A Strong Call for Growth and Connection to God
My name is Heather Mich, and I am taking Bible college courses at the Christian Leaders Institute (Learn more about online Bible classes, Click Here). I am from Northern Arizona in the USA. I grew up as an only child to a single mother in Southern California. My family was not very religious, and I had little exposure to religion as a child.
Teenage Years
During High School, I felt something was missing. I started attending a local youth group, volunteering at Vacation Bible School, and accepted Jesus Christ as my Savior and was baptized. Soon after, I began to question if I was good enough to be there. God wouldn’t want me, would he? With my family not wanting to hear about my time at church or volunteering, I stopped attending and fell back into feeling empty.
At that time, I did not fully understand God’s grace and love for me as his adopted daughter. I fell into bad relationships and drugs and looked for the wrong attention. I left home and attended college. It did not go well. I developed panic attacks, anxiety, and depression. So, I dropped out less than a year into my program and went back home. I realized that the emptiness and bad relationships had to do with my choices and not feeling like I belonged anywhere. I was angry with God and felt abandoned and cursed.
Marriage and Family
Soon after, I met my husband. He was different than any man I had met before. I actually broke up with him early on because I believed I wasn’t good enough for him. After being together for three years, we became pregnant unexpectedly. We decided to have an abortion which was very painful spiritually. A year later, we were pregnant again, and I was adamant that I would not allow the same thing to happen. Our beautiful daughter was born in 2010, and we married in 2013 in a non-religious ceremony.
A couple of years later, my daughter started Kindergarten, and I was pregnant with our son. One morning as we walked to school, she asked me who God was. This knocked me off my feet. It was like someone had pulled a rug out from under me. All the years of blaming God flooded me with emotion. How was I going to respond? Through my emotion, I told her God created everything and everyone. I told her that I was not sure how else to explain it but that I would ask our close friends who attended church.
God Becomes Real
This started a complete transformation in me as well as in my marriage and family. We began attending church weekly. Each Sunday for the first 3 months, I felt like an imposter. Then one Sunday, our pastor spoke something that I will never forget, “Church is a hospital for sinners, not a museum of saints.” With the support of friends and our Women’s Ministry, I found a deeper understanding of God and what Jesus did for me. I began to open up to others and found connections and wise counsel.
A Big Change
In 2018, we went to visit friends who lived in Arizona. Both my husband and I felt a strong call to make a change for our family. We went home and could not stop talking about it. We prayed about it. In October of that year, we made another trip to begin looking at rentals. God led us to a property that was not even fully posted and had just been listed. We drove by and knew this was our home. We received approval easily and moved just before Christmas.
A Personal Walk with God
We plugged into a new church. Over the last four years, we learned and developed our own walks with God and our walk as a family. I have joined small groups and mom’s groups and implemented spiritual habits. I have a thirst to know more and grow more after seeing firsthand that Jesus has given me more than I could ever dream or ask for. We are homeschooling our children and homesteading.
Bible College Courses for Ministry Training
The pandemic never affected our ability to work, which was a huge blessing. It did, however, affect our connections. By late 2020, I knew I needed to find a way to continue growing in my faith. Online church and canceled Bible studies/small groups were a huge blow. I started looking into attending a seminary for Bible college courses. I wanted to use this time to learn more about Jesus and Christianity. Then I found the Christian Leaders Institute. As a work-from-home mother homeschooling her children, I could not afford a University program, nor would I have the time to commute or attend virtually with our schedules. CLI is flexible and free. I can work on my classes at my own pace. I am grateful and truly blessed to have an opportunity to afford and work on a degree with CLI’s Leadership Excellence School.
Spiritual Dream
My spiritual dream is to start a ministry to homeless families. I want to create a farm with tiny homes where we can minister to homeless families that would otherwise be separated due to shelter availability. I want to develop a place where families can feel God’s peace and grace and learn life skills like farming, animal husbandry, cooking, finances, and connection to equip them better to rise from their current situation. Furthermore, I dream of being able to help them start their own businesses or get job placements as they graduate out of our program into permanent housing.
My prayer through my Bible college courses and ministry training at CLI is to grow even more. I want to have a stronger personal walk with God and be prepared by Him for wherever He calls me. To be a testimony that no matter where you have been, God’s love for you overcomes all situations.
Thank you, CLI, for this opportunity and encouragement to step out in this journey.
Greetings in the wonderful name of our LORD and Savior, JESUS CHRIST! My name is Kurt Fernandez from Brisbane, Australia. I am thankful for the opportunity to study the Bible at the Christian Leaders Institute (Learn more about online Bible classes, Click Here). I am married to Michelle, and we have a daughter of 11 years named Ebony Grace. Originally from Cape Town, South Africa, I grew up in the apartheid era. At the age of 15, I moved to Australia in 1987.
I currently work as an engine builder. However, I have had a call on my life to preach the Gospel since approximately age 17 by an evangelist named David Smethurst. On the 11/11/2018 remembrance day some thirty years later, that call to ministry was prophesied over my life once again—this time by Pastor Tim Follet from the Christian Church in Brisbane Carina. There have been various roadblocks in my life to try to steer me away from my true calling in Christ Jesus. I see that many of the stories that I read here have been much the same. I am grateful and have been encouraged by how the LORD has had his hand on many of you and thwarted the enemy’s plans.
Opportunity to Study the Bible at CLI
My calling to ministry has been to go back into the Church and establish God’s Truth through His Word. Before I can do this, I must walk blameless before the LORD and establish His Word in my heart. I also need to find practical and biblical help and study for the road ahead. Thank you to Christian Leaders Institute for allowing me to study and the practical training to serve our Lord.
I want to teach through example what God requires of us to worship Him in Spirit and Truth. My call is to bring God-centered worship, praise, and living. This is as many of you are also doing in your particular ministry fields. The only way to do this is through God’s Word, the Bible. God has set all these wonderful truths in His Word. I have found HIM to be so gracious to me as I have applied myself to personal study. Through His Word, God has directed my heart towards Him constantly, and it has been overwhelming at times, wonderfully overwhelming. I thank The Lord for this opportunity and privilege to study the Bible here at Christian Leaders Institute! I will keep seeking the unvarnished Truth in His Word.
I am Michelle Weatherspoon from Indiana, and I am studying at the Christian Leaders Institute for ordination and ministry training (Learn more about online Bible classes, Click Here). I served four years in the Army and got a Bachelor of Science degree and paralegal certification. At the age of seven, I received Jesus as my Lord and Saviour and baptism. As an orphan, I had a challenging childhood. But, the Lord was always in my heart, and he never left me or forsook me.
As a person with the experience of being an orphan, I was humbled when God blessed me with my four children. I was so excited because I could raise them to know our Savior and living Redeemer Jesus Christ. Jesus gave me a family.
Kingdom Building with Ordination and Ministry Training at CLI
God called me into the ministry in my early 20s. However, I wanted and needed to gain experience and build my relationship with Christ Jesus. In my journey to find and really know the Lord, I overcame many challenging and difficult obstacles. The obstacles only drove me closer to God and to seek closeness with Him.
I began to hunger and desire to be more proactive in God’s Kingdom Building on the grassroots level. So, I pursued the ordination path to make my calling and election sure by studying with CLI. The Lord made a way through CLI and blessed me to get a quality education. The sound teaching at CLI supports the work I did in years of studying His amazing and Holy Word. If it were not for the scholarship class that allows me free tuition, I would not have been able to do it. I praise the Lord for blessing me with this opportunity at CLI!