Before Jesus touched me I lived pretty wildly. Always in trouble, and always thinking thoughts like, I wish I were not doing these wrong things. I had been in and out of Christianity since I was 19. I would always get tired of doing wrong and start thinking of God during these times. Then I found myself going to church. Through many experiences such as being sprinkled in a catholic church, or repeating a prayer after a man who told me if I accept Jesus in my heart, then I was saved. The last time I got under conviction, during one of those times when I would fall away and start living wildly again, I kept wondering in my thoughts to God when I would pray, “What is real, what is right, and what is truth?”

So in June 2001, I went to a Billy Graham crusade, and thought I would rededicate my life to Jesus. At least that is what they told me I was doing. There was something different I went there this night. All who were present at the crusade were invited to an altar call. At least 600 to 700 people in a football stadium standing all around me, each had a prayer partner with them. They handed each one of us a prayer package, and they started explaining to each and every one of us how to pray step by step, but I could hardly concentrate on what the man who was my partner was saying to me, because I started looking around at all these people and I saw so many sincere hearts crying very hard. I know I will never forget what I saw that night on these faces. I saw real emotion, and all those prayer partners had to offer was a prayer kit and a “repeat after me” prayer. So from there I started going to a Baptist church where they taught water baptism, being totally submersed under water. I remember thinking right before the minister dunked me under and said I baptize you in the name of the Father, Son, and holy Spirit. My heart was racing a hundred miles per hour. I thought “All right! This is what I have been praying for.” I have been sprinkled, and I have said the sinner’s prayer, and was told I am saved. I even followed instruction from Billy Graham, but I never really changed. I always went back to what I hated more than anything -- Sin! So the minister dunked me and when he brought me up I remember thinking, “I’ll feel different, really alive for the first time.” But my heart broke when I didn’t feel anything.

So two months later after being baptized, I went through a very hurtful event. I went to the Baptist place wanting to play a song for other people getting baptized. So the minister asked if any one wanted to share anything with the ones being baptized. I went up to him and whispered in his ear that God had put it on my heart to play a song for the ones baptized. He politely whispered back, “Maybe next week.” It broke my heart for him to make me feel like he was in charge and he decides who has something from God. So I left another church, but this time I didn’t want to go back to the world or my wild living ways. I remember getting a thought, a still small voice said, “Leave it all behind and seek me! Leave everything you thought was right about Me (God), and just seek Me.” The Bible says seek and you shall find, knock and I’ll answer. God was telling me just seek Him, and He would show me His Truth. God had been convicting my heart of sin since I was 19, but man’s outward ceremonies were getting in the way. So when I listened to the still small voice, things changed. All those ceremonies never changed who I was, just a broken sinner who needed to know God.

In August 2001, I met a man named Gary. I remember him telling me about these prayer meetings he used to go to. I heard him speak in tongues, and I had never heard such a sound before. One day I needed a job, so Gary told me about a man named Billy, and said I should go see him for a job, so I did. I went to see Billy, filled out the application, had an interview, but didn’t get the job. As I was leaving Billy followed me out to my car, and we started talking. Out of the blue Billy says, “I feel a lot of hurt from you.” I had never met this man before. I thought, how did he know I am hurting inside? He then said that God has something for me, if I had a willing heart. After our conversation, we met somewhere to talk more. He told me about the same prayer meetings that Gary used to go to, but Gary had fallen away. God used a backslidden brother to get me to a holy Ghost filled Saint! We talked about the second chapter of Acts, where the men who followed Jesus received the holy Ghost baptism. Billy invited me to the next prayer meeting. Everything in me was coming alive.

It was now September 2001. I went to the prayer meeting, and it wasn’t long until they started singing, dancing, shouting, and speaking in tongues! I was so excited at what I was feeling, because for so long all I wanted was to know Jesus, but all those ceremonies were in the way, until now. It was my third prayer meeting when I got the holy Ghost and was born again. I had gone up for prayer and I fell back on the floor and lay there. I remember feeling more peace than I have ever felt in my life. It occurred to me that not one single person in the room told me come and get prayed for, and no one told me what to pray for. It seems that all I was doing was going by what I was feeling. So while I was still on the floor, I remember I head a voice, just like the one before that told me to leave it all behind and seek Me. The voice said “Stand Up!” With no delay I stood up and something hit me from my head all the way to my feet. It was very warm feeling, and then I started running all over that floor, shouting and dancing, and I heard speaking in tongues. I suddenly stopped, my eyes popped open, and I froze. Someone said, “Don’t stop there! You show them you got the Holy Ghost.” Then that same power from God hit me again and it was even warmer and tingly than the first time. I didn’t realize the person I heard speaking in tongues was me. I spoke in tongues for a long time after the second touch from Jesus.

