Karen Ben-David

As far back as I can remember, religion played the most important part of my life. My mother's father was a Baptist preacher and she was a prominent Sunday school teacher most of her life. It was through her strong religious commitment that made the most influence in my direction. From the age of 5, I was in the church choir until 18. During that time, I was the pianist for our Sunday school classes and also for the church services. I was also one of the five people in the bell choir. I was always at vacation bible schools, retreats, and revivals. Studying the scriptures was most gratifying. My Scofield bible was covered on every page with written notes I had made during services. I felt compelled early on to share my knowledge and faith with anyone who needed it My circle of close friends during my upbringing in Clarksville, Tennessee were all members of the First Baptist Church. After graduation from high school, I attended Austin Peay State University in Clarksville and then moved to Memphis to study Dental Hygiene at the Univ. of Tennessee.

At 21, I moved to Springfield, Missouri to start my first job as a dental hygienist. My mother's relatives lived there and helped me find an apartment. I became a member of the First Baptist Church and sang in the choir.

After 2 years of living on my own in a semi-retired community, I received a letter from my high school friend who had moved to Orlando, Florida where she was a first grade teacher. She wrote of sun, surf, and guys! This sounded great. I packed up my belongings in my old Dodge coronet and drove to Orlando. I had some reservations of leaving a really great job, but I had faith in ha-Sheim he could help me find new employment.

My girlfriend had found a roommate for me who was a librarian and attended First Methodist church in Orlando. The first interview I had was with a dentist who just happened to go to the same church as my girlfriend's roommate. After my interview and the following S*unday I went with her to visit her church and ran into the dentist, whom she also knew He had already had many interviews, but having met me at his church seemed to tip the scales in my favor. The next day he called and said I got the job.

After getting settled, I joined a Baptist Church. New friends I met at the First Baptist church became my circle of friends in Orlando. There were about 20 of us and outside of our church commitments we also had many social activities. During the first three years, I had two serious relationships with guys I would have married, but ha-Sheim had someone else in mind for me.

Enter Clint Van Nest. I had seen him a few times for teeth cleanings. I then received a telephone call asking me to accompany him as his date to a banquet he had organized for his boss. I thought, free dinner, so I accepted. As it turned out we had several interests in common – guitars, sailing, but especially we both shared a zeal for studying Scriptures and the same desire for pleasing ha-Sheim. Within six months we were married. The glue that has kept our marriage together for 34 years has been both of our desires to please ha-Sheim and not man. "Choose today whom you will serve:" Y^әhoshua 24:15.

.The rest of my story becomes "we," with Yirmeyahu Ben-David (ne Clint Van Nest).