Thomas Castellaw's Testimony of Salvation

        I was born in Georgia and raised in the Bible belt. My parents were very religious and believed themselves to be adherants to the Ten Commandments and “the golden rule”, but they never read the Bible much nor understood the necessity of salvation through Jesus Christ.

        I worked with my stepfather in construction.  One construction worker named Darryl, a foul-mouthed cuss, often came to work with a dirty joke on his lips and loud heavy metal music in his car. One particular day however, he came in with a smile, a clean look, and something peculiarly different about him. 

        After that days work, he invited my parents and me to church.  Though all were impressed by the changed life, my folks refused, content with their life of no church or responsibility toward God, but I accepted. 

        It was the Atlanta Church of Christ.  I began going to all of the Bible studies and youth meetings.  Finally our Bible study leader sat me down after a Bible study and told me to look over certain verses at home and try to recognize any of the sins in the passage as my own.  I took the challenge, went home, got my dictionary and found out a lot about myself.  After a few weeks of these homework assignments, they brought it all together for me.  I gave all the right answers, but it was all with head agreement, until he asked the question that changed my life.  He said, “Do you realize that your sins killed Jesus?  I mean, if you had been the only one around at the crucifixion, then you would have to pick up the nail and hammer and do the job!”   “But I wouldn't want to!”  I replied.  “It doesn't matter, your sins killed the Lord of glory!  Do you want to be forgiven?”   “Of course!” I said, “ I'd be a fool not to.”  So in May of 1988 (I forgot the exact day) I bowed my head and accepted Jesus as my personal Savior.  Looking back, I see now why they put such an emphasis on baptism, but I can honestly say I never equated it with having my sins forgiven.  It was Christ Jesus that saved me in spite of their crooked theology . 

        For the next couple of months I was just like Darryl.  I witnessed to everything that moved!  My parents became uneasy at their son's sudden change of interests.  (If any man be in Christ, he's a new creature…) I came home from school one day and the whole family was seated on the couch with a very solemn look about them.  “Thomas, we're moving!”  “What?”  “Yes, we're moving to Virginia.”   “You've got to be kidding!”  “We've concluded you're in a cult and those people are not going to brainwash you and take any more of your hard earned money (!) any more!”  After much fighting and turmoil, I was resigned to do the will of my parents.  We moved and for the next three years I was a backslidden, baby Christian, with no fellowship, no strength, and no church.

        The time came to graduate high school, and not knowing that I should even look for the will of God, I decided to join the Army.  After basic training I was stationed in Germany.   The Army had just instituted the “Single Soldier Initiative” which stated that the single soldiers should have the same liberties and privileges (Laodicea) as the married soldiers, which in essence turned the barracks into a free for all (because things different are not equal!).  No more CQ (charge of quarters), no more OD green blanket stretched to perfection over the bed, no more inspections by hard nosed sergeants, soldiers had now the liberty to bring in whores and have a constant party, because after all we should have our rights, too.  The barracks turned into a zoo in the worst way.  

        My conscience or the Holy Spirit said, “Boy, you need to find a church.”  I did and to wrap this story up, I found a church where I heard preaching like I had never heard before.   The preacher screamed and was opinionated.  He thought he was right and everybody else was wrong.  But he made sense and I understood where he was coming from.  He said such dogmatic things that I didn't think anybody had the guts to say, and he had the Bible to back it up!  I was hooked.  An older brother in my unit took me home and began discipling me.  The very first thing I learned and understood was Ephesians 2:8-9.  It thrilled my soul to understand God's word.   He showed me the missing verses in my NIV.  Within the first nine months of this solid Bible teaching and fellowship, God called me to preach during a revival meeting. 

       While in the Army in Europe I completed my church's two years of Bible Institute and was glad to have the opportunity to study God's word in depth.  I finished my time in the Army (blessed day) and asked God what I should do.  The pastor asked me to stay on staff in Germany and help.  I was engaged to the church secretary and was already as involved as I could be, so I prayed and decided that this was the open door God wanted me to walk through. I knew a good bit of Bible by now and had some head knowledge but not any practical experience.

       From '93 to '98, I   worked directly with the pastor and learned many hands-on lessons that no Bible school can teach. I filled the pulpit and tended to much of the church business. If one were to ask for my job description, it would be best defined as a crossbreed between an associate pastor and a deacon. In those years, we were able to take literally tons of food, clothes and gospel material into the former Soviet Union. I have learned the German language pretty well and enough Russian phrases to get me in trouble.My wife and I have stayed busy in the Christian school as teachers and in the print shop as secretary and printer. I also worked in an old folks' home ministry which was later turned over to a faithful brother.

       In January 1998 the Lord had impressed upon me to separate from the work there and move on. This was a very difficult thing even to consider. The worst thing a fellow can do is find himself out of the will of God. I fasted and prayed and searched the scriptures, until I was confident of what God wanted.

      The Lord worked out every detail. He had simultaineously been dealing with the pastor of our church about returning to pastor in America. So with this new open door, we returned to the States for deputation and finished in two years. We are now in Heidelberg and have started Bible Baptist Church . Please pray for our efforts here in Germany. 

