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Walking through the streets of downtown, I was handing out tracts to anyone who would accept it, and proclaiming the wonderful experience of how they can get the Holy Ghost with the evidence of speaking in tongues and being baptized in the name of Jesus Christ.
When I arrived at my bus stop, I handed a tract to a gentleman who was extremely interested in coming to church. I began to address the life changing experience of receiving the Holy Ghost by quoting from Acts 2 and Acts 19, where the church era began when the disciples received the outpouring of the Holy Ghost on the day of Pentecost.
We continued our conversation on the bus, talking about the Lord. Before we departed ways, I received an assurance that he would come to our meeting. At his first meeting with Covenant Assembly, he remarked that he enjoyed the preaching and singing. From that time on, he would come to church whenever he was in town.
At one memorable service, he received the gift of the Holy Ghost and was baptized in the name of Jesus that very day! He later said that he like my approach and the way I presented what I believed, as well as being interested in the doctrine (of an experience with God). He had he had been approached by Jehovah Witnesses before but belt no real drawing.
Covenant rejoices with him for receiving the Holy Ghost for himself right in Heather Glen, the church in your neighborhood.
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From Left-Brained to Right-Minded
by Daniel Garcia with Connie Hicks
I was born on the 4th of July in the fifties. My parents were low-keyed, easygoing; I guess you could consider them both left-brained; they never policed me hard. If I wanted to stay out all night, which I did when I was 17 or 18, my father said, just call me son, my mother said nothing. I was a "gear head"; I liked to work on racecars. I never smoked, drank or used any illegal drugs; I thought that that was very dufas (stupid). I really only liked to drag race on the weekends. We worked on a customer's car, and sometimes my friends and I would race them to make sure that they were "alright"!
Church wise, I was raised in a Spanish-speaking Presbyterian church, although my parents were both bi-lingual. When I was 14 years old, we went to the English-speaking church in our new neighborhood. I didn't think anything about church services except they were dull and boring, I couldn't wait until 12 noon when church let out! I was 16 when one of those Hispanic civil rights groups took over the church, and changed everything into Spanish-speaking customs. I finally left this church when I was 21; I never learned a thing there.
In school I was in the upper ten (10%) percent as a student, averaging 3 days of school a week. I missed attending Homeroom a lot. So I was always on the absentee list. This allowed me to skip the classes I wanted without getting caught. I really liked only Math and Science subjects.
Most of the time, my parents had no comment about my school attendance. Constables would call the house, and I answered the phone and told them that I knew Daniel Garcia was not it school that day, or gave it to my mother. As long as my grades were good she didn't care. Others were smoking dope and getting drunk around me, but I thought this was worthless. Most of my close friends were from my school in the old
I finally graduated from the University of Houston with a Mechanical Engineering degree. About a year later, I decided to believe on the Lord Jesus, be "saved" and walk with God. I always had a god-consciousness, but nothing I saw or heard in any church made me want to get closer to God. There was no power in "believing in the Lord Jesus Christ ". Although I was frequently faced with depression during my early 20's; it never occurred to me that there was any power for me to overcome my affliction. Finally, I just gave up and went back into the world. I lived much the way I wanted as I had done my whole life, relative to me. By the end of another year, I was in an adulterous relationship and had two lady-friends at the same time. I then felt that doing my own thing was harder than "believing in the Lord and being saved", so I quit it.
When my father repaired a neighbor's car, I realized that I had some strange neighbors. A white lady with her two daughters and a single black young lady lived across the street from us. There was
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something about them, but I didn't find out what until my father volunteered my services to fix the young lady's car. I started asking her questions about the LORD. No matter what I asked, she always had an answer. I never found any conflicts in her answers. I was the type of person that once I find a conflict in your answers, I quit listening. Finally I went to this Spanish Pentecostal church with them pastored by Bro. Hector Torres. After his preaching I got the Holy Ghost. Deborah said, and others that they heard me speak in tongues. Acts:10:46 (I thought I was speaking funny because she was doing it.) She said that the next day, I had a glow, and my skin color and eyes were a different color. I did feel different, but was unsure of the gibberish I spoke, since I was more concerned with being saved, I never questioned it. That was in July 5, 1984. Awhile later, I went to this Pentecostal church off Almeda-Genoa Road and got baptized in the name of Jesus. I felt a tremendous weight lift from me. Although I had changed and my mother had noticed, she thought that I was being a "religious crazy"; but my father never seemed to have any reaction. Later I would find out that he had received the Holy Ghost speaking in tongues and was baptized in the name of Jesus in his earlier years before I was born. This explained why when Deborah and her friend was having a "street meeting" in front of their house and singing, mics, Instruments and all, my father raced home from a neighbor's house to record the singing. He has kept that tape to this day.
I started going to this church although I never really got into the service by praising the Lord. In one service before I was baptized, Deborah started speaking in tongues in the middle of everyone worshipping. Her tongues seemed stronger than usual and with much authority. It was different. Suddenly the Pastor began to say, "You don't believe this is real, but I will show you, saith the Lord. I didn't know what to think, but I was told this was the gift of tongues, with interpretation by the Pastor.
I had a very interesting episode that proved to me that I really had the Holy Ghost. I woke up choking and fell over on my wife. She said she saw a hugh muscular man choking me as we lay in the bed and she began screaming, not knowing what was wrong. When the bed began to shake, she rebuked the devil and it stopped. Later she called our friends and seasoned saints, Bro. and Sis. Sparks, because we felt so much fear in the house, and they prayed with us. Sis. Sparks told her to anoint my lips with oil, which she did, I immediately began speaking in tongues fluently, and have had no more trouble with it. Bro. Sparks rebuked the demons in the house, and I heard him cast them into the sewer system in our apartment complex. That sewer system was never the same! The maintenance men were never able to fully repair it again and it never worked right. Pastor Roch said someone was using witchcraft against us.
From then on, I acknowledged the change in me. Depression that had plagued me for years left and I never again had any problem with it. My new wife showed me nutritional ways to stop the progress of my Acne. No more break outs after I decided whom I would serve. Later on, God and my wife showed me that I needed to forgive family and friends that had done me wrong. I learned that I must forgive them all, if I was to keep a right relationship with the Lord in right standing. There is
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