Friday night or should I say early Saturday morning, I don't know, I think it was like
around 2 o'clock in the morning, my wife gets a phone call and it's from our evangelist
brother Ulysses who was part-time at that time and then he wants to talk to me and he
said, because I had told him, I said, hey, unless you know like our church gets blown
up or something like that, I said don't contact me, I don't want to know about people threatening
me online, I don't need to know about people saying they're gonna do things to my family
and I, I was like, just keep that stuff to yourself, just trash those emails, unless
like the church gets bombed and I was like joking about it and so he told me, he said,
hey, you didn't want me to, he's a prophet, and I told him, I said, look, or he said,
you told me not to call you unless the church gets bombed, so I'm just calling you because
the church got bombed.
And I said what he's like, yeah, I'm at the building right now. And basically what happened
was his wife was just up in the middle of the night. And she's just kind of going through
her phone. And I think like she looked at the security cameras or something like that.
And we had just put security cameras the week before, because I told him, I said, we need
to put security cameras just in case something happens. And they were offline. So then he's
like, what in the world? So then he goes, and then he finds out that, you know, it got
bombed. And of course, the fire department is there. And then the FBI came. And then
I have to come and, you know, they basically placed an explosive inside. They put graffiti
all over the walls, and then they broke out one of the windows, hoping to throw a bomb
all the way inside the building. But because the windows were kind of gated, they couldn't
fit one. So they put it almost like on the window sill. And it blew up the wall along
with like the inside of the ceiling. And so then that happened. And then they were looking
for like a second bomb and whatnot. But we have the people on camera. So the FBI came
and then they questioned us and whatnot. And I just remember thinking to myself like this
is crazy. I can't believe this just happened. And I think I text Pastor Anderson or something
like that like at four o'clock in the morning. And I just said like our church got bombed.
Because I was communicating with them throughout the week. And I was just kind of pouring out
my heart just telling them like, hey, I'm not gonna quit. I'm not planning on quitting.
I'm not gonna throw in the towel or anything like that. But I'm just letting you know like
I need to tell someone that this is really hard. Because you know, they're threatening
my family. And they're doing all these things. And so it's I feel like it's taking a toll
on me. But I'm not telling you this because I'm telling you that like I need you to come
help me or I'm gonna I can't preach I can't pastor anymore. I'm just saying like, I just
need to tell someone this. And so, you know, he gave me some words of encouragement because
of course Pastor Anderson has been through that multiple times. And so we're just communicating
back and forth. And then I told him that and I think he just responded with like, Wow,
sorry.
What do you say? That's such a horrible text to get you're just kind of like, Oh man, like,
I don't even know what words to you know, outside of just giving scripture or something
like, I don't even know what I would say.
Yeah, I mean, like, well, we ended up talking on the phone and he just he basically told
me he said, Well, this is what you signed up for when you can became a pastor. And and
I said, No, this is what I signed up for when I became a Christian. You know, this is what
it's all about. There you go. And so I ended up going home and I told my wife, I said,
I'm gonna go to sleep, because I'm tired. Just hold the take messages and I'll figure
out what we're going to do in a couple hours. So I went to sleep and then I, I woke up and
I said, well, we need to find a place to meet because we're still going to meet. And so
we, we, we found a location and we met under a tabernacle for a couple of weeks and it
was great. I mean, it was, it was an awesome experience to be quite honest, but obviously
during that time it was very difficult. And even weeks after that, because weeks after
that they stole our vehicle, my vehicle from my house, they camped out in front of my house
and a bunch of other stuff took place. But you know, during that time it was very, very
stressful. It was very difficult. But looking back, I mean, I wouldn't have, if I can go
back and if I had the chance to go back and say, you know, or and change something I wouldn't,
you know what I mean? I would do it exactly the same way because of the fact that it helped
our church. It strengthened our church. It, you know, endeared the hearts of their church
members one to another. And I wasn't the only one who was persecuted. I mean, our church
members till this day are still being persecuted from family members. You know, they were persecuted
by the sodomites. A lot of the sodomites went after the jobs of the people in our church
and try to get them fired from their jobs and, you know, even try to get them expelled
from like private schools that their children were attending. They would contact the principals
and just a lot of wicked stuff. And they would threaten them and dox their address and post
their address online, you know, things of that nature. But it's strength in our church.
So you know, when Michael Johnson says, Hey, the hedge of protection has been removed and
God is judging me. Well, that's funny because God blessed us with more church members, more
salvations, you know, we were baptisms. Yes. I don't know. I mean, this is a pretty cool
judgment if that's what, if that's what it is, you know, and so I'm thankful for that
stuff. You know, I want the listener at home to realize, you know, I'm, I'm kind of laughing.
We're kind of laughing at all this now and kind of almost seeming happy, but it's not
like we think that it's cool to bomb church buildings. It's not like we think that this
is awesome or we want buildings to be burned or we want people to harass us or, or any
of that kind of stuff because you know, from a Christian perspective, we shouldn't desire
for evil. The Bible tells us that we're supposed to pray that we wouldn't be delivered to evil
and we're supposed to pray that we're not entered into temptation. And so we certainly
don't ask for it. You know, the Bible says, I, when I, I am for peace, but when I speak,
they are for war. So, you know, we're definitely want to be peaceful in the community. It's,
it's these sodomites and these God-hating atheists that want to attack us. But when
you look at it from hindsight, all you can do is just what the Bible said, because in
Matthew chapter five, uh, the Bible says, rejoice and be exceeding glad for great is
your reward in heaven. So when the Bible talks about being persecuted or being reviled or
people doing evil unto you, the literal commandment of God is to rejoice and be exceeding glad.
So someone's mad at us for laughing or, or enjoying living, reliving these experiences.
You know, they're the ones that are not right with God because the right attitude in hindsight
is to have joy and to, um, just see how the Lord works in mysterious ways. But obviously
at the time, you know, when I first heard I wasn't laughing or, or joyful or anything
like that, I was very grieved. I was very, uh, upset to hear that your church was going
through that. And I know that, well, I remember, I remember you, I remember you called me and
I was at home and you were like vexed. I remember you calling me and telling me like,
I need to send security to your house. What can I do? Can I send police over there? Can
I send security over there? And you're like calling people like in Montebello and trying
to get people to come and like watch over us. And I was so mentally and emotionally
drained. I was just like, thank you, you know, do whatever you can. Like I can't really even
think of what we need to do. But it was taxing. It was a very taxing situation.