Day 6/100 Bev.. - Warratahstree's 100 Day Project

Day 6/100 Bev..

    Beverly or Bev as we used to call her. Everyone called her Bev especially her husband who always had a really sweet endearing way that he spoke about Beverly his wife. 

   I met Beverly when we both worked at a pizza restaurant called Ken’s Pizza in Clinton Mississippi in the US. We were both quite young.  I was probably about 18 when I first met her. Unbeknownst to each other we both moved in moved in to the same apartment block in Jackson Mississippi. I would often go over to Beverly and her husband, Jack's house to have dinner and party together. 

   We became really good friends. I moved to another area of Jackson, MS and I did not see Beverly for many months until one day she showed up on the doorstep of where I had moved to.  I was so glad to see her.  I asked her to tell me about what she had been up to, where she was working, and if she was still living in the same flat?  Bev told me about a Christian group her husband Jack and she were going to. Jack’s sister Cathy introduced them to this group called Bethel. 

   Bethel house was in the "Mid town" section of Jackson, MS USA.  Bev told me they met  every Tuesday and Saturday night and invited me to  go.  I hadn't been to church in a long time, so I was both excited to be a part of a "church" again. So I went that first night and it was that first night that I accepted Christ as my Saviour and I became a Christian at just 19 years old.  

   I'll never forget that day that Bev came to my door and she told me about going to this place called Bethel, she never said what Bethel was all about. On that first night I felt like I had come home that I had a family there and it was the first time my entire life when I became a Christian that I felt like I was loved, that I was really and truly loved for the person I was.  I didn't have to be anything that anyone else wanted me to be, but just that I was loved and God loved me just where I was at at that point in my life.

   I hadn't seen Bev in many years when I moved to Australia in the 80s and I lost touch with Bev.   It was just after 9-11 in 2001 that I caught up with Beverly again.  When I went to visit Bev in Mississippi it was like we had never been apart.  We talked about all the things that we done in our lives over the years we had not seen each other. I felt like I'd come home to my friend, it was like when we were young friends again. It was so great to catch up with her. We were both in our thirties/ forties and we both had children in high school, and we have kept in touch ever since.  That was before Facebook when we caught up, It was in the days of AOL, Instant Messneger, MSN.   Even though I lived in Australia and she in the USA, we stayed in touch often on AOL, MSN,  or Yahoo Messenger. 

  We still keep in touch and I still keep in touch via Facebook. I still keep in touch with all the members of the Bethel house church that Bev introduced me to all those years ago in the late 1970's.

   Beverly, she really made an impact on my life that day when she showed up at my door and told me about Bethel House, I was never quite the same person after that, it really changed my life, she came into my life at a time when I was suicidal, I was distraught, I felt like no one loved me, no one cared about me.  When she introduced me to all the people at Bethel house and I became a Christian and I became a part of that big family of Bethel House it changed my life for better and I have never walked away from my faith. I have always remembered her telling me about Bethel house and me going and becoming a Christian.  I think Beverly was the greatest influence in my life in the respect that she introduced me to a group of loving caring Christians who really showed the true love of Christ and also introduced me to the love of God.

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