Why I am NOT a fan of short term missions or vacationaries & my personal testimony about before I was a Christian and how I became a Southern Baptist.

If you are interested to know more about Jesus or accept him as your Lord and Savior please review this printable document https://tinyurl.com/SalvationRomanRoad

I became a Southern Baptist by accident :). I essentially grew up atheist/agnostic and when I returned from a 2 year trip to Belize where I volunteered in the school I started studying religion in my mid 20s (all religions). Each year I chose a topic to study in depth and I was deciding that year whether to study religion or space. The Kennedy Space Center never responded to my request for information so I chose religion instead because I had no car and there was as church right around the corner.

Had the other church I went to first (down the other block) been open I might have become a new age person but a Southern Baptist Church around the other corner had an office that was open and the secretary informed me there were services I could attend Sunday mornings...I had no idea what kind of church it was. I knew nothing about God let alone denominations or differences between Catholics and Protestants, etc. I just thought all churches believed the same thing and knew they believed in Jesus but had no idea who he was. I most certainly did not believe that God existed. In my entire life I had been to a catholic church twice for midnight mass, a mormon basketball program, a Christian ski trip, a Jehovahs witness church once, and I had walked into an Episcopalian church one day during the day during a particularly difficult time, sat in a pew, and opened a hymn book and read a few lines, got nothing out of it and left.

I had some additional experience with Christians while living and volunteering in a school in a small remote Garifuna village in Belize 1994-96. I was the only white woman in a tiny remote village and well connected with the locals and all these groups of people kept coming and doing nice things in the village and so they latched on to me to ask about cultural things, translate for them (um Belizeans speak English..just listen) etc. They would come for about a week, fix or build something or do medical or dental care and leave which was fine with me. I didn't like them much as human beings anyway as they were not very intelligent and clearly showed that when I tried to talk about topics like science, environment and travel with them and they kept pulling the kids out of my special environmental and science program in the school to attend their programs which turned out to be playing games like duck duck goose or soccer or red light stop light.

They never brought up God and I would never have brought up that topic since I did not believe that he existed. I worked with about 400 short term missionaries in Belize from 1994-96. Now before you get too excited please know that not one of those 400 short term missionaries ever shared about Jesus, ever taught a sermon about Jesus that I was invited to, or asked if I had a bible. or asked if I believed in God, or talked to me about God or Jesus despite the fact that I would have happily ripped them a new asshole if they tried. I watched them fix teeth, give eyeglasses, paint houses, build houses, wells etc but I was completely unimpressed with their work and their ability to connect with the locals. They were disorganized, unfocused, seemed to goof off and chit chat a whole lot and the work was really shoddy and they seemed to spend more time playing with children who should have been in my well run program at school but were told by their parents they did not need to attend my classes because these missionaries had invited the kids to come for a special program which often included giving them candy, coke and sweets that the last missionary (a dentist) and myself had firmly educated them was bad for them.

Now back to the USA. I had resolved to study all religions that year and did not have a car at the time so I walked around the corner to the closest church which turned out to be Southern Baptist although I did not know what that meant. I did not really understand anything that was said in the sermons and the pastor said if anyone had any questions to contact him so I did. He directed me to a small groups Sunday school class (I had been attending the main church for many months and never knew those existed and in all those months no one had said anything other than hello to me). Now he informed me that in those classes they study the Bible more in depth and discuss it which sounded great to me since what he said in the sermons never made any sense to me at all. I also did not have a Bible and had asked someone if I could borrow one from the pews and been told that they did not think I could do that. I had gone to the bookstore and Bibles at my local bookstore were like $60 and so I had not bought one. I did not have internet at the time so my only access was Sunday mornings and I was getting nothing out of it. 

I was really excited about the classes because I love love love to study a topic in depth and I would get a first hand look at what Christians really believed. I felt like I had been invited to the inner circle and I was ready for some in depth discussion meanwhile other religions that I had written to were sending me hoards of written materials to review. I had received a Koran, several Hindu writings, poetry from Bahai, and tons of stuff from Jehovahs witnesses, my new age friend had brought me crystals and read my horoscope and arranged for hypsnosis for me but I had no Christian materials so on my way out I stole a Bible from the pew so I could keep up in the class. When I got home I opened the Bible and began reading. You study a book from front to back so that is where I started. I found the grammar and English to be horrendous and could not stomach it. It was sooooooo boring (so and so beget so and so beget so and so.... snore)...and sooooooo wrong and the way women were treated was horrifying to me. 

