save - mat parrish

8th November 2010 by MORE

I'm 12 and I'm from Bateman's Bay Salvos.

When I was born I was really unwell and the doctors didn't know if I was going to survive.

When I was about five years old, I went to a show with my family called Heaven's Gates and Hell's Flames . My brother and I were so scared of the devil in the play that at the end of night, we were asked whether we wanted to give our lives to Jesus and so we did.

I didn't understand much about the Bible but we started to go to a local church. Unfortunately, the people there ignored us, did not accept us and were not very helpful. We stayed there for about two to three years and after moving back and forth between churches, having many similar experiences, we settled at the Salvos.

While we were there, we started to get more into God and we started going to Sunday School to learn more about Jesus. We liked it a lot and kept going.

When my brother and I got a bit older, we started playing soccer so we didn't go to church as much anymore. We felt like we were falling away from God and we didn't know what to do.

So, a new church service started for our family in the evenings. It was originally just for us but other people started coming too. That was so nice. We felt like we were at home there, so we kept going. Our church leaders Ben and Emma started inviting us to the snow and to their place for Barbeques and basically, they have become our second family.

The worship at GAC this year has made me feel closer to God and the testimonies have really inspired me. In the final session we were asked to decide on one thing that we're going to do when we go home. I've decided to read the Bible, pray every night and just draw closer to God.

Comments

Nate

November 16, 2010 at 9:46am

Hey Mat, hope the Bible reading is keeping up and that it's helping you draw closer to God, thanks for sharing your story.
Love your work!

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