From Broken Cisterns to Living Waters - Ephraim Renno Part #2

Guide me, O the great Jehovah, pilgrim through this barren land. Good morning. Welcome back to Hope for Wandering Amish. This morning we have Efrem Reno on again to continue his series of talks on his life's journey. I'm excited about this morning's talk to hear about Efrem and his wife seeking and finding Jesus. I had to think of—I had to think about Nicodemus in John 3 coming to Jesus in the night. No doubt Nicodemus had days of wondering who Jesus is, who had led him to wander through the night to find—to find Him.

Unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. That's the same message for today: to be born of God's Spirit, to repent of our sins, and be born of God's Spirit is still the message for us today.

We're also looking forward to hearing from our audience at the end.

So good morning, Brother Efrem. Are you with us this morning? I'm here. Good to be with you. All right. Why don't we get started? I'll have a prayer for you, and then you can get started a while. Father, I thank you for Brother Efrem this morning. Thank you for his heart and his willingness to share with us. And we're so excited to hear what you have for us this morning.

And I pray for your grace and your peace to be upon our brothers he shares. And we pray that this message could be used to advance your kingdom, to be an encouragement and conviction to many to come to you and to be brought into your kingdom for your honor and glory. We bless your name. Amen.

All right, well, thank you, Brother Elam. Appreciate your prayer there. It truly is about him. First of all, as we get started here, I want to acknowledge six of my heroes this morning: Jesus, first and foremost, without whom none of these good things that I share with you could be true; and my parents, who cared for me in many richly meaningful ways from conception to this very day; and for my wife's parents, who raised a very amazing person and welcomed me into their family as a son-in-law; and last but not least, but last but not least, my wonderful wife, Saloma, who has faithfully stood by my side through thick and thin, now going on our 20th year together.

The journey I've taken her on has not always been an easy one. Several disclaimers. The title this morning is "From Broken Cisterns to Living Water." My experiences that I'm likening to Broken Cisterns is not a reflection on other members of the Amish communities.

And not all my experiences were like Broken Cisterns. There were many meaningful, spiritually rich experiences in the things that I'm sharing this morning. And I didn't always handle things well in my years of searching.

I didn't always see things rightly. So I'm relating to you this morning—excuse me—I'm relating to you as I saw things then, not necessarily as I see things now. And this talk isn't meant to stand alone. I would recommend you listen to the previous talks and the next ones as well.

So I was born in 1983. In 1990, my dad was ordained as a minister in the Amish church. And seeing his journey there, taking seriously his calling and preaching the Word of God, taking Saturday afternoons to study the Word and prepare himself, that made a good impression on my life back then.

One thing I appreciate about my dad, and didn't always appreciate as much as I do now, that my dad wasn't necessarily guided by the status quo. He did what he felt was the right thing to do, regardless of if that was the way most people did it. For example, daylight savings time didn't make much sense to him. And while most of the community observed daylight saving time, my dad looked at it as if there's daylight to be saved.

Well, first of all, daylight isn't really to be saved. It's to be used. And if you want to use it, you just get up early and get to work. So he never observed daylight savings time, although I would have, as a young boy, wished we would have just been like everybody else. But now I appreciate it. Another thing is my dad would not have any time for bywords, words that were not good words he would reprove us boys for. Maybe we heard the neighbor boys use certain words, and we would start using them at home, and my dad wouldn't have it. And I really appreciate that now. In 1995, my older sister, Annie, developed kidney failure and soon passed away.

This was a time of deep searching for me and really wanting to do what's right, wanting to be a child of God. One day, as I was thinking on God and heaven and those things as a 13-year-old boy, I was out in the produce patch working with the produce early in the summer. And I felt such a peace from God that I would be ready to go and be with him. And I actually felt such peace that I wanted to go. I wanted to just die right there and go be with God. And I remember laying down in the produce patch and just telling God, "Why don't you just take me right now? I'm ready to die.

