Episode 55

Behind almost every man of God is a wife who, through quiet confidence in God, labors to manage the home, nurture and raise the children, support her husband, mentor and encourage other women, and bless those without her family any way she can. She typically does so without recognition, joyfully doing so for her Savior who removed barriers and made her a glorious daughter of the King. Join us on this episode of the Removing Barriers podcast as we talk to Debra Sommerdorf, wife of evangelist Dave Sommerdorf and mother of six, and discover how Jesus translated her from darkness to light that she might be enabled to serve and how our barriers can be removed, too.

Deb’s Book: Becoming A Glorious Daughter of the King

And I think a lot of young people raised in Church, they’re so accustomed to hearing it and hearing it and hearing it that it’s not penetrating. But you stay close to the Lord and you say separated from the world. And I encourage parents. Don’t stop. Keep your kids pure. Guard them, know their friends. And that means friends in books and movies and Internet and whatever they’re doing know their friends, guide them in their friendships because the Lord does want to call them and say, hey, I want you to be my ambassador. Thank you for tuning in to the Removing Barriers podcast. I’m J and I’m MCG, and we’re attempting to remove barriers so we can all have a clear view of the cross. This is Episode 55 of the Removing Barriers podcast and this is a 13th in the series of how were your barriers Remove? In this episode, we’ll find out how the better half of the summer or family barriers were removed when she came to a saving knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Do you have the desire to earnestly content for the faith which was once delivered onto the Saints? Answers and Genesis can help. They provide biblically sound books, CDs, DVDs, homeschooling materials, VBS materials, online courses, digital downloads and the Answers magazine and more. Plus tickets to the Creation Museum and Ark Encounter. Go to the Answers bookstore by clicking the link in the description section below so you too can be ready to give an answer to anyone who asks the reason of the hope that is in you.

Welcome to the Removing Barrios podcast. Well, thank you for having me. Great. Be glad to have you because I don’t know how many people have actually interviewed Breda Dave’s wife, but the Moving Barriers podcasts should be up there. Yes, I think it’s happened one other time in Virginia. One other time a radio. Okay, great. Well, we’re not first, but we’ll stuck up a second. 2nd is good.

Alright, let’s get into a testimony. What state or country were you born in? I was born in Michigan while my dad was out at sea, so my mom went home to live with her parents during her pregnancy while he was out of the and I was born there and spoiled to death by my grandparents. Was he military? Yes. Navy. Okay, great.

What type of family were you born into Besides the fact your military family? So you obviously probably move around often. Was it a Christian family or was it moral or what was your family upbringing like? Well, my dad retired state in Navy and he was not saved, but my mom was. So my mom faithfully took us to Church and she had us involved in youth camp, vacation, Bible school she taught. So she was faithfully in Church and did Bible studies. So we attended Church. My dad would come home when he wasn’t at sea and he was okay letting us go to Church. And I don’t remember him coming except for, like, Christmases or Holy days, the holidays he would come until I became a teenager. And then he started coming to Church, and then he got saved. Me and I have two younger sisters. So I’m the oldest of three, and we did move every few years.

So do you recall there being any tension in the home in some families where one parent is saved and the other isn’t sometimes they don’t see eye to eye. And there’s a little bit of a struggle there. It was it something where your mom had you involved in all of these Christian activities in the Christian things, and your dad was pretty much hands off, and he was okay with it. Or was it more like a. Well, I guess I’ll have to endure this kind of thing. Was it, you know, he didn’t have a problem with it? It was okay. Now, once in a while, my dad was like to go camping. So a couple times during the summer, we would do a three or four day camping trip. And, of course, that meant we did miss Church on Sunday. So I do remember that happening a couple times in the summer, but otherwise there wasn’t contention over that. So I’m grateful for that.

So you seem like your dad was a pretty moral guy in that sense, very much so that the right wrong was wrong. And I remember as a young teen girl, my dad told me things were going on, and he said, no, I want you to know something. I’ve got your back. If you’re obeying and you’re doing what’s right, I got your back. He said, but if I find out you’re lying to me or you’re doing something, he says, I’m the one coming after you. So he was a good dad. He had struggles, but he was a good dad to me. So I’m very grateful to have that.

So he had three daughters? Yes. How instrumental do you think you and your sisters were in his life that bring him to Salvation? Because we all know that daughters typically have their father wrapped her under now, and I have to claim that I was his favorite. And he would say that, you know, we spent time talking about the Lord and everything. I think the big thing was we got into a really good Church on Whidbey Island, and the men there were men at some of the other churches. They would just come Sunday, but their life outside a Church was not Christian, and that testimony kept him distant. But then when we moved to Whidbey Island and he started attending regularly because the men that were there were real. And I really think that made a big impression on his heart and life. And he gave his heart to the Lord at that time.

