Angry, Betrayed, Misled, but Saved at a VBS
by Chantelle Miller

[The following testimony is from Chantelle Miller who came to the Lord after helping as an adult leader at a VBS conducted by AOI’s children’s ministry leaders, Lanny & Marilyn Johnson. Chantelle attended church through her youth, but had not been given the opportunity to hear the truth--even at church!! She dropped out, rebelled, and had severe problems before finding the truth. Unfortunately this is even more prevalent today. --Dave Nutting, Ed.]

How do I feel when I hear or read statements like, “The earth is millions of years old,” or, “If you have a backbone you descended from a fish?” I feel all the things I felt while I was growing up, before I learned the truth and before I acknowledged that Christ had a home with me. I feel angry, betrayed, misled, and, most of all, concerned... .

[...After all the grief] in 1997, a cataclysmic and spectacular event occurred in my life. It came about only because a friend, who is also a pastor’s wife, asked if I would be willing to help with a community Vacation Bible School planned for that summer. That week began a new part of my life. All week I listened to this wonderful family [the Johnsons] bringing their faith to this group of children. The whole week was based on the week of Creation, what happened on each day as God worked to create our world and all that is in it. Much of the time was spent with the family performing skits with puppets, a favorite of these being a large lion named “Eugene.” Two of the most frequently used statements during the week were “It couldn’t just happen and. “In the beginning, God....” (Genesis 1:1).

I listened to the lessons, sang the songs, heard the stories, and learned the verses, and slowly over that week, things began to sink in - how God made the world exactly the way He wanted it to be, how He designed all the creatures exactly as He wanted them to be, how He created man exactly how He wanted him to be. Over that week my eyes were opened and the truth I had been seeking all those years finally entered my heart.

The last day of that Vacation Bible School the father in the missionary family asked all the children to bow their heads and, for those who wanted, to ask God to come into their hearts and lives. There I sat, off to the side, my head bowed with my hair hanging to shield my face from those I was afraid would see. I was afraid they would see, that behind my personal wall, tears of joy were streaming down my face. I finally knew I was forgiven, and the feeling of acceptance and love was indescribable.

This wonderful missionary father who had helped to open my eyes then said that those who had just accepted Christ could go off with a leader and be helped to understand their new commitment to God. Yet, there I sat, carefully shielding myself from those around me, because I felt he was talking to the children, not to me. The adults were supposed to know all this already, yet I had not. So I stayed where I was. It has been almost three years since that week, and I no longer hide. I am now happy to smile and say I was saved. With the help of a giant, 6' lion puppet that travels with this missionary family and teaches “children” about creation and God’s gift of life and salvation, the truth of creation was presented in a way even I could understand. I also now understand that I really was one of the children, because that is how God wants us to come to him, as a child.

But, instead of dwelling on these feelings, I now know how to leave it all with God, and that is what I do. So now I will go on teaching my children and any others that ask about the truth. I will start at the beginning, with the Creation, for that is where it all began.

The Information of Life
by Elizabeth Rohloff

[Elizabeth Rohloff, from Vermont, is one of our summer interns. She has a real love for digging deeper into complex issues. It has been a real pleasure having her with us! - Dave Nutting]

Life is amazingly complex on the genetic level. All of the information that codes for life is contained within the DNA of a cell. Only within recent years have scientists really begun to unlock this genetic information and understand the message that life contains. Evolutionists hope that by comparing the genes of different organisms, life will finally be able to be placed in an evolutionary phylogeny (a branching tree), showing the ascent of life. However, because of the complexity of the gene and the DNA it contains, it appears that life holds only one message - the message of design.

Within the cell nucleus, there are small bodies called chromosomes. Depending on the species, the numbers of chromosomes vary. Humans have 23 pairs of chromosomes, while other organisms may have more or less. The number of chromosomes an organism has does not necessarily mean that it is a more complex creature. For example, the dog has 39 pairs, the carp has 52 while the lobster has 100. Chromosomes are merely the containers of DNA.



DNA itself is a double-helix polymer. A polymer is simply a large molecule that is produced by several smaller units linking together and forming a chain. The subunits that compose DNA are called nucleotides, which are formed by one of four different bases: adenine, guanine, thymine, and cytosine. Every gene has several variations coded within it, known as alleles. Within the structure of the gene resides all of the information that makes us who we are, and the expression of a gene is contained within the different types of alleles. DNA codes for everything, from genetic disease to the color of our eyes.

