My name is James Fleurent, a father of seven grown wonderful children, a beautiful wife, and an average life in California, USA. Quite frankly, I am not sure what God has planned for me for the rest of my life. But his Holy Spirit has called on me, and I am positive he will reveal his plan for me as I feel he has led me here to CLI. I was brought up Catholic, and graduated from a Catholic high school on the east coast. I did some college and wandered through life giving Jesus just a small part of me. It seemed an occasional Sunday and prayer was all the time I had for him. God was good to me though providing a good job and two homes to own. It was like he gave me the world and I had not even asked for it.
Then five years ago, (I am 63 now) I got sick. I was diagnosed with stage four mantle cell lymphoma. The prognosis? Three months or so, or a few years if I underwent a radical chemo regimen at the City Of Hope in Duarte, California. The chemo was a brutal week of four or more chemicals non stop in the hospital, then two weeks home to recover, then back for another week and so on for 5 months. Many in this cancer trial died, but the Lord helped me through it. The fifth and sixth month I spent full time at the hospital rebuilding my immune system and collecting stem cells for a bone marrow transplant. We spent those six months in prayer, and Jesus answered his not so faithful servant.
Seven days before my scheduled transplant, I awakened in the middle of the night from a nightmare. Or, more exactly, my wife awakened me as I was screaming in my sleep (she spent every night in a chair in my room). I had the same dream each night for seven days. It was with me looking down a vortex, a tornado type structure that was black, and I would get sucked down to the bottom. Down there it was cold and I could feel souls full of hate and despair, even though it was dark and I could not see. I would scream and wake up. The seventh night, the night before my transplant, I was dreaming and got sucked up a white vortex! It was warm and blinding white as I felt souls around me full of love and kindness. I yelled out for my departed mother, but no one could hear me as I was not one of them. As I awoke to tell my wife, I had a vision of Jesus; I was wide awake and he was in front of me. He said two words—— “You’re alright,” and he faded away.
My wife and I spent much time talking about my encounter, and where it would lead us. First thing was back to church, and we were born again in Jesus. What does this mean? What do I do? I do not know, but am sure Christ will reveal his plan to me. Since 2011, my cancer has been in remission, and I share my story with all who will listen. This has lead me to CLI. We sold both homes and cars to live through this test and now reside in a mobile home, but are so thankful to God for more time to spread his word. I am disabled with arthritis and problems from the chemo. With little income, I am thankful God has shown me CLI so I can continue to learn, and spread his word. I know what God’s love is now, and have exceeded my life expectancy twofold, and with his grace I continue.
As to the definition of love, we babysit our grand children. One day, as my five year old granddaughter Rubi (we have been blessed with 13) was going out the front door, she said ” I love you Papa.” I said back “Rubi, do you know what love is? I can tell you (of my love for Jesus).” She said, “Yes, it is like today when Mimi (Grandma) said she had a bad back, then she bent over and helped you put on your shoes.” “Yes, Rubi, that’s how we love, and God loves us.”
Having little financially, I am grateful that God led me to CLI so I can continue to grow and spread Christ and Christian teachings.
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Young Commitment
Young commitment to Christ is becoming less and less common. One CLI graduate hopes to see that change.
Hello. My name is Danielle Gardner and I live in Brooklyn, NY. I work for a pharmaceutical company; working in the scientific field can be difficult sometimes as a Christian since a large percentage of my co-workers are atheists. Combine that with living in the New York City area and ministry can be challenging. In the NY metropolitan area there are approximately 22.5 million people, with 45% of them having no religious affiliation and only 4% affiliated with an evangelical church
Danielle is someone who experienced young commitment to Christ when she became a Christian at the age of five.
