I was born into a Lutheran family and confirmed at age 12. Confirmation to me was the same as graduation from Sunday School and church. From that point on I just attended church on holidays until I was married and then a little more often because I wanted my children to know about God. Most Sundays we didn't make it because I had a hangover from the night before. The first 10 years of my married life was spent in a bottle. A minimum of a 6 pack every night before I went to bed. I was miserable! One day while preparing the soil for a new lawn for a client on my second job, I was invited to a church service at the East Northport Gospel Church on a Sunday night. I was told by someone at work that "those people are crazy," which of course wet my curiosity even more. I went. A visiting Evangelist* was speaking on the Second Coming of Christ. I sat in the last row next to the door in case I had to get out quick! After all I had heard that these people were "crazy!" Sure enough he was preaching on something that I had never heard before, the Second Coming, so I took notes. At one point he yelled, real loud, "that tonight could be the night that Jesus returned!" As he yelled this and pounded the pulpit there was a clap of thunder and a bolt of lightning outside that just about sent me under the pew! I wasn't nervous, I was scared silly!! I went home and told my wife that my co-worker was right, they are crazy. Then we looked over my notes and much to my surprise everything the Evangelist said was in the Bible. So I started attending on Sunday nights. God revealed some amazing things to me and one day shortly there-after, on April 23, 1966, while home alone I did something I had never done before. I knelt down at my bed and asked God to take over my life. I also asked Him to hold off on the speaking in tongues because I didn't really know much about that yet. God in His infinite wisdom came into my heart to such a point that I thought I was going to burst! And burst I did, for one solid hour I worshiped Him in a language that I had not learned and when I finished I knew that I had said all there was to say. Thank God He didn't honor the second part of my original prayer to hold off on speaking in tongues! From that day until today I have served Him and He has never let me down. That day He Saved my soul and took away my need for cigarettes and alcohol, and He made me into a new person. I was truly Born Again! Now I am overjoyed to be known as one of those "crazy people." It doesn't matter what we are born into as long as our second birth is into Jesus Christ! Fred Limbach