Do you remember the first time you heard the gospel? I do not because I was raised in Church. I heard it all the time. I can tell you the stories and the verses and the songs. I did know it, but there’s a big difference from knowing something mentally and logically and then trusting it. Yeah, definitely.

Would you say that because you heard the gospel all the time and you can’t remember the first time you heard it, that that would be the same when it comes to your realization of your sinfulness. Did you always have a sense of your sin before the Lord? Or was there, like this watershed moment where you just realize I’m a sinner? And how did that go for? You know, I had a great blessing. My mom had good news clubs in her home, which you don’t hear of them very often anymore. What would happen is people in an area, a Christian home would invite all the neighbor kids after school to come over, and they would do, like, a mini Sunday school there. So we, of course, did that in our neighborhood until winter hit. And we invite the kids over and we’d have sunny school songs and everything. And we did that four months. And then I remember I had turned seven and we had started doing it when the school year started. And like a month and a half later, Mrs Carothers, I still remember her name. She was teaching up there, and this light went on. And when she was reading the stories and the verses and the things already knew them. But they became real to me. I understood that this wasn’t just Jesus dying on the cross. This is Jesus saying, I love Deborah Summer, and I died for her, and my heart quickly surrendered. It was real in my heart, my life. And I understood what the penalty of my sin cast the Lord. I understood what I deserved. And I just went to the cross. And I believe I actually got saved before I went to her and talked to her a man, because the reality and my heart, my heart just yielded. When I understood that this was talking about me, I just willingly yielded to the Lord. But then, of course, after the lesson, I went up to her and talk to her. And she walked me through the plan of Salvation. And that’s how I got saved. Remind me of the same brother that within our Church. He says that believing that Jesus died across its history, believe Jesus. Diane, across for sin is theology. But believe that Jesus dine across from my sin Salvation. And it seems like you just come to that realization that now this historical fact that you know, and this geological fact, you have become Salvation when you personalize. It isn’t that amazing. They came very personal. And then when I would hear things I’ve heard before, it was different. It was so different.

Do you think the fact that you’ve heard these things before your whole life? Do you think that was a barrier to you in terms of hearing the gospel and getting saved? Or were there other things keeping you from realizing, or was it just a matter of time? I probably was just too young, you know, even raised in a Christian home. And the songs and the stories and everything, I just finally became of age to really understand the penalty for sin, you know? Did you like, no. Did you like, yes. And you get in trouble. But I think that was the age where reality hit. And I understood the real penalty wasn’t sitting in the corner, you know, it wasn’t getting grounded or whatnot it was the death of the Lord Jesus Christ. And now I don’t believe there’s any barrier in that respect. I think when the Lord revealed himself to me, I quickly yielded, and that just helped and supported everything.

How did your parents what is a moment that help you, as a young girl to realize this? Do you look back and say, Man, because my parents discipline me a certain way, or they were kind to me in a certain way, help you come to that realization when you heard the gospel, I think the biggest way they helped me was to get me into churches and vacation Bible school and lessons and doing things on that line, just getting me out there. My mom didn’t necessarily teach me. I can’t remember her being a SUNY school teacher of mine, which sometimes is a good thing, you know? But I do remember her always taking us to different things. And I think that was the biggest part that she played. I think that’s great. And my personal testimony, I don’t know if my parents are saved. I hope they are. But I wonder. But one of the most wonderful things they ever did for us is to make sure that we were in Church every Sunday. And the Church that we were going to wasn’t even all that great in terms of doctrine and teaching and all that sort of thing. But just the very act of going to Church every Sunday. And still in my mind that this was important, we’re coming to hear from the Lord. We’re coming to interact with the Lord. And so later on, when I could understand the things better, I at least knew where to go. I wasn’t out in the world looking for stuff, at least knew where to go. So I can totally identify with what you just said there. Yes, it was a big blessing, right.

So you were the barrier, maybe, of understanding. You came to the realization I came to and understand, hey, I’m a sinner. I’m in need of a savior. And you said, hey, you got saving me before you went up to the teacher. And that’s great, because a lot of times, folks, I think I believe that they have to pray for Salvation or to do certain things for Salvation. How do you navigate the teaching of you must be led to cries, or you must properly save in a certain way. How do you navigate that teaching in your life today? If someone were to ask me about that, Salvation is believing. It’s not saying a prayer. It’s not doing something. It’s you seeing yourself for who you are and what the Lord did for you and believing on Him that he loves you and he forgives you of your sin, and he can pay the penalty for that. And I believe on the Lord Jesus Christ at that time. And that is how I would caution someone when they were like, how do you know I didn’t need someone to walk me through the prayer because actually, I already knew it. I had heard it so many times and the stories and everything, I knew it. So it was just a matter of my understanding and then going to my heart and trusting. And so that’s how I would explain that. I just trusted the Lord with my whole heart.