When I was 5 years old, my Mom and I were driving in Philadelphia and she was worried because one of our brake lights was out. She asked me if something was to happen and we were to die, did I know where I would go. That may seem like an odd question to ask a child, but my older brother had passed away the year before due to cancer so death was very real to me. I told her I hoped heaven but I wasn’t really sure. She explained to me how I could be sure. I thought about it some, I knew that I did things that were wrong, and I knew I needed Jesus to forgive me. Later that night I prayed, asked Jesus to forgive me and come into my life. I wish I could say life has been all rainbows and puppy dog kisses since then, but it hasn’t. I have experienced difficulties and loss but through it all God has been faithful to me, giving me the strength I need even when I haven’t always been faithful to him.
Danielle is very thankful that God has allowed her to work with young adults and children. She loves when she sees young commitment to Christ, she feels that more young people need to be rooted in Christ.
I work with both the children and young adults in my church. In our children’s program, one of the biggest obstacles we face is parents who do not want their children to have anything to do with the church. About 10 years ago, my church went through a painful split and the children’s program fell into my lap, I had planned to help out for a little bit and then pass it on to someone else. However, as time went on I developed a heart for these children. I have come to realize that it is so important for children to make a true commitment at an early age and develop a love for God and reading his word. My work with the young adults has shown me how important it is to make a young commitment to Christ and develop the habit of walking with Him, so that as life gets busy, the priorities are already there. With the young adults I always hear how life is so fast paced that they are always “too busy” for anything church and often God related.
Danielle is training so she can lead in even more young commitment to Christ through increased knowledge at CLI.
I am hoping with these classes to improve as a teacher, to be better able to communicate and encourage those I am teaching while pushing myself to learn and grow more in my spiritual walk.
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Reason For God
Many unbelievers say our God doesn’t make sense and doesn’t match up with reason. But our God is a God of reason and wisdom. Jessica P.G. has gone through a spirtual journey that has led her to believe in God’s reason.
Hi, I’m Jessica P.G. from Jakarta, Indonesia. Despite living in the capital of the most populated Muslim country in the world, Christians in Jakarta are not necessarily persecuted (in a sense that it risks human lives), yet it gets kind of hard when it comes to politics. It seems that ministry in Jakarta is not as hard as in other countries, and it’s considerably safe. There also exists some Christian schools and universities (as well as seminaries) which seek to meet the people’s educational needs — even non-Christians are coming to those schools/universities since they are deemed considerably good.
Jessica’s need for community and knowledge led to her seeing a reason for God.
Despite being raised in a Christian family, I was an agnostic back then (though I retained my legal status as a Christian). Yet I still went to church despite my agnosticism (though my motive was only to find an English-speaking community; I go to a church with an English worship service). Since I wanted to not misrepresent Christians while debating them, I read Christian books, with most of my reading list being influenced by an evangelist who is in charge of the English service. As I read a certain book on my reading list (The Case for Christ, written by Lee Strobel), my jaw dropped. I was kind of reluctant, but I thought I have to receive God, at least intellectually at that moment. Another book that assures me of it is I Don’t Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist by Norm Geisler and Frank Turek. Thus I converted to Christianity after a struggle to assent what I had read.
Jessica sees her calling as one that uses facts and rational thinking to lead others to share a reason for God.
Unlike many (if not most) people here who want to serve as ministers or church leaders, I am interested to be a lay apologist. I think I am called to reason, to take every thought captive to God as my thoughts have been taken captive, while I work as a scientist (I think we all know how secularized is the scientific world). I hope, through apologetics, one may find a rational basis to believe in the Christian God. I found my family to be quite supportive of my choices to take natural sciences in high school, biotechnology in university (which is to come; I haven’t finished high school yet), and my vocation to reason for God’s sake.
CLI is growing her reason for God as well as her knowledge. Also CLI ensures that Jessica’s knowledge matches up with biblical teaching.
CLI helps me to find out whether I have understood what I believe properly, lest I argue for the wrong things. Please pray that more people may come to know God through the use of reason and that more believers may know what they believe and may be always prepared to give reasons with love and respect to those who need it.
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