I thank God for standing behind His promise:  "Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness:   for they shall be filled" (Matthew 5:6)
     In January 2003 I felt empty and downcast.  I did not know how to pray, nor did I really understand the power of prayer.  I decided to write my thoughts and pleas to the Lord in a journal.  I was a Sunday school teacher and a leader in a Baptist church where my beloved father is still the pastor.  I was raised in a God-fearing home and taught the Word of God by my loving father.  He and I were the best of friends, and I still love, cherish, and honor him today.
     My mother is also a champion in her work for the Lord.  I have a twin sister who works for Life-Way Christian out of of Nashville, which is a Southern Baptist facility.  I love and admire my family because they served the Lord in ministry and feared Him when, in my teens and twenties, I was out living in the hog pen like the prodigal son. I did not possess the power of the only truth to set me free from the uncertain days that I would fall into.  Nevertheless, through my entire rebellion against God, I never forgot the Word my father put in my heart as a child.
     I know now what I did not know then:  "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God" (John 1:1).   "But as many as received him, to them gave power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name>"  I needed  power to become like Him and to believe on His name.  "But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you:  and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth (Acts 1:8).
     When I hired David Henry to work for my company, I did not know that God had sent him to witness to me.  He was a minister who attended Terry Black's church in Memphis, Tennessee, before being sent to work in Bluffton, Indiana.  He and his wife, Debbie, along with their four children, Abigail, Caanan, Hannah, and Anna, prayed with me in their living room.  They opened my eyes to the truth of the Scripture so that I could learn "a more excellent way."They taught me how to reach for Jesus.  They never judged me for my past but encouraged me to get into covenant with Jesus Christ.  If they had not opened their lives and home to me, I might never have known the truth of the Word. 
     They knew I needed help.  They knew I was baptized in the titles of Matthew 28:19 and that I thought I had the Holy Ghost even thought I did not.   They showed me the truth of the one God, His name being Jesus.
     After they counseled me and built a relationship with me, they and some good people of The Pentecostal Church of Memphis invited me to a youth rally where I heard a young evangelist, Cody Marks, preach a powerful message of truth.   When I lifted my hands and called on the name of Jesus, I was filled with the Holy Ghost and began to praise God in unknown tongues.  Wow!  The devil is a liar.   Jesus saves!
     Shortly after that, I was baptized at The Pentecostal Church in Jesus' name.  I felt clean and transformed by this birth of the water and Spirit.   I will never be the same now that I know the truth.  My church family, led by our beloved pastor, Terry Black, has taken my family in; and now my precious wife, Leslie, has been baptized in the name of Jesus and received the Holy Ghost.  I love my church family and thank them for what they have done for us.  I love the Henry family, for they were His chosen witnesses.            

David Ellis     Memphis, Tennessee