Team Member Chart

Brandon Watkiss helped me get this loaded, thanks Brandon! Double click on the chart to view larger scale.

Team Member: April Busic

My Personal Testimony,

I grew up in Chester, WV. I wasn’t raised by biological parents. My earliest memory in childhood was my brother raping me at an early age of seven, mother lying in bed with strange men all the time, drinking, druggin, and never home with us, being in bars as a child. Mother took me and my sister to her best friend’s house and never came back for us. The next time I saw my mom was in 1985 shipped home from California in a pine box deceased. I never knew my father, he left mom when I was 3 weeks old.

I lived with my mom’s best friend the rest of my childhood and her husband. I was nine years old then, was molested ten years of my life by their son. By the age of thirteen I started drinking whiskey, then age fifteen marijuana. I graduated from High School and started having children, still heavy into addiction and ended up with five children to five different men. My adoptive family both went home to the Lord in 2003 and 2004. The day that we buried my mother, they came and took the children. From 2004 on until 2006 I did heavy drugs every single day. I just wanted to die, no more pain. I had been in and out of jail so many times and then I committed a crime that sent me to prison for a year.

I started searching for God inside those walls and then I got out. Eventually the probation department sent me to a halfway house and drug program. I was willing and tired of jail, tired of the life style, I just wanted to be loved by someone just the way I was. Went to halfway house and was determined to succeed at life. I went searching for God and looking for something more than I could see or feel.

I went to New Life Weirton and truly gave my life to the Lord and was delivered from drugs and alcohol. I was set free from all the ways of the world. Now I am currently in the International School of Ministry.

I now know through Christ Himself that I am loved with an unfailing love and He took the time to help me be who I am today. I love serving the Lord; this ministry feels natural to me. There is nothing I would rather do than serve the Lord. He is the lover of my soul.

God Bless,
April Busic

Brandon Watkiss with Partnership International

While in the airport Saturday, November 28 waiting to board the plane for Cambodia I interviewed Brandon Watkiss, President of Partnership International (PI). He has a video camera called a Flip that is great for taking videos and uploading them to the computer. So I thought I’d use it to give you a personal Q/A type thing with Brandon. While I was doing the interview a Philippino named Philip (I kid you not!) realized that (1) we were a Christian group and (2) Brandon likes the Steelers football team so he came up and started talking to us. I decided to make him part of the video.

PI is one of the organizations that this trip is affiliated with. Brandon tries to participate in most of the trips that PI gets involved with. He helps oversee general aspects of the trip although he does not do the actual organization. That is being done by Sam Hopper. Brandon also helps provide spiritual leadership to the team.

Note: I tried for about 45 minutes to upload the video and it would not upload. So I gave up. I will leave this post as if the video is there. I will keep trying to upload this video during my trip, hopefully at some point it will work.

This is the first post to the blog. Carol, Laura & Mikey, David and Nancy are here. We are all gathering together to pray before David takes me to the airport. My flight is at 4:40 PM to L.A. I leave tomorrow from L.A., the flight departs around 11:30 AM.

Still at Home...

In just a few hours i will be leaving for the airport... exciting.