I touched the church when I was attending the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill my junior year in nursing school. Twenty-five dear believers that year had moved from Massachusetts to Raleigh, North Carolina, to meet as the local church in Raleigh. One of the sisters was in the nursing program at UNC and had begun to have fellowship with me. I had a strong touch with the Lord two years prior to our meeting and felt led to become a nurse, study Hebrew, then go to Israel to preach the gospel to the Jews. However, the Lord had something else in mind. He opened the door for me to go to nursing school, then, in His timing; He introduced me to this sister in the local church. It took several months for me to accept His direction as I had my own concepts about how I was to serve the Lord.
After going to a gospel meeting with her and reading a Life Study by Witness Lee on Exodus, I had the realization that these people were seeking Christians. I had never read anything so impressive. Moses was leading the children of Israel out of Egypt, which typifies the world. Their crossing the Red Sea, burying all their past and worldliness, and going into the wilderness to follow the Lord reminded me of what I had gone through. I had answered an “altar call” when I was nine years old. I can remember the Lord being very near to me. But, because there was no way to go on, I became rebellious in my teenage years, defying authority and anyone that tried to discipline me. At age 18 the Lord took my mother away. I never got over it. My life was a series of failures after that. Because of my mistakes, eventually the Lord allowed my ex-husband to have custody of our two children. Loosing all self esteem, I hit bottom that year. But the Lord’s great mercy reached me two years later. I didn’t know the Lord’s Spirit came in to indwell my human spirit; (I was to learn this later when I touched the local church), but I experienced the Lord within me. I began seeking to find others who had similar experiences. I used to ask the Lord, “Where can I find a group of people who live as if You were here now.” Well, those believers in Raleigh were the people, and the church was the home I had sought for so long.
Attending the meetings of the local church became the greatest joy of my life. I am not here as an individual Christian struggling through life. I have been brought into the experience of God’s family and the one new man, as well as being blessed with the riches of this ministry for twenty years.
Jenny Farmer
Back to Table of Testimonies
