We are a small country church, and we wanted to come to the conference since it was the first one in a few years. I needed to limit those that I could bring to only high schoolers because of the distance that we have to travel. We brought a brother and sister to the conference and a man that is a faithful member of our church. The results in all those that we brought were amazing and life changing!

The church member that came with us had been faithful to church and raised in church, but had never spent time in daily devotions with the Lord. He was challenged in such a profound and real way that he now has daily devotions, attends a weekly Bible study (along with attending all church services), and is a public witness to those around him. He has continued these things today since coming back from the conference in 2011!

The brother and sister we brought to the 2011 conference had a difficult family situation. They have different biological fathers, and the father that has been in their lives since they were small is not that man, but he has been a father to both of them and cares for them as his own. He is the only father figure that either child has ever known. Mom and "dad" were divorced in 2006. They still spoke to each other, and the children would spend time with both of them traveling back and forth to the separate houses. The children began to attend our church with "dad" around 2009 when he visited our church. In the winter of 2011, I announced the Student Life Conference at TBC. Jessica was the only one to show interest in going, and then she volunteered her brother to go. While we were at TBC, we took them to the Trinity Rescue Mission to show them how God could change a person’s life, and then that night the conference began. Both young people were very quiet, but excited. You could see that they were taking it ALL in, but they were not sure what to say, because being from the country, they had never seen anything like this. They enjoyed the music and preaching very much. They did not go down to the altar at the services, but as we sat by them we could see that God was doing His work inside their hearts. Before it was over, they wanted to know when they were going to be able to come to the next one! We returned late Saturday night, and they were both at church the next day and stood in front of the church and thanked the church for helping them to go on the trip. Both parents were at church that day, although they were in relationships with other people at this time. "Dad" even had another woman with him at church on this day. When the brother and sister came back from the conference, their mom and "dad" saw a big change in their lives. The changes were so dramatic that they began to talk to each other like they had never talked before. Within 10 days of the conference "dad" called me and said, "Our children need us and they need us to be together...would you counsel us and remarry us?" So I took them through 6 weeks of counseling and then remarried them on the anniversary date of their first wedding!

God has been faithful to do His part and change the lives of His people as others have been faithful to do what God has called them to do, namely those at Trinity Baptist Church and College that are in charge of organizing the Student Life Conference! As a country preacher, "Thank you, God has used TBC and the SLC in our church that is 1,000 miles away from you!" - Pastor Anthony Amato