Sending Church:
New Beginnings Baptist Church
Pastor Paul Iannello
2948 Union Rd
White House, TN 37188
Support & Correspondence
James & Sandra Lassiter
PO Box 861
White House, TN 37188
Cell: (615) 642-
“Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labor is not in vain in the Lord.”
I Cor. 15:58
Current date and time
in Sicily
'God isn't looking for people of great faith, but for individuals ready to follow
Him.' -
My Testimony
I said a sinner’s prayer when I was just a young boy. I was young and didn’t really understand what it meant to be lost or why I needed to be saved. If you don’t realize you’re lost, then how can you know that you’re in need of a Savior? I knew it was a good thing to “be saved” so after hearing a message in children’s church one Sunday I repeated a prayer in a group with other kids and was told that I was saved. Is that how you got saved? I hope not! It is important to be dealt with on a one on one basis. You need someone to open a Bible and show you what God says you have to do to be saved. When I got older I found church to be a place to catch up on sleep. I was living my life to satisfy the desires of my flesh. I never felt a conviction for my sin and at this point I had no remorse for the mockery I made of church and the preaching of the Word of God. Through a series of decisions and mistakes I found myself in the military to avoid going to jail. The military was good for me and I matured a bit while in that environment. After serving my country I got out and got a job as a police officer. (see above) One day a fellow officer invited me to church. He seemed to have things together and had a great family, so I went. I heard the preacher talk about the difference in having a head knowledge of salvation versus a heart knowledge. He explained that it was possible to know what it took to get to heaven and how that even after saying a prayer you could still be lost and on the way to hell. The Bible says “if we confess with our mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in our hearts that God hath raised him from the dead thou shalt be saved.” I began to think back to when I had said a sinner’s prayer and realized that I just said what I was told to say. I realized that my heart was not in tune with my mouth that day. God looks on the heart and in my heart I was still lost. I confessed my sin and my lost state and from the heart asked God to accept Christ’s sacrifice as an atonement for my sin. I dedicated my life to God and promised to serve him in any way He desired. I joined the church that I had been visiting and began to be spiritually fed by the Word of God. I began to grow spiritually and it wasn’t long before God started dealing with me about surrendering to go to the mission field.
Calling and Preparation
Even though the Lord was dealing with my heart about going to the mission field I resisted. One night during an old fashioned camp meeting I heard a preacher say that we were responsible for doing what God has told us to do. He said that with God all things were possible. Afterwards I went to my pastor and told him that God had been dealing with my heart and I had surrendered to God’s will for my life. He began to help prepare me for life on the mission field and I enrolled in the Charity Baptist Bible Institute and Seminary to further my knowledge of God’s word. I got involved in several ministries in the local church and after two years of faithful service in those ministries I began deputation to raise the needed funds to move my family overseas.
Sandra’s testimony…
I was blessed by God to be brought up in a Christian home. My father is a preacher
and I was in church from the time I was born. A few months before I turned five,
I became convicted of my sins. I remember sitting on my mother’s lap crying because
I knew I was a sinner and going to hell. My mother tenderly explained once more how
Jesus had died on the cross to pay for my sins, and that if I repented and trusted
Him to save me, and Him alone-
All my life I’ve been around missions. My earliest memories are when I was 3. We were living in Texas while my parents went to Baptist Bible Translators Institute in preparation to go to Colombia as missionaries. The Lord ended up closing that door and later sent us to Alaska instead. I surrendered at a young age to do whatever God wanted me to do, wherever He wanted me to do it. Some of my favorite memories are of having missionaries staying with us, hearing the stories of what God was doing with them in other countries, and wanting to some day be a missionary’s wife myself. I feel so blessed to be preparing to serve the Lord with my husband on the field in Sicily. I am excited about homeschooling and training the girls on the field. There is so much they can learn there that they would never have the opportunity to learn here in the States. I look forward to learning the language so I can be an effective keeper at home—learning the ways of housekeeping and cooking in Sicily—as well as ministering to the ladies as needed. Mostly, I am just happy to be able to serve my Lord in whatever way He puts before me.
About Us
I want to thank the Lord for His willingness to use men. The Bible
clearly teaches God uses men, common everyday men to accomplish His
will on this earth. Not perfect men, as some may think. The Bible says
“for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God”, and we don’t
stop sinning when we get saved. Too bad!! I believe it is a privilege to
be one of these men, simply a tool used by the Almighty Creator to
spread His hope for a lost and dying world. The Bible tells us that we are to present our bodies a living sacrifice. It tells us that if we are first willing then we are acceptable according to what we hath. That means if we are willing to be used by God then He is willing and able to use us, no matter what our background or “past life”.
For me, I spent nearly twenty years involved in law enforcement in one form or another. I was in the Navy for nine years and in that time I was a military police officer and small arms instructor. When I got out in 1999 I was hired by the Springfield Police Dept. in Springfield, TN. I worked in the patrol division for several years during which time I answered regular calls for service and worked “traffic” which included writing tickets and working wreck scenes. I also worked on the bike patrol for a few years during which time I worked in a housing project area and became familiar with the effects that drugs and gang life have on a family and a community. I also seen the low value placed on human life. I was on the SWAT team for five years during which time I helped serve high risk search warrants and was involved in two separate “hostage calls” where men barricaded themselves in a house with a hostage. One man even held his own family as hostages. These men refused to come out or let their hostages go. Both incidents ended in tragedy and loss of life. Once I got saved I had a different perspective on life. I resigned from the SWAT team and ultimately became the Dept. Chaplain. The change in my life was apparent to all and it helped open numerous doors to minister and witness to other officer and citizens alike.