My name is Mary Ila Shana Williamson, and I go by Shana. Born and raised in North Carolina in the USA, I still live here today. I am a newly saved child of the One True King. As many people do, I spent most of my life, assuming I was a Christian. Recently, I realized that that wasn’t the case. To be saved, I needed to take a couple of steps. These steps led me to take more steps and more, which led me to the free quality classes at the Christian Leaders Institute (Learn more about Studying the Bible, Click Here).
Life-Changing Accident
However, let me back up a bit. When I was 15, I was in a car accident that changed my life forever. I spent a month living in the hospital and multiple years after that going to therapy to learn how to walk again. My back was broken in two places. I had an incomplete spinal cord injury and had multiple lacerations on my intestines. Therefore, I had four surgeries. The first one was on my back, where it was fused, and rods were put in. Then, there was an exploratory surgery on my stomach to fix my intestines. Then, one week later, emergency surgery after my intestines began to leak. They removed a third of my colon and put a colostomy bag on then. Finally, the last surgery was for the takedown of the colostomy bag.
Life was hard. I questioned why me, and if it had to be me, then why did I have to survive it. I was in pain and was different now. Unable to attend my school or be with friends, I was angry. Further, I was also loaded on pain meds, which I then became addicted to. I spent from 15-21 as an addict. It got worse as I got older, and I also began drinking. My life was a dead end. I was probably close to the end when I found out I was pregnant. Immediately, I stopped drinking and taking drugs and never looked back. My son was sent to save me, and that I am sure of.
Saved and Called: Taking Free Quality Classes at CLI
Fast forward 10 years, I realized we both needed God. We were both baptized and have been attending church for several months now. When I accepted Christ, it’s like a light switched on. I couldn’t get enough information. Now, I want to learn everything I can and share the Good News. I want to help others.
So I was thrilled to find the Christian Leaders Institute and see that it was actually free quality classes. COVID has placed a great strain on my family, and we aren’t at all capable of paying for expensive schooling. As soon as my husband found a new job after losing his due to COVID, he ended up in the hospital needing emergency surgery. So free quality classes were a requirement, not just a desire. I now spend several hours a day completing lessons and working on becoming an ordained life coach minister. I am called to do such and very strongly called at that. God is good, and I can’t wait to see what all He has in store for me as time goes on!
Learn more about ordination at the Christian Leaders Alliance. Interested in a low-cost degree? Check out the CLI’s Leadership Excellence School.
My name is Debbie Reynolds, and I am receiving advanced ministry training at the Christian Leaders Institute (Learn more about Studying the Bible, Click Here). I am from the big city of Houston, Texas, the place I have lived all of my life. Currently, I serve as a bi-vocational Senior Pastor of Faith Tabernacle Church, which is also located in the Houston area. I am a mother of four adult children and seven grandchildren (and one on the way). I was blessed to be married for 36 years to the love of my life, the Late Pastor Eric L. Reynolds. My husband and I were the founders of Faith Tabernacle Church, where I co-pastored with him.
I attended the College of Biblical Studies, where I received a teaching certificate. I received a Bachelor of Art in Biblical Studies at the Institute of Teaching God’s Word in Rockdale, Texas. Currently, I am attending the Christian Leaders Institute (CLI) because I desire continued learning and development to do the work of ministry with a greater level of excellence. CLI offers a great opportunity for people like me who cannot afford the seminary cost and have a lot on their plates. The courses are convenient and can be done from my home.
My Younger Years
I came from a household that initially did not serve the Lord. We occasionally went to church on Easter, and that was it. My parents had some negative experiences that turned them off to church. As the years transpired, our household became very dysfunctional. As children, we could clearly see that we needed help as a family, and we needed God!
At that time, when we needed the most help, God showed up in the lives of my parents. They gave their lives to God, and they led us to the Lord. As a family, we came to God and were baptized. My mother became a missionary in the church, and my father became a deacon and later a minister of the Gospel. I remember the advice of my father as I was going to college. He said to me, “Receive the Holy Ghost because He is a keeper, and he will keep you.” After I gave my life to the Lord in 1979, I had an awesome experience with God when He filled me with the Holy Ghost. That changed my life forever.
Marriage and Ministry
I sensed the call of God throughout my life, and I knew God had a special purpose for my life. It was so amazing the course that God put me on. I was right in the middle of His will, and I did not know it. I know God divinely orchestrated the day my husband and I met and later married. God set us on a course to do the work of ministry.
