Pastor Raul Ries Testimony: Transcribed from a  message

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I’ve been thinking a lot lately. And I was thinking how God is so gracious, loving and kind: how He gets a hold of our lives. Before I came to the Lord, my wife’s family, Naomi and Grandma Kopp had been praying for me.   Believe it or not, since I was a little kid, I had never been witnessed to by anybody.

I was raised Catholic in Mexico and my grandmother lived in Mexico City, she was an opera singer.  She met and married my Grandfather who was German.  My father was born in Mexico City, and by the age of 9, his father had left the family.  My grandmother stayed in Mexico and this is where we grew up.  My mother was visiting from New York City, met my dad, and never went back to New York.  She is originally from New York, but her parents were from Spain.

Even as my parents loved each other, my father had a very bad habit; he had a drinking problem.  He had started drinking when he was nine years old.  Because of his drinking, our home was not a normal home.  As far back as I can remember, there was yelling and cursing in our home.  I can remember my father physically abusing my mother and my grandmother, his mother.  As little kids we would scream and yell because we were so scared.