was excited to find a testimony this month about a couple who found 3ABN Radio in Minnesota. What a wonderful story it is, but let Peter Gentry tell it to you in his own words:

“One October day about three years ago, I was sitting in my truck in my yard as usual, with a bottle in one hand and my other hand on the radio dial, looking up and down the frequencies for something to relax by. When I would return home from work as a prison corrections officer I reasoned that I just needed a drink and a few minutes to myself to unwind from dealing with all the problems that come up in a day’s work. As I searched, I came to a station called 3ABN Radio, but I didn’t spend much time there, since I didn’t like what I was hearing. But as I continued to turn the dial, I came back to it again, and this time the word ‘Revelation’ caught my ear, so I began listening.

“My wife Sandra and I were members of an evangelical church, although I can’t say I was a very active one. Because of my church’s teachings, I heartily disagreed with what I was hearing—especially about the seventh-day Sabbath and what happens when you die. Somehow, though, I kept turning to that station, and actually started studying my Bible to prove those preachers wrong!

“A curious thing began to happen. I became more and more concerned as I dug deeper into the Bible because I found that I was learning things I had never heard before. By this time I had quit attending my evangelical church altogether, and my pastor became worried. He sent me a kind letter asking if he had done or said something to offend me. He even asked me to come by and see him, which I did.

“During our conversation I told him about 3ABN and my Bible study about the Sabbath. My pastor actually admitted that Saturday is the Sabbath, but added, ‘We keep Sunday in honor of the resurrection of Jesus.’ This really bothered me, and I didn’t go back to my church.”

Meanwhile, Sandra had become very concerned about her husband’s drinking, and when she attended an evangelical church-sponsored women’s retreat that September, she specifically requested special prayer for him, asking that the Lord impress Peter to be more involved in their church. “God answered my prayer request in a very different way than I expected,” she says. “The very next month Peter began listening to 3ABN Radio and studying his Bible, but this wasn’t what I had in mind!”

“God answered my prayer request in a very different way than I expected,” she says. “The very next month Peter began listening to 3ABN Radio and studying his Bible, but this wasn’t what I had in mind!”

Sandra wasn’t too interested in listening to 3ABN Radio with Peter, but was grateful when he quit drinking a year later. Then in March 2004, she attended another one-day women’s retreat, which turned out to be right next door to the Seventh-day Adventist church where Peter and their two daughters were going to worship that day. As God would have it, that afternoon Sandra finished up at about the same time that the church service began next door, so she came in and joined them in the pew.

“I was pleasantly surprised to find how much I liked the service,” she says. “I found the people to be very friendly. However, I didn’t give in easily.” At first Sandra continued attending her church on Sunday and the Seventh-day Adventist church on Saturday. She began to believe what she was hearing from the pulpit on Sabbath and also from 3ABN Radio. She knew she had to make a decision, and that she couldn’t continue to “straddle the fence.” She realized she needed to accept or reject the Sabbath teachings of the Bible. But once she took her stand, she didn’t find it hard to change churches, and soon she had a new church family.

Peter and Sandra were baptized in the chilly waters of Close Lake, Minnesota, on September 17, 2005. “What a refreshing feeling we had as we came out of the baptismal waters into our new life,” Peter says. “Our lives in general have changed so much, including our health habits.”

Now Peter finds himself talking about Jesus more and more. He’s also found that many of the prison inmates enjoy 3ABN Radio as well on WMLA-LP (99.7 FM), which is clearly heard, since the radio station is only two miles away! The Gentry family is now very active in the Christ Our Righteousness Seventh-day Adventist Church, in Moose Lake, Minnesota.

Their two daughters, Monica (10) and Emily (7), are now interested in the Bible, too! Monica has a spiritual hunger which has drawn her over and over to ask, “Why can’t I be baptized, too?” While her parents felt she was too young to understand a decision such as this, they eventually became convinced otherwise, and just a few weeks ago she demonstrated her decision to follow Jesus by her baptism.

And so we come to the conclusion—no, maybe I should say the beginning of another story of a family on their way to the kingdom! God bless the Gentry family as they join us on this marvelous journey to Heaven.