were running about 300 in their morning services with one bus route, an assistant pastor, a secretary and the nicest church building I had seen (an octagon) to that time, and a pastor’s office that looked like the Oval Office in the White House tome. They even bought a split level parsonage to accommodate me and my family – and paid cash up front. They were begging me to come and were sure I would. The church in Fairless Hills had nothing to offer physically or financially in comparison. In fact, I would have to take a cut in pay from what I was making in Maryland. Finally both churches were pressing me for a decision and after about two weeks of prayer and fasting I decided the Lord wanted us in Pennsylvania. The very day I made the decision a deacon’s son from Iowa called and told me about purchasing the new parsonage for us and was actually crying on the phone when I told him I was moving to PA. He said “But preacher we are convinced the Lord wants you here.” Then the doubts set in. Had I in fact misjudged?
TURNINGPOINT! The first Sunday as pastor in Fairless Hills, on January 16th 1971, I asked the Lord to settle the matter by saving at least one person in the morning service. As I gave the invitation a first time adult man who was visiting, sitting in the last pew to my left, finally raised his hand and I personally led him to Christ at the close of the service. The number in that service was between 40 to50 people in the auditorium. Each Lord’s Day we began to see folks saved. But my heart was still in beautiful Maryland with the Chesapeake Bay close by my old home, fishing, warmer weather, and nice home, etc. After about three months the church in Glen Burnie called me to do Gospel illusions for their growing AWANA ministry. I gladly went, but when I got there I realized these were no longer my sheep. That Lord’s Day I returned to the pulpit in PA and apologized saying I was sorry for the way I had treated them and that from that day on I would be their pastor, preacher and friend.
One thing was eating away at me as I saw the constant drift of the GARBC with which we were affiliated. We needed to disassociate ourselves from this organization and become completely independent. This was a difficult decision since the GARBC churches in the area had helped our church financially when they were in fiscal trouble. However I prepared the people by informing them what was happening and when the vote was taken to officially sever our connections there was only one negative vote. When I wrote “headquarters” informing them of our decision they sent the state representative to talk with me. At one point in the conversation, knowing the organizations weakness concerning God’s Word, I asked the representative where I could find the Word and words of God today. I had an extensive library and he waved his hand towards my books and said “Up there, in those books.” That did it. I asked him to leave and his response confirmed to my heart that our church had moved in the right direction.
TURNINGPOINT! The first summer in Fairless Hills we wanted to have a Vacation Bible School and I wanted to introduce them to a bus ministry. So we rented a bus from a local Christian school and canvassed the neighborhood and hung doorknocker flyers on every door we could in the week previous. By the end of that week we had 92 on that one bus! That Friday evening we had a closing program and two of the parents got saved. That Lord’s Day I reported how many boys and girls came to VBS and how many were saved and that we had much follow up work to do. Everyone was excited about what the Lord had done. Then I sprung the trap. I said that instead of reaching boys and girls and their parents once each year, why not do so every Sunday by starting a bus ministry. We voted to buy the bus we had rented. That was the beginning of a bus ministry which would culminate in up to 14 bus routes and our attendance growing to an average of over 800. We had an “Old Fashioned Sunday” and we ran all our buses and even rented a double-decker bus for one route. That bus captain, Mrs. Sylvia Gross, had over 200 on her route alone on that big day with a total attendance of 1232! That was our highest attendance in the 31 years I would serve as pastor of Faith Baptist Church.
Of course the devil didn’t like what was going on and we had some problems which produced two “back door revivals.” One involved an associate pastor’s infidelity and another a deacon’s break of trust. But the ministry was built on solid preaching and teaching from the Word of God and although we lost some folks we held the line. I regularly preached expositional through a book of the Bible on Sunday and Wednesday nights and most morning messages were textual. Our people were being fed both the milk and meat of God’s holy Word, so the devil lost his battle to scuttle our ministry.
