Meeting Jesus in the Poconos 

By Ron First as told to the Rev. Cariño Casas
CMJ USA

I grew up in Little Israel – Brooklyn, New York. My grandparents – Russia

and Lithuanian Jews on my dad’s side and Prussian Jews on my mom’s side – fled their homelands for the promise of the United States. 

My parents were conservative Jews. Mom kept a kosher home, and my two brothers and I went to Hebrew school. We observed Shabbat. We kept all the feasts, yet there was no real deep understanding what the feasts really were. We were Jews in a religious way, not so much in an understanding and relational way.

My first love and passion was music. I grew up to be a professional musician, playing shows in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut. I loved working with great musicians and famous people through the years, but something was missing in my life. I was looking for love in all the wrong places, in bad relationships. I got into alcohol and pot and things of that nature. I was unsettled and dissatisfied. 

I recall working at Kutsher’s Country Club in the Catskills, and – despite it being one of the most prestigious, sought-after, full-time musician jobs in New York – I was left with an empty feeling, asking: "Is this all there is!?"  I got burnt out. A friend helped me join the 1978–1979 world tour on the SS Rotterdam. I thought that would be a great way to get away to find myself, because I just felt itchy and had to get out of New York.

When the SS Rotterdam tour ended, I left New York to teach high school band in El Paso, Texas. In 1983, I met Charlie Flores, a fellow band teacher and pastor of Calvary Chapel El Paso. It was Charlie and his wife, Ceci, who planted the seeds of the Gospel in my heart. Charlie and Ceci had a clear love of Israel and the Jewish people, and they knew the Scriptures. I found this and their fragrance of life attractive.

During the summer school break, I would return to East to work as a resort musician. That’s where I met John and Fran Signorelli, Christians who watered those Gospel seeds and told me that Jesus is the Messiah of Israel. 

In July 1984, all the seeking and the question about Jesus came to a crescendo. I needed to know the truth.

I was working in the showband of a resort in the Pocono Mountains. I came to the point where I was literally willing to die to know if Jesus could possibly be the Jewish Messiah that our people have spurned and considered a God for the Gentiles, for the goyim.

But something was holding me back. Calling on Jesus might be dangerous, even deadly.

I came to the point in my life where I actually got on my knees and I cried out to God, even though I believed that if I ever mentioned the name Jesus to Adonai, to God the Father, he would literally throw a lightning bolt down and strike me. Jews don't mention Jesus. It's a dirty word. It's a cuss word. But I was willing at that point to die, literally, to know if what Charlie and Ceci shared, if what John and Fran shared was actually true, that he indeed was the Jewish Messiah. I was willing to die. It was then he revealed himself to me in a supernatural way on July 25, 1984 in Bushkill, Pennsylvania, at the Unity House Resort.

I didn't do that. I wouldn't relent. I didn't want to. Being Jewish was too important that I didn't want to give that up. So, I get on the left side of the lake, and there was an area that was burnt. It probably got struck by lightning and looked very, very eerie, and I felt very scared.

And I heard this voice saying, “Ronnie, just walk straight ahead. Don't look to the right. Don't look to the left. I want to be with you. I'll get you through this. Just go.” And I started walking, and I finished the walk, went back to the room, then I had to get to rehearsal.

After rehearsal, I was rushing to shower and get ready for dinner and the show. It was crazy, though, because the minute I jumped in the shower all of a sudden, I had an incredible peace, and I realized that, wow, this is Jesus. And I just said, “Yes. I want to be yours.” And I felt a presence and a joy that I cannot explain.