REV.JEFF AND SHARON MORROW
I recently met Jeff and his dear wife in a recent trip to America and and experienced a tremendous time in the church he is pastoring near Frankfort, south of Chicago. His testimony is most inspiring anmd how he was restored to God after being on drugs many years and hard to the things of God. He now pastor’s a growing church with two Sunday morning services.
I was born in a large family of eight, to a very articulate, intelligent man. My dad was a Science professor, who had never once stepped foot inside of a Church, though his grandfather was a free will Baptist preacher.
After the theory of evolution came on the scene, he was directed to begin teaching it on the college campus. Being a scientist, he began to do his own research, and discovered to his surprise, that there had to be a God. My dad had an aunt who was praying for all five boys in his family, praying that one of them would become a Pentecostal preacher. Sure enough, after his discovery, by many incredible circumstances, my dad got saved, filled with the Holy Ghost, and became a preacher.
In 1958, my dad began an Assembly of God Church that is today one of the largest in the State of Washington. From there we moved from one church to the next, where each church experienced incredible supernatural growth.
In 1978, my brother got the deacon’s daughter pregnant, at the age of fourteen. Needless to say, what happened next was the beginning of my journey away from God.
I watched as this Church that my parent’s poured their lives into, turned on them. I was so angry because my parent’s never spent any time with us, but instead gave their lives to those in the Church. And now, these same people turned on my parent’s, and it created in me an anger and a hatred for the Church. I felt that if this is what Christianity is all about, then I don’t want anything to do with it. I left that Church vowing never to return. I vowed never to serve God. I definitely, would never be in ministry like my dad.
From that moment, I got heavily involved in the drugs. I ended up using every drug known to mankind. My drug of choice however, was cocaine. Unfortunately, I started dealing drugs to maintain my habit. I ended up being my best customer.
I was a functioning drug addict. I worked hard, and used the drugs to maintain my stamina. It got worse and worse though, and I came to that place where the drugs were more important than my wife and children. After days of binges, I would go into deep depression. So much so, I called my dad one morning to let him know that I was going to commit suicide. My dad, crying on the phone, began to speak God’s Word over my life. From that moment on, even in the midst of the stench of addiction, God began to unfold His plan for my life.
On Labor Day, 2002, after a two day cocaine binge, I knelt at my couch at about 3:00 am, and began to cry out to God. I had given Him my heart growing up, but never my life. I believed what I was taught, but I couldn’t get past the anger and bitterness. It was the first time that I really surrendered my life to the Lord. I told the Lord, that if He would help me, that if He wanted, I would even go into the ministry. Right then and there, I met the Lord. Instantly I was sober, and instantly I knew that I was going to preach the Gospel.
That next Sunday, I walked into the Church, I walked out eighteen years earlier. I walked into that same Church and began to serve the Lord anywhere I could. Five years later, I found myself pastoring a small Church of eight people. From that moment on, God has blessed us to where we are today.
There is so much more that I could share. But let me end with this one thought. At one time, all eight of the children in my family were away from God. With this great success in ministry, came the attack of the enemy who has done nothing but destroy our family. My dad passed away in 1999, one month after preaching at the Church that I was now the pastor. In his death, the attack has grown even greater. I have a brother that nobody has seen for over thirty years. The rest of my family has been torn up and spit out. Out of eight, there are only two of us that are serving the Lord. You wouldn’t believe what has happened to this family. Please pray for us. Please pray that God will bring restoration to our family. Just as He has called the Isrealites back to their homeland, I am praying that God will begin to bring our family back home to Him.
Jeffery W. Morrow