The second summer we had heard about another unique way to reach lost people and bring them to the church from our friend Pastor Herb Brail. We voted on a Sunday night to try some outdoor services on Sunday evenings on the beautiful flat field on some of our 14 acres of land. We had some opposition the night we discussed doing this. People wanted to know about mosquitoes, about young couples in cars on the field, etc. and finally an elderly statesman who had a passion for souls and had been a deacon for years stood up and in a very dignified stance said “Preacher, if it will help us win more lost people, I’m for it.” That was all that needed to be said. The vote was taken and it was unanimous. Every summer Sunday evening for the next six years we would take a piano outside on our field where we had built a platform to preach from and we had great success in reaching the lost in those early days. One night a man came forward to get saved and I asked him how he had heard about our Drive-in Services and he said the previous Sunday night he had been playing golf on the course adjacent to our field and came to hear what was going on. He later became a deacon. We also had handicapped people attend and one young couple in wheelchairs came and received Christ as Savior. On Labor Day Sunday when we were going to close the outdoor services I told them I would see them the following Sunday in church. They informed me that they couldn’t come into the church for we had no access. I hadn’t considered the fact that our church was not handicapped accessible. I told them it would be by the next Lord’s Day. I called one of my faithful deacons, Mr. Fred Milacci, who was a carpenter by trade and who had become friends with this couple and asked him to build a ramp to get into the building by the next Lord’s Day. He said O.K. and that Saturday he came to the church and built the ramp which is still in existence today. It has been refurbished several times but it is still in use. Brother Milacci also installed a mirror over the in-the-floor baptismal pool in our original building at a 30 or 40 degree angle so the people could see these folks strapped in chairs get baptized. When we built the new auditorium several folks wanted the mirror moved over the new baptistry.
TURNINGPOINT! I have no intention of boring you with the many ups and downs of the years I spent as the pastor there in Fairless Hills, but I will tell you why I am no longer there. First, in my 25th year I had a stroke that paralyzed my entire left side. Fortunately I had a good recovery after rehab and within weeks I was back in the pulpit I loved. Then I had to have a quadruple heart bypass which again took me out action for several weeks. I began to wonder what the Lord had in store for Shirley and me. We prayed for over a year and we decided that I would stay until I was at least seventy. Finally one Sunday evening while I was preaching I began to feel strange. I blacked out for several seconds or a minute and had to hold onto the pulpit to remain upright. I finished the message and very few were aware of what had happened beyond my family members. I had had a mini-stroke or TIA. I went to see my doctor and he said I had three options: a wheelchair, a casket or get out from some of the pressures of the church and school ministry. My heart was broken at this news as I had always thought I would continue to be a pastor till I died or the rapture. I had already decided that a resignation was inevitable and so I called a young man to groom him to take my place. He was pastor of a church in upstate Pennsylvania and was a graduate of Crown College. It was my plan to stay for another year or so before resigning, but when this TIA occurred I knew my days were numbered. I didn’t think it was fair to my congregation to have a pastor who may black out or die in the pulpit. David Cashman was the preacher who took my place as pastor. He has been there several years now and the ministry continues to seem strong.
Upon resigning I had no idea what our next step would be. I couldn’t believe my preaching days were over. I was now looking at the first Sunday in 43 years when I would no longer be pastor. My nephew-in-law, Rev. Jeff McLeod, who is pastor of the Rio Grande Bible Baptist Church in Rio Grande, NJ called because he didn’t want to see me without a place to preach and he booked me for that first Sunday. That was the beginning of a brand new ministry that continues to this day. The Lord has wonderfully used this hell-deserving sinner in an unusual way. From the very beginning of my new life experience He has seen fit to lead in each step and had His hand on me and whatever ministry I undertook for Him. I have never knowingly said no to His leadership and have tried my best to be amenable to His will. I have seen more gifted, and no doubt more spiritual, men of God who did not have the success in their churches that I have enjoyed. I cannot account for any of it except for His marvelous grace! It really is all about Him!
These are some of the highlights of over 53 years of preaching God’s precious Word. Someone else will have to write my epitaph after I am gone and others will judge the success or lack of it concerning my service to the Lord Who saved me and whom I love. I am facing death or the rapture and the coming Judgment Seat of Christ, trusting that I pleased Him at least to some degree. I know He is keeping accurate records.
