Story: Char Ransom

Char Ransom was at Bethlehem from 1976 until she passed away in 2016. Below is a transcription of Ransom's description of how she became a "disciple of Christ," pulled from a 2012 interview.

"I had a sister. My sister Betty Lou was one year almost exactly younger than I was. She was a senior in high school in this little town Pew Olip, Washington. She worked in a soda shop [during] her senior year and a young fellow named George was a University of Washington Student and he came [to visit her] every day and they became acquainted, fell in love, got engaged. So, as a senior in high school she was engaged to be married- actually she was going to lead her high school band in the Rose parade not in California but in Oregon…

What happened was George, who comes from a Christian family, prayed with her and she received Christ, and we knew her life was changed and she was always such a nice person. She came and said, “I’m going to be Baptized” and she wanted us to come, none of us in our family went. But she was Baptized on Sunday night and the next day at school she became ill and they took her by ambulance to the hospital and she was operated on and she never regained consciousness and she died 10 days later. She died 7 days before her 18th birthday and just a few weeks before she was to graduate and a few months before she was to be married. 

Well, George’s family befriended our family—we spent a lot of time together at the hospital—and I responded more than anyone else, and responding meant they would invite me for Sunday dinner and of course, you went to church first, and it was a whole new experience to me. So I went to church and eventually—they had what they called “special meetings with evangelists” I didn’t even know what an evangelist was, but I went and had a very strong conviction of sin and the assurance that Jesus would forgive me, and so I prayed and asked him to let me begin my Christian life…

"My life was totally changed."

There’s a story in Acts about Paul when he was converted on the road to Damascus. And you know he was struck down- you know- blinded, and his life totally changed from persecuting Christians to being an evangelist- a disciple of Christ, and that’s what happened to me: my life was totally changed."