Being an introvert and basically a shy person, I thought, how could God use someone like me. My husband was my opposite. He was a people person and a builder. God used him to love me, train me, and help me get out of my box. He helped me do somethings I would never have imagined myself doing, the work of ministry. I was his right hand. I started as a Sunday School Teacher and then later developed a Women’s ministry. Eventually, I was co-pastor serving alongside my husband, the Senior Pastor.
My Husband’s Death
My husband, my best friend, my pastor, my mentor, devoted Father, Pastor, and the love of my life began to face one health challenge after another. Open heart surgery, flat-lining three times, but God divinely intervened and brought him out. Years later, he suffered a stroke. He walked into a hospital but could not walk out. However, he continued to have faith, and God brought him out. God brought him from a wheelchair to walking unassisted.
I walked and worked with him as we exercised our faith in God, who brought us out of various challenges. As he began to experience more health challenges, I could see him persevere, although weary and tired. There were times when he said, “I need you to step up and handle this meeting.” Oftentimes at the last minute, he could not carry out his duties. He would say, “I need you to stand and handle things for me.” Little did I realize the slow passing of the baton, nor did I realize how much could happen in a day.
I will never forget the day after Labor Day, 2016. I watched as paramedics work tirelessly to save my husband. He died at the hospital that night and went to be with the Lord. I was devastated and had to plan his funeral, among other things, as I said goodbye to the love of my life. After dealing with my spouse’s loss, there was something else to deal with, a ministry without a Senior Pastor.
Transition and Advanced Ministry Training at CLI
Later, God spoke to me to take the helm of the ministry and steer the ship. He said do what you were taught to do. God let me know before my husband’s transition that He was training me for another level of ministry. As a Senior Pastor, I am developing myself to do the ministry’s work more competently. The advanced ministry training at CLI is going to help me do it.
Pastoring during a pandemic is challenging, and I will need all of the resources I can get.
I thank God for CLI!
Learn more about ordination at the Christian Leaders Alliance. Interested in a low-cost degree? Check out the CLI’s Leadership Excellence School.
Salutations! My name is Joshua T. Hardman from Northern Ontario, Canada. With a grateful heart, I am learning the Bible at the Christian Leaders Institute (Learn more about Studying the Bible, Click Here). I am a 43-year-old single father of a beautiful 9-year-old daughter. I was born in August of 1977 and the youngest of ten children.
Early Years
My upbringing was like many in that era, where life was chaotic and filled with many ungodly things. My mother’s side of the family was French Roman Catholic. Thanks to my grandmother, we were introduced to the Lord at a young age. However, my mother had struggles that led us away from those teachings and God for a long time. When I was days away from turning 8, my father was violently taken from our lives and the earth. Therefore, for many years I was very angry with God. When I was about to turn 12, my anger towards the Lord was deepened when my Christian devoted grandmother was taken from us by cancer. Yet, with all the anger and turmoil within me, the Lord still sent His people to try and bring me back to the righteous path.
I want to tell you now that I followed His laws from that very first intervention. However, that just wasn’t the case for me. That’s not my story. My journey back to God was filled with many sins and detours along the way. Yet, no matter how far I seemed to stray, I always felt His presence guiding me home.
Furthermore, since a very young age, I’ve felt the need to help others. I would fulfill the needs of others even when I myself was so very lost. Coming to the Christian Leaders Institute, I have found that my top five spiritual gifts align with those attributes that I’ve always possessed.
Changes and Getting Back to God
Before my daughter’s birth, I really didn’t know if I’d ever find my way home. It wasn’t really a thought in my head. My daughter ended up being, for lack of better words, the Lord’s messenger for me. She brought me back to my spiritual path. I want a great life and an eternal life for her. So, remembering God’s teachings from long ago, I knew if I didn’t walk away from sin, my daughter would likely follow the same path. Nearly a decade has passed, and here I am now in training and learning the Bible at CLI.
Eternal life for my daughter is my number one spiritual goal. For myself, my spiritual dream is to walk with God and have my soul be at peace. God has always been real to me, and I have always known and felt his presence in my life. For a long time, I didn’t understand my anger or my traumas growing up. Why would the Lord allow such things to happen to a child? However, I now know without a doubt that my life’s journey through the darkness brought me to this moment in time. And, thanks to CLI, I have the knowledge that my pain was necessary. Then, I can understand and connect with others still lost in the darkness to help lead them back to the Lord’s light, and ultimately, to their eternal life.
So why am I here at CLI? Is it to be a minister? I am not sure at this time. I am learning the Bible and growing in my walk with God. So, all I can say for sure is that God led me here, and for once, I surrendered to His call. So, where He leads me, I will surely follow!
Learn more about ordination at the Christian Leaders Alliance. Interested in a low-cost degree? Check out the CLI’s Leadership Excellence School.