The Personal Testimony

Growing Up Fast

Born February 24, 1955 in Great Fails Montana to Harold and Ruth Randall. At the age of two my parents divorced and I along with my 3 older sisters were then raised by my Father.

During my early years my Father took us to the Methodist Church were he was quite active as a Sunday School Teacher, but we stopped going and I began to run the streets getting into trouble. My Father thought that the solution was to get me involved playing music. As a result I started my first Rock Band.

At this time I met Betty Louise Hovland, who would on April 1, 1972 become my wife.

Captured by Drugs

The lead guitar player in the band introduced me to drugs. From that point on the thrill and excitement of drug use captivated me and I began using everyday. It wasn’t long before I was freebasing heroin, and using many other drugs to stay high.

I made money playing with various Rock bands, and selling drugs for a drug family, but in June of 1976 I was arrested and jailed with the drummer in the band on charges of illegal possession of dangerous drugs, and given a 3 year deferred prison sentence. As a result the band broke up.

Needing to support my family, I found work on the railroad as a spiker. But in the spring of 1977 I was injured while working on the railroad and landed in the hospital. I had no idea at the time that this injury would be what God used to get my attention and change the course of my life and my forever!

The Room That Changed Everything

On the morning of June 30th while in traction in the hospital an CNA named Vernice Sanders walked into my room. Vernice was a Christian and a member of Fairview Baptist Church, and was concerned about me, because as she said later “he looked scared, and was as white as a sheet.”

She had no idea that I had just woke up from a terrible nightmare that I had died and a voice inside telling me that this was it, no more chances! I thought I had lost my mind…I was terrified.

Vernice left my room and went down the hall where she spoke to Pastor Marc Elledge, the Visitation Pastor for Fairview Baptist Church, and asked if he would go down to talk to the troubled young man in room 324.

Pastor Marc came into my room and I thought he was a police detective ... The drug life made me so paranoid that I trusted no one. He introduced himself as a pastor ... even worse! I am amazed even to this day that I didn’t kick him out of my hospital room.

I told him about my dream of dying at which point he asked if I knew for sure I would go to heaven. I didn’t know. He then asked “If I could see in the Bible how to know I could go to heaven, would I believe the Bible?” I didn’t believe any preacher or church, but I said I would believe the Bible.

“If I could see in the Bible how to know I could go to heaven, would I believe the Bible?”

In the Bible he began to show me how that God loved me, Jesus died for me, and that HE would save me if I would just turn to the Lord and accept HIM as my Savior.

I was 22 years old and grew up in a “Religious” home, but I had never heard that God loved me so much that He sent His Son Jesus to die for me, so with tears streaming down my cheeks I asked the Lord to forgive my sins and be my Savior and Lord! I was wonderfully saved June 30th 1977!

A New Life, A New Family

Two weeks following my release from the hospital my wife Betty prayed and asked the Lord to save her, however she later said, “I prayed because I was scarred of Gary… not because I really wanted to be saved”

Pastor Marc discipled me every week, and it was during this time that my life began to dramatically change. God miraculously delivered me from drugs and alcohol, I was truly free for the first time in many years.

We started attending Fairview Baptist Church, but the way I looked, I wondered how people would react to me. I was shocked ... the people loved us, and made us feel welcome. Later on November 22, 1978, Pastor Richard A. Dion baptized me on my profession of faith in Christ.

Six years later Betty came to me in tears and told me that she had been under conviction for a long time that she was not saved. We both got on our knees that day in May 1983 and Betty turned to the Lord Jesus Christ and received HIM as her savior!

What joy to watch Pastor Dion baptize Betty on her genuine profession of faith the very next Sunday at Fairview Baptist Church. Betty has a marvelous testimony of God’s grace to share, and has been the greatest helpmeet that God could have ever given to me, and is indeed a sweet, godly lady.

The following year I also had the privilege of praying with my daughter Chassidy, and she asked Christ to save her at the age of eleven. Chassidy today is a Pastor’s wife, and Mother of five children and Grandmother of 17. She is a godly lady, and the apple of her Mom and Dad’s eye.

Serving and Learning

From my earliest Christian memories God really put on my heart to help young people, and so Betty and I began to work in the Youth Ministry at Fairview, and God was able to use us in the lives of the young people.

Pastor Marc began to take me out with him every week teaching me how to talk to others about Christ. I also began to drive a Sunday School Bus, later becoming the Bus Captain of that route and also the new sixth grade Sunday School Teacher at Fairview Baptist.

In 1981 Pastor Dion was led of the Lord to start Mountain States Baptist College. At the time I was a heavy equipment operator for a local Construction Company, but had just re-injured my old railroad injury and was trying to heal up, (one year later I had to have a spinal fusion).

Once again God used an injury to shape and direct my life. After much prayer and personal internal struggle, I surrendered to the Lord’s leading and enrolled in the first semester of Mountain States Baptist College not really knowing why God wanted me in Bible College!

During that semester God showed me in Romans 10:14-15 that He wanted me to be a Gospel Preacher. I surrendered to that call and God confirmed it by opening doors for me to preach His Word immediately! By the time I graduated from Bible College, I had preached His Word in over 250 services!

Years of Preparation and Trial

In the years 1984 and 1985 I had the joy of being the interim Pastor at Calvary Baptist Church of Havre Montana, and also Heritage Baptist Church of Columbia Falls Montana (later became Gospel Light Baptist of Kalispell, MT).

