Testimony of Andrew R. Rappaport

I woke up suddenly to the sound of a siren and much commotion down stairs. I ran into the hallway where I met up with my younger sister. We both ran down the stairs to see what was happening. My older brother was already at the bottom of the stairs. My parents were gone, but my aunt was there. She was trying to explain to my sister and I, that my mother had to be taken to the hospital. We did not really understand. I was only nine years old at the time, and my sister was six.

The next day, my father tried to explain to my sister, Ellen and I that my mother had pasted out in my fathers arms. My parents were viewing pictures that my aunt had brought over to the house. My mother had passed out and turned blue, due to a lack of air to her lungs. This was caused by cancer that she had been battling.

My father had given her mouth‑to‑mouth respiration and revived her. None of us were ready to handle the next six months. My mother had been in and out of the hospital and was taking every drug possible. My sister and I would stay awake every night until my father came home. The first question that we would ask was, "When can we go and see mom?" As I look back on that question, I realize that it must have been very difficult for my father. My parents agreed that my sister and I should not see my mother, due to the fact that she lost most of her hair through the Chemotherapy. My father did what he thought was best to keep our hopes up.

June 27, 1978 was the last day of school. I was in fifth grade and at this time, I was ten years old. School was to let out at 12:30pm. It was 12:00pm when I was called down to the principal’s office. When I saw my sister there, we both got excited. We had convinced ourselves that our father was picking us up early so that we could go to the hospital to see our mother. We had thought that we had been well behaved and that this would be our reward. My sister and I fought often as children, and in those six months we had tried so hard to be obedient children, with the hope that maybe we could see our mother.

My father did in fact come to pick us up from school. Ellen and I must have made that event extremely difficult for my father. We had worked ourselves into such excitement. We kept asking, if we were going to go to the hospital to see our mother. My father's first words were that we would discuss it in the car. We lived only five minutes from the school, so the drive was short. As we approached the house, my father started to say words that would ring in my ears for years. "Well," my father started, "I have to tell you something, and it is not good news...". That was all that I needed to hear I knew the rest. I did not even wait for the car to come to a stop. As we approached the driveway, I jumped out of the car and ran for the house.

When I entered the house, I was not expecting what I saw. There were people, people everywhere. Family and friends of my parents filled the house. I saw my thirteen-year-old brother, Jay, standing at the stairs. He went to come over to me, but I ran right past him. To my room I went. No one came after me for a while. I guess they thought it would be better if they let me settle down for a while. That changed though. My little cousin, who must have been around three or four years old, came into my room. He was told that his aunt had gone away, I guess that is that best way to explain it to someone so young. He just wanted to play. I did not realize that he did not understand what had happened. I started to pick things up and throw them at him, just barley missing him. My father entered the room quickly and Ellen was shortly behind him.

My father entered the room, at which time I was in a frenzy, throwing anything close to me at the door where my cousin had previously been standing. My father realized that it was time for a talk. I used to keep a dairy back then, and I remember clearly those words that I wrote in it on that day:

July 27, 1978 ‑‑ TODAY IS THE WORST DAY OF MY LIFE !!!

TODAY IS THE DAY THAT MY MOTHER DIED !!!

My father tried so hard to comfort my sister and I. He had told us that she was better off this way. She had been sick for so long and suffering the whole time.

It is hard to comfort a ten-year-old child that just lost his mother and never had the chance to really get to know her. I did not even get the chance to even say, good‑bye. That hurt, more then I could ever try to explain. I felt like I was responsible. I had thought that if I was really good that I would get the opportunity to see her, at least in the hospital. I was wrong.

The following year my father was remarried, July 21, 1979. I now had a new older brother and a new younger sister. This was a very big change for all of us. We were now a large family, with a great deal of pain from both sides. In May of 1978, my stepmother had lost her husband, due to a heart attack at a very young age. There were many new things that all of us had to deal with, and I guess we each did so in our own way. I can only speak for myself, as to the emotions that were felt at that time in my life.

I can remember times late at night crying out to God, asking why this had to happen. I did not understand. It was difficult for me, and I can remember times when I would get violently angry at other children at summer camp because they made jokes about people's mothers. My mother! I would black out and not remember the fights themselves but only the aftermath. The same thing started to happen at school, when people made mother jokes at me. This became quite a problem.

