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I have long been curious about the message of Jesus and how to truly follow him. My boyfriend has a very strong faith and has had more patience with me than I ever could have hoped for. I stumbled across my boyfriend's copy of "Letters From a Skeptic." I never even got past the introduction, having found out the church was in St. Paul. I listened to a sermon online and me, my boyfriend and my 3 year old daughter have gone the last four Sundays. I am so excited every week to go. Every person there is warm, excited to meet you and the sermons are more than commands and lists of rules. It's a beautiful, wonderful experience and I wanted to thank everyone there for believing, and Greg and the other people that teach. God Bless you all!
– Briona
My wife and I live in Northern Thailand. We work with a Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) here. As you can imagine, there is not a lot of English speaking churches here and we are still learning Thai. It has been wonderful to be able to listen to the sermons and be encouraged to bring the Kingdom of God to Thailand.
– Christopher
When we first starting attending Woodland Hills my husband and I were newly married and starting a new life together, a God centered life, We also wanted to have more children right away as we already had 1 child.
During this time we were informed that it would be difficult for us to have more children. We started everything the doctor said we would need to do, after many many months of testing, surgeries, medications and disappointments we found out that we were pregnant again! We were so very excited and shocked as it has been a few years and we were dealing with the emotions that go along with infertility. We went in for an ultrasound very early on in the pregnancy [and we found out] that we were having twins – PRAISE God! If it was not for him we would not be having them.
Even though the pregnancy was very tough, with a long time a bed rest and the baby arriving prematurely, God completed our family. During the time I was on bed rest, I found out more about myself and about God and the love he has for us. I also learned that my prayers were answered when the Lord felt it was time to have them answered, when I was ready in my life. My love for God grew as I really began to know him and form a real relationship with him!
Before the twins were born, we had known that we wanted 2 more children and just a while after they were born [we found out that we were] not going to have any more children. It was as though God knew we wanted 2 more children. The Lord is amazing and I have so much faith and trust in him. I pray as much as I can to thank the Lord for everything he has given my family and I. Thank you God, for showing me what really matters and the power in prayer!
Thank you for your ministry! We recently moved to Illinois, but went to Woodland for four years while in Minnesota. We grew so much in our understanding of who God is and his love for us and his intention for us to love others while we were at Woodland. Thank you!
God is faithful. We hear it in church. We read about it in the Scriptures and we sing about it during worship. What is amazing is when we experience the reality of that faithfulness in our lives. We serve a real God and the things that are spoken about Him in the Word are true. We have a testimony that God has asked us to share with each of you so that you might believe.
In April of last year, we sensed God calling us into full-time ministry. We didn't know how we were going to pay our bills. In fact, after several months of waiting on the Lord for direction we sensed the Lord leading us to sell all of our possessions. This is the kind of instruction that seems difficult to obey but it was actually much easier than you might think. God gave us the faith and assurance we needed to move forward with decisions that we couldn't make through the operation of our own understanding. Fortunately, we were in a position financially where we had no other choice than to believe God.
Over the course of several weeks we held a sale and watched everything we had collected for the last ten years leave item by item. The remarkable part was that as each thing left we felt a weight lift off of us that we didn't even know had been there. We had so much joy through this obedience. God sent many people to the sale to hear the word of our testimony and the message of Jesus. At the end of July we had whittled our worldly goods down to our necessary clothing, a few work tables and about a dozen bins worth of storage. We moved temporarily (although we didn't know how long) into our mom's place. It was clear that she wasn't used to all of us being around 24/7 and our normal routines were radically disrupted. We really needed God to move and He did.
A friend gave us a word from the Lord which led to our inviting several friends together to pray for us. While they were praying one of the brothers got a leading to call another believer who had a house on a lake and after a few conversations he said we could stay there without having to pay rent! We moved in October and have been here ever since. God is faithful. But that is really only the beginning. We didn't have anything for the house and God began to send people weekly to provide for our needs. The following is a sampling of what God has sent our way. A new queen-sized bed, a new toilet, clothes, a couch, a TV, a computer, groceries, water pressure (we didn't have water pressure when we moved in and God had our well pump replaced), the money to pay our bills, neighbors to clear our driveway of snow, people to join us on outreaches, love in our marriage, love for our kids, gentleness, humility, passion, brokenness and the faith to believe that God is faithful. Why is all this so significant? We used to put our trust in our jobs, our possessions and our ability to plan for how things were going to work out. In God's mercy He brought us to a place where He could build our faith and His faithfulness could be established in our lives. Do we believe in God? When we watched God directly provide our home and all our needs day after day and week after week our questions about His reality faded away.
We have been able to experience this God-reality beyond what we had ever hoped for or imagined. We see now that the only way to get to this place is to consistently obey God. In this place, without of all of our self reliance we have experienced the fullness of God's peace and the fullness of God's joy.
– Steven and Casey
I want to write about my dad. He is not a believer - yet. When I was in college and my Grandmother was nearing death, I wrote a letter to her, telling her the Gospel of God's love, because her time was so short and I knew she had never accepted Jesus into her heart. Sometime later, while I was talking on the phone with my dad he said to me, "That was a nice letter you wrote to Grandmother." I was shocked! "You read it?" I said. "Yeah, I had to read it to her," he replied. I'd forgotten that my Grandmother's eyesight was so poor she couldn't read anything anymore. I couldn't believe the slyness and creativity of God! Here was my dad, who is not saved, reading a witnessing letter to my unsaved Grandmother in her nursing home! She was very hard of hearing so my dad would have had to read really loud, too! I was so surprised that he approved of my letter to my Grandmother, since he has always been somewhat hostile to faith. I keep praying that my dad will get saved one day, because God loves him so much and sent his son Jesus to die for him!
– Pam | 
