Home in the Church, my Family, Betsy Reichard

My early life was a life of fear. At the age of eight, the police intervened and I was placed in an orphanage. I prayed fervently for another family that would love me. I lived in foster homes, and finally at the age of sixteen, I was living on my own. It was a lonely life. I knew it didn't matter to one person whether I lived or died.

I desperately wanted my life to be worth something. At a young age I was involved in political campaigns. I demonstrated against the war in Vietnam, against capital punishment, and was active in the civil rights movement.

In my last year of high school, a friend's parents became a second set of parents to me. They asked me to live with them. They were the opposite of my family, who were poor, uneducated and from low status backgrounds. These people were from the patrician class dating back to our country's founding fathers and to royalty in England. They were highly educated, wealthy, and had a great deal of prominence. Before living with them, I thought money and status would make me happy. However, I discovered that wealthy people are no happier than poor people. After a while I became very tired of high society.

I went to college wondering what on earth I was going to do with my life. I felt so empty! One day I was listening to music while I was writing down my despair. I wrote, “Nothing can touch a part of me, music can't touch it, nothing can touch it. It is hopeless. Life is hopeless.”

About that time, I moved into an off campus dorm. A coed gave me a book called The Cross and the Switchblade by Dave Wilkerson. When I read this book, I realized for the first time that Christ could change a person's life; yet I didn't know how to get this change.

Another book was given to me, This Way to Happiness by Clyde Narramore, a Christian psychologist. He wrote about what happens to people when they have never been loved. I felt like he was writing my life story. Later in the book he explained that psychology couldn't heal people suffering from inward psychological wounds. He said this was like trying to heal a wound from the outside in. This kind of healing produces gangrene. He wrote that the only One who can heal from the inside out is Jesus Christ. In that book was a prayer to receive the Lord Jesus into one's heart. One night I couldn't sleep; I got up, took that book and prayed the prayer to receive the Lord.

Until that night I did not believe in Jesus Christ. Being from a Native American background, I believed in God, but I did not believe in Jesus. But because I was so unhappy and wanted a change in my life, I did pray to receive Him. The very next day I found myself speaking to someone that Jesus Christ was the answer to their problem. I was amazed! Faith had come into me when I prayed to receive this One.

About a month later, I left Washington to go to Haight Ashbury, the hippie mecca of the U.S. in the 1960's. On the way down to California, I read another book given to me by a dorm mate. It was an autobiography of John Bunyan, the writer of Pilgrim's Progress. The Lord showed Bunyan after much inward suffering that He loved him and would never leave him even if he were going to self-destruction. Well, I felt I was going to self-destruction. I prayed, “Lord, I'll go anywhere to find You; I just don't know where to go.” The next day I met someone going to Berkeley due to anticipated political demonstrations. I decided to go where there was action. The first person I met there spoke to me about Jesus Christ.

God had arranged for me to end up in Berkeley at the beginning of the first national convention of a major Christian campus group. I stayed with them and attended all their meetings. During one of these meetings, suddenly I was flooded with God's love. I couldn't stop weeping because for the first time, I was loved unconditionally. I didn't feel empty and the hopeless void was filled. From that day to this day, this unfathomable love has enfolded me, comforted me, encouraged me, and supported me.

After this time, I became active with this Christian group. I went on summer staff with them at their headquarters. The next summer I went from Bellingham, Washington to Newark, New Jersey to participate in a summer-long beach outreach program. As far as attending a church service, I just didn't know where to go. All I could see was a tremendous maze of churches. It seemed you just picked what you liked! I did attend several churches but didn't seem to like any of them. None of them were as living or active as the group I was with. But after a while even their meetings became old to me. I got tired of hearing only the gospel in meeting after meeting. Yes, I knew that unbelievers need to hear the gospel, but what about believers? Don't they also have a need? I knew that there had to be more to the Christian life.

I greatly respected Hal Lindsey, the writer of the Late Great Planet Earth. At that time he had not yet written this book. He and a number of other Christians decided to have a school near UCLA. They were given a dormitory to use, and I eventually became the cook of what was called, “The Light and Power House”. It was while living at this house that I began to hear about the local church. A number of the Christians living in this dormitory began going to the local church meetings. But because I was frustrated from trying to find a church, I did not go with anyone for a long time. One day though, I was complaining to a friend about my up and down Christian life. He was one of those attending the local church meetings. He told me that his experience was the same until he began to attend the meetings of the local church. He felt the meetings supplied him so his life had balanced out. I decided then I would attend the next Sunday service.

