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xi P R E F A C E New Beginnings Heather Rankle and Judy Woolverton say they became good friends in Houston’s Tres Dias community and turn to each other for support and guidance. Tres Dias weekends in Texas are “more elaborate” than elsewhere because “well, you know how everything is bigger in Texas!” exclaims Heather, an attractive, enthusiastic blonde in her forties with a ton of energy. Both women talk about their experiences as both pilgrims and team members. Christ’s suffering and sacrifice are emphasized in their weekend courses, and when the pastor reads the story of Jesus’ crucifixion , as a team member Judy has hit a pole with a hammer to make the sound effects of Jesus’ hands and feet being nailed to the cross. “It really gets to people, you know, and we focus on all of the senses—sight, sound, taste, and hearing—in our weekends because we want people to get involved with their whole selves,” Heather says. The Via de la Rosa, Jesus’ final walk before his death, is reenacted during their Tres Dias weekend, and it really “hits home” with the women who “make” the course, according to Heather and Judy. Heather says she was not brought up in the church and that her parents were just teenagers themselves when they raised her. The lack of God in her childhood home was a “generational curse,” she believes. After she took a “wrong turn” in high school, her life began spiraling downward, out of control. By the time she turned eighteen, she had been pregnant twice, and before she turned twenty-one, she had overdosed on cocaine twice. The second overdose led Heather to a drug rehabilitation center, and while she says she “cleaned up [her] life” for a while after rehab, she still felt “empty” inside. And yet Heather did manage to graduate from high school, take some college courses, and get a good job. She says she knows that it was “God’s handiwork” that she stayed alive and out of jail, because when she met the man she thought she would marry, her life began another downward spiral and she was again addicted to drugs and “unhappy times.” xii Preface Heather’s life took a turn for the better when she finally listened to a woman from her apartment complex, a hairdresser who was “always offering to do my hair for free as she knew this would be her chance to witness to me.” One day, she responded to the knock on her door and welcomed her neighbor. “She didn’t even have to say anything, I just cried and cried.” That night, Heather accompanied her neighbor to church, where she was “saved.” Heather interprets this day as “the first day of the rest of my life.” That week she received salvation and was water baptized. She also received baptism of the Holy Spirit that week and has been “on fire for the Lord” ever since. As a new Christian, Heather turned to the Bible for guidance on how to live her life. She has studied Scripture ever since her conversion experience and cites Jeremiah 1:5, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you; before you were born I set you apart.” Heather says that God knew she would witness to others one day and that her once ungodly ways would turn to godly ones. As part of her recovery and her entrance into a spiritual life, Heather read the Bible and popular Christian devotionals such as From Faith to Faith by Kenneth and Gloria Copeland.1 In those early days as a “new on-fire Christian,” Heather was like a sponge trying to soak up everything she could. She had never felt so good in her life and wanted to do everything she could to keep it that way. She found herself wanting to learn more, and she would wake up in the morning two hours early to read, pray, and “just sit still and listen for His guidance.” According to Heather, “the more I read and obeyed, the more things in my life started to improve. I quit all my bad habits, drugs, cussing, and the hardest of all—cigarettes. The Lord took all those desires away and replaced them with a desire to know Him and work for His kingdom to do His good will.” Heather moved back in with her parents, started going to an “awesome ” church and began seeing an “awesome...

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