Tom Sadowski – Denton, TX
My name is Thomas (Tom) Sadowski. I have been married to my wife Betty for 36 years now, and we have six grown children, four grandchildren, and three sons-in-law. I have been involved with Bill Adams and SFOI for over ten years, and have participated in numerous Super Bowls and other events, both here in the USA and abroad, during this time.
As for my testimony, three distinct events, or perhaps epochs would be a more apt word, have shaped my spiritual life. The first of these was when I first came to Christ, out of the Roman Catholicism I was raised in, while in the U.S. Marine Corps in January 1975: over 44 years ago as of this writing. Wow. Time flies. I had had a fairly “normal” life, as a lost and lustful young man, up to that point, being kept from particularly scandalous and damaging sorts of sin in God’s providence (quite unbeknownst to me at the time). But in a barracks room in North Carolina one evening, a fellow Marine led me to Christ via, of all things, a “sinner’s prayer.” But for the grace of God, I would have been just another among millions who have done the same, with no true life transformation ensuing, still in my sins.
The second event was, or at least began, in the fall of 1981, shortly after I moved from my home state of Michigan to Texas. Thoroughly “out of the blue” and unplanned/unforeseen on my part, and again, in the PROVIDENCE OF GOD, after the dust all settled of looking elsewhere, I wound up in a small home church where I came under the sound/preaching of a far more Christ-centered and God-exalting theology than I had ever previously been exposed to. These days it is most often referred to as reformed theology. In a very real sense, this was as momentous a turning point in my life as when I was first born again, almost seven years before. It was under such preaching/teaching/relationships/books/etc., that the burden for evangelistic ministry was really, or at least decisively, first birthed within me, beginning with street ministry/open-air preaching with a brother in Christ in Denton, TX, in the summer of 1984, 35 years ago by now.
The third event, truly much more an epoch than a single event, that has affected me so profoundly was my subsequent enrollment, a great many years later, in what I solemnly, and yet fondly, refer to now as Dungeon Seminary. Four very distinct and separate ordeals/experiences have defined it: the first two quite long, and the latter two, in the mercies of our God, very brief. The first lasted about a year and a half, commencing more than twenty years after my USMC conversion: in October 1995. The fourth and most recent (which I believe/am very hopeful will be the last), was in October 2018 and lasted roughly two and a half days. Although dreadful at the time beyond words to adequately express, I would not trade these experiences (if I somehow could) for anything in this temporal world. I close with the words from a wonderful song I first heard back in the seventies (by a man perhaps no one reading this has ever heard of, John Fischer): “For in our darkest hour lies His greatest power.
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