I want to go be with you. But if now is not the time, if you want me to stay here, then I give you my life." Now, there were some years after that where I didn't have that peace and didn't have that closeness with God. But I always longed for that again after I didn't have it.

In 2001, my brothers and some neighboring boys and myself got into constructing farm silos. We traveled around from community to community and family to family farm and constructed these silos. Generally, we would stay at the farm till we were done. We'd stay there overnight, eat meals with the family, and just live with them.

There were some families where it just seemed like the tension was so thick you could have cut it with a knife. And then there were other families where I just really, really enjoyed being there. There was joy. There was peace. There was love.

And those experiences really stood out to me. There was a young family in Franklin County where we stayed a whole week. And the young father had such a joy about him. At the breakfast table, he would get out the Bible and read the Bible and pray for us, pray for us by name. And he just had such a joy that was something I wanted. I didn't want to leave that place. There was so much joy and peace and love there. And I knew that what he had was more than what I had and that what he had, I wanted.

Towards the end of our stay there, he asked me if I would lead in prayer. And having had the custom of only silent prayer, unless it was read out of a prayer book, this was definitely out of my comfort zone. And I declined.

And later, I just thought, "Why couldn't I pray? If he prayed out loud, why couldn't I?" And I really desired to have what he had. Saloma and I got married in 2003. That was a great experience and a start of a wonderful journey. But I had a lot of insecurities. I was a very insecure young man and had a lot of needs. I moved from my home community to my wife's community.

In her community, they were a little more traditional. And there was definitely less money in the community. There was more of a, perhaps, poverty and just being okay with that, living more of a simple life. And for a while there, I thought maybe that's where I would find more fulfillment. We started out our married life in a very small, old house.

We paid $100 a month rent back in 2004. Today, that would be about $160. And I was okay with that. I kind of enjoyed that simple, humble life. But I found that that in itself didn't hold fulfillment. For a while, I went on a big pursuit of health. And I would read books on how to be healthy. And I would really cut back on unhealthy foods. And I would get all excited about how to be more healthy, thinking that perhaps I could find fulfillment in that. I would read books on that. And the one book that I was especially impressed with, I sent a letter to the editor and thanked him for the great book and how much I had to learn in it and how much it was helpful.

And then he used part of what I wrote him as a review to sell his books in a popular newsletter. He did that without my permission. And I was very, very embarrassed with the fact that he did that and he put my name with it. But there again, I found that just pursuing health in itself carries no fulfillment with it.

I enjoyed hunting. I would hunt deer, especially every rifle season. My father-in-law and brothers-in-law and I would have some woods that we stomped through and did a lot of hunting. Several years there, I really enjoyed it and made out well. And then I got into reading books more and more. In the fall, my work would slow down. Throughout the winter, I would curl up in the house with my wife and perhaps a child or two and read good books. And I really, really enjoyed that. When hunting season came around, and I just realized I would enjoy sitting in the house with a good book and read that, I would enjoy that more than going out hunting.

So that's what I did. I dropped hunting and just read all the more books. But it seemed the more I learned, the harder I tried. The harder I tried, the more I failed. The more I failed, the emptier I felt.

The more empty I felt, the more I sought for answers and read more. And I was on a journey.

Life had a lot of ups and downs because of some deep insecurities that I had. Finally, in desperation, I decided I'm going to go to a neighboring county at a counseling center. I'm just going to drop in there. I'm going to go find some help. And that's what I did. I lined up a driver, dropped in one morning, said, "Here I am. I need help." And sat down with the one counselor. And he started probing, started asking questions. "How do you feel about this? How do you feel about that? What's your experience been?

What's the life you're living?" And he just asked many, many questions that I had never been asked before. And it was really hard for me to start looking into my heart and figuring out what's really there.