What follows is a brief description of God’s grace and mercy to one poor sinner named Paul Fedena. The purpose of this personal account is to give Him the glory for converting and using me in the ministry. He picked up a piece of trash and miraculously transformed me into a triumph of His matchless grace. The purpose of writing this is to encourage those who have likewise been transformed and to reveal the secret of any spiritual success He has achieved in my life. I am especially interested in exposing the means of any growth in Christ He has achieved in me and any success in the ministry He has orchestrated. The principles He has used in my life are available to you as well. They are found in His wonderful Word.
Joshua 1:8-9 This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth; but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein: for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success. 9 Have not I commanded thee? Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest.
It seems as if the Lord has especially blessed me and the ministries He has entrusted me with far beyond any natural talents or abilities. I have seen others with far more to offer Him who has failed to accomplish much, at least as far as we can observe down here. (I am sure things may appear quite differently at the Judgment Seat of Christ.) But I give Him the glory for using what little He had to work within me, and it was all by His matchless grace!
You may be reading this after I have passed on to heaven through the rapture or through the doorway of death. If it is after my death I want to encourage you that what He has done in this sinner’s life is possible for you as well. If it is after the rapture I urge you to receive Christ as your Savior and to admonish you that He has a purpose for your life and if you are not saved, to simply and humbly bow before Him and ask Christ to save and use you and under no circumstances to take the mark of the Antichrist. (Revelation 13)
I am compelled to write these things down at age 76 lest I forget the details…
B.C. (Before Christ)
I arrived on planet earth just five years after America’s Great Depression. I was born on May 28, 1934. When I was just seven years old President Franklin D. Roosevelt announced that we were entering into war in a conflagration that would be known as World War II which began for the U.S. with the surprise attack by Japan on Honolulu, Hawaii on December 7, 1941. Our nation would ultimately face a triumvirate of evil led by Emperor Hirohito (and Prime Minister Tojo) of Japan, Adolph Hitler of Nazi Germany and Benito Mussolini of Italy. It would end after the greatest bloodbath inhuman history when we finally used Atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. VE day (victory in Europe) came in May 1945 and VJ day (victory in Japan) came in August 1945. I mention these events to show how my childhood was shaped. I was born into a poor family, with many daily needs rationed during the war, but due to the war my father worked in a Shipyard in Eddystone, PA (near Chester, where I was born). I never knew we were poor and my wonderful parents, Helen and Peter Fedena, always provided for me and my two sisters Nancy and June.
Names like Frank Sinatra, Rosemary Clooney, and Johnny Ray became famous in the pop music field in my early years and Elvis Presley and Little Richard introduced Rock Music to the world in my teen years. I also became enamored with country music with the likes of Hank Williams, Eddie Arnold, Tammy Wynette, and Lorretta Lynn. I became a movie addict in those years as well. Some of my movie idols were Humphrey Bogart, William Holden, Kim Novak and Marilyn Monroe. I only mention these things to reveal something of the strong influences of my life in those formative years. I was a typical 50’s teen with the popular morality of that era.
I considered myself a Roman Catholic since my father had by that time converted from his Ukranian roots and the Russian Orthodox Catholic Church. I rarely attended services but still identified with that religion. My mother was a nominal Methodist and I was “baptized” in both disciplines. I only went to church when invited by a friend or relative. My parents were smokers and drinkers and rarely, if ever, attended their churches. They used coarse language, but not the filthy stuff you hear so often these days. They were considered normal, good Americans.
TURNINGPOINT! After a four year relationship with a neighborhood sweetheart and a broken engagement to her, I was suddenly confronted by something completely foreign to my upbringing and environment. I decided that my world had fallen apart and began to attend the Methodist church. I even joined by shaking the pastor’s hand on Palm Sunday when I was about 19 years old. He offered me baptism by sprinkling, pouring or immersion (in a local Baptist church). It was not to be. Evangelist Oliver B. Greene from South Carolina arrived in Chester, PA with a large tent and began a month long revival meeting. My Methodist pastor, Rev. Phillip Worth warned his flock not to attend these “radical” meetings. But one of my friends, Jack Eckler, did attend and got saved. He in turn invited me to attend with him and his girlfriend, and partially out of rebellion I said yes. I needed a “girlfriend” too to go with them, so I invited a young lady who was unlike any I had previously dated and whose parents would never allow her to date me because of my sordid reputation. She was sweet, pretty and clean – my opposite! Because it was a religious meeting they allowed her to go with me. I was 22 years old at the time. My life would radically change from that point on.
