Volume 1: Our History

       For those of you that don't know, my name is Cory. I have a beautiful wife named Hannah and three children; Eliana, Joy and Solomon. At the moment of writing this we have a fourth on the way! I will try to sum how we got to where we are as brief as possible. We are originally from Anderson, SC. We travelled to Mozambique in 2013 a few years after getting married in pursuit of Jesus. 

Africa was as humbling as it was encouraging. I saw a side of the worldand a side of the Gospel I had never seen before. I saw the poorest of the poor in what was at the time the third poorest country in the world. I also saw many people turn wholeheartedly to Jesus. At one point (not through my prayers) someone who was blind received their sight! Glory to Jesus! I knew from that moment on that there was so much more to the Gospel of Jesus Christ than just attending church. I knew that Jesus was alive and that the Gospel could change lives and set people free. 

    We left Mozambique and were in South Africa at an orphanage for three weeks before heading home. When we came back to our hometown we could not go back to business as usual. We needed to experience the Lord in a way that we had in Africa. So we moved thirty minutes north to Greenville, SC. In Greenville was a gathering of believers known as Outreach Church. We started going there because the pastor had an uncompromising message of living your life in the grace of the Gospel. God revealed His love to us in an amazing way. The people there and the presence of God that was stewarded radically changed our hearts in a way we will never forget. At one point in time the Lord put it on my heart that we should go into the world and preach this Gospel. My error was never answering the call. I was too selfish, I enjoyed the pleasures of this life and the comforts that I could buy. We traded the call of Jesus for a normal life of an American family. I kept Jesus but didn't do one of the main thing He request of His followers. "Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves, take up their cross and follow Me." Matthew 16:24. 

    Years went by and during this time I preached that we could be free from sin while living in compromise. I knew we could be free, because of what the scripture says (2 Corinthians 3:17, John 8:36, Galatians 5:1). I also knew that we could even be free from sin (Romans 6:18, 1 John 2:1). I knew that there was power in the Gospel to save, heal and deliver. My life did not mirror what I saw in the Bible. There is something that I believe is in the heart of every believer, it is a statement. "There is MORE." I believe it is the Holy Spirit speaking these words into the heart of every believer. We live eating scraps of the table of ministers that live a life in God. We read books about revival but our lives are cold. We read books on healing while our loved ones stay sick. We listen to sermons about righteousness but we settle for sin. I found myself torn between what I knew God desired for our lives and what I was living. I ended up settling for movies, video games and alcohol. Trading a holiness for the passing pleasures of this life. In my heart I was discontent. I would go in and out of encounters with God. He would come to me in my weakness as I confessed things. I would feel His love and His mercy but like a dog I would return to things that sickened my soul. This up and down cycle continued for years, few knew but some did. These friends also had the same struggles. Where were His people who overcome this world. I so longed for Him but felt trapped in an endless cycle of shame and forgiveness. One day that all changed.

    A trip to Trinidad with my brother Weyman Dodson shook me to my core. God revealed how weak and far my life was from the life Jesus had for me. I had so much fear in my life at that point that I almost didn't make it to Trinidad. Once I was there conversations about ISIS having a cell there arose. My heart froze at a picture I couldn't shake from my mind. I kept seeing a turn in a road and ISIS soldiers waiting for us, ready to kill us in a moment. The fear was so strong I was convinced that I would never see my family again. God was exposing me in my current state. My brothers (in Christ) Evan and Weyman both sensed my struggle and prayed and encouraged me. The trip ended up being amazing, we saw God move in so many ways. Shortly after returning from Trinidad I offered some people from The Last Reformation to come and stay with me on their Luke 10 trip. They came with the simple Gospel of Repentance. That God calls us to be Holy. That a friend of the world is an enemy of God. He said there are many riding the fence between God and the world. They said that one day that fence would be ripped up and those on it destroyed. They challenged me to step up and be the man God had called me to be. To give my life completely to Jesus. Little did I know that a set of dreams would shake me with the fear of the Lord.

    In this dream I was on a plane. A short heavier set woman was flying it. She could not take off to a higher elevation but was dodging trees and power lines until finally she clipped one. The plane did a tailspin and crashed. I found my wife and my youngest two children in the front of the plane unharmed. Then I heard a scream in the back. I went to the back of the plane to find that my oldest daughter was there lifeless, her head separated from her neck. It wasn't gruesome but she was dead in the dream. I heard someone say, "Truly she was a great woman." Then I woke up. That same night I found out that my oldest daughter (the one who died in my dream) had a dream as well. In her dream she was wearing a princess dress and was running from her friends. She kept telling them to stop chasing her but they wouldn't. She then persisted to cry out daddy save me, daddy save me as they pursued her. Through these two dreams the Lord spoke to me that if I continued the pattern of life that my daughter would die spiritually, that her friends and this world would have more influence on her than I or the Lord would. I knew based on my Trinidad trip, my meeting with believers from TLR and these dreams that I had to make a change. I couldn't even imagine in that moment what would lay ahead for my family and I. For the sake of length I will continue this part of our journey in the next blog. Blessings to all my friends and family, we miss you dearly!                                                    

The Watt Family