"Be His Witness"

(By: Jim & Carla Barbarossa)

If you would like to watch Jim's testimony on video, filmed in October 1995, you can click on the following links: Part 1  Part 2

To view a number of different video's Jim has done, you can go to: 

Godtube Videos - Jim Barbarossa  

YouTube Videos - Jim Barbarossa

You can do the same for Carla Barbarossa:  

YouTube Videos - Carla Barbarossa 

Godtube Videos - Carla Barbarossa

At a point in my life I became very sick. The job that I held for 19 years suddenly I missed 20 out of 22 months work. I was having symptoms ranging from severe headaches to dizziness and light-headedness. I lost the vision in my right eye at one time. I had stomach cramps and constipation. I had lumps underneath the skin that would just pop up anywhere, and nobody knew what they were. They would break open and drain. I lay on our couch for months waiting to die. Finally, my doctor sent me to the Mayo Clinic and they ran some tests. They diagnosed it as a rare blood disorder called Mastocytosis. Basically it was an over production of histamines within the blood stream.

We had been blessed with many "things." We had a nice house, cars, a lot of adult toys: snowmobiles, campers, and other possessions. But there was something missing deep down inside. I chased after it and couldn't find it. I looked in bars, on the softball field, and in racquetball courts. I worked 16-hour days and made more money. I started my own business, then another business. I chased, looked and searched but nothing could fill the emptiness that I had deep within me. I thought...there has to be more. I missed something some place, but I just didn't know what it was. What I had done was to make my possessions my god, I had turned my back on God, and was headed for hell. It scares me now to think how close I was. Anything could have happened at any time and I could have been gone.

One night, about 3 o'clock in the morning, we got a call from a good friend. His father had a heart attack. Something happened to me and I prayed. The only thing I can figure out is that it had to be the leading of the Holy Spirit, because I had never done anything like that before. If I had, it would have been for selfish reasons. It would be for myself, not for somebody else. I prayed and said, "Lord, this is a good man. This is the kind of man You can use to lead me to You. God if you'll save him, I'll be in church on Sunday."

So on Friday or Saturday of that week I said to my wife, don't make any plans for Sunday night, I have something to do. She was puzzled. I don't think she could figure out what was going on, or what was so important about Sunday night. But when I went to church with her I think that answered it. It was probably a shock to her. At the end of the service I didn't want to go home. I really felt comfortable. I felt at peace. There was a calmness and I was really enjoying it.

The following Sunday night I went back. I was sitting in the last pew at the back of the church, the closest one to the door, the one where you have a quick get away. There was an altar call given and I went to get up, but I couldn't move. It was like I was glued down. In my heart I wanted to get up, but something wouldn't release me. So I prayed and said,

"God, if You want me, You'll have to send someone to get me." It wasn't but two seconds when a lady from the front of the church came back and said, "Jim, do you want to pray?" I said, "Yes, I do."

I went to the altar and I confessed my sins and asked Jesus Christ into my heart. I threw my hands up and said, "God, I want everything You have and I'll give You everything I've got!" My life has not been the same since. God is good! It was the best thing that ever happened to me.

It was during that time that I had to leave the job that I had held for 20 years because of my medical problem. About 6 months after coming to know the Lord I had a lump on my chest. I went to the doctor and he said to come back in two weeks, we're going to lance it, and we're going to see what it is, if it's not gone. He gave me some medication. But I don't think he thought it would really do anything.

So I took the medication for two weeks. I was due to go back to the doctor on Monday; it was Sunday night, an hour before service. I'm taking a shower. I look in the mirror and the lump was as big as it was the day I went to the doctor. While standing in front of the mirror I remembered a scripture. "By His stripes we are healed." I'm looking at that lump, saying, "I don't have to have this. Jesus paid the price."

I got dressed and went to church. I went up for prayer, and several people came up and laid hands on me. As they prayed, the power of God came down and I was slain in the Spirit. Lying on the floor, a hand was placed on my chest and I could feel the heat between the hand and the lump. It was like a warmth.

One hour later, I went into the men's room and opened my shirt and that lump was the size of a freckle and the next day it was gone. Praise God! We have a healing miracle-working God. My doctor was amazed.

One year after being saved, while kneeling at a communion service, I heard these words go through my mind:

"My son, this night as you confess your sins before me, I wash them away with the blood that was shed for you on the cross and with that same blood I am now cleansing your diseased blood, you will go back to the doctor and it will be gone." Six weeks later I went back to the doctor. Tests were ordered and the results came back that my blood was normal. Praise God!

