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Friday Foto Finish
By Jeremy | July 6, 2007
Diana and her grandmother, shortly after Nonna met Jesus. More Nonna pics here.
Reflecting on family today, I remembered the "Television Evangelist" webcast from several weeks ago. I'm a fan of Odd Thomas and appreciate his critique of many current televangelists in the song. But the caricatures of today don't eliminate the impact annointed Word, transmitted across various mediums, can have on a receptive heart. Consider the testimony of Diana's grandmother, Nonna, whom my granparents introduced to Jesus in part through television evangelism in the early 1970s. The following was originally posted after Nonna's funeral on August 19, 2005.
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At Nonna’s memorial service, Boom2 read the following testimony that Nonna had written in the 1970s. It reminded me again how inextricably linked Diana and I and our families are from before either of us were born. Nonna had shared it many times with me over the years, but hearing it recounted last night was extra-special.
(For context: the Vikses are my mother’s parents; Good News was a program my grandfather and his business friends sponsored; and Calvary was the church they attended.)
“… We were beset by trouble, in the summer of 1973, of such a degree that each and every member of my family was being affected daily. I didn’t know what was going on. … [S]evere depression had engulfed me. … “Unable to sleep, my husband and I turned on the television set and happened upon a program called the Good News. It told of the most powerful force in the world; it spoke of a LIVING GOD and HIS HOLY SPIRIT. A telephone number flashed on the screen and I dialed the number. Sister Vikse took down my address and sent me a Voice booklet. It was the beginning of a tremendous hunger for the Word of God. … “I read the Bible that gathered dust in my home for over 20 years. The beauty and the revelation of the love of God kept me awake night after night. But there had to be more. So once again I called the number on the screen and this time Brother Vikse told me of a church, called the Calvary Tabernacle. … “On a Tues. evening, we went to a prayer meeting at Calvary. It was Jan. 15, 1974. There were six of us. My three daughters, my sister, a friend and myself. An altar call was made and my oldest daughter’s hand went up. On seeing her hand go up, I raised mine, and so like a chain reaction we all wents forward to receive Jesus into our hearts. It was beautiful. On the way home, we said if it weren’t for her initiative, none of us would have gone forward. It was then that we learned that she didn’t raise her hand. She told us, “When Brother Vikse said, ‘There’s a hand raised there,’ I was a surprised as he was to see it was my hand’.†God had raised her hand for her. … “My son and my husband came to the Lord immediately after us. All that has happened to us was not by accident, for Jesus does nothing by accident. I am here to give a testimony of a generous God, of a loving God, of a healing God, of a God so kind, that He has led us to ministry for Him, leading other souls to the Lord.†[Italics mine.]
Topics: evangelism, family, foto, nonna, odd thomas | No Comments »
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