My Testimony

I was born in the 1970s to parents who were 4th and 5th generation Seventh-day Adventist (SDA). They took me to church every Sabbath of my life with them. (I was 30 years old when i married and moved away.) Most of those years we attended the Okeene SDA church where my parents served in active roles such as Sabbath-school teacher, elder, secretary, treasurer, singing in the choir, playing the piano etc. By precept and example they were the foundational religious influences in my life. Dad conducted daily morning and evening worship which included the Sabbath school lesson quarterly and a devotional book by Ellen G White (EGW). Mom showed me how to have personal morning devotions which at a very early age included reading and studying the Bible for myself and writing Bible studies, rather than just reading what others had studied or compiled.

Sabbath School
I remember Pat Lorenz teaching the cradle roll Sabbath school class at the Okeene church. I loved it. I can still remember the songs, the rattles and other musical instruments, the stuffed animals, the felt boards, the stories. Even at the tender age of 4 the lessons and illustrations sunk in and laid the foundation of my thinking. Heaven was painted as a happy place. I so wanted to be good enough to go there. I remember graduating to the kindergarten class on the other side of the church. We sang out of Happy Songs for Boys and Girls. Marcile Thorpe and Mary May were the teachers I remember most, though I know there were many others. They always had a theme story, a nature story, and a mission story always illustrated with felts. I wanted to be a missionary nurse. It was just great when we got to sail away in the boat to the mission land. I distinctly remember the theme stories about Ellen White and the early Adventists seeing the stars fall, expecting Jesus to come, and being bitterly disappointed. Songs were illustrated on big sheets of colored cardboard. There were memory verse cut-outs, pictures to color, and things to cut and glue. Sabbath truly was a happy day. I do not remember the name of a teacher we had in the Junior class for one year. We figured she was so old and boring and we seriously disliked her. But somehow I do remember the theme song that she insisted we sing every week that didn't make sense to me at all: In the morning I'll see His face; in the evening, His form I trace, in the darkness, His voice I know; and He's with me everywhere I go. One night when Mom came to tuck me she started to scold me for my terribly messy room. I responded with a song: In the morning I'll clean it up; in the evening, I'll leave it lay; in the darkness, I'll go to sleep, and will dream of cleaner rooms one day. At least my version of the song made sense. When nominating committee time came around again we all campaigned to have her replaced. Sure enough, we got June Schnell instead. What a contrast! She was so interesting and great fun. She even had us come over for a slumber party once or twice. I think she was our teacher when we did a theme study on the life and times of Jesus, and one where we studied a chapter of Steps to Christ each week. Phyllis Hansen played the piano and we sang out of the Country and Western Hymnal. We loved to sing and started learning to sing parts. I imagined I was in a choir and made the most of it. Later my mom became the teacher. She redecorated the room with many bright colors and made it so warm and inviting. She put a lot into class preparation and we got a proportionate amount out of it. Some of the other students weren't so impressed with the theme study she did on the pagan origins of the holidays, but I soaked it up. I didn't want anything to do with devil stuff like Halloween!

