Testimony of God’s Perfect Timing, by Gerry Collins, CHATS

Somewhere in time, two people came together and a little girl was born to an unwed mother. In just two months time, this young mother realized she could not support a child as she was a dancer in the Follies in Seattle in the late 20’s. A couple from the Follies, she a dancer and he in the band, offered to take me—I was adopted on December 24, 1928. My adopted mom ran away with another man when I was three and my adopted dad was left with a little child to raise by himself. For eight years it was just the two of us. He played in bands and nightclubs and also built a tavern called “Fiddler’s Inn”.

When I was eleven, he married a nineteen-year-old lady with one child and, in the next five years, three more girls were born to this couple. I grew up singing and dancing in the tavern. My stepmother kept me busy cleaning and babysitting for my four sisters. I know God placed me in this family, and all that happened to me was ordained of God to bring me to a place where I would learn of His Son Jesus Christ, and accept Him as Savior and Lord.

A young man in our neighborhood, Claude, went to serve in WWII and when he came home we fell in love. He was a jazz drummer and we were well suited for each other. Two weeks before our wedding we were invited to a little Baptist church by a co-worker of Claude’s brother. We heard the gospel for the first time. Claude, his brother, Don and wife Peg accepted Jesus Christ that night. I came to Christ three months after our wedding. In just one year, eight of Claude’s brothers and sisters came to know Jesus and many of the children in their families as well.

What a marvelous change took place in our lives. God turned our lives around and sent us to Multnomah Bible College. We already had one son, and two more children were born while we were at Multnomah.

We have served in five churches as lead pastor and wife. God has blessed us with three children who love the Lord, 8 grandchildren who are serving the Lord, and now six great-grandchildren.

As we retired from full time ministry after 40 some years, we were invited to come to Antioch and work with the 40s and up group. Ken Hutcherson, the senior pastor, reminded us that there is no retirement in the Bible. I have always had a heart for women’s ministry and we were asked to be counselors for the single parent group. God placed in my heart the desire to start a mentoring ministry for these young moms. Joan Hunt, our women’s ministry director, had also been praying about this type of ministry. We included the married women in our church. We also chose a board of five women and named our ministry “CHATS”—Coaching, Heartwarming, And, Tutoring, Sisters. Since our beginning in 1996, over 600 women have come through our CHATS program. Our ministry is based on Titus 2:4-5.

We have seen BABY “CHATS” ministries started in Alaska, Las Vegas, South Carolina, California, Hawaii as well as several in the surrounding cities of Seattle. We have many calls from churches who want to start a mentoring ministry in their church. My praise is that God has blessed my life and given me a beautiful and talented family as well as long years to serve Him and a hope for the future. In 2007, Claude and I celebrated 60 years of marriage and 51 years of serving the Lord.

P.S. God has a wonderful sense of humor. Though I never met my birth parents, I found out when I was sixty years old that Clark Gable is probably my birth father. People say, “How can you be sure? Don’t you want DNA testing?” I say, "Lord, you are my heavenly father and I am the daughter of the King of Kings and that is good enough for me."