Based on interviews conducted on March 8 and March 10, 2020, in Santa Barbara, California: I was living in Florida, raised in Florida. When I was 15-1/2 years old, I was a little hippie chick wanting to go in that direction. I saw myself living in a hippie commune some day. My Dad would ask me, “What do you want to do when you grow up?” I would say, “I… Read More »Cathy’s Story
Based on an interview conducted on March 8, 2020, in Santa Barbara, California: My dad was in the Army, so we moved around quite a bit. And we ended up in Northridge, California. And from there I went to UCSB in 1965 for college. I decided on UCSB because it was a beautiful campus, a party school, and plenty of surf. And my brother was also going there, so I could use… Read More »Paul’s Story
Based on an interview conducted on March 9, 2020, in Santa Barbara, California: My name is Lynn and I was raised in St. Petersburg, Florida. There, my sister, Cathy , and I shared our church upbringing, but took different paths once we moved to Santa Barbara. We went to church with my mom when children, so had a Bible teaching background. When I was age fourteen, my sister and her… Read More »Lynn’s Story
A testimony written on 3/14/20: While I know Jesus came into my heart when I was 4 or 5, when led by a parent at bedtime I asked Him to, in college I “wandered away” and was into some kind of pantheism. All that changed in the space of a few weeks in which God pursued me very explicitly and directly through the Holy Spirit as well as through several people.… Read More »Nancy’s Story
Based on an interview conducted March 10, 2020 in Santa Barbara, California: I was baptized in the Methodist Church when I was a baby. I went to church pretty much every Sunday, because that’s what my parents made me do. When I went to college, I started having severe depression and obsessive-compulsive disorder. So in my junior year in college, I met this girl who was in Campus Crusade for… Read More »Bob’s Story
Based on a phone interview, May 18, 2020: Joel and I met at college in Marin County; we were in the same geography class. I really loved the Lord, but I’d gotten into astrology, and I was teaching a little astrology class there. He was sitting next to me in this geography class, and I said, “You’re a Cancer, aren’t you?” He said, “Yes.” We dated that whole year, then… Read More »Alicia’s Story
Requested by Ann Witkower – written February 2020, Revised June 2025 I was born in Memphis, Tennessee, the oldest of five girls, and I was practically raised in a Southern Baptist church. We went to church a minimum of three times a week, and we were very involved there. When I was ten years old, I was at a youth revival that was held at our church, and the visiting… Read More »Linda’s story