He asked many, many questions that I just had no answers for. In the middle of getting all these questions that I certainly wasn't used to, I broke down. I was an emotional basket case. I couldn't pray. He prayed for me. And he invited me to start praying. I had never prayed audibly other than reading out of a book. And this was a new experience that I couldn't bring myself to do. I wanted to. And upon his invitation, I really wanted to. And I tried, but it just wouldn't come out. It was like I couldn't make myself pray.

Then he said, "Can you pray God be merciful to me, a sinner?" And I said that after him. And once I had said that, it seemed like something broke, and I was able to keep praying from there. That was quite a breakthrough for me to be able to just pray audibly in front of someone. Now, I had prayed audibly by myself, but certainly not in front of anyone else.

After he saw what kind of emotional turmoil I was in, he felt like he probably shouldn't just let me go back home. So he scheduled a driver and had me taken to a psychiatrist. The psychiatrist looked at me and had me ask some questions, had me fill out some papers. And he gave me a prescription drug to cope with life. I don't remember what the name was of the drugs, but I took them home. And I did not like them from the start. I knew that this was not the answer.

But I started taking them anyway because I was asked to take them. Every pill I popped, the more I hated those pills, the more I was convinced that they were not the answer. About halfway through, I threw them away. I was not going to go this route. This was not the answer. I knew it.

My wife and I went back to this counseling center perhaps six or eight times as walk-ins. And we did get some answers to life. One of the things that was helpful was how they encouraged us to personal Bible reading and prayer and seeking the Lord. And that was something I took to heart and did much more Bible reading after that.

They did not go all the way on a lot of things that now, looking back, they should have. They were very vague on the new birth, on cross-bearing, and so forth. But I was determined that what answers I got, I would put them to use and I would make it work.

I didn't fit into the norm too well in that Amish community. I tried and I appreciated the community. But I traveled too much for work, for one. I read too many books. I didn't do things just like everybody else sometimes without even thinking about it.

Because of these things, I kept getting visitors from the minister team every so often. In an evening, as it was about getting dark, we would hear a clip-clop, clip-clop, horse coming in the road. And my heart would think, "Oh, no, I'm getting ministers coming to see me again. I must have slipped somewhere, messed up somewhere."

But that's the way it was. On the one visit, we sat down in the barn, sat down on some hay, and we just had a nice little visit. And I kind of enjoyed it. And I started sharing some scriptures. I shared Matthew 11:28, 29:30, "Coming to me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." I was quoting it in German. And I was just sharing how I was blessed with this scripture. And it was helping. It was helpful for me.

And then I sensed that the ministers didn't really appreciate me sharing scriptures with them. The comment was made that someone can get out of the scriptures whatever he wants. In other words, don't take the scriptures too seriously. That was a real disappointment to me.

I expected more than that from the ministers, that they would be glad if I was taking the scriptures seriously. But instead of that, they tried to get me to back off. And I was very disappointed by that. About the same time, the bishop in my brother's church in another community began making unwelcome advances on my sister-in-law.

He was a very respected bishop. I respected him. He was the one that had baptized me. I had looked up to him. When I heard this, I wouldn't believe it at first. I thought this wasn't true. It couldn't be.

But I found out it was true. He did get excommunicated for it for a while. But as I understood it, he never really took the blame. He tried to shift it onto her. And it took something out of me as far as confidence to those in leadership.

I found down within a growing disconnect. And I certainly had no intention of ever leaving the Amish church, the community that I grew up in, the faith, the way of life that I knew. I read many, many books, like I mentioned.

And the comments were made sometimes that I was reading too many books and there was a concern about it. Reading books doesn't lead you the right way. People fall into strange things when they read books. And it was kind of discouraged. But I was very, very sure that in spite of reading so many books, it was not going to affect me in a wrong way. I was going to be a good Amishman. I was always going to stay there. But these books were helpful. I found them helpful. I found them ministering to me. And I couldn't get enough. I kept reading, kept reading.