One day in the bank I found a wallet lying on the counter. I took it to the teller and she thanked me profusely. She said, "nobody would have brought this back, and turned it in." I gave it to her and went to my car. As I was getting in the Holy Spirit said to take my testimony and give her one. I took two: one for the lady who lost the wallet and one for the teller. I didn't think anything about it after that.

A week later my wife was in the bank. She didn't know what I had done, but the teller said, "I want to thank you so much for your husband's testimony. I want to tell you something. That empty feeling that he had, that void, I have that in me, too. Can I come to church with you?" We ended up in her house that night and prayed with her. She made a re-commitment to serve the Lord and she is now in church.

Last year my wife and I built a mini-storage warehouse. I met a gentleman who owned one. I drove by his house one day. He doesn't have an office on site, but I felt led to go in. He was there and I had a couple of testimonies and a tiny little red Bible. I left them with him and told him a little bit about my life and what God had been doing. This was in January. In May I ran into him in the store. I didn't recognize him because he looked different. He came up to me and said, "Guess what? I go to church now." I said, "you do, tell me about it." He said, "do you remember that little red Bible you gave me. I sat it on my desk in January and three weeks ago I was sitting at my desk and had a feeling that I should pick up that little red Bible. I was looking through it and I felt something go through my hands. I didn't know what it was." I said, "brother, you were touched by the Holy Ghost." He shared that with his wife. She was born again a month before. She said, "I felt that, too, but the only time I ever felt it was in church. I want to feel it at home." God is good. It was the leading of the Holy Spirit. A step of obedience and my brother was blessed.

The greatest thing that has ever happened in my life is receiving Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior. There is nothing that compares. That's the ultimate. The second greatest thing that I have ever had in my life was being allowed the privilege to be used as an instrument of Jesus Christ, to help lead somebody else out of darkness into the marvelous light.

We were traveling and went into a waffle house restaurant. Everything went wrong. What we ordered they didn't have. My wife ordered a piece of pie with ice cream and they said, "well there is a convenience store down the street and you can get the ice cream and bring it back." My son wanted a hamburger with french fries and they didn't have any fries. Whatever it was they didn't have it. A man walked in and sat down behind us. He started talking about the weather, then he talked about a man he used to hunt with. He was in his 90's. He told us the man had passed away and he had never gotten over it. He told us when he was in Vietnam, he was in a foxhole and he knew if he had died there he would have gone to heaven because Jesus Christ was in that fox hole with him.

But the sad part about it was, here he was back in America, in a waffle house, and he left Jesus Christ in that foxhole. You could tell he was a lonely and hurting man. My wife looked at him and said, "you know what? Jesus is still here. You can have Him right now." But he started talking about some other stuff. It was about time for us to leave, as we were walking out of the restaurant, when my hand hit the door handle, the Holy Spirit stopped me, turned me around and said, "go talk to that man." I went back to him and laid my hand on his shoulder and said, "brother, I don't want to leave here today until you have Jesus Christ back in your heart where He's supposed to be." He said, "well, keep me in your prayers." I said, "how about we do one better than that, we'll pray for you right here and now. It was really neat what happened. We had our three sons with us and as we are talking with this man our sons are saying, "Dad, can we go get the Bible?" "Can we go get a tape?" "Can we help?" They saw the value of what we were doing. They knew how important it was for this man to be right with the Lord and they wanted to help, they wanted to partake. That was really great! We ended up praying with the man and he received Jesus Christ back into his heart right there in the middle of that restaurant.

Obedience, to the Holy Spirit is probably the most important part of my testimony. The message that the Lord has given me is to challenge people to respond to Him. When I say that I'm obedient to God I'm not patting myself on the back, because I'm nobody. But because God decided to use me for a reason and whatever that reason is, that's His decision.

PLEASE HELP US HELP YOU SHARE THE BEST NEWS GOD HAS FOR EVERY PERSON BECAUSE...

JESUS DID IT! and...

YOU ARE SO GREATLY NEEDED!

Remember: All that we do in this life comes back to our God-given purpose which is to serve and glorify God. The money and assets we accumulate, the fame and power we've attained or seek to attain - all of the things of this nature will one day pass away, but those lives of others we impact for Jesus Christ will last for eternity, and we will be rewarded for the part we helped play by impacting those lives ... for eternity. (Matthew 6:19-21 is our assurance)