My story

Rhett Vorster shares his personal story

My name is Rhett Vorster. My turning point, the change in my life through a personal experience with Christ, happened when I was saved around the age of nine. And I am not sure if I had a vision before or after that salvation experience, but around the time of kneeling and confessing with my mouth the Lord Jesus, God gave me a dream in my sleep that seemed to be a vision, or an out-of-body experience: during my slumber, I saw my soul leaving my body and I realized I was being carried by an angel to heaven. Heaven appeared as a green place, like the earth. I was shown a treasure chest and the angel said to me, 'This is your life.' It was filled with gems. Then Jesus hugged me and told me he loved me. Then an angel swung me through hell, to give me an idea of it, or what I had missed. As I left heaven, I was facing the throne of God and all his angels and happy people were around the throne. I left heaven facing heaven. As heaven got smaller, the creatures in heaven were waving goodbye to me. In that vision God told me things to tell my Dad.

The reason why I believe the vision was real was because the next morning I told my Dad about the vision, and he told me that what God told me to tell my Dad are things I could not have known, because my parents had not shared those details with me. The message I was to share with my Dad from heaven concerned encouragement and admonishment for them. One of the messages was that he must not worry about some kind of down payment (the details are vague now because it was so long ago; I am now 52 years old). The other message was about the health of my youngest sister, who had been born with a defect.

At that young age, I realized I needed Jesus because my Dad told me I needed Jesus. He showed me from the Bible about my need for Christ. I committed my life to Christ by praying with my father as he guided me in the prayer to my heavenly Father, and I prayed to receive Jesus as my Savior and God.

There are so many ways every day that I experience God's love for me: just some of the ways are through reading his Word, by enjoying the company of my godly wife Luz and being challenged by her to be a good husband, by the trials of taking care of my crippled 82 year old mother, by hearing the birds singing, by getting to share my testimony through my published books (which can be found on Lulu.com).

My struggles seem to be the main way I build my relationship with Jesus, and in those tribulations I see how God gently guides me. My many years of being homeless, unemployed, and traveling to many places on foot was perhaps my crisis of greatest challenge. During those years, including my divorce, I had many disappointments and was brought to the brink of doubting God, but the presence of his Holy Ghost inside me helped me cope with it.

One of the many personal experiences that involved divine intervention was when my aunt died, and I found out that she had written a college thesis, which was a translation of one of Mexico's greatest books on political history. When I typed out the book for publication, I was made to think about my ex-wife, who is Mexican. We had been divorced for about 9 years, and that book made me want to reunite with her. I was barely able to find her thanks to her daughter, who I was not close to. That led to me traveling from Dallas (my hometown), in the state of Texas, to Seattle, in the state of Washington (where I had last been with her). We reunited and got remarried, and we have been together ever since. Now we live in Mexico. When we divorced she was not sure if she was going to heaven, and her Catholic faith was a big reason why we had divorced. Now she knows she is going to heaven, thanks to her commitment to Christ.

God speaks to me mainly through Holy Writ: that collection of books from Genesis to Revelation. And through prayer. And through adversity. And through my wife. Jesus has called me to love God and my neighbor, and to preach the gospel. Part of my preaching is done through my books. I hope one day to preach as a traditional preacher again. My calling was shown to me while I was being transformed as a soldier in the US army. I consider myself to be a teacher as well, but have never been so in an official capacity. Perhaps one day God will make that happen.

What I would recommend to people who have a desire to meet God is to tell them that they must repent of their sins, confess with their mouth the Lord Jesus, and believe in their heart that he rose from the dead, and then they shall be saved from hell and brought into God's kingdom. Then I would tell them to get baptized as soon as possible.