Marilyn Atteberry had a problem. She had never had a problem like this before. She was so embarrassed and frustrated. She had awful cockroaches in her house!
She called several pest-control companies with no success. Finally she dialed the last company in the phone book, and, much to her relief, the man agreed to come. When Mark Atwood arrived at the house, he sprayed the first treatment for roaches, for which Marilyn was grateful. Then he explained her home would need more treatments.
Atteberry will never forget the look on Atwood's face when she told him she didn't want a Saturday appointment, because Saturday was her Sabbath. He told her that wouldn't be a problem since they were Sabbath keepers too.
Now it just happened that Atteberry's home was a participating site for Doug Batchelor's Prophecy Code Home Fellowship Seminar. At this point it seemed natural for Atteberry to invite Atwood and his family to the seminar in her home. Since the evening seminar would interfere with the bedtime of their five children, Atwood usually brought two of the older children, and his wife, Carol, stayed home with the younger ones. Once or twice the whole family came. When Carol and the other children saw the seminar, they were as excited by the clear presentations of Bible truth as Mark was.
The first Sabbath the Atwood family showed up at church, Atteberry whispered, "There they are," as she fairly flew over to hug the family and introduce them to us. Mark and Carol and their oldest daughter, Sierra, have officially joined our church. They are a blessing. The whole family has adopted Atteberry as a grandma.
And now when Atteberry reflects about the horrors of having dreaded cockroaches, she just smiles through tears of joy, because God used cockroaches to bring a lovely family of seven precious people into fellowship with our church family. She even praises the Lord for those awful cockroaches!
The Atwood family was introduced to the Adventist Church by Marilyn Atteberry (right), who called on Mark Atwood to rid her house of cockroaches.
