My name is Michelle L. Rankin.  I am 26 years old.  I gloriously received the Lord Jesus Christ as my Savior on September 6, 1993, a little less than 5 years ago.  When I was 13 years old, my parents went through a very ugly and bitter divorce.  My sister and I left with my mother while my brother stayed with my father.  A couple of months after that it was Christmas time, and I called my daddy to tell him Merry Christmas.  My life, which was already torn because of the divorce, seemed to shatter into a million pieces when I heard my daddy say “I don’t know you - I don’t have any daughters.  As far as I’m concerned, you are dead.”  My father had denied me verbally.  My mother denied emotionally and physically by her absence.  She worked until mid nights, and when she was home, she didn’t want to be my mother, but my “friend”. She said it was because she married my father so young and had missed out on her teenage years, and so she wanted to live them now.  My friends became her friends.  She “took” them as if she were in competition with me.  I remember once some friends came over to see me, she started talking to them and offered to buy them “drinks” even though they were under age. She went out with them and left me home to baby-sit my sister.  She was never anyone I could look up to, get direction or advice from, or tell me right from wrong. I was very angry, bitter and hurt. Neither of my parents loved me. Neither of them cared about my life.  Nobody showed me or told me what was right or wrong. Nobody was there to love me and take care of me.  I hung out in the streets.  All of my friends were liars, and deceivers.  I pretended that I was like them, but I never really felt like I fit in.  When I was 17 I met a boy. He told me something I had been longing for a very long time.  He told me that he loved me. He asked me to marry him and so I did. He painted a pretty picture of how if we got married we could work, get lots of money, and then we’d be happy.  He wanted me to go into the army.  I personally did not like the idea, but he LOVED me! So I signed up.  I had made the biggest mistake in my entire life.  From the day we married, he turned into a different person.  He hit me and told me that I was ugly & stupid. He abused me physically & verbally. Three months after we were married I found out that I was pregnant.  I thought that this would change things, but instead it made things worse. He told me to get an abortion and I would not. He kicked me in the stomach and I almost had a miscarriage. He threatened me again to get an abortion, and so then, against my will, I consented, not wanting to be abused so much anymore.  He still continued to treat me this way, always reverting back to tell me that he did love me, but things would be better after we had “money”.  Then we would be “happy”.  I was now looking forward to leaving for basic training, hoping that while I was gone he would grow up and change.  He said that he was going to go to college while I was gone, and that everything would work out fine.  Well, after 7 months of living hell with him, I left for basic training.  After being gone for just a few months, and sending him my money to pay the bills and go to school, I began to think that everything would be okay.  But just as I thought my shattered world could be glued back together, another reality struck me and left me completely numb.  I received a call from a good friend, and later talked to him personally, to find out that my husband was not attending college, nor paying the bills with the money that I was sending him.  He was spending my money on a “girlfriend”, who was pregnant. When I talked to him about it, he laughed at me.  He told me I was stupid to think that he really loved me. Again I had been deceived.  Again my already shattered heart was bruised.  I left for two years to serve my military obligation in South Korea.  While I was there I took Tae Kwon Do, and practiced everyday.  I tried to be friends with so many different people, different groups, different fads and music; but I never could fit in anywhere. I went out drinking and dancing, and I was mean to people.  I figured that I would hurt them before they would get the chance to hurt me.  But the scars and pain I had inside and tried to cover was still there, and I was searching for something that would fill the pain of loneliness and emptiness.  After I finished my two years of service, I moved to Georgia, where my mother had moved while I was in Korea. She suggested that I go down to the Karate Institute and take some classes, for the main reason of me trying to find some friends.  I went down there, and after a couple of times going, the instructor, Eddie, asked me if I would like to stay for a Bible study, and I did.  I can’t remember a thing he talked about, except for one statement he made.  “God is Love”.  "God?"  I thought. “God?”  After all of this time I have been searching and searching. "God?  HE is Love?"  After the Bible study, Eddie asked me if I knew I’d go to Heaven when I died.  “No”, I said, “nobody knows that”.  “Sure they do”, he said, “the Bible says that whosoever shall call upon the Name of the Lord SHALL be saved”.  He quoted a couple more Scriptures and then said goodbye, and went home.  What I didn’t know at that time was that Eddie was Calvinist, and that is why he didn’t witness to me more, or ask if I wanted to receive Jesus.  Well, praise God, Eddie may have left me there, but the Holy Spirit didn’t.  He followed me home.  That night I got on my bed, and reread those Scriptures.  Nobody really explained it all to me but GOD was there, and He convicted my heart.  I prayed and cried out to Him, I wept, what seemed hours, begging Him to save me, and forgive me of my sins.  