WHERE ARE THEY NOW? Marylin Nater

The year 2014 was a year of change for Marylin Nater. Not only did she give her life to Christ, but she started a new ministry leading others to accept the new freedom she had gained through salvation.

It started in 1994 when Marylin saw a billboard for a Revelation seminar in Fayetteville, N.C., She and her mother decided to go. She never forgot about those meetings. Even while listening to other messages at other churches, Marylin knew she had already heard the truth; nothing else made sense. But it took her 10 years to find her way back to the Adventist church.

For two years, church members Zachary and Kathy McFaden faithfully drove an hour to Marylin’s house to give her Bible studies. They never wavered.

About a week after Marylin surrendered herself to Christ, she started a Bible study group. At first it was only her daughters and herself, but by the next week they had a bigger group that just kept growing.

Marylin met with her local pastor, who later came to visit the Bible study. Impressed with how the studies were going, he asked if Marylin would be willing to present a seminar on how to conduct a Bible study. Her reply was, “But can I do that? I’m not even baptized.”

The pastor’s response was, “Well, would you like to get baptized?”

“Yeah,” Marylin said. “I think I would.”

The pastor told her to share her decision with the study group, and see what happens. She did, and two others decided to be baptized as well. Then, little by little, as weeks went by, one

more was added, then another. Nine of them were ready to get baptized on March 29, 2014.

That was eight years ago. And it was only the beginning.

A month after Marylin’s first video testimony, another group was baptized from the Bible study class (which is still going strong.)

A year later, Marylin was invited to do a program on the radio, and is now teaching the Three Angels’ Messages on several different stations all over the world. In 2019, Marylin was invited to work as a Bible worker for a small group in Red Spring, N.C. They had three baptisms within the first three months.

Before the COVID pandemic was intensifying, Marylin and her fellow members had planned to have an evangelistic series. So, in March of 2020, when other churches had been closed for two weeks, Marylin had evangelistic series going on both in Fayetteville and Red Springs. “We never stopped working,” she shares.

One of the most exciting things that has happened to Marylin was when she was invited to plant a church in the city of Shannon, N.C. When they started, they were a small group of only 13 people, including adults, kids, and teenagers. They started Bible studies and hosted a 30-day evangelistic series. In a few months their numbers had increased to 23, and the group is still growing.

“I have no doubt that pretty soon we’re going to become a church,” says Marylin, “a full-grown church for the Lord. If you want to plant something that will last eternally, plant a church.”

It took Marylin almost ten years to get baptized. During that time, the McFadens never gave up. Church members kept in touch with her. “Please, please, do not get discouraged,” says Marylin. “Keep working. Keep giving your all. Keep going the extra mile. Because, you can be assured that you will have victory in Christ, if you do not give up.”

More than 30 baptisms have been the result of those Bible studies given to Marylin more than 10 years ago. When you open an apple, you can count the seeds in the apple. But you will never be able to count how many apples will come out of one seed. So do not give up. Keep

doing evangelism. Keep being faithful to the Lord, because He will be faithful to you.

“Eight years ago, I said to my Lord, I made my words Isaiah 6:8. I said, ‘Here I am, send me,’” Marylin shares. “And today, eight years later, I still have my first love. And my first love has grown more than what it was eight years ago, because I have seen His hand.”

—Rebecca Carpenter. Photos by Henrique Gomes.