This Sunday, September 13, pending the vote of the congregation, we will welcome into our church family 2 brand new members! It’s always exciting to see people saved, baptized, and added to the church. Below are the new members’ profiles of Frank and Pat Rouse. These profiles testify to their salvation, baptism, and overall grace of God at work in their lives. These are shared with great joy and for your encouragement…

Frank Rouse’s Testimony: “I grew up on a small farm in NW Iowa with my parents and three siblings. My parents were not regular attenders at church at that time. My grandfather lived in the nearby small town of Dickens. My siblings and I would stay overnight at his house and he would see that we went to Sunday School at the Methodist Church, which was the only church in town. I originally thought that my grandpa was just a nice guy and a wonderful grandpa. When he was an old man he no longer attended church services. His church had closed and he never joined the Methodist Church. He would listen to Billy Graham every week on the radio and watch his Crusades on television. One day I read a tract that he had received from Billy Graham and I placed an order for a number of them for myself. My plan was to read these tracts and then hopefully one day I would be able to attend a Billy Graham Crusade and go forward to accept Jesus as my Savior. However, after reading some of them, I went ahead and prayed a salvation prayer on my own without going to one of his Crusades. This took place the summer after I graduated from High School. It was several years later when we returned to NW IA that Pat and I were looking for a church. At the corner south of the acreage we had purchased was a sign that pointed down a gravel road to Curlew Baptist Church. We decided to visit and made it our church home for a number of years until we relocated because of a job change. Both Pat and I were baptized as believers in this church…”

Pat Rouse’s Testimony: “I grew up on a farm in central Iowa near Mitchellville in a family of six children. We went to Sunday School and church every Sunday at the Mitchellville United Methodist Church. I loved going to Sunday School to hear the Bible stories, learn about Jesus, and play with friends. I tried to be a good person so Jesus would be proud of me. I had never heard about the need to accept Jesus as my personal Savior and have a relationship with Him. When I went to college I did as many kids did, I din’t go to church. When Frank and I met at the University of Northern Iowa we went to a church close to campus a couple of times. It wasn’t until we were married (49 years ago) and had moved a couple of times that we started to attend church regularly. In January 1974, Frank’s sister led me in the sinner’s prayer. I am so glad! When we moved to the Ayrshire IA area for Frank to teach, we tried the Ayrshire Methodist Church because Frank had a gazillion relatives that went there and they had invited us. We decided that wasn’t the place for us. We knew by that time that we wanted a Bible believing, preaching, and practicing church. Down the road from our place was a sign for Curlew Baptist Church. It was 5 miles on gravel to a tiny town we had never heard of. Curlew was a very small town with a small grain elevator, small post office, a bar, and a Baptist church. First Baptist Church of Curlew had a huge impact on us and the surrounding area. I was blessed to be baptized at Curlew. When the Ayrshire School closed, Frank started working in the Clay County Engineer’s Office in Spencer IA as the Drainage Tech. We moved to the Spencer area and started attending the First Baptist Church there. We served there for 31+ years in various ministries. I had a Christian Bookstore for 8 years in Spencer. We retired and moved to Kalona 6 years ago when we found out we were finally going to be grandparents! We attended our daughters’ church until we found out our grandson was attending AWANA at Prairie Flower, which we had never heard of. We visited a few times last year and decided to make it our home church when we returned from Arizona this Spring.”