I went back to the Sunday school class week after week and soon discovered that these people were complete morons who had majorly messed up lives due to the fact that they were weak and had no self discipline which was something that Jesus teaches you should have (according to their own teaching) and they claimed to follow him but I was doing a way better job of the fruits of the spirit than they were and I wasn't even a Christian. The teacher would give us this little pamphlet to study with verses in it and I would study the verses in depth and read the entire book before and after and then come to class with a list of questions ready for debate. They had NO answers and clearly had not studied or read at all. They droned on an on about how so and so died and so and so was having a baby shower and so and so was going to have surgery. We only had an hour and half of it went to this nonsense which to me was whining. Those things are part of life. Deal with it already and lets get to the study. This is supposed to be class not a counseling session.

In frustration I went back to the pastor and asked if there was a different class I could take. During the next several months I attended many and found the same format and the same whining and the same lack of discipline. No one ever asked what I believed or took the time to witness to me and I did not agree with anything that was being said but to me I can study a topic in depth and discuss both sides of it without agreeing to it. I discovered their lives were a mess and I could not understand why...they just seemed to make one bad decision after another and come each week and whine about it. My own life was not a mess. I had made good decisions, was in school ft, had a decent ft job, saving for a car, was serving and helping many other people and could not fathom why they could not get their shit together. In frustration I went back to the pastor and informed him that I was thinking of quitting my study of Christianity because Christians were just incredibly lazy people who were weak and did not even take their own faith seriously and he asked if I would be willing to meet with him one on one for a special study where I could have my questions answered. I reluctantly agreed.

I went to my first study session with him and he started asking all these personal questions...umm what did my childhood have to do with studying Christianity...can we get to the study already...at the end he gave me a workbook called Experiencing God by Henry Blackaby and assigned me the first chapter. I completed it in like one hour and so kept studying and finished the book within a week or two. It was not hard and nothing was sticking and I certainly did not agree with anything that was written. I met with the pastor again and I think he was surprised I had completed the entire workbook. He said he would like to discuss the things in the book. I said fine.

We spent the next several months arguing about all the nonsense written in that book and at one point he took the time to teach me about concordances and commentaries...ummm someone should have told me the church had a library on day one...that would have been a game changer for me and why the hell is it locked and in some hidden room in the basement. You should have to walk through the library to get into the church building if you want to reach an atheist. During this study I also learned a key thing...the difference between the old and new testaments. He told me to focus on the new testament for now and that we would get to the old testament later. Free to read the NT I finally started to make some progress because I could stomach it better than the horrendous acts described in the OT though I still could not fathom the terrible grammar. I liked when he taught me the greek and hebrew and enjoyed the commentaries (finally someone intelligent) and avoided the Sunday school classes like the plague that they were. I did not make the effort to connect with the average pew sitter and they did not make the effort to connect with me which is a relief because I would have decimated them as they were just plain stupid and did not like to study or take their faith seriously...at that point I knew a lot more about the Bible than probably 90% of them.

A few tried to reach out and invite me to things like baby showers...um no...you are contributing to overpopulation....I will never celebrate that. One tried to befriend me and invite me to some women's group...umm no...I am a feminist and you believe that men should lead and the only reason that you are meeting with only women is because the men won't let you have any say and btw you weigh like 300 pounds so you obviously have no self-discipline which is a significant requirement for anyone to be my friend because you cannot make progress in life without self-discipline.  

The pastor always probed into my personal life which irritated me and I would have preferred to stay focused on the study but the study did require some personal introspection which did take us down that path so I reluctantly shared. Also I was attending on Sundays when I could and his sermons were more understandable now that I had more context so I would sometimes bring up those topics as well which took us in the direction of prayer or speaking and listening to God which is also a key part of Experiencing God. One day the pastor took me to this little room that was sectioned off from the nursery and in it were lots of journals with hand written prayers and some went back probably 80 years. People would initial when they prayed and make a comment if God showed them something. I noticed the same 10 people praying week after week after week (finally someone with some self-discipline). They also noted in red ink on some of the prayers if they were answered but the prayers were whiny and needy and self centered. No one was asking for world peace or an end to hunger or war or to save the environment or feed the starving child refugees in Africa which were all issues heavy on my heart. They were asking for things like healed relationships with their spouses (umm do the damn work already you moron), prayers for surgeries (umm don't you trust the doctors who have performed thousands of successful surgeries), prayers for school tests (um again do the damn work), prayers for fertility (thank God you are not reproducing because your IQ must be about 100) etc. 

