Hear how Barbara responded when her beliefs were challenged, and the blessings she has experienced since.

I always thought that I was right with God – I had grown up in the Lutheran church and went to a church school. However, within days of leaving home for my first real job many miles from my parents in Whyalla, South Australia, I heard about speaking in tongues as being the sign of having received the Holy Spirit. I couldn’t speak in tongues – just English and German, and I struggled for weeks getting my head around that concept as it wasn’t something the Lutheran church preached. I hid at home after work to give me time to go through my bible, looking for scriptures that would prove my friends wrong…and got even more confused. I decided to check it out. I agreed to come to a meeting to get baptised after one friend from work challenged me with ‘you will never know unless you give it a go… and if it doesn’t work, no one at home would ever know‘.

I was baptised one Wednesday night in December 1984, and after the meeting I prayed to be filled with the Holy Spirit. I tried really hard, but nothing was happening until the Pastor said, ‘don’t try so hard, just let the Lord to it’ and in that moment I received the Holy Spirit and started speaking in tongues. So, it was true, you do need to speak in tongues as the sign of the Holy Spirit. That was my first lesson from the Lord; now when problems come up in my life, I do what I can, then relax and just let Him do the rest.

Since then, the Lord has always been with me, through good and hard times. I got married and found that I wasn’t able to have children. I dreamed of having a big family and firmly believed that the Lord could make it happen. Based on that assurance, the first house we bought was a Queenslander which was the right size for a big family. Within a few months of moving in I was pregnant with my first child. The Lord blessed me with two sons and a daughter. Unfortunately, my husband left me and my children. That was a tough time, but God and the assembly supported us. He keeps blessing me and my family in many ways. Financially there was always enough money for our needs, and we’ve had many healings. This including a healing for my dog after a snake bite. Her symptoms eased on the car trip to the vet as my son and I prayed the whole way there, then the vet couldn’t find anything wrong when we got there. My children have now grown up, all are Spirit filled, and so far, I have two wonderful grandsons.

I thank the Lord for everything He has done and keeps doing in my life!