A.D. (After Deliverance)
The tent meeting was unlike anything I had been exposed to up to that time. The singing was loud, the atmosphere was almost circus-like. The preaching was even louder! I had never heard real Bible preaching before. People were very friendly to me, even though they didn’t know me and I looked and dressed differently. The tent was packed with standing-room only crowds every night. Because we arrived early we were able to get a seat on the board benches just a few rows from the front – much to my dismay. When Oliver Greene walked onto the platform I noticed how sharp he looked. His suit was pressed and his Bible matched its color. He had on a tie in spite of the oppressive heat of that July night. After the never-ending music, which I was totally unfamiliar with, he mounted the pulpit like a lion about to devour his prey. He was intimidating! And he was loud! But something he was saying resonated in my heart.
TURNINGPOINT! He preached for what seemed an eternity to me. Then the choir began singing the invitation hymn. It must have had at least 200 verses, or so it seemed. I looked around and my new “girlfriend” didn’t raise her hand and so I was embarrassed to raise mine when the call came for salvation, even though I was under conviction. I vowed that if I ever escaped that meeting I would never return. The Lord had other plans. In the car safely and on the way home the girl I was with asked me if I was planning to come back the next night, and I didn’t want to turn her down, so I agreed. We again found a seat just four rows from the front (ugh!) and Oliver Greene began his sermon, which seemed to me to be more of a tirade against me. I suspected that someone had told him I was there and that he knew all about me. When he gave the invitation that night, I didn’t hesitate or look to see what my companions were doing but raised my hand almost immediately, and when he invited sinners to come to the front, I almost ran toward the pulpit. I believe I was the first, or definitely one of the first, to come forward. I shook the loud preacher’s hand and was introduced to a Christian & Missionary Alliance preacher with a bass voice named Rev. Olin Jones who took me in back of the platform to explain the plan of salvation. I don’t know what he said exactly, but we knelt in the sawdust and I got born again! Whew! What a night. What a life-changing experience. It was July20, 1956. I was a “new creature.” (Shortly thereafter my mother, my grandfather and grandmother on my mother’s side also received Christ. My sister Nancy had received Christ earlier in life, although I was unaware of that till later. My other sister, June, made her profession sometime later. It was ten years after Igot saved that my father trusted Christ in the parsonage of my first full time church ministry.)
TURNINGPOINT! After this “earthquake” experience in my life I was directed to a table where the details of my decision were to be recorded by a young lady who would later become my wife! (I not only got a new life, but I would get a new wife!) We didn’t officially meet, but she caught my eye and I later found out that she played the organ at Youth for Christ rallies on Saturday evenings. I was invited to attend by another man by the name of Dan Darling who played the saxophone there. I didn’t go to hear him or my future wife play their instruments, but with the hope that I could officially meet her and possibly get to know her. Then I discovered that they had Friday night prayer meetings with some of the teens there and even though I (nor she) were teens, I decided to attend. I even remember what she wore that night(some 54 years later)! I was smitten. Her name was Shirley Bell and she was in charge of writing college students and young men who went into military service. As God would have it, within six months I would be in the U.S. Army, after having already served 5 years, 1 month and 5 days with the U.S. Navy. I took the oath of allegiance (again) went to basic training (again) in Ft. Jackson, SC and arrived there in a horrible ice storm! (I thought the south was supposed to be warm. It was the coldest 6 weeks I can remember. Bone-chilling cold!) I then went to Ft. Bragg, North Carolina, home of the 82nd Airborne, for more training after which I was shipped to Germany. (Almost immediately upon arrival in Germany I was asked (told) that I would be the new Post Adult Sunday School teacher. I assumed that responsibility in spite of the fact that I had only been saved a short time; but there was no other born-again men in my unit. I was working long hours on the base and using all my free time to study the Bible and prepare. I was only a Private First Class and I would be teaching everything from privates to a Lt. Colonel. It was good discipline and would help me when I went into the ministry. I also led my first soul to Christ while in Germany. He was a Texas senator’s son who had gotten into trouble with the local German police and was also being guarded night and day in our barracks by the military. He turned to me for help and trusted Christ.)
