Sharing the Love of Christ Around the World

“It was fear and anxiety driven,” Dylan Jarvis said while thinking back on his years of drug abuse. “I was living off Fruity Pebbles and dope, just fighting for my life every day. Your whole everything can fit at the end of a glass pipe and at the end of a little bitty spoon.”

Dylan is an up-and-coming country music artist whose songs speak about the perils of substance addiction – a subject he’s all too familiar with. Dylan grew up in a small church his father pastored where he learned about God and started playing music. At the same time, his mother was struggling with alcoholism.

“I loved her so much,” Dylan said. “My main thing, my main worry was her dying. It was causing a lot of anxiety, a lot of fear, and a lot of panic.”

At twelve-years-old, Dylan’s friends exposed him to drugs. Prescription pills, weed, cocaine, meth...he began taking anything that would help numb his anxiety. His father tried to rein him in, but that only made him rebel more.

“I got extremely addicted,” Dylan said. “The withdrawal symptoms were so bad that you'll try to go for anything that can help you. If they told you that you could eat dirt then I’d eat dirt just to try to feel better.”

This went on through Dylan’s teens and into his twenties. All the while, he continued to do the one thing he truly loved – writing music. Then one day, while in the middle of a drug deal, his guitar was stolen. Dylan was devastated, but his father prayed and told him God would return it.

“My dad’s like, ‘Your guitar is coming home in the name of Jesus.’ I did not believe it at all,” Dylan said. “This guy calls on Facebook Messenger and I answer. He goes, ‘Is this Dylan Jarvis? I was walking my dog through the middle of this field and I walked up on a case. I have your guitar.’ He said my name was on a pawn receipt that I had put in the case where I kept my guitar picks and he used that to figure out how to contact me. God kept my guitar safe for six months and got it home to me. It just made me know that there is God out there and He loves me and He knows me by name.”

Dylan began to see more evidence of God’s presence in his life, even as he sank to the lowest depths of heroin addiction.

“I met this kid,” Dylan recalled. “He goes, ‘I want to introduce you to somebody.’ He takes me into this house and there's this lady there. She walked up to me and she placed her hand on my chest and she just said this really quiet prayer. When she did, it felt like lightning struck me from my left shoulder to my right hip and I fell to my knees. She lifted my face up and looked me in the eyes and said, ‘Enjoy your life, Dylan Jarvis, there’s big things planned.’ I had this awakening moment, like I’m brand new.”

He believed that it was God giving him a chance to get clean, so he stopped doing drugs. Later on, while taking a barbeque grill into a local neighborhood to sell, Dylan was held up at gunpoint, with the gunman forcing him back into his truck.

“I'm sitting there sweating, freaked out driving my truck,” Dylan said. “He’s like, ‘Look, I want you to pull into this cemetery.’ I was like, ‘Holy cow, he’s about to kill me.’”

Dylan then pushed his foot parking brake. Pretending the truck seized, he got out and quickly grabbed a baseball bat from the bed and started hitting the man. Believing he killed him, Dylan turned himself in to the police. He was nailed with charges that could put him away for thirty years. While in jail, Dylan asked for a Bible and began praying for God to deliver him. At the same time, his grandmother was put on hospice, dying from lung cancer.

“My grandmother meant a lot to me, everything to me,” Dylan said. “I hit my knees and I'm crying out really hard to God. I hear them call over the intercom. They said, ‘Dylan Jarvis pack your bags, you're going home.’ I was like, ‘Man, this is the best gift anybody could have ever given me. How could a God be so loving and be so perfect and love me and care about me so much?’”

Dylan’s grandmother bonded him out, but when she died shortly after he was overcome with grief and his anxiety resurfaced. He relapsed and overdosed.

“I felt myself die,” Dylan said. “I felt my spirit fall through my body. I could hear these things and it was like they were laughing at me. There's tons of fear that came in, but daddy told me about the name of Jesus. I'm trying to say His name as hard as I could, then, ‘Jesus!’ I stood up and I grabbed my bottle of dope, threw it in the toilet. I'm praying, ‘God, this is everything. I’m praying in The Holy Ghost, I’m praying in tongues, I'm crying out to You. I’m giving You every inch of me, You can have it. My life is Yours, let's go.”

