A Warm Welcome

A Sojourn of Faith

I wanted to take a moment to welcome you to my Substack and introduce myself to those of you who don’t yet know me. I’m thankful you’re here and I pray as you follow along you are encouraged to go after Jesus and live a life full of faith, hope and love.

My name is Forrest Gatewood. I was born in September of 1993 in Lubbock, Texas to Richard and Paula Gatewood. My life started on the rougher side of things as I was infected with the polio virus at only seven days old. Turns out a newborn’s immune system is not fully developed quite yet. When I was 12 days old, doctors informed my parents that they wanted to take more blood samples to run tests so they could discover what killed me. From a medical perspective, I was at death’s door and there wasn’t anything more they could do. After receiving the news from the doctors, the elders from my parents’ church came that evening and prayed through the night for me to be healed. The next morning my fever broke, and in some ways that was when my sojourn of faith began.

I grew up kind of all over the place (Texas, New Mexico, Colorado and Nevada) as my dad finished school. Upon graduating, he accepted a position working with the National Park Service of the United States as a fire ecologist (fire wizard if you want to get technical), which moved us back to the great state of Texas.

I was raised going to church every Sunday and most Wednesday nights (classic Southern church times), so Jesus and church have always been a part of my life. However, my faith did not become my own until the summer before my freshman year of high school. My first summer at Mountain View Christian Camp, the camp my mom signed me up to go despite my objections that were totally valid (i.e., I didn’t want to go), is where I met Jesus personally. It is where I truly began deciding I want to follow Christ. I met Christians that were on fire for Jesus and were more interested in living lives of faith daily then just checking in a couple days a week, or living lives of hypocrisy.

As I went through high school, I had the aspiration to enlist in the U.S. military with the goal of being a Navy Seal. The LORD had other plans, however, and through a series of events, I ended up signing up for a missions program called Adventures in Missions (AIM) through the Sunset International Bible Institute (SIBI). I started that missions program August of 2012. The program started with eight months of bible school and 14-18 months in a field working with missionaries. I wanted adventure, I wanted to get out of Texas and see more of the world, experience different cultures, maybe learn a second language (which I did) and make friends with people different from me.

I was blessed with the opportunity to live and work with missionaries in Sucre, Bolivia and remained there for roughly two years. During that time, the LORD began refining me (fancy way to say He began humbling me). He revealed the pride and selfishness that was still at war within me despite the outward appearance of being a missionary trying to share the love of Christ with people.

After my time in AIM, I moved in with my parents, who lived in Artesia, NM, for about five months before joining the Big Bend Fire Module at Big Bend National Park in West Texas. During my time working wildland fire, I realized I wanted to do full-time ministry. This led me to going to SIBI to get a bachelors degree in Biblical Studies. After SIBI, I worked as a youth pastor in Seminole, Texas before moving to Washington state to join a house church and share the Gospel of Christ in the great city of Seattle.

Which leads me to now. The house church has come to a bittersweet end, and I am in a place of choosing what’s next. I could stay in Seattle and get a “normal” job and just work 9-5 Monday through Friday, or I can set out on a sojourn of faith; going place to place meeting with the local church and encourage people who love Jesus to live lives worthy of the Gospel, sharing the Gospel with those who have not heard and loving everyone with the love of Christ, hopefully becoming more and more like Jesus myself.

I don’t know much; I don’t have many answers, but what I do know is that God is very real and He cares far more than we realize. He wants us as a father/mother wants their children. He has given His very life for us that we would have freedom and redemption from our sin.

My name is Forrest Gatewood. I love the LORD God with all my heart, all my soul and all my might. I want every person I meet to know the love of the Father and that they are loved by their Creator. That Jesus the Christ did come and die on a cross, was buried and did rise from the dead, defeating death. There is salvation in no other name, in heaven above or earth below, than the name of Jesus.