The Stevens Family (Walter & Dolly)

Location: Hungary & Romania

Ministry: Walter received the Lord Jesus Christ as his Saviour the first week of October 1980. After nine years of marriage, operating a fairly successful family business since age 17, and the birth of their fourth child, he had become disillusioned and disenchanted with life as he was living it. Caught up in the world of materialism, he knew there had to be something better. He had a sense of emptiness, a void he could not fill. He knew he was incomplete, undone, and without a personal relationship with his Creator.

A business acquaintance of his had been telling him about the Lord since the early spring of 1980. The man's Christian testimony had impressed him so much that he was ready to hear the Gospel as he presented it to him. The aquaintance told him that he needed Jesus and needed to be born again and that Jesus was the answer to life's disappointments. Something inside of him was in complete agreement. He knew that Jesus was what he'd been looking for-the answer to his void and emptiness. Later he found out that God was wooing him to Himself for the Bible says in I John, chapter 3, verse 10, "Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His son to be the propitiation for our sins."

After a few short weeks he knelt down in the privacy of his bedroom and prayed this prayer, "Dear Lord Jesus, I don't understand everything about the Bible or Christianity, but I know I am unsaved, I ask you to come into my heart, save me, forgive me of my sins. I receive you now as my Saviour and thank you for it. Take me to Heaven when I die. In Jesus' name, Amen". According to Romans 10:13, "Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved, God on that very day miraculously saved his soul. Since that time he has never doubted his salvation.

From the very first day he was saved, he wanted to serve the Lord to show Him how much he loved Him and how much he appreciated what He had done for him. He witnessed, studied his Bible, and prayed trying to please his Lord. He was unchurched for a while after he was saved. Being raised Catholic, he didn't know what a true New Testament church was.

After much prayer, God literally brought a Bible-believing Baptist church across my path. After Walter and Dolly were baptized and became members, it wasn't long before he felt a tugging upon his heart to preach the Gospel and do something for Christ, but he didn't know what nor how to find out. He felt he needed to be faithful to what he knew God wanted him to do-faithful to the church services, soul-winning visitation, and to his Pastor.

By the winter of 1985, the call was not answered and God's voice was louder than ever. After a church service one evening that winter, he went forward and surrendered himself to full-time Christian service and whatever God would have him to do.

He started selling off his business assets, not knowing for sure how God was going to use him. He had a strong impression form the Holy Spirit that God was going to use him by the time he'd reached the age of 33. By this time the swelling of the Gospel message of Christ within him was ready to burst. He knew God wanted him to preach and that he was anointed by the Holy Spirit to do so according to Isaiah 61:1, "The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me; because the Lord hath anointed me to preach."

In the spring of 1987 God called him to be the Youth Director of the Crossroad Baptist Church. Almost exactly one year after that, God called him to be the Associate Pastor of that same church. Totally content in what he was doing as Youth Director, Visitation Pastor and Associate, with many opportunities to preach in his church, school chapels, and holding special outreach meetings around the State, God called again. This time it was not so easy to answer, for God was calling him away to the mission field to reach his own kinsmen according to the flesh-GYPSIES. On August 6, 1989, his family surrendered their lives to answer God's call to the mission field.

They are currently serving in eastern Europe among the Gypsies of eastern Hungary and Romania. They have seen souls saved and baptized. They have also established the Eastern European Gypsy Bible Institute to train nationals and a MANNA feeding center to feed poor hungry Gypsy children.

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