Somehow it often happens . . . just as I am finishing, I think, a Hugh's News when a great story or testimony comes in an e-mail that greatly inspires and encouraged me. It comes at the last minute in the nick of time.
Let us welcome Jim Sagenich who wrote the following testimony about Dr. Thurnace York and his father's conversion at the last night of a retreat where Thurnace was the preacher:
In the summer of 1959, Dr. Thurnace York did a PA--Canadian PH retreat near Toronto. My father attended the retreat with the Pa.group. He was an athlete that admired Dr. York's softball pitching at this conference.
I believe that in January of 1960, Dr.York preached a two-week revival at the Sharon, PA / PH church. My father, Jake Sagenich, refused to go to church for thirty years because a Catholic priest refused to bury my grandfather because my grandmother didn't have money to pray for him. The last Sunday night of that revival my father came because he wanted to see Dr. York. I remember the night quite vividly as Dr.York preached on making it to Heaven.
He finished the sermon with the question "IF you walked out of church tonight was hit by a car and died would you make it to Heaven or hell."
Our family was sitting in the balcony because we had little children. I heard and felt the pew move where dad was sitting. I had my eyes closed and was praying cause I knew my father's spiritual state. Dad climbed down the balcony steps and went to the altar and there he gave his heart to the Lord. He took his cigarettes out of his pocket and put them on the altar (he had smoked for twenty-five years and never smoked again). That week my father visited the pool hall and taverns where he gambled and drank. He told his friends he would never be back again since he gave his life to Christ (and he never did).
On the following Sunday he was the first one up and ready for church. I really knew my father was a changed man when he got his check stub out and figured out his tithe. He also gave us more money for SS and youth group than he had ever given us. My father's life was completely different for the next thirty years until his death.
His favorite testimony was "I will praise the Lord as long as He gives me breath" and he did.
Thank you Dr. York for being obedient and coming to Pennsylvania in the middle of a cold and snowy Pennsylvania winter.
A grateful son and servant,
Jim Sagenich
[Editor's comment: Thank you, Jim Sagenich, for this moving and powerful testimony of the conversion of your father and the evidence of his changed life after he gave his heart and pocketbook to Jesus. I trust that you testimony will touch someone's heart and be an encouragement to him or her who reads it. Thanks for taking the time and effort to write such a glowing testimony.]
Posted on
Fri, April 8, 2011
by Hugh Morgan