When I attended this service, I thought the meeting was too noisy. The next week I went to the beach and spent time reading Psalms. I felt the Lord speak to me that praise was worthy and that I needed to praise Him. After this time I could not be so negative about those who praised God in a noisy way.

A Christian couple who lived at the Light and Power House were getting married. At their wedding in a park, I can never forget the local church brothers and sisters as they came together in a parade singing and praising down the street. On their shoulders was a huge hexagonal-shaped wedding present. Their presence enlivened the wedding. The singing really touched me. They sang with their whole heart and soul. In the past, I often felt very weighed down by the singing in churches. I knew that the hearts of the people were not in the singing, but to sing with these brothers and sisters was very enjoyable!

About a month later I met a friend from Mississippi. He came just to see the local church. I went one day with him to an apartment of some that were meeting with the church. I had a great time and saw that their Christian life was a 24-hour living, not just a Sunday morning exercise. Then I went to a prayer meeting with them. They were praying over the Scriptures. They prayed over bringing the vessels of the temple back to Jerusalem after its rebuilding (Ezra 1:7-11). This really touched my heart because I realized I was a vessel. The Lord did not discard the vessels that were captured, but He returned them to Jerusalem. Only then could they be used in the function for which they were created. I realized it was important that I was in the right place before I could be filled and useful in the Master's hand.

That night I prayed, “Lord, where do You want me to go... to Oregon, or to meet with the local church in Los Angeles?” I felt the Lord's leading to stay in Los Angeles and meet with the local church. I moved in with a couple on September 1, 1969. Meeting with the local church has been a great blessing in my life. Over the years I gained a stability that I never had before. Before being saved I would drink too much. My mother was an alcoholic, as are some of my siblings. After being saved I had been dynamically delivered from this lifestyle for awhile, but after two years I went back to drinking when depressed. But in the local church I received the abundant grace to overcome this problem. As I read the Word, drank the Spirit, and attended the meetings, my life truly was saved from the roller-coaster ride.

A year after I began meeting with the local church I was singing before the Lord. A song that I sang had the words, “Home, home in the church.” When I sang this the Lord reminded me of my prayer when I was eight years old. He had answered my prayer for another family by bringing me to God and to His people. This was the real and true family.

In 1998 I came to the Full-Time Training in Anaheim (FTTA), which involves intensive Bible Study, gospel preaching, and shepherding of believers. I came because I felt a calling from the Lord to service. Many times when I read the Bible, or read an inspirational book, the word “service” would leap out. For example, in the Old Testament Moses told Pharaoh that God wanted him to release the Israelites so they could serve Him (Exodus 5:1). In the New Testament the Lord Jesus said He came not to be served, but to serve (Matthew 20:28). I felt that by attending the FTTA I would have a better understanding of how to serve the Lord. I now have graduated from the four-term program. I feel that these courses have been very valuable.

The Lord's presence and speaking in my life is fresh. The care of others in the gospel preaching and shepherding is very rewarding. It is a great joy to see others receive Christ and to see them grow in Christ.

Also the study of the Bible is so rich! The Bible is an unsearchably rich book. Even though I have been a Christian for years, I have discovered that there are unplumbed depths in this book. I have been amazed to see how the Triune God is woven into the gospel stories and parables. For example, in Luke 15:3-32 there are three parables concerning a shepherd leaving the 99 sheep to search for the one lost sheep, and the woman with ten coins who lights a lamp and sweeps the house to search for one lost coin, and the Father receiving the prodigal son. Taken together this is just the work of the Triune God-the Lord Jesus, the Son of God, coming as the Shepherd to search for the lost sheep; the Holy Spirit who gives birth to our spirit by regenerating man's deadened spirit, (John 3:6) which spirit is the lamp of the Lord (Proverbs 20:27); and finally the Father who receives the fallen sinners back to Himself with love, putting the best robe on them and satisfying their inner being through eating the fattened calf. The sinners who come back to the Father come through the shepherding of the Son and the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit. This is just one little morsel of the rich Word of God.

My desire as a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ is to reach maturity. According to 1 John 2:12-14 the little children know their sins are forgiven, the young men are strong because of the Word and overcome the evil one, and the fathers know Him. My goal is to be filled with God's Word, overcome the enemy and to know this wonderful One, thus becoming part of His bride and counterpart.

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