I had gotten Miss Bell’s address and had given her mine. I wrote to her almost immediately. I was lonely. Weeks passed without a reply. I thought she wasn’t interested in corresponding. Finally after many weeks I received her reply. It was delayed because instead of using an “air mail” stamp, Shirley’s letter came by ship across the Atlantic Ocean. (She still has a copy of my original letter to her in a frame on her bedroom dresser.) We began writing to each other and we “courted” by mail. When I returned to the states a year and a half later, we began to immediately date. Mostly we went to church services. We continued to attend Youth for Christ for some time and even went to Ocean City, NJ for an annual rally there where Dr. Hal Webb and Dr. Theron Babcock were the special speakers and music. But YFC began to deteriorate and become more liberal and my Pastor Donald Guarnere advised me to stop going there. We became youth leaders in the First Baptist Church of Aston, PA right near my home and a year later we got married there. While in that church I surrendered to preach with the idea of becoming a pastor.
P.S. (Post Salvation)
TURNINGPOINT! My pastor and his wife were godly people and great examples to Shirley and me. It was their example that God used to help lead us into the ministry. Although I preached my first sermon in Germany in the city of Stuttgart for a missionary named Baumeister who was on a retreat in southern Germany on Thanksgiving night to a mixed crowd of American military and German nationals – obviously with an interpreter – my pastor encouraged me by giving me the opportunity to preach my first message in America. It was entitled “Final Exam” and was on the subject of the Judgment Seat of Christ. It was awful as I stuttered and stammered my way through it! But God graciously used the message and me nonetheless. After my call to preach Pastor Guarnere counseled me to attend Baptist Bible Seminary (BBS)in Johnson City, N.Y. where we would spend the next four years and meet some of our best friends with whom we continue to correspond, including Pastor Carl LoTurco and Evangelist Herb Brail and their wives. (The Seminary was somewhat Calvinistic and liberal as to Bible versions, especially in the Greek department, and is now known as Baptist Bible College and Seminary in Clark’s Summit, PA. I would not recommend it today, but when I attended I was taught excellent theology and received a great foundation for ministry.) Upon graduation I was ordained in my home church in 1963 after being thoroughly examined by an illustrious Ordination Council with several solid Baptist preachers and even the President of my Alma Mater, Dr. Arthur Woolsey.
Student Ministry – Pinesbrook Community (Baptist) Church of Walton, N.Y.
TURNINGPOINT! While there as a student I was invited to preach in a little chapel in the hills of Walton, N.Y. state called Pinesbrook Community Church. It was extremely rural and you could only see two houses from the church and it was a 60+ mile drive each way from college. I was the interim, student pastor there for about two years in my junior and senior year in college. It was a great learning experience. I led the church out of the non-denominational position by preaching a series of messages on the Baptist distinctives, after which I baptized 19 of the former church members and re-chartered the church. It became the Pinesbrook Baptist Church. That baptism was a great small community event and townspeople, as well as church folks, came for the baptismal service in a farm pond in June when the ice finally melted and the water warmed up. The church grew dramatically during those two years. It was a one-room building with no running water, no indoor (or outdoor) bathroom facilities(don’t ask!), and a pot-bellied stove in the back corner and one small pew in the tiny balcony, but the Lord filled it up until the congregation spilled out the front door in the summer. It was a wonderful “basic training” ministry for our future.
It was also while there we had our first baby, a girl, we named Crystal. Before leaving Johnson City we also had our second daughter named Dawn.
First Full-time Church - Calvary Baptist Church of DeRuyter, N.Y.
The sweet folks at Pinsebrook invited me to become their full-time pastor. One of the members even offered us his home as the parsonage, but I declined. I then candidated in several churches and accepted a call to the Calvary Baptist Church in DeRuyter, N.Y., about 20 miles northeast of Cortland and 30 miles south of Syracuse. They had a nice new building where the public school met in the basement to help pay the bills. Sadly I found that they were tremendously in debt and hadn’t paid local merchants or missionaries in years. That was the first major hurdle we had to overcome before we could knock on doors in the small (population about 500-550), community. After the first year the Lord met the financial burden and all bills were paid to date. I then invited an evangelist named Warren J. Perkins to preach a week of meetings.