So your mother, your grandmother, how did you navigate these concepts with your kids and even now to your grandkids and assume you’re very active in their life? So how do you navigate these concept? Because as we were discussing in Episode 54 with your husband, you know, this thing has come into the Church and kind of make, you know, false convert, in my opinion, at time. So how do you never get the first with your kids when they were growing up? Now, also in your life of your grandkids? Yes. We have six children. And when they were in our home, of course, I read to them all the time, missionary stories, biographies, Christian biographies. I was always reading to character books, a lot of biblical books at their level, and we talked, but I never push them to the Word of God, as in saying that they needed to be saved. I let them bring it up. But I did tell them the stories of what the Lord did, healing people. I mean, you go through the Gospels and the love that he had, and even for the children of Israel, and they’re constant disobedience, which we all know our children are constantly disobedient, but the Lord still love them. And so I would use these things. But I never did push or pressure them to get saved. That wasn’t my purpose, because I don’t know when like myself that they had the knowledge and their heart was open to receive the gospel, I couldn’t tell that. And so I just wanted to make sure that they had all the information they needed. So when that time came, they would willingly yield like I did. So I took them to events. We sang songs, we memorize scripture, we read the Bible together. I homeschooled him. So they all had Bible classes that they did. And that’s how I helped to prepare them to receive the gospel. And I trained him what right and wrong was consequences. Just like there’s a consequence for turning your back on the Lord Jesus Christ. And I also extended mercy occasionally, just one. And then we have twelve grandchildren. And so we don’t see them as often as you would like as we would like. But that’s natural for children or with their parents. But, you know, whenever we’re there, we do devotions with them. I always try to teach them a Sunday school song and we sing it before we eat all the time. And we pray together. And I talk to them and they share what they’re learning in sunny School. And I ask them what verses they’re learning, and they quote them to me. And I get excited about that. I buy them missionary books and give them to them to read. Keeping the yes, I am. And different things. Like this year I bought them all Jonathan Park for them, and it’s CDs talking about creation versus evolution, story form. And the kids love them. And it’s my way of giving them the gospel. Yeah. I used to work at a real station in the Caribbean where we put Gen Anton Park on. And it’s a pretty interesting JAMA Rada JAMA series. So it’s something I think about getting from my boys, but I haven’t got around together. I got them run Hamilton Com free, but they didn’t seem to be interested in it, so probably wait until they get a little bit older. And perhaps there was a lady at the Church who gave us a Jonathan Park series. We have it. Yeah. But I think it might be because when she gave it to us, our oldest was maybe three. It might be able to only have one of them. Not all of them. Yeah. Cool. All right.

So, Deb, let’s go into your book, Becoming the Glorious Daughter of the King. You’re an author? Yes. Yeah. That’s quite an interesting story. Please tell us. I did not know that you had written a book, so we got ready for this podcast as well. The story is longer than that because my husband had been trying to get me to do more speaking, and I do not like to speak publicly. Well, thank you for doing this. Yes. So several years ago, he was preaching and they were looking for someone to do their ladies retreat. And so he said, you know, you should call my wife. And so he comes home. Many mentions. Oh, I just got a call from Liberty and they would like you to speak for them at their ladies retreat. I was like, what? I can’t do that five lessons, you know. And I mean, from nothing to five lessons, I know. And so he said, well, you pray about it and you call them and let them know he wasn’t going to tell them. Well, I couldn’t do that. I couldn’t tell him know. So I had about four months to get ready and, boy, let me tell you, nothing gets your heart right then, knowing you have to speak in front of 60 to 70 ladies five times. And, boy, I got close to the Lord and became this series that I wrote my book on becoming a glorious starter, the King. And it deals with her heart, her husband, her heritage and her habits. Those are my lessons. And I got questions out because I know that through questions we grow. And so I went and I spoke at this lady’s retreat. And on my flight home in Dallas, the airport was closed down because of weather. And so I asked the Lord. I said, Lord, there’s going to be hundreds of people in that airport. Would you please provide me a chair? And he gave me a seat on the front row, looking out at the airport, at the planes coming in, and at the storm. It was a beautiful place. And I was so grateful. And I sat down there and the Lord said, I want you to write a book. And I said, Lord, you know, this is me. I don’t have a computer. I don’t type. I don’t I don’t know how to write a book. I don’t know. He says, That’s what I want you to do. And for the next couple of hours, he ministered to my heart. So I came home and it was like, God wants me to write a book. And that’s how this book came about. And it wasn’t something that just happened because the Lord called me that everything just flowed. I can remember when I first started writing the book. I wrote like three, four weeks into it. And I stopped and went back to read from the beginning to see what I had accomplished. And I turned my computer off and I got on my knees and I cried. And I said, God, this is not what you called me to write. You would not call me to write this. What I have written is Deborah Summer Dorf. Nobody wants to read that each logical. It’s black and white. It’s not what you want. Lord, this isn’t what you want. You are going to have to do something miraculously in my life if I’m going to write this book for you. And I know you called me to do it. And so for the next couple of weeks, I begged God, every moment I had God, you’re going to have to work in my heart. You’re going to have to do something. I’d be doing dishes. And I’d be telling the Lord I want to be used of you. But I don’t know how to do better. You’re going to have to do the work. And I remember there came a time I was working in the RV. Day was gone. And the Lord said, I want you to sit down and write. And I sat down. I opened the computer. I went to a clean page. And I started writing, and that writing is what is in this book today.

