Deahna I was raised in Anchorage, Alaska, and was the fourth and last child of my birth parents. After a rocky and unhealthy marriage of 14 years, my parents divorced when I was in second grade. My father remarried and had three more children. My mother had two more children out of wedlock.

Despite ungodly living, my parents had taken their children to church; and it was as a small child that I accepted Christ into my heart at a Maranatha church. My family began attending a Reformed Presbyterian Church planted by Bob and Elaine Tweed. It was through the solid teaching and nurturing of this church body that I began to mature in my faith as an adolescent. Despite new growth as a believer. I was battling difficult personal issues including being sexually abused as a child and a deep struggle with an eating disorder. When I was 16, my mother remarried and I moved with my younger siblings and a new stepsister to California. After a hard and unsuccessful year in southern California we moved again to Oregon, where I dropped out of high school and got my GED. At 19 I was immersed in a deep depression, and in desperation I left Oregon and went to stay with an older married sister who lived on the East Coast.

During that summer with my sister I was introduced to a program at a Christian retreat center that sought young adults to volunteer on a work crew and be discipled while living in community. I committed to stay for a year. In the backdrop of the amazing Chesapeake Bay I began to gain tremendous healing.

After my year was completed I went to serve as a nanny for a Christian couple in Washington. D.C. It was through the loving care and encouragement of these surrogate parents that I was empowered to recognize my gifts and passion for biblical counseling. Shortly after, I applied to college. At the age of 21 I began my freshman year at Geneva. It was at Geneva that I met my husband Scott, and in summer of 1997 we were married.

Scott As long as I can remember, I have sensed God’s presence in my life. At six months old, I was adopted by two loving parents from the Children’s home in Pittsburgh. I was raised in South Fayette, a small rural suburb of Pittsburgh. My mother was a devout Irish Catholic. My father, whose parents were Methodist, distanced himself from the church, though by God’s grace he approved of my mother raising their children as she pleased. We attended mass every week until I reached the second grade, where we started visiting other churches on Sunday evenings. Shortly after we left the Roman Catholic church and moved from a parochial school to public education. A number of years and a few churches later, we planted our feet at a Pentecostal church. The transition from traditional mass to a charismatic service was quite confusing.

During high school I believed that God the Creator existed and loved me. I knew that by the grace of God my birth mother had made a decision to allow me to live and that God placed me in a home were I was raised to know Him. But even then I didn’t understand what God wanted for my life.

An experience right after graduation started me thinking again about my relationship with God. I had traveled to the beach with peers and began to participate in a drinking hinge. I soon got in a fight with a man who insisted on blowing smoke in my face. People quickly broke us apart, and I walked down to the beach to cool off. I spent the rest of the week walking around by myself trying to figure out what life was really about. A group of college-age students handed me a tract and asked where I was going if I died. I replied, “heaven.” Then one of them asked why. I replied, “Because Jesus died for my sins.” Afterwards I didn’t have a peace about my answer. I wasn’t certain if what I said was true.

A few months later, I left home for South Dakota State University, where I intended to study music and economics. Only a few days into the semester I dropped music as a major and started doubting whether I should be there at all. At the same time the Lord brought a few fellow Christians into my life. This was my first real experience in Christian fel-lowship and it was the last thing I expected to happen.

After one semester of enduring the subzero temperatures of South Dakota, I returned home. For two and a half years I worked full time at a record store while working part time at odd jobs.

The fall of 1993 I started school at Geneva College. It was there that I was introduced to Reformed theology and to people whom the Lord used to impact my life in profound ways. One of the people was fellow student Chris Meeker, who invited me to be part of a men’s accountability group. We eventually became roommates and spent many hours sharing our lives and discussing theology. We also worked at three different jobs together where God used us to spread the gospel, and we learned much about working with all of our hearts to glorify God.

Chris was also my link to the Geneva RP congregation, which became my home church even before I joined. It was during this time that I became friends with Deahna, who always challenged me not to slip back into my individualistic, introverted self. After two-and-a-half years of a brother/sister friendship, Deahna and I dated for about three months, were engaged, and then married five months later.

College chaplain Tim Russell. another instrumental person in my life, was always prayerfully encouraging and was always willing to listen.

It was in this healthy environment that for the first time I found myself searching the Scriptures to find what was true. I began reading the Word of God regularly. I prayed aloud in private and in public for the first time. I began to wrestle with what it meant to “glorify God and enjoy Him forever.” I discovered the treasure of God’s sovereignty and Christ’s Lordship over all of life.

I have many stories to tell of how I’ve seen God’s grace in my life and how He has afforded us opportunities to encourage other young people in their faith (Ps.103:19).