Beltway Testimonies

Testimony Unfolded: May 2006

Never underestimate the power of an invitation:

Testimony unfolded: May 2009

A miracle with candles for those familiar with Jewish history and culture:

Had a small version of an ancient miracle! In the days of the Maccabees, one day’s worth of oil burned 8 days to allow time to prepare more. I lit candles for Shavuot last night, knowing it was not kosher to light them for Shabbat, since there are two consecutive days that fire is not to be kindled. You can light a candle from an existing flame. I also lit two yartzheit candles in memory of my Dad, and Rabbi Holtzberg and his wife who were murdered in Mumbai last December. Yarzheit candles usually last no more than 4-6 hours. I have lit them at night and they have been out by morning every time. But this time, after 24 hours, they are still going, and I was able to light the Shabbat candles to sanctify the Shabbat from an existing flame! ברוך השם שנסיו עמנו בכל יום ובכל עת!!!! Praise GOD whose miracles are with us every day and at all times!!!!!

Shabbat Shalom!!

Testimony unfolded: April 2009

A story of generosity:

My wife and I finally gave away that envelope today here is what happened.

It started as a simple matter as finding out where we wanted to eat.  My wife asked me and I didn’t know where we wanted to go and then I asked her and she didn’t know where to go either.  Then I said “You know if God wants to lead us in everything why not this as well lets ask God where to eat.”  My wife laughed but I was serious and so I asked out loud “God where would you like us to eat”  A loud resonant COTTON PATCH came from nowhere.  My wife and I thought…COTTON PATCH?!  WE DON’T EAT THERE EVER!  IT IS SO UNHEALTHY ARE YOU SURE?  And sure enough God reaffirmed that Cotton Patch was the place to go and that we would know the purpose when we got there.  So we went into cotton patch and sat at our table.  Desaree was still saying “LETS EAT AS HEALTHY AS WE CAN HERE”

Then I asked God.  “Ok God we are here what do you want to do here?”

Then God said: “There is a woman to your left go and give her the envelope.”

I had to be doubly sure that it was God telling me this and when I got the same thing my wife looked at me and said.  “Old woman?  To our left?  Yeah I see her too and I think God wants us to give it to her.”

So I went over to her and said that the envelope was for her and that God said that she wanted her to have it after which she asked me where I would be and I pointed out our seat.

She then came over to us and told us her story about how God has always blessed her life and how God has always taken care of her and stressed the importance of PAYING IT FORWARD.  Saying that everything in this life is a blessing and that when God blesses us it is important to share these blessings with those around us and not squander those blessings to ourselves.

It was the most joyful time in my life since I was saved and my wife and I was nearly brought to tears about how happy this made us.  Our souls were literally alive.  It was like God was saying to us “Good Job I am proud of you”  It was just the best feeling anyone could ever feel in the world.

I see now how something as simple as asking God for a lunch idea could end up so joyful and blessed.

I hope God has more in store for us!

Testimony unfolded: May 2009

God speaking personally:

God impressed several fresh words to me during the bootcamp and revealed the importance of a “band of brothers” to walk through life with to hold each other up.  God is so good to communicate to me and He is all-sufficient for every need.

John Byington
Blessed from Bootcamp

Testimony unfolded: May 2009

God using everyday people in today’s world to do the miraculous:

Hi my name is Michael B. Rister. I have an interesting story of prayer and healing that I feel like I need to tell the church. For the longest time I lived my Christian life with the idea in my head that for whatever reason GOD did not do supernatural things in our present society like he did in the Bible. I reckoned, like many, that those occurrences mentioned in the Bible were rare things that were reserved for special occasions in special circumstances. Recently GOD began (and still is in the process of) challenging me in this arena. I began to realize than 1. unchristian people tend to respond more to stories of the supernatural than the dry reasoning I had fallen back on before and 2. to deny the supernatural aspects of GOD is to deny the very nature of GOD himself.

