Life Stories


Allison Ward

I have always gone to church. My earliest memory of going to church is when I was about 2 ½ years old and living in Philadelphia, PA. I was born there, and many of my relatives still live there. I remember going to church as well as to Vacation Bible School one summer.

After serving in the United States Coast Guard, my father accepted a position with IT&T and moved our family to northern New Jersey. Over the years, we attended a few churches. My parents were active as Sunday school teachers. I heard Bible stories, memorized scripture, learned and sang hymns and songs that many learned in Sunday school. I learned right from wrong according to God’s Word and believed that Jesus loved us so much that He died for our sins.

Over the course of a summer as I walked to Summer Band School, I noticed a white building being constructed about four blocks from my home. This would be the new meeting site of Rutherford Bible Chapel. One year after its completion, my grandmother signed my sisters and me up for Vacation Bible School. It was during that week that I realized that all that I had heard and learned over the years about Jesus had to become personal for me – because I needed to be saved from my sins, and He died for me! Before I went to sleep one night, I looked up to God and prayed that He would forgive me for all the sins in my life. I wanted Jesus to be my Savior and I wanted to be in Heaven with Him after I die.

As an upper elementary school student, I was still going to the other church we had been attending. The next two years were difficult years for me as I wasn’t hearing and learning the same types of things from the Bible. The youth group I attended as a 7th grader left me questioning the purpose of that church and wondering what they really believed (some nights we didn’t even open the Bible). My 8th grade year was a turning point in my life. I started attending Rutherford Bible Chapel regularly on Sundays and on Friday nights for the Junior High Youth Group meetings. I learned from the Bible, I grew spiritually, and I was baptized during that year.

Through my high school years, I wanted to serve God with whatever I had. At age 15, I helped out with Round-Up Time, which was an after school program for K-2 students. I sang in the choir, the youth choir, and played my French horn for special music.

After graduating high school, I was no longer required by my parents to go to church. It was my choice as to what I would do. I decided to make God, my God, and I continued to go to church based on my decision. God was not just for my parents and grandparents; He was someone I wanted to be in my life daily. I was asked to teach Sunday school and to work with the Pioneer Girls program. It gave me great joy to be able to share with young girls the wonderful things I had learned from the Bible!

Two years later, Peter and I were married, and we committed ourselves to serving the Lord wherever He would lead us. Our faith has been tested over and over again during the last 30+ years. Our first big test came three months after we were married when God lead Peter to teach at Southfield Christian School. Peter’s dad had just suffered his second major heart attack three weeks earlier, and we had just discovered that we were expecting our first baby. By faith, we moved away from our family in New Jersey out to Michigan. Difficult time? Yes, indeed. Peace in the decision? Absolutely! God is in my life and is always with me. I look to Him for the small things as well as the big things. Nothing happens to me that has not passed through God’s hands first. I’ve learned to trust God as He has power over everything in this world.

“My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand. My father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand. I and the Father are one.” John 10:27-30 NIV