At about the same time or throughout the same time, it just seemed like others were also feeling an emptiness and wishing for something more. For example, a traveling iridologist began visiting the community. He would look you in the eyes, and he would figure out what ails you from seeing what he could see in your eyes. And then, of course, you would have to buy his expensive potions and take them for whatever ails you.

And it seemed like everybody and his brother went to see him, at first at least, which it seems like that points to an emptiness in realizing that something was missing.

At another time, a young man confessed to a moral failure in one of the members' meetings at church. And then the bishop opened it up to others if anybody else wanted to clear themselves of similar sins, that they could confess that and ask for forgiveness.

And again, it seemed like almost all the men were glad for the opportunity to get cleared up while the mood lended itself to it. And it was a little disturbing to me that so many men were not living in victory.

And it also showed me again that there's got to be something more, is how I felt. There's got to be something more. As time went on, I felt more and more that something is missing.

For a while, the thought was, "I just need to go move away and find a better community, a community I could move to, where I could move to in peace and keep good connection with where I came from, but a community that was more spiritual and those things."

So I felt a growing emptiness. In December of 2009, we attended the wedding of a coworker of mine. I believe it was the last Amish wedding I have attended. We were very involved with the wedding since it was a close friend. And I remember very distinctly just feeling such a tremendous emptiness. There's smoking and joking going on over the evening hours, square dancing.

And I just felt so disconnected and so empty and so hurting and so wondering what life is all about. The other men my age were jostling around and carrying on one of the traditions at weddings was that the young men that got married before that would get thrown over the fence.

And it was all in fun. The idea was that you're not fully a man till you get thrown over the fence. And the ladies would have to step over a broomstick to become fully a woman. And I didn't get it. When we got married, I just didn't get it. I wasn't impressed by the idea. And somehow, I never got thrown over the fence. And you can tell me sometimes my manliness falters. Maybe I still need to be thrown over the fence. What do you think?

But that wasn't me. I didn't really get into that at that last wedding in December of 2009. That was going on. I was off in a corner somewhere in the dark, just hurting, hurting, wishing for spiritual fellowship, wishing for meaning in life, wishing for fulfillment.

Over that time, shortly after, I remember very distinctly in my quiet time with the Lord, I would pray. And I asked God, "Lead me in the truth. Lead me in the truth, whatever it is, wherever it is. Just show me truth, and I will accept it, and I will walk in it."

I was burning within with desire for truth. And I didn't really know what I was praying for. I didn't know where it was. I still fully intended to not make any drastic changes. But I was starting to feel desperate enough that whatever the Lord would show me, I would do it.

Very shortly after, on a Sunday, my wife and I were watching her grandfather while grandmother went to church. Grandfather was ailing in health and couldn't go anymore. So we were there. And I browsed through my grandmother's bookshelf, and I found a little booklet that she had gotten in the mail. It was a booklet of printed sermon. And in the back, there were a lot more printed sermons available from the same ministry. And I decided I would go home. I would write this ministry. I would ask them to send me a bunch of these printed sermons and whatever else they had. I did that. I went home. I sent them a card. And a while later, I got a brochure in the mail.

Something that had caught my attention in this booklet was how these people took the word of God so seriously. They approached the word of God with the attitude that it has the answers to life. And all we need to do is receive it and believe it and walk in it. And we would find the answers in life. And that was so very attractive to me at that time. I was just aching for answers to life. And this seemed like these people were confident in the scriptures. And that was a confidence that I wasn't used to. But I got this brochure in the mail, and I found in there a whole list of sermons. I could call in on the phone and listen to these sermons.

Up to this point, I had never heard any preaching outside of my Amish setting. And the preaching was usually very repetitive. And people would sleep through church a lot. The preacher one time reproved the people for sleeping so much through his preaching.

And I felt bad for him. I agreed with him. And at the same time, I thought, "If the preaching was just more powerful, people probably wouldn't be sleeping." But there, as I pondered, "Should I listen into these messages? Should I not?" I knew that my people would say, "Definitely, don't listen to it. You get deceived." And I didn't want to get deceived.