To make a long story short, I believed that GOD was able to do the things he claimed to do in the Bible, but for whatever reason he wouldn’t do them. And I definitely didn’t dare believe that someone such as myself could ever perform the kinds of miracles that Peter and the other apostles did (which is kinda dumb because it isn’t me doing it anyway it is GOD) But the challenge ensued, and for sometime this girl I knew had been having severe pains in her side so much so that it completely incapacitated her and no one she went to could find anything wrong with her, yet the pain continued day after day. Finally I gave in and told GOD that if he really would do the things the Bible talks about then I would step out for her and try to invoke a similar healing reaction. I prayed, I laid hands on her, we prayed together and did all the stuff that normally is done, and absolutely nothing happened. Later the girl and I went separate ways and still her pain continued as it had before. Needless to say this left me kinda jaded as to the whole supernatural healing of faith and all that stuff and I walked away with the belief that for whatever reason GOD just didn’t want to do those kinds of things anymore. Sometime later I met another girl with what appeared to be the exact same symptoms as the first girl, the only difference was this girl had not only been to hospitals here in Abilene but had been checked out by hospitals literally all over the country, and still no one could find anything wrong with her. Her story ended with us both in the waiting room at Hendrick hospital at 3:00 in the morning and I decided once again to give the whole ‘miracle of GOD’ thing a try. we prayed together, out loud, in front of everybody and I told GOD I knew he could do it and I would believe and give him all the praise I could if he would just step out and help this girl or at least let the doctors find whats wrong and give us a way to fix it.  I believed and she believed and that night a new doctor fresh out of school with relatively little experience found what had alluded doctors all across the country for years. He prescribed a relatively simple cure, we did it and it worked. She currently experiences no pain, and as for the first girl I ran into her again sometime later and as it turns out the same doctor found the same problem in her at around the same time frame and the same cure healed her and she too currently experiences no more pain. It was kind of a round-a-bout way to do it but I truly believe that doctor was only able to spot that problem because I prayed for them and GOD revealed it to him. So really three healings took place, the two women obviously but maybe also my jaded brain which was full of doubt and skepticism. Jesus Christ really is alive and really is GOD.

thanks,

Michael B. Rister

Testimony unfolded: May 2009

Many salvations:

The Peru medical mission trip saw 842 patients and 171 salvations!  Praise the Lord!

Stories of healing on the Mexico mission trip from Thomas Wilson, one of our highschool students:

This week we (high school group) went to Mexico with a small team to help out at the Big Heart Orphanage in Reynosa, Mexico. The jobs we did required a lot of long, hard work. During one of these days, Jose Muniz (the Jesus Crew guy…known as a scary looking mexican to many) was cutting rebar with a table saw and accidentally moved his right forearm into the blade. His arm was cut deeply about 3 or 4 inches long. D’Linda Benham, our team’s nurse, immediately treated his wound and wrapped it. Jose was obviously in severe pain and couldn’t do much with his arm. Later that day, before our nightly devotional, D’Linda approached me and asked me to make an announcement after my devo to pray for the injuries that people had from the first 3 days of work. As she said this, I quickly suggested further that we should pray over people because I believed God wanted to do some supernatural work. As I said this, an intern that was there, Kendall, quickly agreed with me and we decided we would do this after the devo. So at the end of our discussion, I made the announcement that if anyone had any kind of injury we were going to stay afterwards to pray over them. About 8 people stayed, so we circled up around the first patient, Jose. And we prayed. After 10 to 20 minutes of praying, I felt confident that God had healed his arm. We were praying that the wound would be completely gone, and I believed it would be. So when we finished, Jose was pressing on the bandage and telling us how amazing it was that there was no pain. I eagerly prompted him to remove the bandage. When he did, we didn’t find just skin, but we also didn’t find a deep cut. On his arm where the deep cut had been earlier was a surface level scab that looked as if it had been drawn on his arm. He showed us that it had truly been healed by pressing on it and hitting it and twisting the skin around it. He could barely touch it without wincing before we prayed, and now he was laughing and poking it liberally.

But that was just the beginning. Next up was Jessie Davis, who had a huge burn on the inside of his leg from the searing hot exhaust pipe of a motorcycle. It had been plaguing him the whole trip and it was not pretty. So after we prayed over it for another 10 to 20 minutes, we were all sure God had healed him. And sure enough, we removed his bandage and found a greatly reduced burn scab that he said had no pain. In fact, that day, D’Linda had traced the area of the red mark from the burn with a purple sharpie, and she showed us that that initial area was at least an inch or two bigger in diameter than the burn mark that was left. Also there was no heat to accompany the wound, something that was a bad sign when D’Linda was checking it out previously.

Then we prayed over Stephanie Maybee who had severe stomach pains. For her though the healing was more spiritual than physical, and God truly did move inside of her. It was an amazing experience and she left changed.

All this to say, Jesus is ALIVE!!! And He is STILL continuing to inpress me and show off his Glory, in new and increasingly powerful ways. Jose’s cut was a ridiculous healing! He cut his arm the morning of the same day it was healed on, and it was TOTALLY healed!

If you have read this, take some time to praise God for the works he is doing! He deserves it!

One of our high school students testifies to God’s healing power:

I want to share the power of God that is flowing in this generation. Before I continue, I would like to encourage all of you to rejoice in what God is doing and TESTIFY IT!!! Even what seems like the littlest of things is still glory and honor to God and power to those who hear.