We traveled hundreds of miles across Montana nearly every Lord’s Day to go and preach God’s Word in these needy young and struggling churches. This was a great time of seeing the Lord work in hearts and lives.

These years were also a time of great trial for Betty and I. We had three babies die in Betty’s womb in the fourth and fifth month of pregnancy, and our second daughter Charith Jean was still born at six months on May 22nd 1986.

As devastating as this time was for us, we know that we have four beautiful children in Heaven, and God’s grace was indeed sufficient to get us through. God has used this time in our lives to be a strength and encouragement to others that have struggled in the same areas.

The Lord in His great love and goodness has blessed our son-in-law and first born daughter Chassidy with a large family, and has given to Betty and I five beautiful grandchildren and 17 Great grandchildren. Our fourth grandchild is named “Charith.”

Ordained and Sent Out

After graduating in the first graduation class of Mountain States Baptist College (a miracle considering I was a High School dropout and had to get a G.E.D just to start college) Fairview Baptist Church ordained me to the Gospel Preaching Ministry.

All through college I truly believed that God wanted me to prepare to be an Evangelist, but was counseled to work on a Church Staff with a Pastor to get some experience, and so I began to pray that God would provide me an opportunity. In a short time Pastor Dion approached me about remaining at Fairview Baptist as the new Youth Pastor. I accepted.

I served as the Youth Pastor at Fairview from 1985 to 1987. This time was wonderfully blessed of God as we saw the Youth Ministry grow both numerically and spiritually, and in the first eighteen months these on fire teenagers won over four hundred and fifty precious souls to Christ!

In the midst of all this excitement, it came as a real shock when the Lord revealed His desire to call us to another Ministry. Pastor James Nolan and the Bible Baptist Church of Puyallup Washington asked me to pray about coming to be their new Associate Pastor. After much prayer I felt it was indeed God’s will for us, and so I accepted that call to come.

God used Betty and I to reorganized and build up the Youth Ministry and start the Saturday Teen Soul winning program. We also helped start their first Bus Ministry.

What a wonderful ministry in Washington, however I still believed that God wanted me in Evangelism. So after a year and a half of ministry there I resigned and moved back to Great Falls to begin the work of an Evangelist under the ministry of Fairview Baptist Church. The next several months we scheduled Revival meetings and Youth activities, and saw many souls coming to Christ!

Florence Baptist Church

In September of 1989 Pastor Mark Davis of the Florence Baptist Church called me to say that because of his wife’s health, he was resigning and asked if I would come and fill the pulpit and help the church find a Pastor.

I had a long familiarity with Florence Baptist Church going back to 1981 when God gave me the privilege to preach there. This church had been one of the largest works in Montana, but had really been struggling as the result of a terrible church split three years earlier.

The first Sunday they asked if I would pray about coming as their Pastor. Convinced that God still wanted me in Evangelism I was reluctant to even pray about it thinking that it was some lack of faith on my part, however Betty and I would pray about it, and after two months of fervent praying God made it perfectly clear that Betty and I were to be at Florence Baptist Church.

There were only 10 adult members left out of this once thriving Church, but they extended a unanimous call to us on November 26, 1989, and we accepted the call. At my first service we had 14 in attendance including the kids. Over the next ten years we would see the Lord bless in such marvelous ways!

All areas of ministry had to be built again from the ground up. In 1990 I asked Brother Rick Hammond to come by faith as my new Bus Director. Six months later the Church had grown to the place where we were able to call him as our new Assistant Pastor. Brother Rick was on staff for four years before going out from Florence Baptist Church to Dillon Montana to plant Bethany Baptist Church.

In 1991 I asked my son-in-law and daughter Tim and Chassidy Johnson to come from their home in Minnesota to help us build a new Youth Program at Florence Baptist Church. Tim and Chassidy served with Betty and I for over 8 years and did a magnificent job!, and when we resigned in 1999, the church called Tim as their new Pastor. Tim and Chassidy have served faithfully at Florence Baptist for over 35 years.

In the nearly ten years Betty and I were at Florence Baptist we saw hundreds of souls reached for Christ, and many baptized on their professions of faith. God also used this church to help start 3 other churches in Montana!

A Season of Testing, and the Call to Elmwood

In February 1999, I resigned the pastorate of Florence Baptist to answer the call of North Valley Baptist Church in Redding California to come and Assistant Dr. Royal Blue, and succeed him upon his retirement.

However, after coming to North Valley Baptist of Redding it became painfully obvious that our convictions as fundamental Baptists were at odds with some in positions of leadership, and although we did enjoy the love and support of many, it was clear that God would only use our short time at North Valley to strengthen our convictions and faith and prepare us for a greater ministry in the future.

In early July 2000, 2 months after my resignation from NVBC of Redding, Elmwood Baptist Church of Brighton Colorado called to ask if I would consider coming to fill their vacant pulpit following the sudden death of their pastor.

Elmwood Baptist had been struggling for many months and facing enormous debt, however a faithful core of 17 people remained, and on July 30th I accepted their unanimous call to come as their new pastor.

Since our first Sunday on September 3rd 2000, we have witnessed God bring a church dedicated to HIS glory back to life. Today the church is averaging over 300 every Sunday, with souls saved and baptized regularly!

Elmwood Baptist’s future is as sure as the vision and faith of it’s people in our miraculous working God, and Betty and I are blessed to be able to serve the Lord, and honored to be able to serve HIM at Elmwood Baptist Church.