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Elementary School
My mom was my teacher for grade 1 and 2. I distinctly remember sitting on the couch and loving Bible class. She made it so interesting with object lessons and illustrations. I learned the stories backwards and forwards. And was so excited to find answers to all my questions about creation, the origin of sin, the plan of salvation, the second coming, heaven, and the end of the world. For grades 3-7 I attended the Okeene SDA Church school with my older brother. The first year we had Mr. A for a teacher. He was great fun and we enjoyed him and the social opportunities the other dozen or so students afforded. For whatever reason, we were required to read Child Guidance and memorize several long passages of scripture, including Revelation 14. I remember wondering how he expected a 3rd grader to get anything out of that book or that chapter. That certainly went over my head with all the big words and symbolic language. But Mr. A made social studies class come alive with our imaginary trips around the world. I don't remember how old I was when I read Patriarchs and Prophets and understood for the first time why God didn't zap Satan out of existence before he caused all this trouble. The first chapters of that book gripped my attention and solved some of the deepest questions of my mind. I also remember reading Story of Redemption and Early Writings at a young age and the intense impact they also had on my thinking. I think I may have been in 5th grade when I started being attracted to rock-n-roll music that the older girls listened to. Mom was worried but instead of getting mad or ordering me to leave it alone she suggested we do a study on it. I don't remember how exactly we proceeded with the research or what resources we used, but I do remember her helping me type up a little paper with illustrations summarizing the results of our study. After learning how devilish that stuff really is, it no longer tantalized my ears. I remember Wilma Rose Burton, Phyllis Hansen, and Lorena Ellington who were nurses, teach classes at VBS and other places and tell us all about drugs and alcohol and their dangers. We also got the Winner magazine in grade school and learned about the importance of temperance. These influences motivated me to decide never to touch, taste, or handle such substancesa commitment I have never backed down on nor regretted. (TY auntie!!) My mom's standards were very high in the matter of reading material too. One time when the teacher took us to visit the Enid library I came home with some novels which were promptly returned. And she made sure the teacher didn't read any fiction to us and that no fiction found its way into the school library. Every new book that came along was carefully reviewed before it was allowed onto the shelf. I learned to read early and would spent hours of the day and even the night reading. My favorite diet was storieshorse stories, wild west stories, mission stories, mysteries, and basically anything exciting. I would get so intensely involved in the plots that I would find myself praying for the good outcome of the story! It would take me an hour or two to return my mind to reality after delving into a story book. Apparently, even though these were all true stories, they were still not the best mental food. My grades in any class requiring reading comprehension dropped to Cs and Ds. Finally sometime in 7th grade I read Messages to Young People which explained how exciting stories make poor mental food. So I made the decision to go on a diet of reading nothing but Bible and Spirit of Prophecy books from then on. I read the Bible on the way to and from school (a 15-minute drive) and here and there and everywhere. Within a few months my grades in those same classes rose to As and Bs. Amazing how fast the mind can recover! New Life Mission Canada 1-2

My mom again chose to homeschool me for my 8th grade year. She included Ministry of Healing and Education among my textbooks. These made a deep impact on my mind in regards to health reform and education reform. I made big decisions about the future of my life that year that I have lived out completely. I wanted to attend only the kind of school described in that book Education. The ones that most closely followed the pattern at that time were starting up brand new. Fortunately Oklahoma Academy was only two hours away and I could hardly wait to go there. My brother was already there and mom made arrangements so that I could join the 8th graders in the staff-kids' elementary school there for the annual standardized tests and then finally for graduation. They had a summer work program so about a month after graduation I moved into the dorm and became a freshman.

High School
Oklahoma Academy was a special kind of school which attracted a special kind of students. Having morning devotions was popular and encouraged. The peer pressure was very positive. Physical education class did not include any competitive games. Sports was something I was not good at so when they cheered me on instead of downing me for making a flop of the game, I felt like this was truly a Christian school. The first year we studied the book Desire of Ages on the life of Christ for Bible class. The next year we studied church history and doctrine. The textbook we had did no justice to the history of the protestant reformation and had a strange way of explaining that some of the errors of the reformers were actually advances in understanding the truth. The third year we did a deep study on the sanctuary for the first semester and Daniel for the second semester. I still have the commentaries I wrote for that homework. The teacher did a good job of teaching us to find the answers for ourselves. He said that he would accept any interpretation as long as we could back it up with the proper references from the Bible and reliable historical sources. Commentaries and other people's interpretations were not acceptable regardless of how inspired we thought they were. My interpretation of some things disagreed with his in the end (he wouldn't tell us his interpretation until we had found the answers for ourselves) but I still got a good grade because I fulfilled the requirements. The fourth year we studied Revelation in the same way for the first semester and then marriage and family the second semester. I really got into studying Revelation with another classmate. My roommate almost disowned me because I ate and slept and talked Revelation every moment of the day. But we had learned to de-code prophecy by studying the Bible and the Bible alone and were so excited with every new discovery.

