Chapter Three – Banking with Jesus
Kitty:
I was born to a family with five girls (including myself) and one boy. From the very beginning, the enemy made a play for my life, but God was there with me even in the womb. When my mom went into labor with me at an air force base hospital in Merced, CA, the doctors said, Mrs. Hawkins, I feel skull bones here, when he had examined her. She said, “You don’t say that to a lady who is in labor and is about to give birth.” He said, “Mrs. Hawkins, you have twins. There are two babies, but one doesn’t have a heartbeat.” So, they discovered that my twin sister died at about seven months in the womb because she had no liver, and other major organs were not functioning. So, they took that baby. I was about 6 lbs. 4 oz. and mom said they had to watch me really close because they didn’t know if that stillborn baby would have affected my health.
Years later, as an adult, I was in a room with 250 people when Prophet Bill Lackie at Christian International called me out. He said, “Lady, there is a spirit of death on you, but it’s not anything you did, it was something that was done to you, and it has been tracking you all your life.” When I went to prayer about it much later, the Father said that it was the baby that had died in the womb. So, that death spirit was still trying to take me out. The enemy was trying to make that happen several times growing up, but it never happened because nobody is bigger than my Father God.
Let me tell you about my salvation experience. When I was growing up, I was exposed to the church. Early on, Mom had us in a Methodist Church. My dad had mostly been raised Seventh Day Adventist and then Baptist. It was exciting because I was so thrilled to get to go to the revival meetings they were having at the Methodist tent they had in Brownsmills, NJ. I remember when I was nine years old, I was sitting in the back with my sisters, and I believe the Sunday school teacher had brought us to this evening service for the revival, and I just felt the conviction as the minister was preaching about being born again and not perishing and going to hell. I received the message of Jesus, and it just exploded on the inside of me. I wanted that. Even as a young girl, I knew I needed redemption. I wanted Jesus as my Savior. When the invitation came, I stepped out of the crowd, from the seating area and went down the aisle to the altar. I felt something brush up against me, and it was my sister Kathy who was one year and one day my senior. She kneeled there beside me to pray as well. I then gave my heart to Christ at that moment. I remember crying on that altar; my tears were on that altar because I just wanted Jesus to come into my heart.
When I stood up after they prayed with us, and we were walking back to our seats, I said, “Kathy, why did you go down to the altar?” She said, “Well, I sure didn’t want to go to hell.” We had a sweet laugh over that. Later she prayed, “God, I would be a missionary for you if you don’t make me go to Africa.” That’s what she would say, growing up as a little kid.
From the very beginning, I was passionate and excited about Jesus. My family moved a lot because my dad was Air Force. I always tell people, “I was not an air force brat, I was an air force darling.” That’s my confession; I have stuck with it all these years. When I was in grade school, first or second grade, I remember swinging on a swing, in a city park, that was by our house, and I would swing as high as I could, and as loud as I could sing, “for God so loved the world that He gave His only son” that beautiful song, hoping, just hoping that somebody would get born again and accept Jesus as their Savior. So that was my early experience as a born-again believer. God had put in my heart from the beginning, the heart of an evangelist.
As a young teenager, we lived in Reseda, CA, which later, I came back to when I graduated from Reseda High in San Fernando Valley, CA. I remember just being so in love with my Bible at that time. Mom had transitioned us from the Methodist church to a Baptist congregation that was closer by. She would take all six of us to Sunday school at the Baptist Church in the Reseda area, and we fell in love with it. During that time, I got lots and lots of teaching and training, and even helped in the nursery; I was always volunteering in the nursery as a young teenage girl because I just love babies.
