Hello Ted,

YOU NEVER KNOW who God will put in your path. I thank God He put Pastor Charlie Avila in my life when I applied for ordination with the World Wide Ministry in 1996.

As I went through my ordination process I met some wonderful believers in the WWM who blessed my life dramatically.

Eventually Charlie had me speak and train at his church, a seminary and multiple community outreach events (with my longtime, close friend Tom Sommers).

Perhaps one of the most encouraging highlights I experience are when I receive his frequent notes of encouragement pertaining to my weekly email newsletters.

It is only fitting that our daughter, Trinda, who has edited our weekly newsletters for 10 years, would take full responsibility for Charlie’s testimony in this weekly newsletter to kick off 2024.

In fact, one of WB's goals for 2024 is that Trinda will facilitate a new testimony monthly for the entire year of 2024. As always our mission is to encourage believers to make Jesus known where they live, move and have their being.

Pastor Charlie models this beautifully in the following powerful testimony.

Pastor Charlie's Faithful, Unique Testimony

"My Family Background:

I was not raised in a Christian family. My paternal grandparents had 13 children. My grandfather was a very wicked man. While his wife was pregnant, his girlfriend (a concubine) was pregnant by him also. He chose to name each child with the same names. 

My father was married four times. He had 9 children from four different women. While he was a licensed carpenter and plasterer, he was also the owner of a bar and he drank heavily. 



All of my aunts and uncles were drunks, adulterers, and unbelievers.

God's Mercy and Grace in the Avila family

When my dad was in his mid-sixties, he was diagnosed with lung cancer. He had smoked much of his life. As he lay dying in a hospital, a Christian lady came to visit him in his room. She ended up leading both my mother and my father to the Lord Jesus Christ! Shortly afterward, my older brother received the Lord. In another church service, my three younger brothers got saved. Finally, about a year later, I received Jesus Christ as my personal Lord and Savior while an engineering student at UCLA. Of the 13 families in the Avila clan, we were the first to come to Christ. Over the years, many of my aunts, uncles, cousins, and nephews and nieces received Christ. We are so thankful for His mercy and grace.

Several believers shared Christ with me

When I was in college, I met a Christian man named Kirk Hamilton. We were in the Air Force ROTC together. He knew the crazy and wild life I was living at my fraternity. There were always wild parties and drunkenness in our fraternity house. Kirk told me about Jesus Christ. I told him I went to church. I was raised Catholic. While I attended church faithfully each week, I lived like the devil Monday through Saturday. 

I remember picking up a young man who needed a ride to Santa Monica. The minute he got into my car, he began telling me about Jesus Christ. I told him that I already went to church. 

The fraternity next to ours was the only Christian fraternity on campus - Alpha Omega Fraternity. There was a man there who befriended me and told me about Jesus.

Transformation!

When my dad died in March of 1983 of cancer, I began to think of eternity. I knew I was living an evil life. I knew that if I died, I would go straight to hell. After my dad died, I wondered where he went. I suddenly feared death.

Kirk was part of a Christian campus group that met on Sunday's at the university chapel. One Sunday night on May 1st of 1983, about 30 students gathered together to pray for one person - me! I was told later that they prayed for about 3 hours that I would come under conviction and get saved. Amazingly, Sunday night and all day Monday, I was under deep conviction about my sin and had this overwhelming desire to surrender my life to the Lord. 

Kirk had invited me to a church service. I went Monday night to this service and sat in the back of the sanctuary. I heard an evangelist preach the gospel from Romans 9. As soon as he gave an altar call, I ran to the front and gave my life to the Lord. I was radically transformed as I confessed my sins and confessed Jesus as Lord. 

I went immediately to that same apartment where 30 student prayed for my salvation the night before. I was baptized in water in a large steel cattle watering trough in the middle of an apartment in Los Angeles! When I was taken home to my fraternity, I was so full of God's power and joy that I could not stand up because my legs and knees felt like rubber. I had to remain seated on a couch.

Today-

Today, the Lord has given me a Christian wife (for nearly 33 years now) and we have two children who serve as worship leaders and musicians in two churches. 



I have been at Clovis Christian Center since 1991 as a Pastor and Teacher. Today, I thank Jesus Christ. I thank Kirk Hamilton. I thank those 30 students who prayed for me. I thank God for that Christian lady who led my parents to Christ. God is good and His mercy endures forever.

Thank you for letting me share my testimony with you. Jesus bless you all.

Pastor Charlie Avila

Charlie teaching in Mexico City on evangelism and interpreting from English into Spanish for Dr. Nzash Lumeya (Congo) in the same Mexico City church.

Charlie teaching at a Bible School in Jamaica.

Charlie teaching a Fresno School of Mission class.

""How to Become a Christian" (English) and "Como Convertirse en un Cristiano Verdadero" (Spanish) are both available on Amazon along with my other 30 books. This book was dedicated to Ted and is being used around the world to preach the gospel. 

I just delivered 25 of these books to an evangelist this morning. Girls are reading it in the Fresno County jail. The Fresno Street Ministry recently received 100 of these books for their street ministry. A homeless ministry in Sacramento bought 50 books for use in their ministry. It is also being used in many Spanish speaking countries as part of evangelistic efforts"

-Pastor Charlie Avila"

Ted’s prayer in response to Charlie’s testimony:

Dear God,

Help of us realize through Charlie’s testimony how important it is to make time for other people as many did for Charlie. Thank you, Lord that Charlie has made time for me for many years!

Not only has Charlie made time for me but his church, Clovis Christian Center has donated to Witness Breakthrough every month- AND Pastor Charlie himself has also donated to WB monthly for many years also!

”Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.“

2 Corinthians‬ ‭1‬:‭3‬-‭4‬ ‭

-Ted