I was born and raised in a small town in Illinois located west of Kankakee called Union Hill. I lived there for 22 years of my life. I was raised in a Christian home and went to a small country church known as Grand Prairie United Methodist Church.
When I was in 2nd grade I almost lost my dad to a bad automobile accident. He was in the hospital for quite a while. My mom was going to nursing school at that time, so my sister and I spent a few months with my Uncle Ed & Aunt Ruth (who were also Christians too) because mom was going to school and working and spending time with my dad at the hospital. My mother spent a lot of time praying to God, as she didn’t know where the next meal was coming from. The next morning she would wake up and find a bag of food on the front porch.
We attended church every Sunday whether we wanted to or not. After my dad’s accident our family became a dysfunctional family, but we always attended church and was always a close family.
Every fall our church would have old-fashioned tent revival meeting for a week. They were held in a tent in the Hertz Groove, a wooded area in the country outside Bonfield, Illinois. During my junior year in High School, I gave my life over to Christ. But nobody took me on and nurtured my walk.
After High School I worked for a few years and went part time to a community college, but I never could make up my mind on what I wanted to do. During one of the tent meetings, we had a speaker come who was in charge of outreach for Westmar College in Lemars, Iowa (a Methodist college). He spoke to me a few times after the meetings about the college.  He found that I liked working with wood and invited me to come visit the college, as they had a great industrial arts program there.  I visited the college and got very homesick when I crossed the Illinois/Iowa border.
I finally got the nerve to go to school there in the winter of 1980. This is where I met my first wife. After spending the winter and spring semesters here, my brother talked me into attending the next fall at Illinois State University. I applied and was accepted, but in September I got married and left for ISU. However, after one semester I returned to Westmar due to medical problems. I completed another semester there, but had to drop out due to loss of financing. This was just before my son was born, and then we returned to Illinois.
I worked for a few years at low paying jobs, but when I lost my job, I had to go on welfare. I decided to return to the community college and get my Associates Degree in Electronics. Upon graduating, I got a job working for Illinois Bell Telephone Co. and had to move to Joliet, Illinois. I still had a hard time making ends meet, and this caused marriage problems, so I just started to work longer hours.
After moving to Joliet we quit going to church and I grew away from God. Finally we had to separate and go to different places as we were being evicted from our place. I moved in with my sister and my 1st wife moved to Texas with her best friend.
Finally I managed to get us out of debt and find affordable  housing near my job. But when it came time to get back together, my 1st wife asked for a divorce. I had a hard time giving her the divorce, as I believed that marriage was “till death do we part”.   It wasn’t till after she became pregnant with someone elses baby and I had a lot of counseling, that I was able to grant her the divorce.
It was then that I moved in with my sister, and I started to attend Calvary Memorial Church in Oak Park, Il. I got into a Sunday Morning Class Called Salt & Light. Here I started to get back closer to God and I rededicated my Life to Christ. Then I got involved in a Men’s Saturday morning Bible Study and grew even stronger in my walk.
After my son graduated from high school, I started to date again and met Denise, my current wife. We dated for about a year and then got married on Feb 14 2004.
We both have a strong love for Christ and we both have a desire to work in missions using our talents and abilities. In January this year, I was able to go on a missions trip to Mississippi Gulf Coast to help rebuild homes that were damaged by hurricane Katrina. I have a wounderful prayer life with my wife, and hope to spend many weeks going on future mission trips with her. We are planning on going on our first missions trip together in March of this year.
Pray for us, that we can maintain our health and that God will use us to help others.
My Testimony
Lauren Meyer
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