About Gary Eugene Howell

Gary Eugene Howell’s first interaction with Christianity was in the 2nd grade when he snuck his mother’s bible and hid in the closet to read Genesis Chapter one. At the time he thought he was doing something he wasn’t supposed to be doing. Unfortunately, however, it wouldn’t be until his mid-twenties before he once again picked up a Bible to read.

In high school, every Sunday, Gary’s parents would drive him 15 minutes across town, drop him off at church and then go back home. An hour and half later, they would drive all the way back to pick him up. Gary never knew why his parents didn’t go to church. Despite being on time and in the parking lot of the church, they would merely drop him off and leave.

When Gary was 25 years old, he met a co-worker who identified himself as a pastor. Finding that peculiar, Gary would ask him, on a daily basis, questions about his religious beliefs. However, the man never answered Gary’s questions with words. Instead he would pull a small Bible from his shirt pocket, spend 5 or 6 seconds thumbing through it and would then hand it to Gary and say “Read that right there”. When Gary would read what he was pointing to, it would turn out, on every occasion, to be addressing the very question that Gary had just asked.

After many months of these interactions, Gary came to realize for the first time that all of Christianity is based solely upon the Bible. Christianity has no other book. Therefore, Gary reasoned, if he was going to call himself a Christian, as he had been doing his whole life, he ought to base his beliefs upon what’s written in the Bible.

Between ages 25 and 35 Gary would read from the Bible sporadically and intermittently. However, in 2006 he joined a young adults ministry in Melbourne Florida at which he met people his own age who were not only on fire for Jesus, but were abounding in spiritual wisdom and were able to effectively articulate that wisdom to Gary. It was through the inspiration of those relationships that Gary gained the desire to truly engage with the Christian faith and make his relationship with Jesus a regular and consistent aspect of his daily life.

Gary met his wife at that same young adult ministry. They were married in 2010.