It’s amazing that Dave was gone when the Lord revealed that to you, though. Yes, not that be it that I had the opportunity for peace and quiet. I know. Have you know, my husband’s a major communicator

that says here, according to Goodreads com, the description of your book is, have you ever found yourself a little bit behind where you would like to be in your spiritual walk? I have more times than I would like to admit. Life is very busy and frantic, robbing us of daily victories in our lives. Becoming a Glorious Daughter of the King is an organized weekly or monthly lesson focusing on an area of our life that the Lord wants to see changed or strengthened. Each lesson has soul searching questions that help you to pinpoint where growth needs to take place. Using the Word of God as your diet and Compass, this book can be helpful for individual study, Sunday school class, monthly ladies meetings, or oneonone discipleship. That really brings in my mind, because when I think of women today and the simple onslaught that is feminism in our culture today, women don’t understand what their roles are anymore. Biblical woman has all but gone out the window. Women are getting married and having children, but being able to keep the home and raise children. They have no spiritual underpinning because the Scriptures are no longer important to our society. So it sounds like in this book you were seeking to address that. Can you tell us, what is it that you wanted to communicate to women? What was it that you wanted to get across? Were you talking about how you’re praying to God to do that work in you, to give you His message for women? What is that message? What do you want to tell women? Through your book, I see that we have come through an era where mothers have not taught their daughters and mothers are not taking their children to Church and they’re not reading the Word of God. So when I go and Minister to ladies, which I do quite often biblically, they are pretty bankrupt, so they don’t know how to find peace. They don’t know how to find comfort. And so when something happens in their life, they literally just fall apart. And so my desire, after working with several ladies and several years, was to try to provide some kind of basics to help them to grow. It’s simply a discipleship thing. If you were to look in here, these in the front of the book, I address this book to my girls. I have four daughters and I have two daughter in laws. At the time of writing this book, I only had one daughter in law. And these are the things that I would want to give them and help them so that they could be equipped and well prepared to be a Godly. Christian woman a Godly Christian wife, a Godly Christian mother, whatever goals and whatever calling that they have that they would be able to be fitted for that. And this book would help and guide them. So that’s why this book was brought about in my book. I have lots of questions and the questions come across. I ask a question. Then I ask the reader to write down steps to get to that point. Like, say, you know what fruit of the spirit is missing in your life? And they could pick one and they could say, Well, joy. I’m not a joyful person. And I say, Well, what are two steps that you can put into your life to help change that? How can you add that fruit of joy to your life daily? And I allow them give them the space to think about it and write down two ways that they can allow joy into their life. So it sets through into the other people in their surroundings seem to be very practical and very practical. That’s who I am. A very logical and practical. Great.

What has the reception been like for the book? How incredible. The first year I went through almost $800. Great. So where can we find this book? I’ve been looking online at Amazon. Who is it available? I have it. And when we get our web page set up, it’ll be on my web page. Great. So I haven’t gone through Amazon. Just a small rider here. Great.

You’re listening to the Removing Barriers podcast. We are sitting down with them and we are finding out how were her barriers removed and also talking about her book, Becoming the Glorious Daughter of the King. We’ll be right back.

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Second Corinthians 517 says, Therefore, if any man be in Christ, he’s a new creature. Old things are passed away. Behold, all things are become new after Salvation. Debt. What changes were evident in your life? The reality when I hear the stories, I could claim them as mine because I understood them. And the promises. And the reality that the Lord could walk on water and rescue his disciples. He could heal a blind man. I was like, well, that’s my God and was very, very powerful. I had a desire just to hear the word of God. I would sit. You know how kids are. You sit in Church and you’re like, will this be over your but I began writing in my Bible, not as in coloring or just underlining things and writing definitions and things just changed drastically in my life. And I was very excited. And also, you know, sin became very ugly to me, lying or stretching the truth. All those things, they became heavy weights and they became something that chased me to the Lord. And I definitely felt conviction for my sin.

