Annette Hillebrand's Personal Testimony

When I was 18 years old, my parents divorced. It was a very difficult time for me, and I thought that God did not care about me.

After marriage, my husband and I moved to the suburbs of Chicago. There I worked in an office with a Christian woman. She gave me magazines that talked about God, which I read. I also met other Christians who spoke about their faith in Jesus.

I began to read the New Testament and other Christian books. I always knew that I was a sinner and only hoped that one day I would be good enough to go to heaven.

When I read the Bible, I realized that the teachings of the Catholic Church were not all correct. I did not know that I only had to ask Jesus to forgive me of my sins and invite Him into my live in order to go to heaven. I repeated the prayers I found in the magazines and books. However, later I better understood the gospel and believed in Jesus for salvation.

When I was 23 years old and driving from Wisconsin back to our home in the Chicago area, I was thinking about what if Jesus wanted a different life for me than I wanted. Then the thought came to me that if He loved me so much that He saved me from my sins by dying on the cross for me, then He would only have good things in store for my life. Then I trusted in Him with my whole life, and a great peace came over me.

And now I know that my being here in Ukraine will be one of those good things that Jesus had planned for my life.