Conversion
Somehow I had grown up believing a lot of half-truths about conversion. And half-truths actually make a false gospel. Only recently when researching curriculum to prepare to teach my own children for Sabbath school did I discover how this had come about. The Cradle Roll, Kindergarten and Primary Sabbath school classes through the years had established in my mind the idea that Jesus loves me and if I will love Him and faithfully go to church on Sabbath, pay tithe, and be good, I will get to go to heaven someday. So I did my best to be a good little girl and figured I was doing quite well walking the Narrow Way. This legalistic gospel I learned was not at all the fault of my wonderful Sabbath school teachers but the fault of the committee that wrote the curriculum. It would have been a rare teacher who could have realized the effect it would have on the minds of the children and know how to fill in the missing links so they understood the real gospel. (I sure am trying to do that for my kids now though!) The pastor, Larry Fletcher, came to the church school and conducted a baptismal class with all of us New Life Mission Canada 1-3

kids. Then he came to my house and asked me personally if I loved Jesus and wanted to be baptized. I said yes but my real reasons were because everyone else was doing it and I wanted to be able to partake of communion and be able to raise my hand and vote like the other church members. I was only nine years old at the time. My peers helped a lot in making me adhere to my mother's high standards. Whenever I tried to join them in certain activities they would say You can't do (eat, drink, read) that because you're Patti's daughter. So I never had a chance to be bad. In fact, I became a real goody-goody-two-shoes. I was quite proud because I didn't do the things that others did and can remember what a terrible pharisee I became. I really thought myself better than other people. Various people would come to church or campmeeting telling glowing conversion stories about how naughty they were before they met Christ and how wonderful life is now. I was fascinated and realized that I didn't have the spark that they had in an exciting relationship with God. I craved it and acquired the mistaken idea that I would have to get real naughty first before I could find such a dramatic relationship. So I determined that when I went away to high school I would get into all the bad things I could such as smoking and drugs and partying so that I could have a dramatic conversion story too. My 7th grade year my mother experienced a real revival in her own walk with God. A friend at campmeeting introduced her to the book by Margaret Davis entitled What Must I Do to be Saved. Then she started getting the magazine Our Firm Foundation which she would read cover to cover and mark up with her highlighter. She started listening to tapes of independent travelling preachers some of which even stayed at our house. She found the real gospel through the Independent movement (Seventh-day Adventist ministers and ministries operating independently of the conference organization, also called the self-supporting movement.) I heard many new ideas too and my thinking started to change. Marshall Grosboll opened up a new ministry not far away in Wichita, Kansas called Steps to Life. He hosted the first independent campmeeting which we attended. I was wowed by the messages I heard from him, Ron Spear, Ralph Larsen, Colin Standish and others. When I went to high school, the opportunity to sow wild oats was simply not available at Oklahoma Academy as I had planned to do. I had developed a habit of reading the Bible from a young age. The stress I experienced at OA drove me often to my knees until the habit of seeking comfort from the Bible and prayer was very well established. I don't remember being specifically taught the real gospel of Righteousness by Faith there at OA, but I did develop a real personal connection with Christ through the Bible and prayer and positive influences from friends. The atmosphere was conducive to that and in the Bible classes we were forced to study for ourselves. Marshall Grosboll's personal testimony on his decision to make personal Bible study a priority over his homework really impacted my thinking. (Both he and his brother John gave weeks of prayer that really blessed me.) I believe he was truly a man of God and was personally devastated by his untimely martyrdom. I believe a lot of very unfortunate things have happened in the ranks due to his absence. But then that is a whole 'nother topic. It took years to break through my pharisaical mind before I realized how bad I actually was on the inside. I had read enough of the SOP to beat people over the head with it quite well. At the dinner table once I even suggested that one of the guys had a perverted appetite. I even wrote letters to various friends trying to straighten them out. (Fortunately many of the kids have forgiven me and are still friends. But many still don't want anything to do with me 20 years later and I certainly can't blame them.) Experiences my junior year really knocked me down and I started my senior year a completely New Life Mission Canada 1-4