Do you still have that childhood Bible that you on the line? I do. I have all of my Bibles that I’ve had, and I usually keep a Bible for a very long time. And I have all of them. And they all of them very well written in very precious to you. They are very precious. Right now. I have a brand new Bible, which my lovely daughter in law, she took my Bible, and she found this exact same Bible that was on Use book, but is brand new. And she got it for me. So I’m getting ready to open them up and transfer into the other Bible. So I’m very excited about that. Right.

So do you think the way your barriers were removed as a girl growing up hearing the gospel message over and over, do you believe that where your barriers remove would be effective to remove someone in your situation? They are barriers as well? Yes. I think so, because I can think of lots of young people that I talk to that have been raised in Church from very, very young. Some of them resent that some of them do not. But they had the same barriers that I had. And I think it would help them to realize, you know, going to Church, being drug to Church and made to do this and that it is a blessing. But sometimes you don’t realize that to your older, you know, it’s just like Christmas, all that wonderful candy at Christmas and presents. It’s wonderful to have there at that moment. But you always get that sick tummy feeling after all those sweets and things. And sometimes when we look back and we see our parents bringing us to Church and making us do whatever, I think, then we start appreciating it. Yeah. Sometimes we don’t realize what we have. I made a claim at time that Americans, speaking of someone who was born in the Caribbean, Americans don’t realize what they have in terms of the opportunities that they have to them. And I read one. I think it was the men that say that Americans are too prosperous and have so much that we have to fabricate problem for ourselves and taking that to the Church. A lot of the kids that are raised in Kristin home to realize the blessing it is to have parents that will keep them away from the ills of the world and stuff like that. So. So speaking to what you just said, you know, a lot of them, you know, they have so much candy, the stomach is upset, but they don’t realize, hey, you have it so good. You have it so much better than someone who is raised in a home with abusive home or home that you have no hope of Salvation. Where there’s a dearth of the teaching of God’s word, there’s no. And I have to say, too, that because I was raised in a Christian home and I had great my pastor and Church family always. And it was good preaching and teaching that I was able to stay clean and separated from the world. And when I turned 15 during my 15 year during a business meeting, my pastor, of course, business meetings, usually they just give a little devotional, and then you go through all the moments and the numbers and everything. And usually we try to get on nursery list that night. Well, I miss and the Lord worked that out, but I was listening, and my pastor bought his lesson. His little devotion before the meeting was about us being a postmark for the Lord, ambassadors for the Lord. And it was like ten or 15 minutes. And he talked, what does that stamp do? Number one, it says it’s from America, and it’s on a purpose to deliver something. And during that message, the Lord got a hold of my heart. And the Lord told me he says, you know, I have something for you to do. I want you to serve me. And not that I hadn’t been serving the Lord, but I really hadn’t been serving the Lord. I was faithful to Church. I was saying my memory versus. I mean, I was listening to him say his memory versus and reading my Bible through in the year. I was doing all that in my Christian school. I got the Principals award. You know, I was a good kid, but the Lord was calling me and saying, I want you to be an ambassador for me. And that was in February, and I surrendered to the Lord. And I went to my pastor the next day at school. And I said, Pastor, I need to talk to you. I said, God wants me to do something. I don’t know what he wants me to do, but he called me last night and he wants me to do something. Is there something I can do in Church? And right away, he had me start assisting in a Sunday school class. And I call that migrate awakening. And I think a lot of young people raised in Church, they’re so accustomed to hearing it and hearing it and hearing it that it’s not penetrating. But you stay close to the Lord and you say separated from the world. And I encourage parents. Don’t stop. Keep your kids pure. Guard them. Know their friends. And that means friends in books and movies and Internet and whatever they’re doing know their friends, guide them in their friendships. Because the Lord does want to call them and say, hey, I want you to be my ambassador. Yeah, that’s amazing that you said that. No, their friends and not just the physical friends, but also the friends and the TV shows and everything.