I prayed and prayed crying and lamenting, until, in a moment as if someone had turned on the lights, my cries turned into rejoicing, and I began praising the Lord for saving my wicked soul. All of the pain I had felt inside turned into peace.  My tears of sorrow turned into tears of joy.  He saved me!  HE SAVED ME!  I didn’t just want to be saved.  I begged Him to use me everyday.  He was everything I had needed, and longed for.  I wanted to live completely for Him. I didn’t have my daddy, but I now had my FATHER, I didn’t have my mother, but God replaced the need with many, MANY brothers and sisters in Christ who loved me and guided me. “When my father and my mother forsake me, then the Lord will take me up.” Psalms 27:10 I began attending People Baptist Church, in Morrow, Georgia, and two months after I joined and was baptized, I heard Dr. Don Sisk, Director of BIMI, preaching.  He said, “Would you go anywhere, and do anything for Jesus?  Would you give up your own culture, language, family and friends, and go to another place to tell them about His amazing grace? Would you take up your cross and follow Him?”  When he was saying these things, my heart started pounding, and I could hear that still small voice ever so gently whispering “that is what I want you to do”.  That day I surrendered to missions.  I asked my Pastor what I should do, and he said, "start serving God NOW and He would open the doors in HIS time".  I started working in the Bus Ministry.  The thing that really amazed me was that ever since I had the abortion I never wanted anything to do with children.  But God knew what I needed, and He began stirring up a love for those boys and girls in my heart like I had never had before. After working in my church for the next year, I had an opportunity to go on a mission trip to Honduras.  While I was there God completely broke my heart.  I went home, crying, not wanting to leave.  I prayed & talked with missionaries there, and after one month I got peace from the Lord. I went on deputation for 2½months, and returned to serve Him there as a missionary.  I stayed there for 2 years, and watched the Lord do miracle after miracle, both in my life and in the lives of those around me.  I remember once I was feeling very lonely, and I couldn’t understand why I was “alone”.  I also had a lot of problems dealing with my past, and I was very ashamed of myself and did not want anyone to know.  But one night God spoke to me through Isaiah 54:4-7, “Fear not; for thou shalt not be ashamed: neither be thou confounded; for thou shalt not be put to shame: for thou shalt forget the shame of thy youth, and shalt not remember the reproach of thy widowhood anymore.  For thy Maker is thine husband; the Lord of hosts is His name; and thy Redeemer the Holy One of Israel: The God of the whole earth shall he be called.  For the Lord hath called thee as a woman forsaken and grieved in spirit, and a wife of youth, when thou wast refused, saith thy God.  For a small moment have I forsaken thee; but with great mercies will I gather thee.” I couldn’t believe it when I read it.  I had read the Bible through a couple times, and had NEVER seen it before!  I felt as if He put it in there just for me. I taught English in the Good Samaritan Schools.  I lived in a girl dormitory with 180 girls, where I counseled, gave medicine, cooked “snacks” and played “mama” when the need arose. I started a Bible club with the teenagers, where we held devotionals, went door to door witnessing, and learned discipleship. I say these are things “I” did, but the truth is that GOD did them all through me.  I could NEVER have accomplished anything without Him.  It is in His Strength that I can even wake up each morning and much more His doing if some work is done in me. I loved Honduras greatly and all of the people there, but after two years, I knew it was time for me to come back.  I returned to the States in December 1996. Last year and this present year I have been taking some classes at Atlanta Baptist College in Stockbridge, GA.  I have had some great trials during this time, and I am learning a lot. But through these trials and hardships (most being with my mother and sister, who still needs Jesus) the Lord blessed me by being able to talk to my daddy once again.  I had only seen him once (right before I got saved) since my parents' divorce.  When I did get saved, I called him to tell him that I loved him, but he told me do not call him anymore.  But praise the Lord, I now talk with him on the computer, and I have been witnessing to him.  He is very bitter and hardhearted.  I am praying God will break his heart so that he will see his need and get saved.  I don’t understand why God would use someone like me.  I seem to mess up all of the time, and make silly mistakes.  Besides that I am stubborn and impatient.  But I have a great desire to serve Him, and I praise Him and thank Him for all that He has done, and all that He will do in my life.  I have been praying and praying, and seeking His will.  My burden and desire lies in serving Him in a place where nobody else wants to go. I want to go to a place where they have never heard the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  I want to go to a place where they have no written language and I could learn their verbal language, write a written one, and then teach it to them.  Then, in doing so, translate the Bible, into their language so that they would have the written Word of God.  This is my hearts desire, and my vision.  Only I must be patient, and wait on Him.  I praise the Lord for all He has done in my life.  He IS my life.  Without Him I am nothing.  HE is my ALL.  I praise His Holy Name.