different person. I decided in my own mind to wipe the slate clean and treat everyone with love and respect, forgiving and forgetting all of the past. I hoped that others would do the same for me but many were quite slow to trust the depth of my conversion. The freshmen class soon became my best friends because they didn't know the old me. I requested re-baptism which Pastor Bird conducted in the fresh flowing stream at Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge where we had Sabbath services and a picnic the next-to-last Sabbath of school.

College
Sometime during my high school years my parents left the Okeene church and started going to the Guthrie church. There they regularly invited independent itinerant preachers to do weekend meetings. I got to know Hal Mayer that way who was helping Colin Standish start a new college near Rapidan Virginia called Hartland. They were trying to set it up as close to the blueprint in the book Education as possible. So I decided to go there along with about a third of my high school senior class. (Another third went to Weimar College in California which was a similar self-supporting school.) Hal found out I was coming and invited me to come and work for him. He was in charge of the annual summer campmeeting and needed another office helper to keep that running smoothly. The day after my birthday I flew to Virginia, a month before the campmeeting in August. Hal was an assistant to the president, Colin Standish, and the secretary of the corporation as well. So I got to do a lot of other things besides helping with campmeeting. Melissa Leazer had worked for him for a year or more already and she trained me in on filing, transcribing, researching, and a host of administrative duties. Hal used a micro-tape dictation machine to write his letters and the minutes from the Administration Committee (Ad-Com) and other documents which we would then type. So my ears and eyes were exposed to all the internal workings of the institution. Just a few months before my arrival the institution had suffered a terrible shaking in which at least half or more of the staff and students had left or were in the process of leaving. A question had been hotly debated at the previous constituency meeting: When the commands of the church conference organization conflict with the commands of the Holy Spirit, which do you follow? Apparently the conference had been putting pressure on the independent ministries to not preach in SDA churches without their permission and to not accept donations of tithe money from church members. The independent movement had became exceedingly popular so that thousands were flocking to the independent campmeetings. After all, they seemed to be the only ones preaching present truth such as conversion and Righteousness by Faith. The conference got worried and instead of saying like John the Baptist He must increase and I must decrease, they attempted to protect their turf like the pharisees by requiring the independents to submit to their control or be excommunicated. The administration of Hartland decided we must obey God rather than men. I agreed with them but my roommate didn't. At the end of the summer she left and I really cried. I so much wish I had been keeping a journal through College since there are so many important details that I cannot remember or events which I don't know where to plug into the chronology. So I'll just mention them in whatever order they come to mind.

Classes
My first year of college included mostly the basics. I was very impressed how much the Bible was the central textbook for every class as well as many SOP books. Jan Stonebraker was my instructor for New Life Mission Canada 1-5

Marriage and Family class. She was one of the sweetest, most cheerful Christian ladies I knew. We met for class discussion around her kitchen table because she was so disabled with multiple sclerosis that she was a shut-in. Oh how I loved that class and wished I could have spent much more time learning from her. If I could be half the woman that she was my home could be a little heaven too. Ray DeCarlo, a fiery Italian, was my instructor for Prophetic Interpretation where we learned about Preterism, Historicism, and Futurism, and how these three different methods were used to interpret Bible prophecy. By the time we finished ten weeks of that study, we were all 100% committed to Historicism. I spent Thanksgiving break at the home of my best friend from high school. There I attended a Bible study in which two men speculated their way through Revelation mostly favoring futuristic ideas. I felt I was quite equipped to take issue with them after my class with Pastor DeCarlo and we got into a hot debate. After that I felt so bad for the tone of our discussion and my lack of ability to convince them of the truth that I determined NEVER to get into a debate again. Hal Mayer really wowed me with Church History class. We studied through the seven churches of Revelation and all the eras of the Christian church. Our textbooks included Benjamin Wilkinson's Truth Triumphant and Our Authorized Bible Vindicated. I was shocked to discover how very different the Catholic version of history is from the Protestant version. I found out that all the textbooks I'd studied in the conservative Protestant schools I'd attended taught the Catholic version. Now as a homeschooling mom, I'm on a quest to find resources to teach my children the Protestant version. This is no easy task but if you know where to look and what to look for, the truth can still be found. (Hartland Publications.com is a great source as they have specialized in resurrecting and reprinting a lot of great history books. Hal Mayer and others also scrounge around in used book stores and pick up a lot of goodies they resell.)

