“I woke up one morning and my bottom lip was numb. I went to work and by the end of the day my feet were numb. I had Guillain-Barré syndrome. Your body begins to paralyze itself. I was in the hospital for two weeks. There was a night I will never forget. I was in excruciating pain. I began to praise God. In that moment God said 'I have been waiting for you.' I had been away from formal ministry for several years. God said 'I want you to create a faith community that is not going to be the norm.' Three months later I shared this with my wife. My wife responded 'yeah, I have been waiting for you.' The same words that God used. This was a confirmation to me. From age ten to twenty-eight I really struggled with my identity. I got married when I was eighteen. I was at a crossroad at age twenty-eight. I was about to lose my family. One night I was alone in a dark room and I said 'God, if you are real, I don't know how to get away from this.' God showed up in that room. In that moment I felt God's hope like I never had before. I said 'I am going to start from this day forward showing what it means to live in freedom.' One of my life verses is Galatians 5:1, “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.” At that moment I made Jesus Lord and I decided that I would spend the rest of my life showing people how to find freedom and stay in that freedom. I want to love people into the Kingdom. I don't want to be religious about it. I want to be real about it. Find someone who has walked the road and has discovered Christ without all the religiosity. My name is Dave and I surrender.”
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