My father took me for counseling. I guess it helped. It got it out of my mind. I continued to grow as most children, finding ways to fit in at school. Of course to be "cool" you had to drink and smoke and try to be an adult. This was easy. My brother was a senior in high school when I was a freshman. He would have parties with his friends on the back porch. Jay always tried to look out for me, but I think that it might have been too much for him to handle. He went off to college and my stepbrother was now a senior. We would have big parties when Jay came home from college and my parents were out of the house.

After my sophomore year of high school, I had an opportunity to travel to California with a group of people my age. We flew out to Denver, Colorado, and then took a bus in a circle around to Mexico, up to Canada, and back to Denver. I had become friendly with the bus driver, his name was Chuck. We had traveled for several weeks and seen many great sights, and I thought that I was there, at the top of everything, as if nothing could every go wrong. That was soon to change.

On July 21, 1984, we were in San Diego, California. A few days before, we had found out that we had all missed a manic that killed many people in a McDonalds’s that we left only half an hour before he started shooting and killing many people. Death was once again on my mind. I am not sure if Chuck, noticed my concern or not. We were eating at a Chinese restaurant. I had known that Chuck was always talking about God. Chuck and I had started a conversation over the fortune in a fortune cookie. I do not remember what the fortune said, or for that matter, much of the conversation. I do remember that we had talk for a while long enough to get to an ice cream shop outside of Chinatown.

The conversation must have lasting for about half an hour to an hour. We talked about a Man that I had never heard of before. Chuck had explained that this Man had loved him very much. This Man loved him so much that He was willing to pay the price for things that Chuck had done wrong. Chuck told me that this Man was God in human form and His name was Jesus the Christ. I had been raised Jewish so I had never heard this story before, or was it a story? When we finally got some ice cream, we were sitting on the front steps of the ice cream shop. I do remember telling him that, it was nice that he had a nice story to believe in but I would only believe in facts.

Then Chuck made a comment to me, that would have normally got me enraged, yet I was extremely clam the whole time. Chuck challenged me in a way that no one had ever done before or since. Chuck made the bold, clear, blunt statement, "What if your mother had died just so that you would be here right now! Would it not be a shame if your mother died so that you could hear this message, and you let her died in vain!!!" The words kept ringing in my ear: "DO NOT LET HER DEATH BE IN VAIN!!!" This is what I needed to question Chuck more about this God‑Man named Jesus. Chuck proceeded to tell me about Jesus’ death for my sins.

I am a logical person. Being very analytical, Chuck started to show me in the Bible the prophecies and explain their fulfillments. I realized that it would be statistically impossible for anyone no matter how hard they tried to fake all of the Scriptures. Chuck’s talk of the resurrection only proved the Jesus was God, that could not be explained anyway, (and I tried).

I do not remember all that we talked about on those steps in front of the ice cream shop, but all I can remember is that I realized at that time, for the first time, that I was a sinner. I knew that I was destined for hell, if something did not change. I understood that Jesus' death paid for my sins and that His resurrection vindicated His message that He was God. I remember Chuck leading me in prayer, asking Jesus to forgive me of my sins. For the first time in my life, I can say that I could really come to grips with the death of my mother. Six years had past by before I could deal with her death. I am not sure where she is now, but I unfortunately have no reason to believe that she is in heaven.

The reason I say this is because of the fact that if Jesus' resurrection did vindicate His message completely. Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me" (John 14:6). One must believe that Jesus is who He said He was to obtain everlasting life. Jesus said, "he who believes in Me has everlasting life" (John 6:47). Many people who have been raised knowing the life of Jesus know the words of Him in John 3:16. But to a Jew on those steps in 1984, it was the first time that I heard it, "God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life."

If you do not know Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior, then you must realize that "now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation" (2 Corinthians 6:2). You must understand that in the eyes of man you may seem righteous but in the eyes of God, "all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" (Romans 3:23). God's Word, the Bible, teaches us "the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Romans 6:23). Recognize your sinfulness, and need for salvation through Jesus the Christ. God loved you, sinner, enough to come down from Heaven to die for you on the cross. Do you know of anyone that has ever loved you like that? NO! Only God can have loved for you like that, so recognize the work that He, alone, did for you at the cross. Repent of your sins and turn to Jesus, as God, who paid the price for your sins, and rose on the third day to rule in Heaven.

In the years to come I have felt called to the ministry of being a fulltime pastor/teacher. I noticed a desire to teach and explain the Word of God to others. I long to see Christians understand the Lord and develop an ever growing relationship at new levels. I study my Bible to teach other either one-on-one or in groups. As long people know who they serve.

Striving to make to an eternal day for the Glory of God,

Andrew R. Rappaport

Galatians 2:20