       All in all, God has been too good to this sinner. I am thankful for all that He has done and am looking forward to all He will do.

Birthday: 24 June 1972

Angie Castellaw 's Testimony of Salvation

         I was born and raised Roman Catholic, in Nuremberg, Germany. When I was 18 years old, I went to a youth retreat with my high school. A boy took out a guitar and started a song that had some blasphemous lyrics. A very shy girl spoke up and said, “Don't sing that song. You are insulting Jesus, and Jesus is my best friend.” The attending teacher spoke out against her, calling faith in God a “crutch”, etc. I listened to the conversation, and I was very impressed with how sure this girl was of what she believed. She was obviously not parroting what anybody had told her, but she was convinced of this herself.

I was interested to hear more about this, so I asked a Methodist friend of mine to take me to church with her. She took me to a youth revival, where the preacher gave a clear gospel presentation: turn from your sins, and turn to Jesus Christ. This was in August 1985; I was 18 years old.

At the end, I thanked my friend for taking me and left, unchanged. Although I believed the matter of “salvation” was for real and all these people around me were really saved and had Jesus in their hearts, like they said they did, I didn't want to accept it for myself. I was not willing to repent of everything that I knew to be sin. I left, still lost.

I believe that, once a person has heard a clear gospel presentation, that person is never the same again. A seed has been sown, and God can use it to speak to that person, even when nobody else is around. That was the case for me. For two years, the subject of religion came up in my head. I knew I had to get right with God, but I pushed it aside. Once, I asked my Methodist friend what makes her believe like she does, and she replied, because her parents taught her like that. I was disappointed at this answer, because I thought, well, that means she does parrot somebody else then. That caused me to put the matter further out of my mind.

In March 1987, I took a trip to America. In New York City, a girl approached me with the question whether I was interested in spiritual things. I was more than happy to talk about spiritual things, and the girl must have thought she had the perfect convert. She told me some Bible stories, but she also introduced me to a “great preacher”, Rev. Moon. I was totally ignorant of anything, and the Lord, in mercy, closed my ears to most of what she said. It seemed the only thing I could hear was: “You've got to right with God; you've got to get right with God.” I hadn't told her how short my time in New York was, so she had assumed she would have more time to indoctrinate me, so she had told me mostly Bible stories, and some stories about Rev. Moon. When I announced that I was leaving soon, she put more emphasis on Rev. Moon. She suggested I should stay in New York and study his wonderful teachings more (while ignoring my family and university studies in Germany and simply not returning home). When she introduced that idea, I knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that there was something fishy about her, and I left.

Within a few days, I returned to Germany. The urge to get right with God remained with me this time, and I decided not to push it aside any more. I decided that I would live “sinless” from then now. I was halfway satisfied with myself for about a week or so. (My definition of “sin” included the outward, visible stuff, like smoking, drinking, cursing, fornicating, etc. I didn't even concern myself with sins of thought.) I was 20 years old at the time.

A weekend in August came, and friends invited me to a party. I knew all things wouldn't be kosher, but I agreed to go anyway. At the party, I committed things that were “sins” in my definition, and I was quite unhappy about it. At home, I was tormented with conviction, but I didn't know what to do to make things right. I tried to remember what people had told me about God and the conversation came to mind, when my girlfriend had said, she believes this, simply because her parents taught her. Because of that, I decided that it was all a matter of one person copying another and it wasn't for real after all. I said out loud, “I'll cross out the words “sin” and “guilt” out of my vocabulary forever.” That gave me some sort of peace, and I could finally go to sleep.

The next day, my Methodist friend called, and I went to see her. Obviously, she had no idea of what had been going on in my head, and I had no intentions of telling her. I asked the simple question, “What have you been up to? What have you been doing?” She answered, “Two weeks ago, I gave my life to Jesus Christ.” That came as a total surprise to me. “But you have always been a Christian, you have always gone to church and so on.” Then, she took the words right out of my mind. She said: “Up to now, I only believed it, because my parents had taught me. Now it is real for myself.”

After she said that, we sat in silence for a few minutes. I was speechless. I knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that God had worked these things out like that and that He was trying to get my attention. I also knew that I had lived very dangerously, because I had turned down God once before. So right there, in my friend's living room, on August 10, 1987, on a Monday afternoon, I decided not to turn God down any more. I repented of my sins and asked Jesus Christ to be my Saviour.

Because my friend had been taught that “you shouldn't speak bad about other people's religion”, she didn't warn me about the Roman Catholic church. I wasn't a practicing Catholic, so I had no idea that what I had just experienced was in contradiction to Catholic church practice. I started attended Catholic mass weekly. God obviously saw that I did this in ignorance (I started reading the Bible immediately after I was saved, but I didn't run across any anti-Catholic places in the beginning). He brought me together with an exchange student at university, who took me under his wings and started discipling me. He brought me to Bible Baptist Church, where I got scripturally baptized some months later.

Eventually, I stopped my studies at university and started working for the church. This is where I met my husband, and in 1993, we got married.

I am grateful to God that He sent a witness by to tell me about the true meaning of Jesus Christ's death on the cross, so that I could be saved. It is my heart's desire that I could live to be the same kind of instrument in the salvation of others.

Birthday: 5 December 1966