Sarah Schmick

My brother wrote to me when I was living on a homestead in Montana, and told me about the Apostolic Faith Church in Portland, Oregon. He also sent me one of their church papers. At that time I was a brokenhearted young woman, condemned every day. I had married a man who had a living companion. That is wrong according to the Word of God and I knew it.

I thought I would lose my mind in my misery, but I thank God, as I read that paper and compared the doctrines with the Bible, I knew their teachings were according to the Word of God. Such a hope sprang up in my soul! I wanted the same peace I read about in that paper.

In my kitchen I knelt and asked God to open the way for me to get out of that life of adultery. I wanted to get saved and live a clean life. I wrote to the Apostolic Faith people and asked them to pray for me. I told them my problem. They answered my letter and said they would pray for me. I had talked to different ministers before this, and they would say that so long as I was the innocent party, it was all right for me to continue in my marital state, but in reading God’s Word, I found this was condemned.

About two years after receiving the paper, I left my home with my two little girls who were five and three years of age. I came to Portland to be in the meetings and to seek God. My neighbors in Montana told me I was foolish to leave my home, but I had to find God. The Lord showed me my responsibility to line up to His Word, and I have never been sorry that I took my stand for the Truth.

After arriving in Portland, I attended a church service. At the end of the sermon I went forward and knelt at the altar of prayer, and confessed my sins to God. I asked His forgiveness and He saved my soul, delivered me from all my sins, and put the joy and peace of Heaven into my soul! He gave me beauty for ashes.

I then sought the Lord for sanctification and He gave it to me—purity filled my soul. I prayed for the baptism of the Holy Ghost and He also gave me that blessing. I never knew a person could be so happy!

I found that Jesus never fails. He gave me a happy Christian home and strength to work and support my two daughters, providing for every need.

As a child, my oldest daughter was very much afflicted in body and was not allowed to go to school for six months. The doctor told me that I might as well make up my mind that my girl would never be well, as there was no cure for her. She had an infection in her blood, which caused terrible abscesses to break out on her ears and neck. Every day when I would come home from work, I would have to change the bandages. But one day, after asking the people of God to pray for her, I removed the bandage to put on a fresh one and to my great surprise, God had undertaken and healed her completely. She even had new skin covering the place where the abscess had been.

When I told my little one that the Lord had healed her, she wept at such a miracle. The Lord healed me, also. I had suffered with a severe cough for six months. But one Sunday morning as I sat in a church service where God’s Spirit was mightily outpoured, the Lord healed me perfectly. I have had no more trouble; the cough has never returned.

My two daughters, grown women today, are living for God and participating in the Lord’s service. The girls’ father also prayed and was saved before he died.

God has surely done much for me. I had the privilege to work in the church office for many years. It was the joy of my life. To this day, I have never regretted my decision to step out of that adulterous life. And now in my sunset years, I am looking forward to the Lord’s call.