TURNINGPOINT! He not only helped the church but challenged me and taught me soul-winning! Every day he would ask when we were going to knock on doors. I studied his approach and when we visited homes where I could not get past the front door, folks were inviting us in and listening to a gospel presentation. Several local folks got saved that week. He “baptized” me into a whole new approach and showed me how to “draw the net.” Soon the church was thriving and people were driving 30+ miles south from Syracuse to come to our services. God was moving in a special way. DeRuyter Lake was a tourist attraction in the short summer months and people on vacation or who had summer homes on the lake would also fill the building. These were great years of advanced training after my boot camp experience in Walton, N.Y. and Baptist Bible Seminary.
Our stay was only a brief 2+ years in this tiny town. I never was a “farm boy” and was uncomfortable in that environment so the Lord moved us on.
Second Full-time Ministry – Calvary Baptist Church of Glen Burnie, MD
We happily packed the station wagon and U-haul trailer with all our earthly possessions and moved SOUTH and away from the sub-zero and snow-filled winters of N.Y. to go to Maryland. We sang “psalms, hymns and spiritual songs” on the way!
Those hymns died down rather quickly as we moved into this new ministry which had just gone through a major church split. The former pastor had left after a bitter showdown and as a wet-behind-the-ears preacher I was left to pick up the pieces. The church had three sections of pews; two small side sections and a large center section. The center section was nearly empty and the folks who sat in the side sections didn’t speak to each other. The Lord led me to begin preaching a Sunday night series of messages in 1 John verse-by-verse and the people heard “love one another” every Sunday evening for over a year. Slowly the side sections began to empty into the center section and people began to obey the command. Next Shirley and me attended our first Pastor’s School under Dr. Jack Hyles in Hammond, Indiana and came back fired up.
TURNINGPOINT! In spite of Dr. Hyles’ warning to the preachers not to go back to our churches and force feed our congregations the whole bottle of “medicine” taught in Pastor’s school at once, but to just give them one dose at a time, I decided to go all the way. It changed the church and we became a lighthouse in the community and stirred the area for the Lord. The church began to fill up as we went door-to-door and we saw folks saved, baptized and joining the church and “the Lord added to the church daily such as hould be saved.” We added to the building and installed a baptistery and the church continued to grow, add missionaries, reach our Jerusalem with the Gospel and we continued to “feed the sheep” a steady diet of the milk and meat of the word. We also began a bus ministry and it too grew with God’s blessing. We were able also to help start 4 new churches in the Del-Mar-Va area. While there I became the Moderator of the GARBC Del MarVa Baptist Fellowship of preachers and churches in the area for five years. (GARBC stands for the General Association of Regular Baptist Churches and was, at the time, a fine, separated, fundamental and Bible believing ministry. Like Baptist Bible College it too has changed and deteriorated and we no longer recommend it.) We stayed over seven years in this blossoming ministry. What a blessing these folks were (and are), in many ways to us! We tearfully left Glen Burnie and moved reluctantly north again to Fairless Hills, PA in January of 1971.
While in Glen Burnie God gave us two sons, Dan and Dean. (Of course, all four of our kids married and we now have 11 grandchildren and 4 great-grandchildren. Sadly, Dean went home to heaven when he was only 39 years old; just three years ago at this writing. It still hurts!)
Third Full-Time Ministry – Faith Baptist Church of Levittown/Fairless Hills, PA
Our final ministry came when we were called (without candidating) to the above church. The former pastor before us was a Calvinist and the church was not used to an evangelistic ministry like I would be presenting to them. It too was a GARBC church. I was completely upfront with them regarding my reservations about the direction I observed in the GARBC. But they had sent some “spies’ to the church I pastored in Glen Burnie and they liked what they saw and like Joshua and Caleb brought back a positive report. I was also very forthcoming about my vision of reaching the area with the Gospel using Bible principles. If the other churches I had pastored grew, this church would explode. The Sunday I filled the pulpit there, before even praying about a move, we had 42 in the congregation and 22 adults came forward indicating they wanted to learn how to reach the lost, after I preached a message on soul-winning from 2 Cor. 2:14-17 called “The Many Voices of God.” Some asked me how to go about this task of reaching the community and so that day, as a visiting preacher, I organized a community canvas just to look for prospects for later since no one had any soul-winning experience. We couldn’t even find 3 X 5 cards to use.