Because before my wife and I got married, and even before we got kids, we were talking about how are we going to raise those kids? That the Lord bless us with a lot of Esses with three kids now. And my wife especially said that she didn’t want to introduce the kids with superhero like Superman, Batman and all these things. But the funny thing is we have introduced them to dinosaurs and stuff like that. And my oldest and of course, the second one, because they’re so close in age, have no turn the Spinosaurus to Super Spinosaurus. It’s natural. And they have no Super Spinosaurus can do anything imaginable. How do you think that we can prevent those kind of idols items might be too strong of a word, but how can we prevent those from foster in her life over kids? Or should we say, okay, they’re five. They’re six. They’re going to be doing these things. And I would say they’re five and their six, their imaginations are crazy and they want to be the best. And God puts that that’s part of our nature is being the best, and they’re inventing a pretend world. I mean, my granddaughter has a fairy garden and she has sticks for little house and fabric over it and then little flowers and things. It’s not real. But she tells me the story of what everything is that’s just preparing them for adult life because we do the same thing. I want to, you know, I want to be in computers, so I need to go to school here. I need to do this. We do the same thing as adults. It’s just there’s more reality, hopefully in our dreams. 25. It might be a little bit crazy. Flying dinosaurs. It 25. Yeah, I think that’s a natural step of life playing and pretending right now.

You’ve mentioned that when you were about 15, God put on your heart that you need to be serving him. And you went to your pastor and said, God wants me to do something. I don’t know what, but God wants me to do something. And he put you as an assistant in a Sunday school class. So I imagine because you’ve mentioned before that you ministered women and that you obviously teach alongside Brother Day. So teaching the people of God, women and children has obviously been a part of your effort to reach hearts with the gospel, the word of God, the things of God. What are some of the other things that you’re doing personally, particularly in the area of evangelism, especially since we’re talking about barriers and how barriers to Salvation and how they can be removed? What are some other things that you’re doing personally in your life to get the gospel out to people, whether it’s stranger on the street, maybe your grandchildren or other brethren that you talk to in the Church. What are some of those things that you’re doing to plant the word of God in the hearts of others? Okay. Most of my influence goes to save people, but I do have the opportunity. When I am out in public. I try to always be cheerful and compliment people and help people. Like, if I see an older Lady Loading groceries in her car, can I help you? O Lord bless you. You know, when I get done, I try to look for opportunities like that and encourage couples. Like, I was in the airport a couple months ago in this family, and they had four children, and they were in the hallway trying to arrange thing. I said, you know what? I’m a grandma. I just have my twelve grandchild. Can I help you? And I got to do that. I said, you’re doing a great job. You know, the Lord says children are a blessing. You know, I want to encourage you that you invest in your children. The Lord wants you to invest him, and I don’t know if they weren’t saved, you know? Right. But that was my opportunity with lost people. We had the Corvette, which, you know, about our car, and we get that out and have the opportunity to talk about freedom. Freedom is not free. An eternal freedom is not free. And so I had an opportunity there. But my main focus now and that I have is I get to encourage women that are in Church. And even though we see people in Church all the time and they look right and they act right and they say the right thing. But, you know, we all have needs. Absolutely. We do not have a life where every day the sun is shining. But we try, unfortunately, in our society now to make it look like we’re on top of the world. But I have a lot of opportunity with ladies, and I love on them and encourage them. And they’ll come to me and they’ll share things with me. And I get to open God’s word and challenge them sometimes. Encourage them, give them hope, hug on them, cry with them, pray for them. I have ladies that I call every week. I have some ladies that I call every couple of months just to be an encouragement and see. How are you doing with that, you know, help to give them direction of the next step they need to take. I do a lot of that. Part of my book is that I speak occasionally, of course, with COVID. That’s kind of been difficult. But I did do a lady’s retreat last summer on the West Coast. I have another one coming up on the West Coast is next year. I have face time that we’re going to be doing next month. So I get to speak and encourage ladies. I do a lot of praying for them. I’ll have them. When a lady come to me and ask for prayer, I ask them to write it down because I just can’t remember everything and I keep them. And I try to pray for those for a couple of weeks and I don’t just read them. I really pray for them, you know. And I also have a list of I have one child that’s not serving the Lord. And so I have a lot of other ladies that we call prodical children that aren’t serving the Lord. And I pray for them quite often when I pray for mine. So that gives me an opportunity to Minister and carry their burdens and share my burdens with them. So they see that I have needs just like them in humanity. And prayer is indeed our greatest work. A lot of times pre become our last resort, but it’s actually our greatest work. We can do as sole winners and to encourage you to so important.

alright. So we want to go into a little bit of a fun section. But before we do get to find out all our free your husband, you know, they say behind every good man there’s even a better woman. How did you grow in love with Brother Dev? You know, life was real different. When we got married, we married and we went to Alaska to do missions and being at 40 below for weeks on end in a trailer and a husband that was gone all the time and children right away. It was really rough and we helped start three churches and so pretty much everybody that came into our sphere were first generation Christians. So there was a lot of work involved there. But I do have to say now that my husband and I have just are enjoying the best years of our married life together. We have learned to communicate well together. We’re very sensitive to each other’s needs. And these are the best years and I’m very grateful for them. It has been 37 years. 37 years. Last week you don’t look a day over 40, so I don’t know how he did it, but definitely.