So you see, all of those other things I mentioned earlier never changed me. I always went back to doing those sinful things. It took God’s Spirit on the inside to help me keep God’s commandments. Ephesians 4 talks about one body, one spirit, one hope, one Lord, one faith, one baptism. I followed many examples of baptism, but only one changed me, a broken-hearted sinner, into a new creature in Christ. That one baptism is the New Birth, the Holy Ghost baptism with a witness when you receive it from Jesus, and that “witness” is speaking in tongues as God’s Spirit speaks through you, saying, “Abba Father”, which means we have received the Spirit of adoption, which says we are the sons of God. No man on earth can give you such a baptism.

With Love in Christ,

Bro Tony

Hi, My name is Margo Ellis, and this is some of my testimony!

When I was sixteen I had a friend who was killed in a deadly car accident. That is when Jesus started dealing with me. I remember the awful feeling I was left with. I remember crying to God and asking “Why God did this happen?” God heard my cry, and He knew my pain, because He put it there. A few months went on and I tried to stop doing some things I would do, but I would always go right back to those things again. I know now that is because I didn’t have God’s Spirit on the inside keeping me from doing those things.

I eventually went on with my lonely life. Being a careless teenager for about a year. Little did I know that Jesus had a whole different path for me to take.

In June of 2001, Billy Graham came to Louisville, KY. I just had one little prayer one night, “God I will do everything in my power to get Tony to that crusade.” He really wanted to go, and I had no idea why I even prayed that night. I had no interest in religion at all. So we went to the crusade, and I really started feeling some new things. They had the alter call and I went up there.

We then started going to a Baptist church after that. I had gone to the Baptist church when I was real young, so we decided to go back there. During going to this church, I met a man who used to come to the prayer meetings. We hung around him for a few months, and he told us about Bro Billy Mellick. Tony went to Billy’s employer one day to see if he could get a job there. Well of course he didn’t get a job there, but he got something much better. Bro Billy told us about the prayer meetings and invited us.

At this time we were tired of some things going on at the Baptist church, and felt like we didn’t belong there anymore, so we stopped going.

I had never heard of the Holy Ghost before, until Billy told me about it. I wasn’t sold on the idea at first. So we go to the prayer meetings, and I was terrified!!! Everyone was shouting and speaking in tongues. I remember I started feeling really light and hot. As soon as I felt it though, I shook it off. I remember thinking that I didn’t want to act like those people were. At the end of the meeting, Pastor John started praying for people, well at that point I was out of there. I was at my limit, and I ran out. I did not go back the next morning.

A few weeks went on and I was able to listen to the New Birth series, and read my Bible, which really helped a lot. I was ready to come and try it again. This time I had a whole better attitude toward it. A sister testified in that meeting about having a willing heart, and to ask Jesus for one. Well that is what I did. I have been coming ever since then.

In November of 2001, everyone here in Louisville was going to North Carolina for Thanksgiving at Pastor John’s house. I caught a ride with Junior and Natalie. Bro Jr picked me up at home and took me to their house to stay the night. I still smoked when I came to the meetings, and I knew if I was going to NC, then I was going to have to stop. So that night I stopped. I remember lying on their couch, and looking around at their tapes, books, and feeling the feeling in their house, and I said, “God these people are really real, they really live this way.” So I finally felt like I believed what I was being told. I also stopped smoking that night too!! Of course I had such I good trip to North Carolina that I did not even realize I had quit smoking until I got back.

I got to NC, and it was a wonderful time. I got prayed for, for the first time. Then on that Friday night, Leah came over to me and asked me to come stand with her. When we got over to where we were going, all I could do is hug her, and then everyone surrounded us and started praying. We fell out on the floor holding hands. My whole body was shaking and I was really hot. I was praying so hard for the Holy Ghost. Even though I really did not know what it was. I remember sister Barbara brushing my hair and talking to me. I also remember others being around me too!! Suddenly my lips started quivering A LOT. Like I was outside in the cold or something, and I started making this new noise, and I felt really good. Then I found out that I got the Holy Ghost. I didn’t know I had got it at first, because I never heard of stammering lips before, but that is what I had. I finally had gotten it!! Leah got it too! Six of us received the Holy Ghost all together that Thanksgiving. That night I went to lay down and I thought to myself, Ok I am going to see of this thing really works. So I opened my mouth and a new language came out. So I knew then, that it really worked.

I always knew that I was different and never understood why I didn’t fit in. Something in my heart just never felt quite right until the Lord showed me His Truth, and what is real. If you really want to know what is real, He will show you if you just have a willing heart for the answer.

  I could go on, and on with things that has happened in my life, but I will stop here for now. Maybe I will write out another part soon!!