When Jonathan and Maggie Armstrong recently arrived as the new associate pastoral couple for the Fresno Central church, they were returning to their spiritual birthplace. It’s been a miraculous nine-year journey.

In 1997, Jonathan sold furniture. Steve Bohr, pastor of the Fresno Central church, needed a new bed. While chatting, Jonathan learned that his new customer was a Seventh-day Adventist pastor. Later, when his marriage was falling apart and he realized he needed God, Jonathan remembered Bohr and contacted him. They began Bible studies.

This created a problem for Maggie. A Pentecostal Christian, she was hoping he would leave her so she could get out of an unhappy marriage. If Jonathan became a Christian, she’d be stuck with him! So, she began sabotaging the Bible studies. After much opposition, Jonathan gave up.

But he was miserable. He was convicted to keep the Sabbath, but wasn't able to because of his job. When the Lord worked out a better job that allowed him Sabbaths off, he wanted to go to church — and to take their children — then ages 1, 5 and 6.

But Maggie refused. So Jonathan worked out a deal with her. If she let him take the children to church, he would agree to move to Texas near her family. She agreed and even went with him. “I didn’t want him to look bad, like I didn’t care about my children,” Maggie explains.

She expected to hate it. But Bohr's message opened her eyes to God’s love. “I’d been raised with the Commandments on the wall and always afraid of going to hell. That morning I learned that the only way to keep God’s Commandments was through love and not obligation,” Maggie says.

The church members loved them right away. They made friends, got involved and the move to Texas was postponed. They were baptized in June 1998.

But their marriage didn’t improve. Jonathan admits to having been a neglectful, selfish husband. All her hopes and expectations from her new Christian husband were shattered, and soon Maggie was ready to divorce him again.

Not knowing what to do or how to change, Jonathan desperately cried out to God. That’s when he met another Adventist pastor — Jim McMurry from Sonora. McMurry had gone through a similar experience in his own marriage and shared his journey of reconciliation.

After much study and prayer, Jonathan came to understand God’s Word: “Husbands, love your wives just as Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her” (Eph. 5:25). Now he looked at Maggie through Jesus’ eyes of unconditional love. It saved their marriage!

And the move to Texas? Jonathan felt called to the ministry, so they moved to Keene, Texas, where they both attended Southwestern Adventist University and graduated together. Jonathan received a degree in theology. Maggie received an education degree.

They were working in Houston — Jonathan pastoring at the Houston West church and Maggie teaching pre-school — when the call to return to Fresno came. “Being at Fresno Central is awesome. It’s like coming home,” Maggie says. “It is a miracle when you think about our lives now and where we were nine years ago,” Jonathan adds. “When God calls you, He works out all the details!”