But I thought, "I've read the Bible enough. If it is deceiving, surely I can catch on to it that is deceiving." And I went fear and trembling to the phone chanting and stood in there. And the first message I wanted to listen to was on excommunication and shunning because that was a huge thing in my mind. If I did anything drastic, I would be excommunicated. And I was taught that that would I would not have any hope if I would be banned from the Amish church. And that was a very big question I had. I didn't want to be banned, for sure not. That would have been very terrifying to me. So I listened to that message, and I was spellbound.

The preaching was quite different from anything I had experienced. Again, very plain preaching out of the word of God, bringing answers to life. And I was spellbound. I couldn't get enough. I listened to one message after the other. Work was slow at the time. Sure, there were things I could have done, but there was nothing I rather would have done than just drink in the word of God and find answers to life. And I would listen and listen and listen.

For several weeks, I did that. After several weeks, I had this distinct feeling that something big was about to happen in my life. I finally got the courage to call a brother whose phone number was on that brochure that I had. And as I poured out my questions and longings to this brother, the big question for me was, "Do I need to leave or should I stay?"

And he very wisely said, "Well, that's not really the question to look at right now. What we need to do is, are you born again? Are you right with God?" And he asked me that question. I said, "I think so. I've been baptized. I'm a member of the Amish church. I think so."

Then he asked me, "Was there ever a change of heart?" And I said, "No, I don't think there was."

And he said, "I think you need to be born again." I had often heard the scriptures on the new birth, and I believed them. But what I heard along with that then was, "You can't really know if you're born again.

You do what the church says, and you live right, do the best you can, and hope you're okay."

Now, what I was hearing was something very different, that you could know the Lord, and you could know that you're a child of God, and you could know that you were born again. And I really, really desired that. To this point, I had not shared much of my searchings with my dear wife. It was a pretty scary thing to be questioning the whole package that I had grown up in. It was a very, very scary thing.

And part of that was just the idea that you were questioning things really put you on the spot, really got you marked where people would look at you in a very different way. So that's why I wasn't free to share with my wife. I rather wanted to check things out on my very own in a private way till I figured out what was what.

When I talked to this brother on the phone, he said, "We'd be happy to come out and hold a Bible study with you. But where's your wife in this?" And I told him, "I haven't really shared with her." That was on a Saturday. Actually, church was to be held at our place the next day. That was a very big day. We would have a lot of people staying all day for supper into the evening. Friends and family would stay.

It was a very big day. And I sure didn't want to drop such a big thing onto Saloma the day before church was at our place. So I waited till Monday morning. And then I shared with her what I had been doing. I was listening into these messages.

And of course, that was a big no-no in our setting.

Saloma knew that I was wrestling very deeply and struggling very deeply. And she cared very deeply that I would find the help I needed. I shared with her that these people seem so genuine. They preach the word of God in such a clear way. I would really like to learn more. They would like to come out and hold a Bible study with us. Would it be okay? And it was a great struggle for her to open herself up to that idea. But at the same time, she knew I was struggling very deeply and gave the okay for that. So I went back to the phone. I called the brother. I said, "Saloma says you can come.

And I'd like for you to come. When can you come?" They came out that very evening. And we had a very amazing Bible study and presentation of the gospel. It wasn't like it was anything new. It wasn't like I hadn't heard it before.

But it was presented in a clear way, in a way that I could personally accept, and in a way that there didn't have to be this question hanging over your head. Are you right? Aren't you? Do you have peace with God or don't you? Are you a child of God or aren't you? Are you born again or aren't you? And having been instructed very carefully that you cannot know, that was a very, very big thing to me. Can I know or can't I? And I desperately wanted to know. That evening, I accepted the gospel. I accepted the Lord Jesus as my personal Savior.