Dylan then went to a Christian rehab center where he spent a year studying the word of God and building faith to overcome his anxiety. He got clean and has stayed clean ever since. His mother, whom he worried about for so many years, is also on the path to overcoming her alcoholism. Even his charges were dropped after the man he beat recovered and was apprehended in a drug bust. Dylan is now pursuing his passion for music, wanting to share his story of God’s grace and enduring love through songs meant to inspire hope in those who feel hopeless.

“My heart's all Jesus, my hearts all on God,” Dylan said. “He's there guiding me, He's there with me. I'm not scared. The fear got taken. If it's a spirit of fear, spirit of anxiety, spirit of depression, I'll call it out like, ‘You have no authority over my life, none whatsoever. Cover myself in the top of my head to the soles of my feet under the blood of Jesus.’ I know I don’t deserve it, but I also know that I have to tell what Christ has done.”
 

Cathy recalls, “I started not feeling my strength as I'm so used to it being there. A little fatigued and I didn't know really what it was, and then I noticed that I was coughing a lot.”

700 Club Partner, Cathy Duncan had been the sole care provider for her ailing mother for five years before she passed away. That’s when Cathy noticed her own health starting to decline.

Cathy says, “It was about the 14th of July that I had to lay down on my bed because when I stood up, I had to hold onto the wall, or I would fall down.”

Her husband Daniel also noticed the difference in his wife’s stamina.

Daniel shares, “I just saw her energy levels just drop and she was very, very weak. I was believing in faith that God was going to heal Cathy.”

Cathy met with her primary care physician through a virtual visit and none of the meds he prescribed her helped. Instead, her condition grew worse.

Cathy remembers, “I said, ‘Lord, I have to be at my mother's funeral.’ It was the 23rd. And I said, ‘Lord, you are my strength. I believe that. My unyielding strength, and I need your help Lord.’”

Cathy who was now confined to her bed needed help around the clock. Daniel did whatever he could to ease her suffering. Her daughter Katie also provided constant support for her.

Katie shares, “I was making sure she was having vitamins and brought some soup over for her. And seeing her not even be able to get out of bed without assistance was heartbreaking.”

In spite of everything Cathy continued to trust God to heal her. Then on July 19th, Cathy was at home alone when she says she heard an urgent voice.

Cathy shares, “To me it was like audible, ‘Get up and turn on the 700 Club.’”

Then she heard the hosts praying.

Cathy says, “And then Wendy came on and she said, ‘There's somebody…”

Wendy the 700 Club host says, “You have chronic fatigue. You normally have lots of energy, but you can’t get out of bed.”

Cathy says, “She said, ‘You're usually active and you're wondering why you're feeling this way’ oh, my gosh, she said…, ‘”

Wendy the 700 Club host continues, “and you’ve been asking yourself what’s wrong. The Lord’s touching you right now, and it’s been just almost like a spirit. So, we just bind that spirit in Jesus’ name and command it to leave and you are healed in Jesus’ name.”

Cathy shares, “I JUMPED UP! From my recliner and I said, ‘It's me! Lord, you healed me! You healed me. I receive it, Lord.’”

When Katie heard the news that her mom was totally healed, the first thing they did was to start packing Cathy’s bags for the trip to attend her mother’s funeral.

Katie remembers, “And it was just this obvious manifestation of her healing, just through her energy she was back to her normal, energetic self. I was so thankful (EMOTIONAL) that the Lord saw us in our greatest time of need.”

When Daniel got home from work, Daniel shares, “I noticed right away Cathy's countenance had changed. Her energy level was up and God had healed her.”

Three days later, Cathy and Daniel flew out to honor her mother’s life and legacy.

Cathy says, “And I was on the plane going to my mother's funeral and so thankful that I was able to honor my mother.”

Today, Cathy, is full of energy and loves playing with her grandchildren again. She wants to encourage everyone to never give up on the promises of God to heal you.

Cathy shares, “I feel so strong and so good and at times even better than I did before. He will watch over His word and perform it. God will show up in your life.”

14-year-old, Ju Ju, from Myanmar was walking across a bridge with a friend when two men attacked them. “They grabbed our shirts from behind and told us to kneel,” Ju Ju recalled. “I tried to run away, but one guy showed me his knife and said, ‘Sit down or I’ll kill you.’”   