Tonight May 25, 2008 at Fearless in the Chapel at Beltway, a young lady was healed of a severe headache that was making her sick to her stomach. She had to keep going in and out of the chapel and also to the restroom. I walked outside the chapel doors and she asked me if I had any medicine for a headache. I kind of chuckled and said, “No, but I have an idea. Follow me.” I guided her into the chapel where we had just finished praying over another man. I announced her pains and we put her in the middle and prayed over her. I laid my hands on her head and everyone else laid hands on her and began to call on the healing power of God to come down. She told me afterwards that right as we started to pray it felt a little better. In the middle of the prayer time she could feel it going away, and at the end, she said it was COMPLETELY GONE! Even the littlest things of God’s glory and power excite me and I rejoiced. She then for the last song of the night danced and sang without any pain or any hinderance holding her back. She was faithful in receiving and then gave glory to the Father for His gracious works.

Whatever amazing things God is doing, TESTIFY IT! Tell others, spread the word that a revival is taking place. Let everyone know of God’s amazing power. No matter how little, small, big, or large His miracles are, they are still to bring glory and honor to Him! Ask and you shall receive AND THEN REJOICE AND TESTIFY!

Are you asking for God to move?

A testimony of the prophetic song:

This last Sunday after we sang “Breathe,” one of our vocalists began singing what she was hearing the Spirit leading her to sing and had a feeling that God was up to something.

We found out this week, that a man who desires to go back into full time ministry has been waiting and waiting and no doors have been opened yet for him. He asked the Lord, “Are You finished with us?” and at that moment the vocalist sang “He’s not finished with you yet.” Needless to say, he was deeply encouraged by the Lord. Praise God for the ways He speaks and the new songs He gives!

Troy Shockley testifies to God’s faithfulness to provide when we completely surrender:

My name is Troy Shockley and, for the next two weeks, I am the assistant sports editor and beat writer for Cooper High and Abilene Christian University at the Abilene Reporter-News. On Saturday, May 31, however, my wife and daughter will join me in taking the next step in the path God has planned for our lives. We will be leaving on that day for Oregon, where I have accepted an offer to join the staff of a small, family owned newspaper as sports editor.

Since returning to Abilene in 2003, Beltway Park has been home. My wife, Roxanne, and I fell in love with the place and the people from Day 1, and it has been the only true church home we’ve had as a married couple. We have so many wonderful memories made in our time here and we have grown immensely in our walk with the Lord thanks largely to Pastor David and our small group, led by Steve and Susan Keenum.

My situation at work, though, has been both difficult and frustrating. Often working 10 to 12 hours a day, many times six days a week, I rarely get time with my wife or daughter Elisabeth, who will turn three in September. Add to that the stress level that has been created by management, and my attitude when home hasn’t always been as it should be. Through much prayer, we decided that the only solution to these problems was to find another job that would be both personally and professionally satisfying. Over the last several months we’ve found many possibilities, but even those we felt would be a great fell through — until we came across McMinnville. That’s when God made his love and care for us so clear.

After leading me to the job listing (a listing that, “somehow,” never showed up on a popular Web site that would have surely resulted in a large increase in the number of applicants) we quickly felt very good about the possibility. God then led me to someone that, as it turned out, used to work at the paper. His current boss is great friends with one of the bosses in McMinnville. This person also used to work in Texas, and called around some of his contacts asking about me. Based on what he heard, he called McMinnville and talked to the hiring editor about me and reccomended me for the job — all without my knowledge at the time. This gave me a tremendous head start for a job that, I’ve found, had 15 applicants in the first 24 hours after the initial posting.

The hiring editor set up a phone interview a week after I sent in my application. It went so well that, a week later, I was on a plane headed to a second interview. That went so well that, on the second day, I was offered the job at more than a 10 percent increase in pay. There will be markedly less stress at this job, the hours will be more stable and the company is more than willing to work around family obligations. It is also much closer to home.

Even now God is working in the situation, as yesterday we found that the paper has doubled its initial (and standard) offer in regards to helping defray the costs of moving. I have always struggled in letting go of a situation. I don’t like not being in control. But God has made himself so known in our lives these last few weeks and it is truly amazing what can happen if you ‘let go and let God.’

We are incredibly sad to have to leave our church family at Beltway and know there will be many other difficulties as we make this move, but we are also excited to be following what is clearly God’s plan for our lives. And as clearly as He has been in control of this entire situation, we know He will continue to provide if we faithfully follow His plan.
Isn’t God great?