My life before Oct. 1972 was a time of seeking God without a knowledge of the helps of the Holy Spirit. My family also entertained the works of the devil for three or more generations. I was told who I would later marry by a "devil board" a friend Joan and I were using. As my life in the Word of God and my marriage has evolved I know I am part of the ongoing work of our Lord of Love to reclaim lost ground from you know who.
I have learned so much through the support of hundreds of Spirit-filled sisters and brothers how to be a holy man. Of course the best way I learned was living daily in households.
Currently I have been challenged and encouraged in my prayer life by praying on Tuesdays from 4-6 am. One time I wrote Phil Tiews an e-mail saying I was not able to be there on a particular morning. He shot me back a message saying "no problem, it's pretty crowded at the church with all the saints and angels praying along" with him.
Thanks be to God for giving me the Word of God Community to grow in the
life of the Holy Spirit.
Paul Woodward
Monday, December 17, 2007
Monday, December 10, 2007
Frank Bondy
The “Shining White Cross” prophecy says, “You will sow a harvest that you will hear of in years to come.” It ends with the exhortation to “equip them and send them out.”
I had two stints with the Word of God, first as a student from 1972 to 1976, then I returned with my wife from 1980 to 1984. In the intervening years, I served as a junior officer in the U. S. Army.
Being a quiet, shy person who preferred to stay on the periphery of things, I was a rather nondescript member of the Community, certainly not one that you’d identify has having a part in fulfillment of the “Shining White Cross” prophecy.
While stationed at Fort Hood, Texas, I attended a small prayer group at a Catholic church in Killeen, TX. One Pentecost, a Catholic chaplain on Fort Hood, a Louisiana Cajun named Fr. Howell Champagne, up and decided that what Fort Hood needed was a Charismatic Prayer Group. However, he himself had absolutely no background in the charismatic renewal, and appealed for help. Someone who knew me from the Killeen prayer group dropped my name with Fr. Howell. Because I had been in Ann Arbor for four years, I suddenly became some sort of an “expert” in his eyes. I explained to him that I “wasn’t all that,” and it wasn’t like I’d been a leader or anything. Why me?
He retorted that this was like so many other assignments that a junior officer has, in which they are not really an “expert,” but nevertheless are responsible for training their soldiers, and are responsible to learn what they need to know to do so. He also reminded me that surely I was on a first-name basis with some people in Ann Arbor who could help me obtain some books, pamphlets, manuals, and tapes that would be helpful in getting us up to speed.
So from being a “nondescript” member of the Community, I suddenly found myself part of a small core group that taught the Life in the Spirit Seminar, and the Foundations course. I’m glad no tapes exist of the classes I taught. But as unpolished as they may have been, they were rooted in what had been developed in the Word of God Community. And the Lord certainly blessed the endeavor. By the time I left Fort Hood, the prayer group was thriving and growing. And the way things work in the military, how many people went forth from Fort Hood and took the message to other installations?
And to make this story complete, the young lady who would eventually become my wife received the Baptism in the Spirit during that inaugural Life in the Spirit Seminar.
It was during my second stint with the Word of God that the Sword of the Spirit was formed. Little did I know how that would affect me and my family. Soon after, on short notice, my company transferred me to Gaithersburg, Maryland. Our move was made a lot less traumatic by our almost seamless integration into the Lamb of God Community in Baltimore. Later, when we were pondering a job change, a move to the Pittsburgh area was attractive because of the People of God Community, of which we were a part for ten years. We were not the only ones to benefit in such a way, as we encountered people from Ann Arbor in both of these communities. What a blessing to be able to have the support of brothers and sisters when you move to a new place!
Life has taken me in a different direction in recent years, with my involvement in men’s ministry, first with a group that grew out of Promise Keepers, and more recently, with the Catholic Men’s Fellowship. While I joined these groups largely out of my own neediness, I am able to support my brothers in some very, very difficult situations largely because of the foundation that was built through approximately twenty years in Christian community. I am able to bear witness to the Lord’s goodness and mercy, and thus bring encouragement to others whose lives need to be transformed.
It has been a blessing for which I am most grateful, and I thank the Lord for the Word of God.
Frank Bondy
I had two stints with the Word of God, first as a student from 1972 to 1976, then I returned with my wife from 1980 to 1984. In the intervening years, I served as a junior officer in the U. S. Army.
