Darron Steele
New Member
My name: Darron Steele. My birth date: July 14, 1976. I graduated from a small rural high school in southeastern Indiana in 1995 with honors. I ran track and cross country all four years. My first year of high school track I did not beat a single other boy, but by my junior year I was considered someone to beat if another runner wanted to score. My senior year I was one of three boys to win Academic All-State Honorable Mention from my high school in cross country. We were the only school in our size class to have this many; most schools had none. In track we were the first boys' team from our high school to win our county meet in the 40+ years it had been held. In college I went on to finish second in four college track meets, was a scorer on a cross country team that was the first to sweep an invitational with the women's team, and for a men's program that as an NCAA Division III school beat a quarter of our Division I opponents at least once. My college men's cross country team was also designated an Academic All-American team.
Although I was drug to two local Church of Christ congregations for two years by parental compulsion, I was a hard-core atheist for two years. I was of the positivist stripe. In this form, a person believes that natural science will provide humankind with the ability to understand the cosmos and eliminate the relevance of religion. I believed that religion was a primeval instinct to give people a sense of security about a universe they cannot understand by putting quasi-personal beings in charge. In late April of 1993 I accepted the likely existence of `at least one god.' I accepted the Gospel on June 17, 1993 at an independent "fundamental" Baptist church. I was baptized November 14 of that year. I attended that church for five years, and in that time I intensely studied the Scriptures both in and out of church contexts because I recognized it as God’s Book.
In August of 1994 I travelled to Bogota, Colombia and the Amazon region of Brazil where Brazil, Colombia, and Peru meet on a Missionary Apprentice Program group under the auspices of ABWE = Association of Baptists for Worldwide Evangelism. There I learned firsthand just how dangerous and uncomfortable mission work is in third world Latin American countries. I also learned that the Spanish I studied since 1991 in high school could actually be used to communicate with people who speak Spanish and with people who speak Portuguese.
Although I was drug to two local Church of Christ congregations for two years by parental compulsion, I was a hard-core atheist for two years. I was of the positivist stripe. In this form, a person believes that natural science will provide humankind with the ability to understand the cosmos and eliminate the relevance of religion. I believed that religion was a primeval instinct to give people a sense of security about a universe they cannot understand by putting quasi-personal beings in charge. In late April of 1993 I accepted the likely existence of `at least one god.' I accepted the Gospel on June 17, 1993 at an independent "fundamental" Baptist church. I was baptized November 14 of that year. I attended that church for five years, and in that time I intensely studied the Scriptures both in and out of church contexts because I recognized it as God’s Book.
In August of 1994 I travelled to Bogota, Colombia and the Amazon region of Brazil where Brazil, Colombia, and Peru meet on a Missionary Apprentice Program group under the auspices of ABWE = Association of Baptists for Worldwide Evangelism. There I learned firsthand just how dangerous and uncomfortable mission work is in third world Latin American countries. I also learned that the Spanish I studied since 1991 in high school could actually be used to communicate with people who speak Spanish and with people who speak Portuguese.