I don't know, looking back, whether I had been born again before that. I tend to believe that when I was 13 years old, when I had such peace with the Lord, when I would have been very happy to die and go to heaven right there, I tend to believe that that is where I would have gone and that I was right with God at that time. I don't think that was fake at all. I believe it was very real. But then I backslid. I lost that peace. All those years went by. There's great turmoil within.

And I was able to just confess my sins, cry out to God, believe in the Lord Jesus, and experience a glorious peace. Heaven came down, and glory filled my soul. That was such a wonderful evening. And I knew for sure that whatever God calls for me to do, it's going to be worth it. I'm just going to do whatever He leads me in. And there was such a burning desire for spiritual fellowship in such an undeniable way that I had to reckon with. These folks really took it upon themselves to minister to us, to disciple us. We had Bible studies once or twice a week for almost two months.

After the first several, we knew that we couldn't keep doing this in secret. So we started sharing with our parents and others that we were having these Bible studies. We were having very deep questions about our way of life, our religion.

And as could have been expected, there was a great deal of opposition to the approach that we were taking. The first Sunday that word was out that we weren't sure if we would stay with our Amish people, we knew that we would probably get a lot of visitors that day. So we made the choice to go visit Ephraim Christian Fellowship that day rather than stay at home and get these visitors. It was an in-between Sunday anyway, where we weren't expected to go to church. And we weren't really up to getting a lot of opposition at that point. We really desired to go and see what this church was all about. And that's what we did.

I think it was probably a good move.

I think it was the right thing to do. I'm not sure. But it was quite amazing to experience that, a young Amishman coming to this church and it being quite a stretch from anything I had ever been used to. And I don't know if you can relate to some of my turmoils that day. As we were getting closer and closer to the church house, I was wrestling very deeply with my hat. I brought my hat like a good Amishman.

And I was wrestling, "Should I wear my hat into the church, or should I leave it outside?" And that was one of the struggles. And there were many, many, many things like that that I was wrestling through. And I didn't know. I didn't know what was right, but I was trying to do what was right.

I don't remember what I did, if I left my hat in the van or if I took it in. But one of the things I really remember that just made such an impact on me was the preacher, his demeanor as he preached the word. I don't remember a lot of what he preached about that day, but I sure remember his smile.

I was used to that the preacher just didn't smile. Our preachers didn't smile in church unless maybe they couldn't keep a straight face. For instance, if a cat got into church and disrupted the service, or if a child fell backwards off the bench and the minister couldn't keep a straight face, then that's the only time he would smile. And here, the preacher got up, and he was just beaming all the way through his message. And it really, really spoke to me, the joy that he had. We got lots and lots of opposition for those several months.

And I want to assure you that our people really cared. They weren't against us. They were for us. They really believed that what we were doing was damnable and we were getting into heresy and that we would enter a slippery slope right into the world and into hell. They really believed that. And they wrote us stacks and stacks of letters. We got company day in and day out. Some of our more intense days, we had company all day long and into the night. The next morning, we would be sleeping in because we got the bed late, and we would hear knocking on the door again and the same thing all day long again.

It was a very intense time. But I'm actually thankful for the opposition that we got. It really drove me into the word to find out what is reality, what is true, that this was serious. It wasn't something to be done lightly.

And I did a lot of searching, a lot of praying, a lot of seeking the Lord. And like I said, we had many, many Bible studies once a week, sometimes twice a week, where the folks from Ephraim Christian Fellowship would come out and read the Bible for us and talk about it and pray with us, sing with us, fellowship. And it ministered to my poor heart in a way that I cannot describe.

It really did. And then there would be such a contrast where our people would come and just discourage us and create a lot of doubts in our hearts. And when they left, we felt so down and discouraged and depressed and, again, just wondering, "Are we doing the wrong thing? Are we deceived?" But the turmoil and discouragement that I would face with that, and then the enlightenment and the encouragement and the spiritual edification that I would experience when we had believers come out, and some of these believers were in the van where I should have been shunning them, not letting them into the house, not letting them sit at the same table, for sure not letting them talk to me about anything about God.

