"To help people get to know the Lord Jesus as their friend"

Portage, MI, USA
female, age 53
single
Speaks: creole, french, english
Joined Sep 23, 2006

more about Val N. »

Hey, what's going on?  Sak pase' as they say in Creole in Haiti.  I live in a lower income apt complex and enjoy bringing people to church.  I love to do bible verses in calligraphy.  That is one of my gifts God has given me.  I type all day in a hospital.  I spell pretty well, type pretty fast.  I know alot of medical stuff.  I play harmonica in a bluegrass band at church.

That's about it for now.  I'd sure like to get a studio downtown Kazoo and put my drafting table and other supplies in there. 

I teach art (watercolor pencils) at the Commission on Aging, for all ages, in Three Rivers.   Will be teaching, this summer, Lord willing, in Portage, at the Sr. Center, age 55 and above, plein air sketching, sketch journaling, and calligraphy. 

Like to make postcards and give them out or sell them with my artwork on them.  
I like to witness about Jesus Christ in Public.  It's my gift, prophecy, that's giving forth of truth, not necessarily foretelling future, although if one memorized passages out of Revelation and Daniel chapter 9, one could foretell much of the future.    

Here's my testimony, briefly.  Was raised in a nice middle class home in Detroit suburb.  We had a lot of good material things, dad had airplane, mom had cadillac.  I learned to drive on a Trans-Am new, Dad worked for GM so we always had six month old cars. 

I was adopted.  My real mother was sick (she had schizophrenia, which I still do not understand completely and many of my fundamental Christian brothers and sisters would say she had demons, but Ruth was a Christian, of Pentecostal persuasian, and did pray for me, I know), but I didn't know how or why she was sick when I was growing up.  When I got to be about 11 or so I started to ask questions and get depressed about not having my real mother.  My adopted mother was depressed about my adopted dad's adultery.  They both began to drink in quantities. 

From about age 11 to about age 17 was pure hell in my house on the weekends, esp. when my dad came home from out of town.  Mom got in his face and they fought until all wee hours of the night.  I was scared, the dog was scared.  We cowered together.  I played guitar and sang lounder than they fought some nights to calm myself.  Got good at playing in public, liked the attention.  Got into drugs age 14 or so, first pot then other stuff.  Was into LSD age 16, then PCP every day at school, speed, age 17 or so.  Was pretty.  My senior pic is cute.  But I was sooooo messed up emotionally. 

My dad divorced my mom when I was 18.  I had no home to go to.  I lived in Kazoo with my boyfriend and went to business school after 2 years at Western Mich University.  I lived with him 9 months.  After business school I tried to go to art school in Detroit at Center For Creative Studies.  Then I moved to Ann Arbor cuz I had cockroaches in Detroit and I was allergic to the spray, I lived on Ferry and Woodward right downtown Detroit, no car, there were rats in our parking lot.  Fun.  Really fun.  So I moved to Ann Arbor and got job at U of M, was about age 22 or so.  Came to the Lord Jesus in 1979 at a bible study at U of M Hospital where I worked.  The file clerk next door, Jim Evans, led me to the Lord. 

I sort of knew ABOUT Jesus, was confirmed Episcopalian, but was not born again.  I repented of my sin.  I knew I was a sinner.  I trusted Jesus to save me.  In January I gave my WHOLE life to the Lord.  But a living sacrifice sometimes crawls off the altar.  By God's grace I have been clean and sober for 27 years plus.  I've not married.  I've dated a little.  Helped out at a mission in downtown Grand Rapids.  Helped a bible study ministry in Grand Rapids.  Went to Haiti for a year in 1988-89 after bible school.  After came back from Haiti, I continued my education somewhat, at Kendall Art School.  



I work at a medium-large Hospital, one of the best hospitals in the U.S.

I am content.  The devil hates me and that's okay, Jesus is bigger.  That's my story, what's yours?  1 John 1:9 if we confess our sins he is faithful and just to forgive us our sin and to cleanse us from ALL unrighteousness.  If we say we have no sin we do lie and the truth is not in us.  If we walk in the light as he is in the light we have fellowship one with another and the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sin. 

I also go to a 12 step support group for families and friends of addicts/alcoholics, every other week or so, to deal with co-dependency issues in my own life.  I kind of like to adopt stray people.