Raymond Petzholt (Raymond Raymond P. Petzholt)

Jericho High School

Class of 1969

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First Name	Raymond
Last Name	Petzholt
Maiden Name	Raymond P. Petzholt
Graduation Year	Class of 1969
Current Location	Grover Beach, California 93433
Relationship Status	Married
About Me	I grew up religious but unsaved. Life is very empty when you think you know God but really don't. In college I fell completely away from the church. I graduated from the State University of New York, at New Paltz in 1973 with a Major in Science and Biology and a minor in Psychology. Upon graduation I was struggling to find the purpose and meaning of life, especially my own. I didn't really care if I lived or died. So I planned a trip to Guatemala, to work at an orphanage, thinking I might find something that would make life worth living or else I would travel to the Rain Forest and find an exciting place to die. But on the way, through a few miracles, I found an intimate relationship with God through faith in JESUS Christ! Life has been worth living ever since. My last ride, hitch hiking my way to Mexico, was a young couple from First Baptist Church of Brownsville, Texas. I ended up working at their church orphanage in Matamoros, Mexico for several months. It was through their very loving and evangelistic ministry that I came to know and accept Jesus Christ as my personal Lord and Savior. A few months after arriving at Brownsville, a devastating earthquake hit central Mexico. I went with missionary Dwight Hendricks to help rebuild homes during the day and show evangelistic films at night. The deep sincere joy of the poor and suffering Christians had a profound effect on my newfound faith in Christ. I ended up spending several years working with different churches. The first two years I mainly just did good works, helping the poor the best I could. I travelled throughout Latin America (Mexico, Guatemala, San Salvador, Honduras). My last year traveling I began to preach & teach about salvation in Jesus and finding your purpose in life. We saw many precious souls come to Christ. I became bilingual in Spanish and did some emergency relief work in Honduras after Hurricane FiFi (1975) and in Guatemala after a major earthquake in 1976. In between trips to Latin America I spent seven months in Israel working on two different Kibbutzim and touring the country. It was a time of great strengthening in my faith. I discovered the whole Bible was real history. I learned Jesus was the Jewish Messiah (Yeshua) that had been prophesied over 300 times throughout the Old Testament. The Bible is the only Book on the face of the earth that contains such supernatural prophecy. It is one of the concrete irrefutable ways to prove the Bible could only have been inspired by an eternal, omnipotent, omniscient God. I learned Hebrew well enough to witness & study the Old Testament. I also did evangelistic work among the Arabs. And I actually did some carpentry work at a hospital in Nazareth for a short while! After all those years of travelling and doing many different Jobs (I even worked in the Juvenile Psychiatric department of Long Island Jewish Medical center) I finally realized that nothing brought me more joy or fulfillment than helping people find new life and meaning through a personal relationship with God through Jesus Christ. So, In the fall of 1977 I attended Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary to prepare for full time ministry. I graduated on May 9, 1980 with a Master of Divinity Degree. While there I ministered in several prisons and became a speaker for T.A.N.E. (Texas Alcohol & Narcotic Education). I first met my wife, Annie, there in 1978. Through prayer meetings and working in the Street Ministry together our relationship grew. We were married on May 10, 1980. The Lord brought me, a German Irish American, and Annie, a Chinese, to pastor a Spanish church in Fort Worth Texas. We were blessed to have a team of co-workers who were specially gifted at sharing the love of Jesus and sharing the Gospel to lead people to repentance and faith in our LORD Jesus Christ. We saw many precious people from Mexico saved as we learned that the love of Christ and preaching the Gospel in the power of the Holy Spirit is an unbeatable force in furthering Christ's glorious Kingdom. We pastored there for a year and a half when Annie became pregnant with our first child. So we decided to go to Taiwan, Annie’s home. Both our son and daughter were born there. In Taiwan we spent three years at Christ Discipleship Training Center where I taught the Bible and Annie had administrative responsibilities. It was a great three years of ministry and growth for us. I learned Chinese well enough to hold conversations and lead people to a personal relationship with God through faith in Jesus Christ. When the leadership at the Training Center changed, we returned to the United States. In 1985 we began pastoring Pipeline Avenue Baptist Church and Sunshine Christian Pre-school. In 1992 we came to Mandarin Baptist Church of Pasadena to pastor the English congregation. For the first ten years there we did annual mission work among the Apache up in the Four Corners area of Arizona. Those were great experiences as it seems the Chinese and Native Americans have much in common. While pastoring there I obtained a Doctor of Ministry Degree from Fuller Theological Seminary, with an emphasis on Chinese history and studies. As a result, we wrote 3 booklets on Chinese history and Culture that reveal the amazing parallels between Chinese history and Biblical history. The Chinese Classics actually reveal the fact that the Ancient Chinese knew the one true Creator God by the name of Shang-Ti. These studies made us more effective in leading precious Chinese souls to saving faith in our LORD Jesus Christ. We retired from Mandarin Baptist Church in 2015 (Since renamed Arcadia Chinese Baptist Church). We then helped a small bilingual “Chinese Christian Church of the Central Coast” (San Luis Obispo) on a part time basis till 2022 when we started attending Grace Bible Church in Arroyo Grande. We know have the great blessing and joy of living near our daughter’s family with her 5 chi...(read more)