As the men decided what to do with the girls, Ju Ju had a desperate thought. “I thought they would sell us to sex traffickers. I thought about jumping off the bridge even though I might die.”     

At that moment she remembered a CBN Superbook episode she had recently watched about Daniel. “In the Superbook story, God protected Daniel in the lion’s den. I prayed, ‘God, protect me. I don’t want to die.’ I did not stop praying.”
 
Ju Ju was a Buddhist. A friend had invited her to an after-school program supported by CBN’s Orphan’s Promise. While there she watched other Superbook episodes. As she crouched on the bridge, she wondered if God would deliver them like he had saved Daniel. Then one of the men turned and spoke to her. “He looked at me and told the other man to release us! He said we were too young and innocent. The other man agreed to let us go!”  

The next day, Ju Ju told her teacher what happened and asked if she could pray to become a Christian. “I almost died, but Jesus saved me from that dangerous situation. He is always with His children. I want Him to be near me all the time!” she said.

Ju Ju’s mom has also started praying to Jesus. And her younger siblings now go to Sunday School to watch Superbook too. “Superbook continues to help us to know God more,” she added. “I am so happy that I am His child. Thank you for bringing Superbook to us!”
 

“Look at the pretty birds and flowers and just all the joy there is in photography! It's a moment captured in time. The flower that I had opening, that will never happen again. The picture that you take will never be the same again. It's a memory in time.”

Sandi Angel has long enjoyed capturing the beauty of God’s creation around her hometown of Sidney, Montana. In May 2019, her eye doctor gave her news that could very well take that all away.

“He said, ‘Yep, you have wet macular, so we're just going to start the medication right now.’ I didn't really understand what could happen to me. I didn't connect a wet macular with going blind.”

Wet macular degeneration is a disorder that occurs when abnormal blood vessels leak into the retina and interfere with vision. While incurable, it is treatable. The treatments, however, would be lifelong and painful. “I said, are you talking about a shot? He said, 'I am.' A shot in my eye?! 'Yes, in your eye.' And I just panicked! It's not normal to have a needle coming into your eye.”

Sandi’s doctor told her she would need shots in her left eye every two months. A friend had to drive her the forty-five minutes to and from each appointment.

"The stress level was high, and I wasn't very nice. You have somebody coming at you with a needle, it’s scary. He would say, ‘Look, pick a spot on the ceiling and don't move,’ but it still hurt.”

Even with pain medication, Sandi says the pain from the shot was terrible and lasted until the next day. “It was the nights that were bad. I mean, sometimes I'd be up all night long with tears just running from my eyes, from the pain. It was going to be a lifetime thing because nobody gets off the needle. I didn't ask God for healing. I didn't pray for it. I thought it was just getting old. The eyes are getting old.”

For three years, Sandi continued with her treatments, and with her daily routine of watching the 700 Club. 

“The testimonies, and the prayers, the words of knowledge, and all these things that are being answered, I love all the 700 Club!”

Then on April 27th, 2022, she heard Ashley say:

“I believe that the Lord is healing eyesight right now. The left eye, I believe that God is healing that for you right now. Claim this for yourself, receive it. Receive the healing from God who sees you and loves you. He heals you right now.”

"I said that's for me! And I just knew it was for me. I knew it in my heart. And I jumped up. That's for me! I felt important. All of a sudden, I felt like I was seen but I know I always was seen.”

A few days later, Sandi was scheduled for another painful shot. This time, she was ready.

"My heart was just smiling because I knew what he was going to say. And when he walked in, he said, ‘Are you ready for some good news?’ And I said, 'Yeah.' He said, ‘Not only are you reading your eye chart better, but you no longer have wet macular. You don't need the shots anymore. Nobody gets off the shots. This is a miracle!”’

Sandi hasn’t had to have a shot since and continues to get good reports from her eye doctor.

“I'm thanking God! And I feel so blessed because He knew what was going to happen in the long run. He knew I could have gone blind and I would miss everything that's out here, everything that I love. And so that made me feel pretty special. He was taking care of me. And I mean, if He can count every hair on your head and on a little sparrow, think about that. Even the tiniest little thing that you think is little, God is watching and taking care of you.”