Elmer Sykes

Before I received Christ, God's goodness and mercy was always surrounding me. I have had some narrow escapes. After I received Christ some changes took place. I struggled with my faith but God is our refuge and strength through difficult situations and he strengthened me. After reading God's word I began to ask God to make a difference in my life. God is the strength in my soul (Psalms 73:26). I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me (Phillipians 4:13).

Once I remember being with my father when I was 14 yrs. old, working on dehorning cattle on a Sunday afternoon outside a very large barn. While gathering up more cattle under the barn, suddenly I heard a loud cracking sound, it stopped and then there was cracking again, I started yelling, "get out, get out the barn is coming down!" All of the workers ran out so fast, some almost did not make it but a few of the cattle were killed. Another time a group of us were rounding up cattle on a large range in Arkansas when something startled them and they began to scatter. We were attempting to round them up, my horse was going at an extremely high pace. I did not know that I was headed into a large swamphole. When I realized where the horse was headed I tried everything I could to try to stop him but he just seemed to go faster. I began to think of what I should do, jump off or stay on the horse? When I heard a voice in my ear that said "take your feet from the saddle trap that you now have them in" I did and prepared for the worse. I remember sailing through the air like an object and remember landing in the mud head first when I was knocked unconscious. I woke in a daze trying to figure out where I was and the horse was standing by me. I realized that the horse had landed on his back in the mud and I became so frightened. I reached up to grab the saddle strap and the horse pulled me out to safety. Then I heard my boss calling me and asking me if I was alright. My left thumb was broken at the joint, the left side of my neck was jammed.

One time that God spared my life was when a group of us were traveling on a highway one night and were faced with an 18 wheeler tractor trailer. The driver panicked, being alert I reached over turning the steering wheel so that the car would miss the truck and we swerved off the road. I only received a bump on the top of my head, now I know that God's hands were upon me.

Before I received Christ, my life revolved around alchohol and gambling. Partying, drinking, playing the lotto and smoking cigarettes was what was important to me. My job, going to the race track and playing the lottery was all that I had always relied on for security and happiness.

I was in the US Marine Corp at 19 years of age and had served in Vietnam 1 1/2 years until 1982. I started drinking alcohol and doing drugs and became so depressed. Some times I would drive into the city and meet up with some old buddies to go drinking, on the way home I would drive 90 to 100mph trying to kill myself. One day I was sitting alone listening to the radio when a Christian radio station came on and I began to listen. After that something deep inside started to worry me. Days and months passed by and I began to have a great fear. God had truly been good to me and I didn't even know it. Fear began to build in me more and more until I had heard of a revival that was going on in Harlem, which some relatives had invited me to go to. When I was there I began to praise God and asked him to forgive my sins and said "I realize that I'm a sinner, could you by your goodness and mercy forgive my sins?" God did through Jesus Christ his son, he washed me and cleansed me from all unrighteousness and filled me with his Holy Spirit that same night in 1991. For over three years things were great, I prayed all the time although I did not know God's word the way I understand it now. Remember always to pray and watch because I didn't and I got tricked.

Unfortunately I backslid, I lost everything that God had given me. The most important blessing you can ever have in this world is God's Holy Spirit. Then I started to wonder, what if Jesus would come? I knew I would be lost forever and everyday I was so afraid. God never left me, I left him. God really blessed me with a wonderful wife. My wife, Iris, is a nurse and used to work at a couples house looking after their daughter. She came home from work and said that the people, in who's house she was working, were giving a Bible study on Monday nights and asked if I would like to go? I told her maybe and that I didn't know. I didn't know that that was a turning point in my life, just by obeying the invitation from my wife. When I asked God to forgive me of my sins, I was truly sorry. Jesus Christ forgave me and refilled me with the Holy Ghost. When I was baptized the Holy Ghost came upon me once again.

After I received Christ some changes took place. I struggled with my faith but God is our refuge and strength through difficult situations and he strengthened me. After reading God's word I began to ask God to make a difference in my life. God is the strength in my soul (Psalms 73:26). I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me (Phillipians 4:13).