Because genes are constantly recombining and copying themselves, errors occur. While there are mechanisms within the cell that recognize and correct many of these errors, several still go unnoticed. These errors are known as mutations. There are several different types of mutations a gene can undergo: deletion, duplication, inversion, insertion, and transposition of any part of a gene. These mutations cause the genetic information in our bodies to break down and ultimately we lose genetic information. Because of this, the human race is constantly deteriorating, as the genetic information we carry and pass to our children continues to mutate or be lost. One of the foundational mechanisms for change cited by evolution is mutational change. However, mutations are almost always harmful, rarely neutral, and never beneficial, in the sense that they add information to our genetic makeup. Genetic mutation breaks down the information; it never builds up.

Still, the amount of genetic information we carry in our bodies is astounding. When two sets of chromosomes split and recombine to produce offspring, there are about 70 trillion different variations that can be produced because of the amount of information that is within the DNA. Because of the amazing variety contained within the gene it is easy to see how we get so many different expressions of the human race in the world today. Because of the mutations that occur genetically, it is also easy to understand the breakdown of genetic information and the onslaught of new diseases.

The complexity of life on the genetic level appears to show that life was designed. Even today, with all of the technological advancement that is being done, the human gene is not fully understood or mapped. It is too complex to have arisen by chance or mutations. Life points to a designer, who had the ability and desire to create life to reflect Himself.

The Human Genome Project
An editorial by Elizabeth Rohloff

“For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God…”
- Gen. 3:5

Throughout the ages one of man’s largest goals has been to become like God. That is why, when we examine history, we see the rise and fall of great empires, the worship of rulers, as well as the eternal quest for immortality. We see acounts such as Adam and Eve, the Tower of Babel, and the Roman Empire,--stories of men in search to become like God. Why is it then that while man strives to become like God, he also tries to prove that he is no more than an animal, no more than a product of evolution? It is around this oxymoron that man plays out his life, and it is my belief that the Human Genome Project is nothing more than an act in this great play.

The Human Genome Project began formally around 1990, but the world really hadn’t become aware of it until the last year or so. Since the recent breakthroughs made in genetic engineering and cloning, little else has been present in scientific news other than the study of genetics. The Human Genome Project was formed initially to identify all the genes in human DNA, to determine the sequences that compose DNA, and to store all of the information gathered into databases where it could be used in all factors of life science. This is of great importance because DNA is the carrier of all the information coded into our bodies that makes us who we are. Genomes are simply all the DNA in an organism, and there are about three billion pairs of bases that compose the human genome. By learning about the genome, scientists can better address the mysteries of human biology. Because of all the time, money, and research put into this project, we now have the completion: a human genome, composed from six people, mapped out as a draft and placed into a database. So what does that mean? Where does that leave us? What does the future of humanity hold?

There are several advances that can now be made in the science of genomics with this wealth of information right at our fingertips. Some of the applications of the genome project include improved diagnosis of disease, early detection of genetic mutations, longer life, healthier organisms, better identification of persons, screening for diseased fetuses, and more possibility for genetic engineering. We can now accomplish what Hitler longed to do in a politically correct way - we can create the ultimate human race; we can be as gods. However, not only can we create a genetically pure race over time, but the hope for evolutionists is that the science of genomics can also help us understand evolution and the supposed common tie we share with all other living organisms. The near completion of this project is a turning point in scientific history that will be recognized in later years.

Can the Human Genome Project be supported by Christians? I don’t think so. Since it allows us to screen our unborn children for genetic faults, it supports abortion. It allows us to justify evolution by pointing to the similarities between creatures at the genetic level [Especially since the great differences will likely be ignored in textbooks--Ed.]. And most importantly, it leads us down the path of the greatest lie ever told, the path of no disease, the path that at some point will lead to longer life and perhaps immortality. If we follow that path, we are all guilty of the greatest sin ever committed, the sin that Adam and Eve committed and the sin that before them Satan fell prey to. We can be like God. We can now “create” the ideal human. One of the heads of the Genome Project, Francis Collins, said, “It is humbling for me and awe-inspiring to realize that we have caught the first glimpse of our own instruction book, previously known only to God.” There is still a lot of work to do before the genome is completely deciphered and listed, but we are possibly just a step away from treading in forbidden knowledge.