My name is Mr. Raymond D. Beckles Jr. and I was born in Panama September 29, 1973 to Raymond and Maritza Beckles. My father joined the military and we eventually were stationed in California. There my family attended South Mesa chapel on base. One particular Sunday when I was thirteen, a visiting chaplain preached the gospel plain and simple. I realized that day that without Christ, I was destined for Hell. I accepted the Lord and He began to do a work in my life. After graduating high school I joined the Airforce where I served for eight years. While in the military, I stumbled upon, and later became a member of Bible Baptist Church in Marysville, California. On January 1, 2001, I separated from the military and upon Pastor Brad Weiniger request, I joined Pastor Leon Lucas in establishing Bethel Baptist church in Wilson, NC. I served there for nine years as an assistant pastor. In January 2010, I received a call from Pastor Burt Parker of Lighthouse Baptist Church in Newport, Arkansas. He had planted a church there three years prior and felt the call of God for him and his family to move on to Huntsville, Alabama and establish a church after finding a man of God to take over the work in Newport. My family and I visited the work in February and now, believing it to be the will of the Lord, we have accepted the call to Pastor the work in Newport, Arkansas.
My wife, Tinyla Charice Beckles, was born in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma to Crystal Ceasar and Clemmeth Butrum and was saved as a result of the bus ministry of Windsor Hills Baptist Church. She started attending the Christian school there in the eighth grade. The summer of her eleventh grade year, she visited the ministry of Tom Vineyard in Ivory Coast, West Africa. Shortly thereafter she surrendered to serve the Lord full-time. She graduated high school in May of 2000 and that summer began to attend Oklahoma Baptist College. In 2004, she graduated from Oklahoma Baptist College and stayed there at Pastor Vineyard’s church and served for one year. The next year she taught at Haughton Christian Academy in Haughton, Louisiana under the ministry of Pastor Tim Booth. The summer before she began teaching school, we met at the annual Conference On Evangelizing Black America (COEBA) meeting. We were married one year later on July 29, 2006. On June 19, 2009 a precious gift was given to us. Aaliyah LaRae Beckles was born! On June 18, 2011 precious Cassidy Moret Beckles joined our family.
Praise the Lord for how He saved two people from two different parts of the world, brought them together, and called them into His wonderful work!