Some of these I was getting ministered to in very deep ways that I just couldn't deny.

After two months of this, things came to a head. On a Saturday, our dear ministry team came in and asked me to come to church the next day with a decision of what we were doing. Are we staying or are we leaving?

And I wrestled very deeply that day with God, realizing that if this was a bad move, it was way too big of a move to be making if it was a bad move.

And I just struggled. I took the Bible. I went off on my own for some quiet time and just prayed and sought the Lord. And God very clearly, in a miraculous way, took me to 2 Corinthians 12:9, "My grace is sufficient for thee, for my strength is made perfect in weakness.

Most gladly, therefore, will I rather glory in my efferencies that the power of Christ may rest upon me." When he brought that verse to me, and it was done in such a way that I just knew this was from God. I knew it. And it touched my heart so deeply. And I just rested in the promise that his grace would be sufficient.

And I could move forward in faith and do what's right and allow his leading to take me where he wanted me to go. The next day, I went to church. My dear parents came and went with me to church in support of, of course, they were wanting me to stay, but they went for my support. My wife's parents came also and went with me as well.

Saloma couldn't go because we had a new baby in the house, about two weeks old. So she stayed at home with the baby. And her mother stayed with her. My parents and my father-in-law went with us to church. It was a very emotional day for them, a very hard day for me. I had wrestled through things in such a deep and clear way that there was no turning back. Where he leads me, I will follow. I've decided to follow Jesus. No turning back. And I had perfect peace about it.

I was put in the van that day. And the thing which previously would have terrified me, now I had perfect peace about it. Saloma was the same way. It had taken her longer to process things, partly because I hadn't brought her along in my searchings. And I had done a lot of searching, done a lot of wrestling before I ever shared with her and brought her along. But in the several months of Bible studies, of searching, she also had worked through things. And I would love to go into more detail there. One of the things that she finally worked through was witchcraft that had been practiced in her family, extended family, pretty involved in witchcraft.

I had been involved in a little bit of it, but not as deeply as what she was. And she was, I could say, innocently brought into it. But it had a grip and a bondage in her life that once she was able to identify that and renounce it and turn away from it, she found that same perfect peace. This was just several days before we were excommunicated. She had been unable to see her way through that before having renounced witchcraft. But once she had renounced that, just cast it off and trusted in Jesus, then she also found perfect peace in being excommunicated. Shortly after, a whole vanload of our close relatives, her parents, her uncles and aunts, people that loved us and cared for us deeply, decided to make one last effort to come and bring us back.

Our neighbor was the van driver. He was sympathetic to some of the stands we were taking. And against their wishes, he informed us that he was bringing a vanload of folks to, again, oppose us, the direction we were going. And he felt like it was fair for us to know about it. Otherwise, we wouldn't have known about it. And it was through the day where generally I would have been at work, but today I wasn't. And I was weary.

I felt like I had enough conflict. I wasn't really up to facing more conflict. And we made the decision to leave so that when they come by, we wouldn't be there. And I left a note on the door saying that we were just tired of going in circles with these arguments and that if they would bring the Bible, they would be welcome to come back again, and we would reason out of the scriptures.

Though I meant it well, it didn't go down well that we intentionally left when they were coming. That's one thing that I would do differently now. I really wish that we would have stayed there and just heard them out and shared with them what we had found and have a gracious yet firm stand for the Lord. I believe that that would have been much better than the way that things went from there. It just seemed like that was a punch in the stomach for them. And I have gone back, and I have apologized for it. But that's one of the regrets. There were so many unknowns that there were many things that I would do differently if I was walking through those times again.

But those are things that I have to leave and move on. As I look back over my life, I see God's mercy woven throughout all the way. And truly, to him be glory and honor and power forever. He is worthy.