So tell me, what is your previous scripture verse? My favorite. It changes sometimes, but this has been mine for a long time because one or this week. Yeah, well, this one has been for several years. First time of 1224 to my book, only Fear the Lord and serve Him in truth with your whole heart for consider how great things he had done for you. And when I got on the road and Ministry in 2001, I felt like a fish out of water. I knew how to disciple people in my home that I knew day to day and saw in services in a Church. But when you come to a Church where everybody’s a stranger and you only see them for a week and you’re gone. I didn’t know how this was going to work. I didn’t know what I was to do. It was very difficult for me. And this verse, I was doing a devotion. I don’t remember where it was, but I read it and this verse came alive to me. And the Lord was saying, hey, all I want you to do every day is only fear me and serve me in truth with your whole heart. And one day I’d be able to look back and consider what great things he had done for you.

This is not in the Five questions, but as you talk about that, what claimed to my mind was two things. First of the ladies are very relational compared to men. I can go to Church. And quite honestly, after the service in five minutes, I can be gone. But my wife will be, oh, I’m going to be there in five minutes, but 20 minutes later she’s still talking. So I’m assuming you miss that kind of fellowship going from Church to Church, I get a lot of fellowship with the ladies in the Church. It all depends on the Church. But I spend a lot of time with the ladies in the Church. I look for opportunities. Sometimes I make opportunities. I find someone sitting by themselves. And I grew up on a farmer. When an animals by itself, usually something’s wrong. They’re sick. So if I see a lady by herself, I on purpose go over there and try to spend time with her and ask her questions and encourage her. So I look for opportunities and talk to people and try to just love on them.

This might be a little bit of a personal question, but I’ve heard that they say that the pastor is probably the person in the Church who doesn’t necessarily have a lot of friends. They have a lot of people that come to the pastor. But a lot of folks are not the past as friends, so to speak. The path doesn’t really have that person he can run to. I’m assuming someone in the Ministry the past, his wife could be a lonely place as well. And your wife have evangelist. Do you find that to be true to be? Sometimes I can be a lonely place. And if so, what do you do about that? I’m really grateful. I remember many years ago on the road we had another evangelist. Something happened and they had a need in their life. And I looked at what would I do if something happened and you are in the hospital, what would I do? I said, Well, let’s just start listing the people that we know we can count on if something happened. And, you know, we got up to, like, 40, some names. We are so blessed. We have invested in many people. And if they have a need, you know, we try to be there for them. And, you know, the relationship we have with others. It’s not a relationship of us being in a position above them. We’re just sheep, just like them. We just are the sheep that go first down the path sometimes. But it doesn’t make us a better sheep, right? We’ve just kind of been this way before, and we are allowing them to follow behind us, like in a snow path. We break the trail and we have loads of friends, and I’m thankful for that. I start getting discouraged, like you’re saying, which happens to all of us. I get lonely in my RV by myself or discouraged or I miss my grandchildren or something. I have friends I can call. And, you know, I don’t even have to tell. I’m discouraged. I’ll pick the phone up and go, Miss Tanya, what do you do? And she says, Deborah, I just got done at the jail, and I got to witness to this lady, and she got safe and, you know, listening to her and what she’s doing for the Lord, it just lights my candle again, and I get excited. So I’ve learned to go to my friends and just listen to what they’re doing for the Lord. I also like music. I have lots of music, so I put Godly music on and that encourages my heart. And I’m a big reader. I usually have two or three books going at the same time. So I’ll have, like, a missionary book that I’m reading. I’ll have like, right now I’m reading one from Charles Hadden Spurgeon. I’m reading on him. He’s going through the Gospels. And then I’m reading another book about culture in the New Testament and how that figures into the stories and how they come alive. And definitely add my wife and I to that list of folks you can call on. Okay. Well, thank you. That’s really sweet. Definitely.

What is your favorite Bible history? Call it history, because the definition of the word story have changed so much shorter last years. So we’re going to list it Bible history because we believe the Bible history. What is your favorite Bible history? I love the Gospels, but I really love the story of the Lord going on purpose to heal the maniac of Gadara. And for several reasons. I mean, because many people tried to help him, but nobody could, right. The Lord healed him. And if you remember which, that’s amazing in itself, because this has been going on this man’s whole life. And I believe he was a man. So the Lord healed him immediately. It did take a process of time. But then the other side of that same story is the demons asked, don’t cast us into the wine. And if you remember, they ran off a cliff and the caretakers of the swine went back to town and told them what happened. And the people of the town who knew who the maniac of Gadara was. And when they came up, they saw him clothed seated at the feet of the Lord came and quiet. And yet the people of that town were so focused on the monetary loss of this wine that they ask Jesus to leave them, go away. And the maniac said, you know, I don’t want to say, I want to go with you. You’ve healed me. I want to stay with you, which is only natural. But the Lord to know, I want you to stay here, and I want you to be a light for me here. So what? He knew in that little bit of time with the Lord, it could have been an hour or two or three. I don’t know. We don’t know. But in that time, the Lord ministered to his soul in such a way that he was able to go back and love on the people of his town. And when the Lord came back, they were all waiting for Him. And that is my favorite story. There’s so many perspectives today. Definitely.