I was not impressed with the prayers but could not ignore the red ink and the pastor encouraged me to talk to God even if I did not think he existed. I was rather sarcastic and my first prayer was that all the stupid slow lights on Wickham Road would be green so I would not be late for school (I could not leave earlier because of work). He answered the next day. I decided to take it further. I want an A on my test but I don't want to do the homework. I go an A. I did not do the homework.  I want xyz boy to call me and ask me on a date. He called and asked me on a date. The evidence was mounting. One day I went to the prayer room and there was another woman there. That had never happened before..the prayer room had always been empty when I went (I had a code and often went later in the evening after school). The woman emerged and introduced herself as Patty. She was short, rotund and wore a bright pink blouse and had white hair and was about 60 and talked in a thick southern accent. I did not hate her...something about her was a little different. She asked me if I was the GS that had been initialing for several weeks and I said yes and then she said well God must really hear you because nearly all of your prayers for others have been answered. I looked and there were lots of red marks...lots more than they had for many years. Hmmmmmm. Now this so called God had my attention. I decide to investigate further and speak directly with the people that I had prayed for and they confirmed that it was true. So now after about a year of study God finally MIGHT exist. I did not tell the pastor. I kept it to myself and continued meeting with him but I argued less and listened a little more. He was very patient but he kept digging into my past which upset me as I am very goal oriented and believe the past is in the past and can't be changed and we should focus on the future which still can be molded.  

At one point he became busy and asked if I would consider meeting with another couple who could spend more time discipling me. I reluctantly agreed and began meeting with the another couple...I did not like them. He was fat (a pet peeve of mine..which is ironic because now I am overweight and still working on taking it off) and she was not smart but they were very patient and the first thing they did was present the plan of salvation. I definitely was not interested in what they had to say and they struggled to relate to me without the context from the discussions with the pastor but they tried and they invited me to their home for a group dinner and study. I went. It was the first time I had been invited into the home of a Christian and their home was clean and neat and tidy and not lavish or fancy and it was welcoming...the dinner conversation was mind numbingly boring and when I tried to take topics deeper they kept diverting back to shallow waters (probably wisely realizing they were way out of their depth with me even on religious topics at that point).

Anyway, my home at the time was a mess because I was working full time, going to school full time and studying religion on the side and volunteering with environmental groups as well so I was too tired to clean. I left their home thinking how nice it would be to have my home physically in order and resolved to allocate some time to getting the physical messes at my home cleaned up which I had neglected. As I sorted through items in my house in the coming weeks I discovered a lot of excess and made a big donation pile and tossed out old and broken things. It was rather cathartic and I prayed while I did it. I asked God who should this go to or can I let go of this and he clearly put specific people in my mind and I think this was probably the first time I HEARD from God in my head. It felt great to get my physical house back in order and apparently God was putting my spiritual house in order though I did not know that.

I was never one to invite people to my home but I did invite the couple since they had invited me to dinner. I discovered the old man was a little smarter than he originally let on and we had some interesting discussions about Africa where their children served as long term missionaries. This intrigued me because I had a real heart for Africa and I did not know missionaries could go for more than a week at a time. The next time I meet with the pastor I told him I wanted to go to Africa as a missionary. He was surprised because he still did not know that I believed in God. He patiently explained to me that a missionaries job was to spread the gospel. I assured him it was not and asked how many missionaries he knew and he said about 20 and I said well I have worked with over 400 and none of them ever shared the gospel, they built wells, led soccer camps, and fixed school roofs, helped with dental and medical etc. This was the first time he had heard about my experience in Belize and I think his face literally went white as a sheet. 

