I was a hopeless alcoholic. Then I met a man from Tennessee named Frank Butz who was a truck driver for the company that I worked for. Every time he delivered to Rochester he was after me to go to church with him but I kept putting me off. Finally one day he said, “You have been putting me off long enough and you’re going to church with me.”
When I walked through the door of that church I knew I had come home. The people treated me like they had known me all their lives. In my heart I knew this church was the place for me. Then I met the pastor, a wonderful man – Preacher Spite. This was really the beginning of a new life for me. In my heart I know that if God had not sent him to Rochester I would not be here today.
Let me tell you what kind of pastor we have. Before I was in the church I was told by him that if I needed him day or night to call him and he would be there. I had come to the point where I knew there had to be a better way to live than the way I was living. Filled with hate and drinking seven days a week. I was bouncing off the bottom of life. One day walking through the machine shop where I worked I started crying. I knew it was time to call the pastor and talk to him. I went to the conference room and called Preacher Spite.
We agreed to meet at a restaurant on Buffalo Rd. When I got off of work I drove home in a blizzard. When I got home I called Preacher Spite and told him that we could make it another time because the blizzard was so bad. My reason for calling him was that if he ca out in that weather because of me and something happened to him it would be something else that I have to live with and I wouldn’t be able to handle it. He jokingly said that we had an appointment and I had better be there, and if I wasn’t, well he knew where I lived. He drove 25 miles in that blizzard to meet with me. That is just one of the many times he has been there when I needed him.
I just wouldn’t want to be in any other church. At this church God delivered me from alcohol and 4 packs of cigarettes a day. Here I have found a better way to live. If God never does anything else for me what he’s done for me is more than I deserve. He turned the hate I was filled with into love.
~ Jim T.
