Wisconsin

I, Curtis Eckstein, grew up in the '60s on a small farm near Oshkosh, Wisconsin. I never thought our family was poor, but we wore handed down clothes and hunted for the food we ate. There were no neighbors my own age, so I spent a lot of time doing chores, or in the woods.

Our family was conservative Lutheran, and church was the only activity outside the farm. I hardly ever missed a Sunday service. My parents always prayed before meals and read from the Bible each evening. Many of my friends stopped attending Sunday school in the ninth grade, but I continued—active in our youth and musical groups.

Because of time and distances, there was not much time to spend with my church friends. My friendships at school were centered in sports, drugs, and narcotics. During my senior year, I decided to attend college and worked to earn money. Once in college, I had to make all my major decisions alone. I struggled between the pull of academics, social activities, and church.

Since church was important to me, I made an appointment with the pastor to discover what leadership roles were available. When I walked out an hour later, I never returned because the path I had been counseled to follow was to listen to church laws, not the Bible. The last serious effort I made to be a Christian was to join Campus Crusade for Christ. They were interested in performance, but I was searching for God. I found it easier to just join a fraternity and immerse myself in my old habits. I turned my back on God.

One night in a bar, I met Sandy. We began dating, and five years later we were married. I am certain that if God had not brought Sandy into my life, it would have been a disaster. Married life helped me mature. Sandy and I decided to both work and earn enough money to move from the city to a country home where we could live simply and watch the world collapse, as the books we had read described.

During this time I had contact with different religious views, including mysticism, the occult, and new age. Then something changed, and both of us had a new desire to know God. Sandy, a Catholic, and I, a Lutheran, began to search for a meaningful church. I thought we could find one through the Yellow Pages or a television program.

Providentially, I discovered Three Angels Broadcasting Network (3ABN ). As I watched, the messages did not mesh with anything I had learned. They did, however, cause me to begin to read my Bible again and to rethink the basis of my faith. As a Lutheran, I had gone through a life of "doing things." The messages on 3ABN touched my heart. Faith became real to me. Now I saw Jesus as the Savior who had come to die for my sins and save me. I felt grief and shame.

That fall, Leo Schriven came to Green Bay, Wisconsin, to present a Bible prophecy seminar. Sandy heard a radio announcement, and a few days later a seminar flyer came in the mail. It seemed like something we should attend. Although we had been watching 3ABN, we had few ideas about the Adventist Church.

We went the first night and were welcomed as if we were friends who had been away. As we listened, the truths were laid out before us with a force and certainty we had never heard before. The Holy Spirit changed our lives. A week before the series ended, we were both baptized. It's been a long strange trip, but we have finally found our spiritual home!

Curtis Eckstein, as shared with Bruce Babienco, volunteer Herald correspondent