They reached out to me to become their pastor. I prayed much and at the same time I had candidated in a church in Iowa that had a great deal more to offer physically and financially and were running about 300 in their morning services with one bus route, an assistant pastor, a secretary and the nicest church building I had seen (an octagon) to that time, and a pastor’s office that looked like the Oval Office in the White House tome. They even bought a split level parsonage to accommodate me and my family – and paid cash up front. They were begging me to come and were sure I would. The church in Fairless Hills had nothing to offer physically or financially in comparison. In fact, I would have to take a cut in pay from what I was making in Maryland. Finally both churches were pressing me for a decision and after about two weeks of prayer and fasting I decided the Lord wanted us in Pennsylvania. The very day I made the decision a deacon’s son from Iowa called and told me about purchasing the new parsonage for us and was actually crying on the phone when I told him I was moving to PA. He said “But preacher we are convinced the Lord wants you here.” Then the doubts set in. Had I in fact misjudged?
TURNINGPOINT! The first Sunday as pastor in Fairless Hills, on January 16th 1971, I asked the Lord to settle the matter by saving at least one person in the morning service. As I gave the invitation a first time adult man who was visiting, sitting in the last pew to my left, finally raised his hand and I personally led him to Christ at the close of the service. The number in that service was between 40 to50 people in the auditorium. Each Lord’s Day we began to see folks saved. But my heart was still in beautiful Maryland with the Chesapeake Bay close by my old home, fishing, warmer weather, and nice home, etc. After about three months the church in Glen Burnie called me to do Gospel illusions for their growing AWANA ministry. I gladly went, but when I got there I realized these were no longer my sheep. That Lord’s Day I returned to the pulpit in PA and apologized saying I was sorry for the way I had treated them and that from that day on I would be their pastor, preacher and friend.
One thing was eating away at me as I saw the constant drift of the GARBC with which we were affiliated. We needed to disassociate ourselves from this organization and become completely independent. This was a difficult decision since the GARBC churches in the area had helped our church financially when they were in fiscal trouble. However I prepared the people by informing them what was happening and when the vote was taken to officially sever our connections there was only one negative vote. When I wrote “headquarters” informing them of our decision they sent the state representative to talk with me. At one point in the conversation, knowing the organizations weakness concerning God’s Word, I asked the representative where I could find the Word and words of God today. I had an extensive library and he waved his hand towards my books and said “Up there, in those books.” That did it. I asked him to leave and his response confirmed to my heart that our church had moved in the right direction.
TURNINGPOINT! The first summer in Fairless Hills we wanted to have a Vacation Bible School and I wanted to introduce them to a bus ministry. So we rented a bus from a local Christian school and canvassed the neighborhood and hung doorknocker flyers on every door we could in the week previous. By the end of that week we had 92 on that one bus! That Friday evening we had a closing program and two of the parents got saved. That Lord’s Day I reported how many boys and girls came to VBS and how many were saved and that we had much follow up work to do. Everyone was excited about what the Lord had done. Then I sprung the trap. I said that instead of reaching boys and girls and their parents once each year, why not do so every Sunday by starting a bus ministry. We voted to buy the bus we had rented. That was the beginning of a bus ministry which would culminate in up to 14 bus routes and our attendance growing to an average of over 800. We had an “Old Fashioned Sunday” and we ran all our buses and even rented a double-decker bus for one route. That bus captain, Mrs. Sylvia Gross, had over 200 on her route alone on that big day with a total attendance of 1232! That was our highest attendance in the 31 years I would serve as pastor of Faith Baptist Church.
Of course the devil didn’t like what was going on and we had some problems which produced two “back door revivals.” One involved an associate pastor’s infidelity and another a deacon’s break of trust. But the ministry was built on solid preaching and teaching from the Word of God and although we lost some folks we held the line. I regularly preached expositional through a book of the Bible on Sunday and Wednesday nights and most morning messages were textual. Our people were being fed both the milk and meat of God’s holy Word, so the devil lost his battle to scuttle our ministry.
