I am a medically retired Consulting Engineer to the Oil Industry. I had been saved as a child but, as I grew older I fell away from God and the Church as so many of us do. I started drinking like a fish, cursing like a sailor, smoking and chasing wild women. I also lied at the drop of a hat, just because I could. I have stolen a few things, but, that was not something that I did a lot of. I loved to play pool and I was very good at it. So, that is what I did. Work when I was able, curse, chase women, play Pool, drink and smoke. Until, that is, one night in the fall of 1998, in Fairhope, Alabama.

I was in a nightclub about 10 o'clock one Friday or Saturday night playing pool and drinking and talking with some friends. I had finally lost a game and was standing at a small bar watching the games and sipping on a can of beer. The room we were in was separate from the main barroom and was about 28 feet wide by 45 feet long. There were 2 tables about 4 to 5 feet from where I was standing at a little 4 foot 3 person bar. There were chairs set all around the pool table up against the wall where people could sit and watch the game and wait for their turn. There were 4 to 5 people sitting at each of the two tables whom I knew and about 20 other people seated in the chairs along the walls, as well as the two people playing pool in the bar that night.

A man came in and walked directly over to where I was standing and we started talking and somehow the conversation got into God and religion. We talked for about 40 to 45 minutes, but only a few things stand out that I remember. The conversation got around to the Battle of Armageddon. I stated that I hoped that God would allow me to be with Him at Armageddon. I don't know what led up to me making this statement. But, the man smiled slightly when I said it. The man talked in what I could only later describe as an Archaic accent. And, when he left he said a strange thing. He said,"I have places to be and people to see." And with that, he was gone. I don't recall him ever drinking anything the whole time. The entire thing was so disturbing that I asked my friends sitting at the tables nearby if they had seen the man that I had been talking with or heard any of the conversation. No one in that room that night saw the man or heard me taking with anyone or heard anything even though there had to be 10 or more people within 15 feet of us the whole time. What makes this even stranger is that people in this bar tended to treat me as somewhat of a celebrity because of my pool playing ability. They were constantly watching or approaching me to talk, so it was very strange that no one saw the man or heard anything. It upset me so badly that I left in such a hurry that I even forgot to pay my bartab or get my credit card from the bartender. When I got home, which is just 11/2 miles down the road, my sister and my sister-in-law were sitting on the couch talking and I told them of the strange man and of the stranger conversation that had just taken place.





I stopped drinking and going to nightclubs and playing pool shortly after that night. I started reading my Bible and talking to God in prayer and going to Church on Sunday. I believe that that was an Angel of God in the bar that night and that God was calling me for the last time to come out of the world or to come away from worldly things. And then began a journey unlike anything that I have ever encountered in my entire life. A Walk With God.