There were so many physical protections over the years where my life could have been snuffed out so many times so easily. Just one example, and I know I'm going kind of long here. There's so many things that I would love to share, and I just got to move on. But one of God's protections that was pretty amazing, my wife and I were coming home from her parents, and our little road came off of the main road where the main road made a slight bend to the right. Our road made a slight bend to the left. There was a Y there.

Our horse, his name was Thunder, and he was quite a character. He had a mind of his own. If he thought he knew where he was going, he would really try to go there. And he wanted to go home, so he was sure he would need to turn in this road. But I was not going home right then. We were still going off to another neighbor and then going home. So a truck was coming from behind and passing us at a pretty good rate of speed right when Thunder decided that he needs to dart into our road. So he darted right in front of the truck.

And the driver handled it super well. He very quickly steered off into the little side road at much too high of a speed. But he steered off into the little side road, came down to a stop, turned around, came back out, and passed us. As he passed, he bumped his horn a little bit, letting us know it was all right. But that was a time where we could have so easily been hit by that truck. Another time at work, I was using used fall protection that I had just gotten from somewhere. And after I had hung off of it, a crack was discovered, and the hook was taken apart by hand very easily. And I was just hanging on that high up in the air.

There's so many instances like that, that God's mercy is just so amazing. And I praise him for it. I thank him for it. And he gave us what we needed when we needed it all throughout our journey in amazing ways. The spiritual guidance is so precious and so amazing.

There are so many other details I could share with you this morning, but I will stop there. And next time, I would like to share with you the things that we have found since our conversion and leaving the Amish, the journey that we have had since then. It's been about 14 years. We've had many ups and downs. We've learned many things the hard way. We've learned many good things.

We had many high ideals when we left that didn't necessarily hold out, but God's way is always best. And as the Bible says, he chastens those that he loves. And he has done that for us. But his love has been so real. And I just look forward to sharing with you our continued journey. To him be all the honor and glory. Brother Elamel, hand it back to you.

Well, Brother Ephraim, that was really good and very refreshing to hear your story. I mean, what a battle you and your wife went through. I just had to think of the verses in John, what's in John 10. Yeah, John 10:10, "The thief does not come except to steal, kill, and destroy, but I have come that you may have life and may have it more abundantly." So I'm so thankful for the journey that you had, that you found that abundant life. But we want to open it up to our audience also. We look forward to hearing from you. I'll click settings here. You'll be able to unmute yourself. And yeah, we want to hear from you.

So we're looking forward to your questions or comments. So how far of a journey did you have from your house to Ephrata, Ephraim? It was about two hours. You didn't do that with the horse and buggy, did you?

No, I didn't. For a while, there would be brothers, families that would come out and give us a ride. So they had two hours out to us, two hours back to church, and then again, two hours to take us home and two hours back home. So there was some very loving dedication there to help this young Amish family that was seeking.

Yeah. Well, thank the Lord for sending help to you.

Yeah. So if you have any questions, please ask Ephraim, or any comments, please share. We look. You had also mentioned about you putting a lot of time in to seek the Lord, and I guess further ahead than your wife, and it took a little more time for her to come along or catch up, or I'm not sure how you worded that. But I think that's fairly common with husbands and wives. The husbands perhaps are quicker or can make changes easier. The wives tend to like the security. They tend to be maybe a little more afraid of the change and leaving families behind. Yeah, that would definitely be a very good discussion at some point.

Yeah, you should be able to unmute yourself if you have any questions or comments.

Yeah. Thank you for sharing, Ephraim.

Am I on? Yes, you are. Yeah. Thank you for sharing. I really enjoyed listening to all this again. And I don't really have any questions, but just want to let you know that I really appreciate it. And I remember coming to your house one weekend and seeing all those books and questioned a little about it myself. But now that we came to understanding, or I did anyway, I really appreciate that and really appreciate your journey and your help in my journey. And really look forward to your sharing it, sharing this more. And I just want to thank you for all that.