 | Wyldewood Baptist Church |  |
| Preaching the Word Reaching the World |
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| Ministry Representative | Rev. Donald Stertz |
| Mailing Address | Couriers for Christ 3030 Witzel Ave Oshkosh, WI 54904-9371 |
| Church Phone | (920)235-5400 |
| Home Phone | (920)685-6285 |
| Fax | (920)231-3721 |
| donstertz@wyldewood.org |
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Don's Testimony |
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Call to the Ministry |
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Laura's Testimony |
I was raised in a very religious Lutheran home. We had to go to church every Sunday, even if the weather was bad, and could not stay home unless we were deathly sick. I learned many of the stories in the Bible and even developed a respect for the Bible. I guess I could say that I even loved the Bible and God, but I didn't know God. When we were small, my dad even made us listen to Billy Graham when he was on TV. In fact, my dad used a Lutheran devotional book and many times would make the family sit down around the table and have devotions. As a child, I hated that. I would rather have been playing. But God used those times to plant seed in my heart.
In my teenage years I strayed far from the Bible and God until one night, when I was 19, and in a drunken stupor, I had a very close call with death. At that time this question really hit me, "What would have happened to me if I would have died?" For the next eight months, I was scared of dying and sought for peace of mind and soul. I tried reading the Bible and lived in anguish of soul for those months. Then on March 19, 1972, I was at the bottom of the barrel, loaded down with guilt and sin. I took my Bible, sat down with it, and just let the book open by itself. It opened to Romans the 12th chapter. As I began to read, many of the sinful things I had said and done in the past came to mind. With a broken heart I began to weep and told God something like this, "God, I've messed up the first 19 years of my life, I'm sorry, please forgive me! I want to give the rest of my life to you." At that point something happened! The guilt was gone! The heavy heart was gone! I became a child of God!
Around that same time I had a visit from the youth pastor of the local Baptist church. I had visited that church a few times, then was Scripturally baptized in June of 1972, and have been active in that church ever since.
To God be the glory!
While we were faithfully serving the Lord in the Southside Baptist Church (now the Wyldewood Baptist Church), my wife and I had a strong yearning to do something more in the service of our Lord. In September of 1974, after hearing our preacher, Pastor Howard Nelson, bring a message, the Holy Spirit prompted us to surrender our lives to God. And we did.
At that time I asked the Lord if He had something special for me to do, that He would use someone, a preacher, missionary or an evangelist, to touch my heart. October 1974 came and we had a Mission Conference in our church. In that conference we had a missionary who presented the need of getting the Gospel into Communist Lands. God used him to challenge my heart to serve the Lord in that field of service. In January of 1975, we became part-time representatives of that particular Iron Curtain Mission. Through this mission, I had my first opportunity of going behind the Iron Curtain. In the spring of 1978, I traveled into East Germany, Hungary, Yugoslavia, and Romania. During the mission trip the Lord burdened my heart to quit my secular job and to go full-time in this type of ministry. Which I did in August of 1979.
In September of 1979, I was ordained into the Gospel ministry. About this same time the Lord impressed upon my heart the need to establish a local church, Bible believing Baptist ministry reaching into Communist Lands. In November of 1979, Baptist Couriers for Christ was born. We established a base in free Europe and for years smuggled literally hundreds of thousands of Bibles, books, and pieces of Gospel literature into Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union.
But now, under glasnost, we have an open door like never before to distribute with legal permission Bibles and Gospel materials into many of these countries. So today, the need for our mission is far greater than ever before, as we attempt to evangelize THE GREATEST MISSION FIELD OF OUR GENERATION, Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union!
I was raised in a Catholic home. When I was a sophomore in high school I was witnessed to by a born-again believer. After a few months of hearing the Gospel in her church and watching the testimonies of the other kids my age that attended there, I finally saw myself as a hell-bound sinner in need of a Saviour.
At a special meeting God took the "scales" off my eyes and I walked down the aisle, hit the altar, and repented of my sin and asked the Lord Jesus Christ to be my Lord and Saviour.
As soon as I was of age I came out of the Catholic church and was baptized at the Southside Baptist Church in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. I went through many heartaches with my Catholic parents because of my conversion and wanting to become baptized, but I believe that they too will be saved one day.