BVOV Magazine 2013 - present

That had been four years ago. Now, looking nuttier than ever, here Larry and Pam were…dumpster diving. Neither had any illusions that selling aluminum cans would pay the rent. That money was for something much more important. It was their lifeline to a better life. An investment in their future. Larry carried the bags filled with aluminum cans to the car Pam’s mother had loaned them. The 1977 Ford Mustang II had been wrecked. The frame was so twisted the hood wouldn’t shut right. If they drove over 55 mph, it vibrated so hard it couldn’t be controlled. Once it had been silver. Now it was faded to gray and rust. As if they needed another challenge, back at home Larry and Pam heard their 1-year-old daughter, Tara, screaming in pain. Her temperature was 104 degrees. By the time they got her to the hospital, it was 105. “Your daughter has spinal meningitis,” the pediatrician explained. They spent a grueling 16 days praying as their daughter fought for her life. The hospital billed them $16,000. Would they ever catch a break? When Hard Times Get Harder “That year, 1985, was the hardest of our lives,” Larry recalls. “Before we were born again in 1981, I’d never really heard the gospel message. Pam had been raised in church but never had a personal relationship with Jesus. “Although I’d been radically saved, I had no foundation of the Word. I didn’t have any spiritual principles in me and didn’t begin to learn any until 1983. One autumn evening that year, a friend gave me the keys to his Mercedes. He told me to keep it overnight to wash and wax it. He told me to feel free to drive it. “I drove his car that evening and listened to a cassette that was in the tape deck. I’d never heard anything like it. It was a teaching by Kenneth Copeland. “The next day, when my friend heard how much I’d enjoyed the tape, he loaned me the entire series. I listened to the series at least 10 times that week, from beginning to end. The more I heard, the hungrier I became.” While Larry got excited about those first tapes, Pam wasn’t initially on the same page. Unlike Larry, she had been raised in church and the messages she’d heard didn’t sound anything like what Kenneth Copeland preached. The difference left her feeling confused and scared. Even so, she continued to listen to the teachings and watch "Believer’s Voice of Victory" on TV. The more she listened and watched, the more settled she felt. What truly turned the tide for her, Pam says, was the "BVOV" magazine. A stay-at-home mom, spending her days alone in the house with her baby daughter, Pam received the magazine each month like manna from heaven. “Every time it came, I read the magazine from cover to cover,” Pam remembers. “Those beautiful words came into our home and meant so much to me. I slowly realized that Larry couldn’t do my part for me. He couldn’t get revelation for me. I had to get into the Word for myself. “I’d had some bad things happen to me in the past and felt like God didn’t love me. I believed that He hadn’t protected me because I wasn’t worth it. Through God’s Word, I learned that wasn’t true. “From the pages of the Bible, I learned that God loved me. I was precious to Him. I’d been created for a specific purpose. He had great plans for me! I believed and received that truth. Since then, my life has never been the same.” 14 : BVOV

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