He took the rest of the time to explain to me what a missionaries real job was and I was very very confused because that had not been my experience. He asked me what denominations I had worked with and I told him Christian. (I still knew nothing about church structure or denominations). We spent the next several sessions discussing different denominations and church structure etc. so I could understand the difference and that was very eye opening. I had no idea that Catholics, Mormons, Jehovahs Witnesses etc were different than Protestants and had no understanding of the different protestant denominations. This was the first time I learned that his church came from a denomination called Southern Baptist. He showed me the Baptist Faith and Message and I was impressed at how thorough it was and asked if all of the people in his church believed that and he said that yes to become an official member of the church they had to agree to that. He then explained membership to me which I also had no idea about. I thought I was a member because I was attending regularly. I had some interesting things to think about because I knew I was to go to Africa and that he was somehow a part of that. He had also taken the time during the meeting to go through the plan of salvation with me but he used different verses than the other which was also confusing. I declined to accept Jesus. He did not interest me. Helping Africa interested me.

When I returned home I noticed an interesting thing. All of the other religious materials were on the bottom shelf and had been neglected for months and no longer held my interest but my stolen Bible had been on my top shelf for many months and was becoming well worn next to the borrowed commentaries and concordance. I noted that my new age friend had let me down several times and others had not responded to my questions at all. I continued my study one on one with the pastor and occasionally met with the other couple who also introduced me to some people where were on something called a missions committee and I eagerly talked to them about Africa any chance I got. I was an artist and they showed an interest in my art (I now realize that must have been very difficult for them because it was far outside of their circle of knowledge and they probably went home and studied some art history so they could talk more intelligently with me). I appreciated their effort to appreciate my art and they suggested that maybe someday I could use my artistic gifts for God. I told them I found it very strange that the only art in their church was a stained glass window and that churches in Europe were filled with art and asked if they would ever let me do a mural at the church in the style of Michaelangelo. I noticed they changed the topic quickly but did not think much of it but they did mention that maybe someday I could teach an art class at the church which intrigued me. I was just beginning to study art history myself so was not yet knowledgeable about the reformation etc. I filed the information in the back of my mind and continued with my busy life and studies.

I started to struggle with the meetings with the pastor because he was probing more and more into my personal life and those were things I would prefer to put behind me...I was always a future focused person and never liked to dig up old stuff but he kept probing and sometimes I cried or got angry which was out of character for me, a normally well put together professional person. I was getting more emotional and I did not like it one bit but I kept going back. I studied many things and read nearly all of the books in the little library and one of my favorites was a video series from the church library on spiritual warfare from Derek Prince. It talked about generational curses and I had noticed in my family certain patterns such as alcoholism and mental illness which had not plagued me but had plagued others but I still did not believe in Jesus so it was hard for me to connect all the dots.

After about 2 years in church (18 months one on one with the pastor) I was sitting in the pew one day and suddenly stood up to go forward to give my life to Christ. I had no intention of doing this and almost turned back but I went forward. 6 weeks later I was in Africa as part of and IMB trip which is where the rest of my public testimony begins which you can read about here

https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/salvation-testimony-early-ministry-gretchen-smith-gretchen-smith/

This is an excerpt from that article

"One day (around 1998 as best as I can recall) unexpectedly, while sitting in the far back of the congregation, I suddenly stood up to go forward even though I do not recall having had any intention to do so. I was sitting in the back of the church and I had to walk down a very long aisle to go forward to publicly give my life to Christ (my private and public acceptance and proclamation came at the same time within moments). I remember starting down the aisle and wanting to turn back and feeling like I needed to go to the bathroom and I almost returned to my seat but then the song called "I have decided to follow Jesus" started to play which prompted me to keep walking forward. I later learned this song was not in response to me choosing to go forward but was pre-planned which I still find interesting today. This song has become a cornerstone to my faith journey especially two parts: The first part about "No Turning Back" and the second part about "Though None Go With Me, Still I Will Follow" have gotten me through many dark nights of the soul. The song has a very interesting history related to missions which you can read about here."

History of the Song "I have Decided to Follow Jesus"q?

and an excerpt from the end of that article

"This picture at the top is of me at the memorial for Mar Tejeda, a lifeguard and surfer who was shot in front of me on October 4, 2013 in Rosarito Mexico near the San Diego border and bled out in my arms and died. I was put in jail for the murder. It was not the last murder or horrible act of violence I would witness in Mexico. Stay tuned for the rest of my testimony still to come...