What is the most convicting scripture passage to you? Oh, boy. Mark 648, It’s where the disciples are in the storm, and they’re trying to keep the boat a right. And these are fishermen. They know how to handle a boat and a vessel. And the Lord walking on water. And the last part of that said that he would have passed by them. And the reason why that’s so powerful for me, because I see myself in a boat serving the Lord trying to control everything. And the idea of the Lord walking by my life and just passing me by is not something that just scares me. I would not want that to happen. So it causes me to say, hey, in all that you’re doing, don’t forget to ask the Lord in

what about the most comforting scripture verse? This is a verse you go to when you want to hug from the Lord was comforting, you know, Psalms. I go to the Psalms, and there are so many of them. It depends where I am and what I’m doing. But I just start reading the Psalms because many of those are written when David was at his lowest and when he was at his highest, and they lift up who our God is. And sometimes my problems become bigger than who my God is. And when I start reading those, then it takes and puts my God above anything this world could give or put in my life. Right.

Do you have a favorite hymn of the faith? Jesus is all the world to me. I was like, Jesus is all the world to you. That one. Yes. That first force and that cars. I love that first. And the second one is standing on the crossroads. That’s not an old him. I don’t know exactly when it came out, but I heard that as a teenage girl. And I actually still have the recording of a teenage choir singing that. And that song. When I many many, many hundreds of times in my life, I’ve come to the road of I quit or I don’t know what to do and I have a major decision and sometimes I want to do the wrong thing. I don’t want to do the hard way because some things we need to do are harder. And many times I have listened to this song Standing at the Crossroad. In fact, I remember one time standing in my RV and listening to it for three or four times and it challenges me and encourages me. Okay, I’m at a crossroad and it helps me to make the right choice, even though it’s not always the easiest choice.

Who’s your favorite giant of the fate? David. David. Yes, David. Because he did everything that I see myself doing, failing and being prideful and not admitting, then failing and then confessing, helping people, running away from people. David is like me. He’s like anybody would be today, and yet he had to make choices and decide to serve his Lord.

Alright, so we’ve come to the point now where we’ve heard your testimony. We’ve talked about your book. We’ve talked about those favorite verses and favorite songs that really encourage you in the Lord. And generally we’re talking about barriers, particularly barriers to Salvation. And so how can the barriers that we described in this podcast so far and whatever other barriers you might think about, those barriers between a soul and the Salvation of Jesus Christ, how can those barriers be removed in the lives of others? What is the gospel message? Well, I think many times the gospel message, I mean, it’s like it wants to shine. I think many times we handle it because, number one, we’re not shining, right? And, you know, look around, face it. We are so consumed with materialism and making ourselves happy and that we aren’t shining the light. And I think that right. There is the biggest barrier we have. If Christians would be the light and assault, there were supposed to be that our co workers, when they have a problem, would come to us and say, hey, you know, this happened. What do I do? Or I was wondering, what does this mean in the Bible? But that’s rare that it happens because we aren’t the Sultan like me as a woman, you know, thinking of your neighbors, how many neighbors know you’re a Christian because you’ve gone to them an extended love to them and told them and brought them cookies and, you know, did things for them. I think that’s our biggest barrier right now that we have is we’re just not salting like the other. One barrier is we don’t know how we’ve not learned how we might sit in Church. We might go to Sunday school, but we’ve never sat down and wrote down the steps of how to give the light out, how to share our own testimony. Those are the biggest barriers there because there is so much need out there. People act strong because they feel if they don’t vet, people will look down on them. But there’s a lot of hurt out there. And when I go out there and someone starts talking to me and I have the opportunity to sit down with them, it’s amazing what they tell me. And I’m like, Why haven’t you gotten help here? You know, cause I know there are people right there that could help them and lead them to Christ or help them with their insecurities or their problems. But we are not shining and we aren’t the salt. I think that’s the biggest barrier right there. Christians are not the salt and light. We need to be there.

Thank you for joining us and Removing Barriers podcast. Well, thank you for having me great. It was a pleasure.

Thank you for listening to get a hold of us to support this podcast or to learn more about removing barriers. Go to Removing Barriers net. This has been the Removing Barriers podcast. We attempted to remove barriers so that we all can have a clay view of the cross.