Transcript
Ian: Hey Veritas, thanks for tuning in. Glad you're joining us today. We always want to take time to share some stories from people in our church, so I got Randy LePlatt with us here today. Randy, thanks for jumping in and joining us today. How about you just start off by sharing with us your story. Kind of why you are the way that you are. Like how you came to know Jesus and all that stuff?
Randy: Yeah, so, I grew up in the church, grew up in a Christian home. My parents ran a ministry called Fellowship of Christian Athletes out of our home growing up every Monday night. So we had a group of, you know, 20 —30 kids in our home sharing Jesus. So it was around the Christian faith growing up, had childlike faith growing up. My walk kind of became my own in high school. I went through a few difficult things, losing some friends and really just trying to find my own identity. In high school after that, I went into some college and walked away from the faith a little bit and really found out how empty life can be without Christ and really just started pursuing him around my sophomore year again. Christ just pulled me back to him and i’ve just been growing in my knowledge and faith in him ever since.
Ian: Yeah, that's awesome. What would you say are some of those things that maybe like helped encourage you in your faith, maybe back then, and maybe even more so now, recently?
Randy: Yeah, I think it's always super refreshing to look back and to see where God has taken care of you in the past and where he has served you despite yourself or myself. Yeah, I think looking at His faithfulness and just leaning on his promises has been something that's been super prevalent for myself and my family recently.
Ian: That's awesome. Oh, what about here at Veritas? How long have you guys been coming and what's your involvement been like? And yeah, just share some of your story about being here at Veritas.
Randy: Yeah. So my family and I moved here two years ago, I think, and we were in New Mexico. We came back home to be a family. A family member had gotten cancer, stage four, so we went home to be with family. After we spent about a year and a half in New Mexico, it just really wasn't a place that we were being called to. My wife and I, both of our walks, were going downhill. We couldn't get plugged into a church. There was no community for us there other than family and family was really the only thing that was holding us there. So at one point, I just I kind of was I was praying. I was like, All right, God, like, what's next? Like, I'm ready for whatever you have next for us. And out of the blue, I got a call from, I was working for Chick-Fil-A at the time, Chick-Fil-A here in Iowa, and I was like, okay God, you got anything else but Iowa? So my wife and I prayed about it and we were here within four or five weeks. Day one, we came here on a Thursday and on a Sunday we are invited to Veritas through someone at Chick-Fil-A. So we've been coming to Veritas ever since we moved to Cedar Rapids, Iowa. We were really craving community and set out for a community after we went through launch point and brunch. We were able to get into a connection group that has really just been an anchor for us. We had never really experienced true gospel community like we have since we moved out here, and it's really what's kept us here. We've moved out here for Chick-Fil-A. I've been in three jobs since and God's really just been providing for us step after, step after step, just as we've walked out in faithfulness to Him. So Veritas, it's just been a huge anchor for us in our faith and we've just grown so much in the past two years since we've been coming here.
Ian: Man, that's awesome. Thank you so much for taking some time to share your story with us. And I love just hearing how like you have seen God's faithfulness in your own life and how that causes you to be spurred on to live for him. And that's something that we want everyone to know and everyone to see God's faithfulness in their own life and how that spurs us on and motivates us to live for him. And so thanks for sharing your story with us today.
Randy: Yeah, happy to do it.