My mother had been the first in her family to receive Jesus Christ as her savior as a result of a chapel service at a Christian School in Hawaii. My father and mother met through a church activity in Hawaii and were married. I was born in Tucson, Arizona as my Dad worked and went to school at the University of Arizona for engineering. When I was four years old we moved from Arizona to Idaho where my Dad took a position with Hewlett Packard and we began attending a strong Bible believing church. One Sunday Evening my mother took my younger brother and me to church.

That night we sat right on the front row as the Pastor preached on Hell and eternity. I will never forget how he preached “And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.” My mind raced as went through all my disobedience and all the ways I had been a hurtful brother. I knew that according to my conscience I was guilty and I did not want to burn in a lake of fire. I felt as if the Pastor was talking and preaching right to me. Later that night I went to my mother in our home and asked if I could be saved. My mother was a trained elementary teacher and asked me many questions to make sure I understood, and this was not a youthful or emotional decision. She then took me through the book of Romans and showed my verses that explained sin, Christ’s death and resurrection and his gift of eternal life. I bowed my head and prayed for Jesus Christ to save me from my sin and the lake of fire, and put my faith in what he did for me on the cross. 

I grew up in a good bible believing church, and remember serving the Lord as a child by telling others about Jesus Christ and inviting them to our church. I also had the opportunity to be involved in many youth ministries and learned a lot of Bible, memorized scripture, and grew in the Lord. I’ll never forget one time as a child I was in downtown Boise passing out little booklets that gave the gospel of Jesus Christ; and I gave an older man one only to see him throw it away in the trash. I went to pull it out of the trash and there to my surprise was a $20 bill! I learned at a young age, it paid to serve the Lord, but more importantly my faith was growing. It was also during my early childhood, that the Lord started revealing to me that he would have me be a preacher and teacher. I surrendered to even serve the Lord in foreign missions at the age of eight.

As I grew older I grew distant from the Lord. From high school and into college and stopped living for Jesus Christ, attending church, prayer, or reading my Bible. Life became about my plans, my desires and I left God out of it. I did many things I am ashamed of and was often miserable as I knew I was grieving my Savior. I replaced God in my life with idols.

The Lord then began a process of humbling me; “For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.” I lost my scholarship, my job, and an important relationship. Everything I had set God aside for and worshipped in his place he took away. In the Old Testament Moses took a golden calf that Israel worshipped as a false god; ground it into dust and mixed it in water and had the children of Israel drink it and it was bitter to them. This is what God did in my life; everything I had replaced God with in my life was made bitter to me, and was destroyed into emptiness.

I joined the military and the Lord used men I trained alongside to point me back to Christ. As I reviewed my life I had a strong desire to be clean and righteous before God, and to walk with him daily and live my life for him. As I returned home, I searched for the truth and began attending many Christian Churches including the one I had grown up in. I was still on the fence, one week I would be in Church and the next I would be in places and around people I knew was wrong. Then January 1st, 2009 came; a day that I will never forget.

In an old home I was renting from my father, on Wardle Street in Boise Idaho the Lord convicted me of my life wasted for self, and its emptiness. He made it clear to me that he wanted me to commit to Him or else the last seven years of my life were just a foretaste of what he would give me over to and what my life would become. I broke down and gave my life, my future, my everything to serve him and live for him; no matter the cost. I spent much time in prayer and pouring out everything to the Lord. On that day my life radically changed. I began spending all my time in prayer, the bible, and telling people all over about the Lord Jesus Christ and what he could do. I began working and re-attending college, now with a new joy and challenge; I would preach and deal with people about Jesus Christ on the very campus where my life once mocked him. I began preaching and teaching at the church I had grown up in and I joined the church. Then God dealt with me about going to Bible College, and after a semester of working, attending college, and Bible College I surrendered to Bible College full time and devote my life to his leading.

God blessed and gave me opportunity for the next 6 years to work in youth ministry, prison ministry, public outreach ministry, country churches, missions work overseas. I have had the opportunity to see Jesus Christ save many people; whether in the middle of downtown kneeling on the pavement, at a church, on a school bus, on a prison floor, and at a rescue mission while drunks hurled profanity. I graduated Bible College and continued to serve and see the Lord have my faith grow. Then in 2014 God directed me to San Antonio. Making it very clear through prayer, fasting and miraculous answers to prayer. He brought me to serve in San Antonio; where I met Pastor Bezaleel Cummings who brought me on to serve at Huisache Avenue Baptist Church as an assistant pastor. Then through much fasting and prayer the Lord allowed me to meet Jessica in 2015 and gave me “exceeding abundantly above all” that I had asked or thought in a wife to serve alongside. Truly God has fulfilled in my life his prophet’s saying “And I will restore to you the years that the locust hath eaten” God has abundantly blessed and continues. Though trials and losses have come, Jesus Christ is Faithful and True.

Email Pastor Ashton Yeargin at: habcmissions@gmail.com