We welcome Joshua Lamb as our Guest Speaker on Sunday morning services. At the age of 9, Joshua was saved and baptized by Hampton Missionary Baptist Church in Hampton, Arkansas. In 2019, he relocated to Winter Haven, FL, to assist Bro. Paul Stansell with the ABA disaster relief ministry for the summer. Subsequently, he responded to the call to preach. In February 2022, Westwood MBC extended an invitation for Joshua to serve as their Youth Pastor, a position he currently holds, where he teaches Sunday school, leads Thursday night Bible studies, and organizes community events and outreaches.

Damien Austin – I was born in Massachusetts and raised in a devoted Catholic family. From my earliest memory when asked what I wanted to be when I grew up my response was always that I wanted to be a priest. I spent the first eight years of my education in Catholic school. I asked my parents to send me to a seminary in Rhode Island after grammar school, but they couldn’t afford it and I went to the public high school. I took a course in world religions and discovered that I didn’t believe fully in any of them, and that included Catholicism. I stopped going to church, against my parent’s wishes, and became a self-proclaimed atheist. I never searched for the meaning of life after that and accepted my role in life. I became a factory worker after high school and I accepted that as my role in life. At forty-five years of age, I moved to Florida. I got a job in a factory, and after five years on the job, a co-worker, James Rudd, began to ask me questions about my faith, not my religion, but my faith. I told him I really didn’t believe in anything. I had accepted the Big Bang theory of accidental life and inevitable death. He began to teach me about God and Jesus using his Bible as his proof and explanation of all that is. After a few months of questions and answers, I went to church with him. Pastor Carl Wells of Willow Oak Baptist Church preached a message that “there would come a time when God would stop calling on you.” I felt the Holy Spirit move in me, and recognized that God might be giving me a final chance to soften my heart and accept Christ as my Savior. I walked the aisle on Oct. 2, 2005, and was baptized Oct. 9. My fiftieth birthday was October 15, 2005. My testimony is that it is never too late to talk to someone about the Lord. A few months later Dr. Pennell, a missionary to Ukraine, came to speak at the church and I was moved by his ministry. I asked him if I could join him on the field, and he told me that I needed to get a good Christian education first. I quit my job and set all my retirement savings toward learning more about God. I enrolled at Emmaus Baptist College and graduated in 2010. I worked the first summer at 60th Ave Baptist Church in St. Petersburg, Florida, and the following summers at Florida Baptist Youth Camp under the mentoring of Brother Steve Dobson. During my junior year I met Melanie. Melanie was in banking, and she was a devout Catholic that was introduced to me by mutual friends. During one of our first dates, she expressed that she had no intention of changing her religion. She began to come to church with me on Sunday and still attend Catholic mass on Saturday afternoon. Within a month, the Holy Spirit grabbed her attention and she began to recognize things she had accepted all her life that had no substance in the Word of God. She began to ask questions and we spent many hours talking about our faith and religion. One Sunday, Pastor Carl preached a message that there were six reasons Satan will use to try to convince a person not to walk the aisle. Number six was “You don’t have to do it today!” Melanie grabbed my arm and said “I need to do this today!” She accepted Christ as her Savior on November 30, 2008, and was baptized the following week. In celebration, I purchased a Bible for her with her name on the cover… it only read “Melanie.” I told her that I left enough room to add the name “Austin” if she would marry me. Yes, the stories are true. I proposed to Melanie at The Golden Coral. We laugh about it even today. We were married May 9, 2009. I was scheduled to attend Westwood Baptist School of Missions as Westwood M.B.C. in Winter Haven in the fall of 2010. Our plan was for Melanie to continue working while I learned to become a missionary. But one Saturday morning the Holy Spirit got hold of Melanie and after a conversation over supper with Doug Wiersema, we recognized that she needed to learn to be a missionary and that it was important for her to attend the school as well. We took a leap of faith and Melanie quit her job and enrolled. Now neither of us had a job and we were living off our savings. Doug mentioned that Dr. Pennell was going to Ukraine for Christmas and we asked if we could join him. We did, and we recognized our calling to serve the Lord in Ukraine. We visited the Ukraine for the summer of 2011 and returned home to travel about and tell churches about our calling. We moved to Ukraine in October of 2012. The rest you learn from our monthly missionary letters. God Bless James Rudd!

Pine Grove Missionary Baptist Church, located in the East Central Florida community of Christmas, FL is seeking a Pastor for our congregation of faithful believers who are inspired by the infallible Word of God. This is a bi-vocational position. The church is generous and compensation could be increased as the church grows. This is a great opportunity for someone with vision and energy to help us reach out to our local community. The Pastor position is voted by the church yearly at the annual business meeting. If you are interested in faithfully preaching the Word and shepherding a small community KJV church, traditional and contemporary, please send a letter and resume to:

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