The second summer we had heard about another unique way to reach lost people and bring them to the church from our friend Pastor Herb Brail. We voted on a Sunday night to try some outdoor services on Sunday evenings on the beautiful flat field on some of our 14 acres of land. We had some opposition the night we discussed doing this. People wanted to know about mosquitoes, about young couples in cars on the field, etc. and finally an elderly statesman who had a passion for souls and had been a deacon for years stood up and in a very dignified stance said “Preacher, if it will help us win more lost people, I’m for it.” That was all that needed to be said. The vote was taken and it was unanimous. Every summer Sunday evening for the next six years we would take a piano outside on our field where we had built a platform to preach from and we had great success in reaching the lost in those early days. One night a man came forward to get saved and I asked him how he had heard about our Drive-in Services and he said the previous Sunday night he had been playing golf on the course adjacent to our field and came to hear what was going on. He later became a deacon. We also had handicapped people attend and one young couple in wheelchairs came and received Christ as Savior. On Labor Day Sunday when we were going to close the outdoor services I told them I would see them the following Sunday in church. They informed me that they couldn’t come into the church for we had no access. I hadn’t considered the fact that our church was not handicapped accessible. I told them it would be by the next Lord’s Day. I called one of my faithful deacons, Mr. Fred Milacci, who was a carpenter by trade and who had become friends with this couple and asked him to build a ramp to get into the building by the next Lord’s Day. He said O.K. and that Saturday he came to the church and built the ramp which is still in existence today. It has been refurbished several times but it is still in use. Brother Milacci also installed a mirror over the in-the-floor baptismal pool in our original building at a 30 or 40 degree angle so the people could see these folks strapped in chairs get baptized. When we built the new auditorium several folks wanted the mirror moved over the new baptistry.
TURNINGPOINT! I have no intention of boring you with the many ups and downs of the years I spent as the pastor there in Fairless Hills, but I will tell you why I am no longer there. First, in my 25th year I had a stroke that paralyzed my entire left side. Fortunately I had a good recovery after rehab and within weeks I was back in the pulpit I loved. Then I had to have a quadruple heart bypass which again took me out action for several weeks. I began to wonder what the Lord had in store for Shirley and me. We prayed for over a year and we decided that I would stay until I was at least seventy. Finally one Sunday evening while I was preaching I began to feel strange. I blacked out for several seconds or a minute and had to hold onto the pulpit to remain upright. I finished the message and very few were aware of what had happened beyond my family members. I had had a mini-stroke or TIA. I went to see my doctor and he said I had three options: a wheelchair, a casket or get out from some of the pressures of the church and school ministry. My heart was broken at this news as I had always thought I would continue to be a pastor till I died or the rapture. I had already decided that a resignation was inevitable and so I called a young man to groom him to take my place. He was pastor of a church in upstate Pennsylvania and was a graduate of Crown College. It was my plan to stay for another year or so before resigning, but when this TIA occurred I knew my days were numbered. I didn’t think it was fair to my congregation to have a pastor who may black out or die in the pulpit. David Cashman was the preacher who took my place as pastor. He has been there several years now and the ministry continues to seem strong.
Upon resigning I had no idea what our next step would be. I couldn’t believe my preaching days were over. I was now looking at the first Sunday in 43 years when I would no longer be pastor. My nephew-in-law, Rev. Jeff McLeod, who is pastor of the Rio Grande Bible Baptist Church in Rio Grande, NJ called because he didn’t want to see me without a place to preach and he booked me for that first Sunday. That was the beginning of a brand new ministry that continues to this day. The Lord has wonderfully used this hell-deserving sinner in an unusual way. From the very beginning of my new life experience He has seen fit to lead in each step and had His hand on me and whatever ministry I undertook for Him. I have never knowingly said no to His leadership and have tried my best to be amenable to His will. I have seen more gifted, and no doubt more spiritual, men of God who did not have the success in their churches that I have enjoyed. I cannot account for any of it except for His marvelous grace! It really is all about Him!
These are some of the highlights of over 53 years of preaching God’s precious Word. Someone else will have to write my epitaph after I am gone and others will judge the success or lack of it concerning my service to the Lord Who saved me and whom I love. I am facing death or the rapture and the coming Judgment Seat of Christ, trusting that I pleased Him at least to some degree. I know He is keeping accurate records.
