By Jill Morikone
It was one of those busy mornings. Returning to my desk, I noticed the voicemail light on my phone. I picked it up and heard a soft voice with a slight accent. “Hello, Jill, this is Julie Kronbauer and I’m calling you from Guyana.” Intrigued, I sat down and listened to the rest of her message.
Later that morning, I called Julie back, and the more she spoke, the more excited I became. This testimony needs to be shared—how God used 3ABN to minister to her, and to her family! But I’m getting ahead of myself… .
Looking for God
Julie grew up in a home divided by religion. Her father was Catholic, but he left most of the religious training to her mother, who was Hindu! There were many idols in her home—the god of light, the god of destruction—and they all had different meanings.
“My mother and grandmother would pray to these idols at the altar in our home,” she says. “Sometimes they’d go to the sea with offerings of fruit for the gods. Yet, somehow, I always hesitated. I might outwardly pray to them, but in my heart I yearned for something more. Deep inside, I always believed in a real God, and I wanted Him.”
At a very young age, God began to answer Julie’s prayer by giving her a Seventh-day Adventist teacher! “When I was only five or six years old,” she says, “my teacher began taking me to a Seventh-day Adventist church here in Georgetown. During Sabbath School, I heard about the Bible and the stories of Moses for the first time. I especially liked the stories about Jesus, but when I returned home the idols would be there, staring at me. When I woke up they were there, and I’d have to pray to them. Then, at bedtime, I’d have to pray to those idols again.”
All too soon, Julie’s teacher left, so she stopped attending the Adventist church. But in spite of being surrounded by idols, she continued to pray in her heart to the God she desperately wanted to know.
Looking for Love
Besides praying to know the real God, Julie had another special request. “I always prayed for love in my life,” she says. “Not human love, but the kind of love that God gives. When I was 17 I was living near my aunt, and I saw this Brazilian man drive past. Later, we met, and we began to write letters to each other, never dreaming we would one day be married!”
I could hear the smile in her voice. “Soon I invited my boyfriend, Volei, to meet my parents, but when he saw the idols in my home, he shook his head. Later he told me, ‘Julie, idol worship is not right. They’re just idols, they’re not really gods.’ There was no debate in my heart about that, for I’d always doubted their power, and wished to know the true God.
“Somehow, God’s hand was over me all through those years,” she adds. “Even as a teenager, I never participated in parties, drank, or ran around with other men. God saved me from all that, even though I didn’t know who He was at that time.
“After we had been together a little while, Volei took me to Brazil to meet his family, and I discovered they were Seventh-day Adventists!” Julie exclaims. “I attended church with them, and began to learn about the Sabbath,” she adds.
God continued to lead Julie. Her husband owned a mining business, and she worked at the bank in Georgetown. When she was 25, their daughter, Valeska, was born. By now, Julie no longer worshiped her idols. She believed in God, but still had many unanswered questions. Then God moved again!
Looking for Answers
One evening, when she switched on the television, she saw something different. It was 3ABN!
“It came on a regular channel here in Georgetown,” she says. “It was Channel 2, and they’d begun airing 3ABN on Friday evening and on Sabbath. The first time I turned it on Pastor David Asscherick was preaching about Revelation. All those beasts and different things really caught my attention, and I couldn’t turn it off. I’d been wondering about Revelation, and now here they were being explained in detail, right before my eyes! I could see it was real. This was the truth. Everything David said was confirmed by the Bible.
“I watched 3ABN with no prior knowledge of the Bible, and yet I understood it. Sadly, many people study the Bible all the time but don’t understand it. I believe the difference lies in our willingness to surrender to the influence of the Holy Spirit. I began to read my Bible, and I especially liked the Psalms. They comforted and encouraged me; they made me happy. I knew this must come from Jesus.”
Looking for Truth
Unfortunately, 3ABN was on Channel 2 for only a few more months after Julie discovered it. The owners of the channel moved out of Guyana, and someone else bought the channel and removed 3ABN from the lineup.
Almost ten years passed. Julie and Volei had a son, Matheus, and Volei continued in his business, often working on the Sabbath. They only worshiped on Sabbath when they visited Volei’s family in Brazil, but deep in her heart Julie had a desire to learn more truth—and to watch 3ABN again.
Suddenly, their Sky TV satellite quit working, so she called the satellite installer and let him know she’d really like to have 3ABN. Soon he called her back and said, “I have good news. I found 3ABN!”
“That was over a year ago, and we’ve been so incredibly blessed!” she adds.
Looking for a Church
“As my family and I viewed the programs, our hearts were touched by the Holy Spirit,” Julie says. “Jesus entered our hearts and home through the preaching of the Word and the truth aired on 3ABN.
“There have been so many changes in our lives! My husband and I began a relationship with the Lord Jesus and became serious about walking in the truth we knew. My husband quit working on Sabbath, and we decided to attend the Georgetown Central Seventh-day Adventist Church. But imagine my surprise when I walked in the door and discovered it was the very church my teacher had taken me to all those years before, when I was just a little girl! After the service I walked toward the back to greet the pastor, and told him I was ready to be baptized!”
Pastor Hubert Jack was surprised. “The first time Julie came to my church she asked if she could be baptized,” he exclaims. “I wanted to get her into a class so she could understand our beliefs, but she said, ‘Pastor, that’s okay. I’ve done some studying already, and I’ve been watching 3ABN!’ I could tell right away that this was somebody the Lord had made contact with.”
(Photo: Leon Jeffrey)
Her church in Georgetown was undergoing remodeling, and since Julie didn’t want to wait for the baptistery to be finished, Pastor Jack took her to another church and baptized her on January 30, 2013. Her husband was rebaptized, as well, in his home country of Brazil.
“As I look back on my life, I can see God guiding me all the way,” Julie says. “He snatched me from my Hindu environment and placed me on the path to meet God and learn the truth for this time. The only television we watch now is 3ABN—and we watch it all the time! As soon as I wake up in the morning, I click it on. Then we check the schedule at 3abn.org to see what’s airing that day.
“3ABN is like a church in my home,” she laughs. “I get prayer. I get preaching. I get singing. I get marital advice, healthy cooking, and even kids’ programs! However, we still need to mingle with others, and our children need to participate in Sabbath School. God wants us to come together with other believers so we can interact with our brothers and sisters and grow spiritually.”
Today, Julie and her whole family rejoice in newfound and rediscovered truths from the Word of God. How marvelous are the ways He uses to bring truth and light to His children!