What happens when the only culture and lifestyle you've ever known is removed and you must depend totally on Jesus to make the many decisions involved in living life and raising your children? Living in a modern world with which they were unfamiliar, these are the challenges faced by the authors of His Grace Found Me. In her story, Leona Koehn Nichols continues the events begun in her first book, Other Loves All Flee, which recounts the conflict in the hearts of her and her husband as they tried to live out their understanding of the Bible. It would culminate with the excommunication of the four family members baptized into the Church of God in Christ (Mennonite). They struggled for nineteen months with one question: Would they continue as part of their unique culture and faithfully follow the traditions of the church, or would they make Jesus the Lord of their lives? Having been raised in an ultra-conservative environment they had little concept of how the "outside world" lived. Included in this book are the stories of five other ex-Holdeman families, also reluctant to leave the life they knew. Faced with decisions of how to live their lives and raise their children without the clearly defined guidelines of the church, they searched the Scriptures for help in the various choices they would make. They too met many challenges, but over time each family has come to a place of joy in living out their faith. These families are: The Ray Eck Family The Anthony Toews Family The Quentin Giesbrecht Family The Lance Dirks Family The Jim Smith Family Truly, the grace of God reached down and found them, guiding their steps in "the new and living way" described in the Book of Hebrews. They have found their "freedom in Christ."

Author Biography

I was born, the second child in a loving Christian family and had an exceptional childhood with a mom who loved to read to us and a Dad who took us on trips and fun family outings. School was very enjoyable to me, and I knew in first grade that I wanted to be a teacher someday. We were active members in an ultra-conservative church called The Church of God in Christ, more often called the Mennonite Church. We attended church twice on Sundays and usually mid-week meetings also. In our late thirties we had a social evening at our home with five young couples, and ended this evening by having a prayer time. Amazingly, this changed the lives of nearly all who were in attendance. We had managed to offend our ministers, finding ourselves in "church work." This day would change our lives forever. After being excommunicated nineteen months later, we learned how to live without the legalistic restraints of our past. I was privileged to attend college and become a teacher. Today, we and our six children focus our lives on following Jesus, the Lord of our lives, and on studying the Word of God as the source of truth. We truly believe that "His Grace Found Me, and we are incredibly happy to be delivered from the legalism of our past.