Being a quiet, shy person who preferred to stay on the periphery of things, I was a rather nondescript member of the Community, certainly not one that you’d identify has having a part in fulfillment of the “Shining White Cross” prophecy.
While stationed at Fort Hood, Texas, I attended a small prayer group at a Catholic church in Killeen, TX. One Pentecost, a Catholic chaplain on Fort Hood, a Louisiana Cajun named Fr. Howell Champagne, up and decided that what Fort Hood needed was a Charismatic Prayer Group. However, he himself had absolutely no background in the charismatic renewal, and appealed for help. Someone who knew me from the Killeen prayer group dropped my name with Fr. Howell. Because I had been in Ann Arbor for four years, I suddenly became some sort of an “expert” in his eyes. I explained to him that I “wasn’t all that,” and it wasn’t like I’d been a leader or anything. Why me?
He retorted that this was like so many other assignments that a junior officer has, in which they are not really an “expert,” but nevertheless are responsible for training their soldiers, and are responsible to learn what they need to know to do so. He also reminded me that surely I was on a first-name basis with some people in Ann Arbor who could help me obtain some books, pamphlets, manuals, and tapes that would be helpful in getting us up to speed.
So from being a “nondescript” member of the Community, I suddenly found myself part of a small core group that taught the Life in the Spirit Seminar, and the Foundations course. I’m glad no tapes exist of the classes I taught. But as unpolished as they may have been, they were rooted in what had been developed in the Word of God Community. And the Lord certainly blessed the endeavor. By the time I left Fort Hood, the prayer group was thriving and growing. And the way things work in the military, how many people went forth from Fort Hood and took the message to other installations?
And to make this story complete, the young lady who would eventually become my wife received the Baptism in the Spirit during that inaugural Life in the Spirit Seminar.
It was during my second stint with the Word of God that the Sword of the Spirit was formed. Little did I know how that would affect me and my family. Soon after, on short notice, my company transferred me to Gaithersburg, Maryland. Our move was made a lot less traumatic by our almost seamless integration into the Lamb of God Community in Baltimore. Later, when we were pondering a job change, a move to the Pittsburgh area was attractive because of the People of God Community, of which we were a part for ten years. We were not the only ones to benefit in such a way, as we encountered people from Ann Arbor in both of these communities. What a blessing to be able to have the support of brothers and sisters when you move to a new place!
Life has taken me in a different direction in recent years, with my involvement in men’s ministry, first with a group that grew out of Promise Keepers, and more recently, with the Catholic Men’s Fellowship. While I joined these groups largely out of my own neediness, I am able to support my brothers in some very, very difficult situations largely because of the foundation that was built through approximately twenty years in Christian community. I am able to bear witness to the Lord’s goodness and mercy, and thus bring encouragement to others whose lives need to be transformed.
It has been a blessing for which I am most grateful, and I thank the Lord for the Word of God.
Frank Bondy
Gail (Schottin) Walsh
I found out about the prayer meetings through my parents, Norman and Rachel
Schottin. They had heard about some Catholics on campus who were reading
their Bibles and having prayer meetings and they were checking it out. I
remember my first prayer meeting in just a corner of the St. Mary's basement with
lamps. I had been in church all my life, but I could tell something was different at
these meetings. The love and presence of God was so tangible. There was such excitement about what the Holy Spirit was doing in people's lives. I was blessed through the many wonderful relationships with brothers and sisters through the years and to be joined with people who wanted to follow God in a radical way. Rufus and I moved our family to Tennessee with Spring Arbor Dist. in 8/99--near Nashville. It is very exciting now to be a part of a fresh move of the Holy Spirit here. It reminds me at times of the early prayer meetings in Ann Arbor.
In Christ,
Gail (Schottin) Walsh
Schottin. They had heard about some Catholics on campus who were reading
their Bibles and having prayer meetings and they were checking it out. I
remember my first prayer meeting in just a corner of the St. Mary's basement with
lamps. I had been in church all my life, but I could tell something was different at
these meetings. The love and presence of God was so tangible. There was such excitement about what the Holy Spirit was doing in people's lives. I was blessed through the many wonderful relationships with brothers and sisters through the years and to be joined with people who wanted to follow God in a radical way. Rufus and I moved our family to Tennessee with Spring Arbor Dist. in 8/99--near Nashville. It is very exciting now to be a part of a fresh move of the Holy Spirit here. It reminds me at times of the early prayer meetings in Ann Arbor.
In Christ,
Gail (Schottin) Walsh
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