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Candace Early – 7-2023
Great Commission Church

Growing up, I went to church and Sunday school with my family, church camp and attended a Christian school all the way till graduation. There were some missionaries who came to our school to share their story of their experiences and that is when I asked Jesus to save me from my sins and prayed right where I was standing. It felt like the real thing when it happened, so I was baptized by sprinkling on Easter Sunday when I was 13. Not too long before I graduated from high school, I stopped attending church and just kept busy with work and doing other things. I went off to college where I had more freedom than ever, and I met some people who I let steer me down a wrong path which made me make some completely wrong choices. I let peer pressure take over my life.
I ended up losing my mother at the age of 21 and I was very upset with God because I did not know why this was happening. It made me grow up and take more responsibility. I thought I was being punished for all the wrongdoing that I had done in my life. I kept spiraling down the path that I was already headed down. There were many times I was truly being watched over by God because I felt like I should not have made it through. I started to realize that maybe there was a reason that God was watching over me. It sure made me realize just how much I needed to turn to him.
Later down the road of mistakes that I had been making, I met my husband Chris without even looking for him. When I met him, I was blessed to meet his mother and ended up getting married and having a much larger family. They made me see that I was made in God’s image for a much better reason than I had even realized all of these years. He always has a much bigger plan than we can even fathom. We started looking for a church to call home, and we could never find the right fit. We went to Great Commission Church because Chris had known Trevor for a while, and we also got an invite from a friend. The first time I visited, it was a completely different atmosphere and so welcoming. It was like everybody had known me for a while. We decided together that this is the place we wanted to call home, so we became members almost a year ago. 
Trevor was preaching on biblical baptism, and it made me realize that I wanted to be truly baptized by my church family. I believe Jesus loves me and gave himself for me. So, I want to honor him by being baptized the way he says in the Bible.