Kandace Bennett
Joined Compassion Corps in spring of 2014
Track: SUM Bible College and Theological Seminary
Hometown: Fort Worth, TX
Testimony: I was born and raised in Fort Worth, Texas and I’ve had the pleasure of knowing God my whole life. I am definitely a product of a God fearing, Spirit yielding, Jesus loving mother and I cannot express with words how eternally thankful I am for that!
Though I’ve never had a real traumatizing experience like a lot of people have, I can share with you how The Lord changed my heart when I was twenty-one years old; He took away a bitterness that I had held on to for almost half of my life.
To put it simply, when I was around eleven years old my dad left. At first we’d go to his house every now and again until my mom realized that he was doing drugs. After that it would sometimes be years in between hearing from him. We’d almost always expect a strange number calling us on our birthdays though (knowing who was going to be on the other end), but I can’t say those calls ever excited me. Almost every time I talked to my dad all I’d get was an earful of lies and a false hope of having a dad again, so eventually I quit. I quit answering calls, I quit going to any family functions during times my grandma knew his whereabouts because I didn’t want to risk seeing him anymore, I even quit telling him that I loved him. He didn’t even look the same, to me he wasn’t my dad..I referred to him only as Kasey, and my heart was incredibly full of bitterness toward him.
I had been a “Christian” my whole life, but I never could truly comprehend the fact of God being my Father, nor did I realize how much a Father could even love His children. It wasn’t until I decided to truly seek after an intimate relationship with God through the daily reading of His Word that these things were revealed to me. I’d always hear people preach about the importance of digging deep into The Bible but me and my stubborn self never really had the desire to do so until I was about twenty years old! (That’s kind of embarrassing, but it’s the truth.) Let me tell you though, the Bible, it works!! Not long after the revelation of my Heavenly Father sunk in, The Lord put in me a strange desire for my earthly father, and it came without me even realizing it!
In April 2013, I got that “annual” phone call from an unknown number on my birthday once again but this time I excitingly answered it! For the first time in years, I answered the phone!! That alone was a miracle in itself, but then I don’t even know what came over me because I even invited him to dinner! These both seem like simple, normal things to do but for me it was life-changing. It was the evidence of freedom! My Heavenly Father set me free from bitterness!!! He did it for me because He loves me and wants nothing to hold me back. He did it for my dad because my dad needs to know that I haven’t given up on him yet, and neither has He. He did it for whoever’s reading this… A bitter child who needs a freedom that only The Father can give, or maybe even a parent who feels like his children are never going to forgive him for what he’s done in the past. Let this be a testimony of hope and of love because my dad didn’t even ask for my forgiveness, but My Father taught me how to forgive him anyway. I didn’t even ask to be free from bitterness, but God gave me that freedom for my benefit because He loves me as His precious daughter, and He’ll do the same for you!
I can’t even explain to you how life-changing this freedom has been, but how I ended up at Compassion Corps is definitely a result of it.
Now that I have developed a true relationship with my Father, I can’t imagine doing anything else but to share His love with others for the rest of my life in whatever way He wants me to. I was living comfortably at home in Texas with my mom and step-dad, had a good job, and was aimlessly going to a little county college (basically only because everyone told me it was a good idea to do so), but none of it really felt “right” any more. It made sense from the outside looking in, but from the inside looking out, every day was kind of like… “Kandace, what are you even doing?” I had no direction, no passion for anything except Jesus, but I wasn’t doing anything to show it. When the end of 2012 came around though, things started to change once again. I now had a sense of direction, but I didn’t really know what it meant. I felt The Lord calling me to New Orleans, but I didn’t really know why. With nothing to go on but confirmation after confirmation and peace from God, I quit school and my job and moved away from everything I’ve ever known to New Orleans in August of 2013.
Not even a month after making it to New Orleans, I was searching on the internet and through a series of clicks I somehow found the “IHOP-NOLA” prayer room. Knowing nothing about it other than what I read on their website, I went the next Saturday. I just so happened to show up on the night Amber Prestridge was doing worship there for the first time. We had both been praying about finding friendships in this new-found city of ours, and let me tell you, we got it! Divinely! Amber is now one of my best friends in the world and is also my current roommate. Upon meeting she ended up inviting me to go to her church the next day, and so I went. I immediately felt welcomed and fell in love with how the church loved on the city and it wasn’t too long before All Nations Fellowship became my new home church.
It took me and my (once again) stubborn self a few months before I finally started to realize that it wasn’t just a coincidence that I was led right to a church family, a place to learn ministry and finish a degree in what my heart truly longs for, and almost as soon as The Lord revealed that to me, Pastor Justus randomly came up to me and asked if I would be interested in joining one of the tracks that Compassion Corps offers. That night, I toured the campus, got more information about the school and in the course of a month I had my application turned in (literally only days before the deadline), moved in to the dorms, got accepted to the school and started my first trimester at SUM.
I had every reason not to move to NOLA, I had every reason to let fear and the opinions of every person I knew change my mind… But I trusted that The Lord was not leading me astray. I knew that no matter what came my way, God was going to take care of me, and that has proven true, time and time again.
“For I am the LORD your God who takes hold of your right hand and says to you, Do not fear; I will help you.”
Isaiah 41:13
