Do you remember your first introduction to Christianity?
Who first told you about Jesus, and what did they say?
How did you learn about becoming a Christian?
Do you recall how it was explained to you?
Have you ever made a decision to receive Jesus as your Savior?
What led to that decision?
In this series, our new Registrar and Director of Student Life, John Golling, is sharing with us a little bit of his story. You can read HERE about how he was introduced to Christianity through the Greek Orthodox Church, and HERE about a teacher who impacted him in significant ways. Today, John tells about a major event that would change the course of his life.
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When you’re a kid, some things are hard to understand. I am 9 years old, and my family is at Grandma’s house for a few weeks of vacation! I loved to visit my grandparents in Idaho during summer vacation, because it was hot and we would go swimming at the lake, and sometimes we got to go on the boat, and I was even learning how to waterski, it’s great!
One day, we are all called together, and my parents say they need to talk to us. We are sitting on Grandma’s big, brown couch. Me, my little sister, my big sister, and my older brother are all sitting on the edge of the huge, stuffed, sectional that goes all the way around the room, and everyone is very serious, and it seems like my parents are kind of sad.
Mom is saying something about how the Air Force is sending Dad to some place far away called Korea. He will be there for a year, and we can’t go with him, so we will live in Boise, Idaho. And we will go to school there, and everything will be fine, but it will just be the kids and Mom, because Dad is in the Air Force, and he will be in Korea. (I think it must be very dangerous there, because it seems like kids are not allowed to go, and it seems like Mom is very sad.) Then Dad talks for a while about how sometimes grownups can’t get along very well, and how sometimes if they fight a lot, it’s better for them to be separated than together. This doesn’t make sense to me, and so I forget all about it.
The next year is difficult, because we don’t get to see Dad, and Mom is very busy with work and other things, and so I spend a lot of time riding bikes with my brother and our friends, and hanging around a lot at the Circle-K on the corner. After one year, my Dad comes back for a visit, and without warning, we were sitting down again, and he says we are ALL going to move to Korea!! (I think it must not be as dangerous as it was before, because kids can go now.) Then Dad talks for a while about how sometimes grownups who can’t get along, will try again, to see if they can maybe stay together. This doesn’t make sense to me, so I kind of forget about it.
So, we move to Korea, and we are all together again. And we start going to this thing called “Chapel” every week on Sunday morning. And then sometimes we go on other days, too, more than just on Sunday. And when summer comes, we go to this thing called Vacation Bible School, where we play games, sing songs, and hear stories from the Bible.
On one of these days, we watch a movie about a boy who is about our age, and he is in the Boy Scouts, and he is on a campout, and another boy teases him and bullies him. Then the boy who is mean, breaks the rules and sneaks away from the group, and goes out on a long rope bridge that is over a canyon that they were not supposed to be on, and if he falls he is going to die. And then he gets stuck out there, and the boy he bullied finds him, and climbs out to help him, even though he could fall and die, he climbs right out there anyway. When the two boys get back to the side of the cliff, the mean boy asks the other one, “You could have fallen and died! Why did you risk your life to help me? Especially after I was so mean to you.” And the other boy answers, “I knew that if I fell and died, I would go to heaven, but if you fell and died, you would go to hell. And I didn’t want you to go to hell, so that’s why I helped you.”
The projector stops, and the teacher flips the switch to turn on the large fluorescent bulbs that illuminate the room. I blink a few times as my eyes get used to the light after being in the dark. The kids are quiet as the teacher walks up to the front. She says that just like the boy in the movie, we need to accept Jesus into our heart, so that when we die, we will go to heaven, instead of going to hell. She said that if we wanted to accept Jesus, we could come up to the front, and she would lead us in a prayer.
I hurry to the front with a bunch of other kids. The teacher asks us to bow our heads and close our eyes, and she says to pray after her. So, with each sentence she prays, we all pray the same thing after her. This doesn’t make much sense to me, but I want to go to heaven when I die, and I do NOT want to go to hell, so I pray along with the other kids. I don’t really understand what’s going on, and I think there must be more to this, and I wonder what is going to happen next.
Years later, I would learn more about my parents’ separation, and how they were in the car on the way to the lawyer’s office to sign divorce papers, and how they changed their minds and decided to stay married instead. I would also learn more about this prayer that I prayed to ask Jesus into my heart. I didn’t really know that much about these things back then, because when you’re a kid, some things are hard to understand.
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For the next several weeks, I am sharing about those people and events that impacted my spiritual journey, my life as a disciple of Jesus, and how God led me to Covenant Bible Seminary. I hope to hear from you, and learn about your journey with Christ, as well.
Peace,
John Golling
Registrar / Director of Student Life | Covenant Bible Seminary
Faculty Mentor | Kairos University