Kaitlin Breitfeller

My name is Kaitlin Breitfeller. I’m married to my husband, Thomas and I have a step-son named Jayden. We are a military family and this is my husband’s final duty station.

I didn’t grow up with religion during my childhood. I always knew there was a God and I recognized that growing up. However, I had a lot of questions and I was embarrassed to ask them. Throughout my life, I started to slowly realize I had anxiety and it was affecting my mood and judgment. About 4 years ago, the military moved my husband and me to an extremely remote place 7 hours away from my step-son, Jayden. It was extremely hard for both of us and for me. That’s when depression and anger started to take hold. I was so mad about everything and I wasn’t handling the stress that came our way well by any means. My in-laws kept mentioning to my husband that he should come back to God and He will help. When they kept mentioning the word “help” it stood out to me because I knew that I needed help. I asked my husband if we can start going to church and we agreed that when we move again in a few months that we would find a church once we get settled. My husband was in his last window for orders and we were trying to get CT because that would put us under an hour away from Jayden. That was the very first time I ever had a conversation with God and I asked him to bring us to CT so we could be closer to Jayden. I wouldn’t call it a proper prayer because I didn’t know how to pray as silly as that sounds, but I begged him and told him that we can’t do this anymore because it was so incredibly hard. The very first week we had Jayden for summer break, my husband got the news that we were selected for orders in CT. Now I know my husband worked incredibly hard to fight for these orders, however, we were told a few times this wasn’t going to happen. I personally think this was God’s plan for us because not only did it bring us to Jayden, but it brought us to GBC. I came to know and love Jesus through GBC. My in-laws took us here last year and it was very intimidating at first with all the lights and the band, but we kept going because I wanted to learn about God. Jayden had many questions as well about who God and Jesus is and I figured this would be a great opportunity for us to learn together. I started to notice when I would pray I found myself becoming emotional and when I was singing His praise I could feel my entire body tingling. I went to church one Sunday and Pastor Jason talked about the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. He said if the tomb wasn’t empty then what’s the point? He then continued on to talk about how he baptized slaves in a cotton field in secrecy in fear they would be tortured or put to death. He asked everyone that morning, “what about you? Do you believe in the good news?” I wasn’t able to stop crying and I just held my husband’s hand and I knew I needed to give my life to Jesus because He is apart of me now.