Drew Buell (Part 1)

The first time I gave my testimony was my freshman year of High School on a Mexico Mission trip.  I still remember standing in front of a crowd in the small city of Baviácora in Sonora Mexico and mumbling out the lines that I had rehearsed.  It was a traumatic experience for a freshmen boy but a valuable one in that it forced me to begin thinking about the larger story of my life, which was something that I had never done before.

Many things have changed since that first experience in Mexico but two things have remained the same: 1) I am a great sinner and 2) Christ is a great Savior.  My hope in writing my testimony out here is to draw attention to these two facts and to demonstrate how they have worked themselves out in my life and the paths that God has lead me down.

I was given the unusual privilege of being born into a pastor’s home.  My Dad served for several years as a missionary pastor at Bellevue Community Church in Santa Rosa, CA.  This unique privilege afforded me the opportunity to hear the gospel from a very young age.  On one of my bookshelves at church I still have my first copy of the Bible.  On the inside cover there is a note that reads “November 22, 1982.  Andrew asked Jesus to cover up his sin with Jesus blood and come live in his heart!”

Like many Christians, I don’t remember that day.  My mother has told me that I was in the bathtub when she explained the “Wordless Book” to me and I asked to be saved.  It’s hard to say whether I understood the gospel at that time or not, what I do know is that I was raised in a godly Christian home where my parents loved me, disciplined me (believe me, I needed it) and taught me about Jesus.

I believe that this alone is one of the greatest evidences of God’s grace in my life, that He allowed me to be born into the family that I was born into and to receive the kind of instruction that I received as a child.  Even as a sinful young child, God was carefully orchestrating the events of my life in order to call me to Himself in saving faith.