1888 Message Study Commitee

The first quarter of my second year I read A. T. Jones' book Lessons on Faith and was powerfully moved by it's message. So I started through Studies in Galatians and whereas most of it made perfect sense and really helped me understand the questions of law, faith, works, and righteousness by faith, there were a few things that puzzled me. I asked a staff volunteer by the name of Metard Solomon. This led to evening impromptu Bible studies with several of us students in which he shared the gospel according to the 1888 Message Study Committee (MSC). We were awed by the concepts of original sin, forensic justification, and the In Christ motif. The message was very pleasing to the ear of a tired legalist because it offered the assurance of salvation without anything other than us accepting it. It was backed up with the references from EGW advocating the messages of Jones and Waggoner to understand the truth of Christ our Righteousness which was rejected by the church leadership in 1888. I remember the discussions that ensued around the picnic tables at meal times. We all carried around pocket Bibles and became very quick on the draw and quite skilful at sword fights. The EGW CD-Rom was a new thing but some students had access to it. Hundreds of pages of quotes started cranking out of the printers as each tried to prove their own position. Over Christmas break I studied through a couple of issues of a magazine from 1888 MSC and further and further immersed myself in their version of the gospel. I became thoroughly emotionally wrapped up in it. It gave me an exhilarating emotional high which lasted day after day after day. I was so excited I shared it with everyone I met. The next quarter my class schedule included The Sanctuary taught by Dr. Colin Standish. I had studied this in high school so assumed it would be straight forward and nothing new to me. But I was wowed New Life Mission Canada 1-6

again. So simple, yet so profound. I discovered what a complete exposition of the real gospel of Righteousness by Faith was portrayed in the Old Testament tabernacle and its services. As my mind wrapped itself around the biblical framework of the gospel and tried to plug in the concepts that I had come to believe from the 1888 MSC, I started to see some inconsistencies. They couldn't both be right, because it wasn't possible to fit them together logically. One day I wrote out a half-page summary of the points of the gospel that I had understood Brother Solomon to be teaching. Then I went and read it to him and asked, is this what you believe? He said he could not have put it into words better himself. I said, unfortunately, I have found point number one (1888 MSC peculiar version of the theory of original sin) to be false. Logically then, the whole is false because all the other points are dependent on this one. He protested vehemently and tried to talk me out of it but he was too late. The theory as he taught it was based on only a few obscure Bible verses. But when the whole of scripture was considered, it just didn't have a solid foundation anymore. Soon after that I took an opportunity during prayer meeting to give a public testimony and confession that I had been wrong and had been campaigning for a false gospel. That helped to turn the tide on campus so that eventually most of the students that had gotten into it found their way back out unscathed. After discovering that the 1888 MSC was in error as to what the 1888 Message of Righteousness by Faith was, I went back to the books to find out what the Message really was. I studied Studies in Galatians and Lessons on Faith by A.T. Jones as well as the section in Selected Messages, book 1, section 5, Christ and the Doctrines and the 1888 Materials along with some other books. This study really opened my eyes to understand justification by faith and sanctification by faith. These are both by the faith of Jesus, not by works lest any man should boast. A truly humbling discovery. The Christian life must be lived by the faith that works by love and purifies the soul.

Stay Tuned for part 2 coming soon!

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