I was born in 1937 to a share cropper family, the second of seven children. We never had much, and we all had to work hard from the time we were able to use a hoe or a pull (a little home made cotton sack) which for me was about five years old. I was reared in the back woods of southern Arkansas and it was not until I was about twelve years old that we even had electricity, which meant no running water. I was also about twelve before we had any means of transportation other than the old iron tired wagon and the share cropper mules.

       Then when I was fourteen, my dad left my mother. My older brother also left home about the same time, leaving my mother with four boys and two girls below the age of fifteen. My youngest sister was only six weeks old. At the age of fifteen, I had to take over by trying to farm enough to support my mother and five brothers and sisters. In the time when I wasn't working at home I would work for other people to make a little extra money to help my mother and family. There was very little thought of church.

       The summer when I was fourteen, I was staying with my dad and working just south of Little Rock on a dairy. One night there was an Evangelist and worker who came by where I was staying. My older brother and I were the only ones at the house that evening. We invited them in and they spoke to us about the revival services. Then they invited us to kneel and ask the Lord Jesus into our hearts. I did and it was that night that I felt a change beginning to take place in my life.

       I began going to church on a regular basis and within a few weeks returned to southern Arkansas. I began to feel the need to get closer related to this Christ who had made me feel loved and wanted for the first time in years.

       After about two years I visited a little Pentecostal church one Saturday night during a revival. It was there that I felt the love and power of God much stronger than I had ever felt it before. That feeling of God's loving power caused me to want more than I had already and caused me to realize there was much more that God had for me.

       One week later God filled me with the precious Holy Ghost which gave me power to over come the temptations and problems I had wrestled with in the past. I was baptized as most of the church world today is, with the minister acclaiming, "I now baptize you in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost". For years I felt I had done what I needed to do to help me live an overcoming life and be equipped for the rapture of the church or for the death and the resurrection of the dead. However, the more I studied the Bible, the more I felt that something was wrong.

       In studying, I found that the Bible way was repentance. (Which I knew I had done.), baptism in the name of Jesus Christ, which this was not the way I had been baptized. The Bible also said to be filled with the Holy Ghost with the evidence of speaking in an unknown tongue, which I knew had happened to me. Therefore, the only thing that I could see that I had done wrong was the way I was baptized, so I was baptized in the name of Jesus Christ, as the scripture said.

       I am now enjoying God's plan of salvation with the assurance of knowing that my sins have been forgiven and that I have done what the Bible plan of salvation has required that I do. I continue to live for Him and continue to witness for Him. By His grace I will continue to live and witness for Him.

- Curt Baker -