Dear Friends and Family,
It has been a while since my last blog. I have arrived back in America and it has been a few weeks since. Many people have been asking how my trip was and about Africa. Just so you know Africa is an amazing and beautiful place. However it wasn’t till a few days ago that I realized my favorite part of the whole trip. “I found a personal relationship with God.”
Before leaving for YWAM I had this idea of Christ as this unobtainable entity. I knew he cared about us but I figured he was more of an outsider looking in at us, like ants in a jar. I thought of him as the God that just steps in when the mood strikes. I have been through a lot of things growing up in a broken family and struggling to break free. Many of us can sympathies with one another in life struggles. I know many people with what I would consider much harder life struggles than mine. I will not go into all the details at this time but I would like to share with you some of my journey in finding a personal relationship with our father.
It has been a while since my last blog. I have arrived back in America and it has been a few weeks since. Many people have been asking how my trip was and about Africa. Just so you know Africa is an amazing and beautiful place. However it wasn’t till a few days ago that I realized my favorite part of the whole trip. “I found a personal relationship with God.”
Before leaving for YWAM I had this idea of Christ as this unobtainable entity. I knew he cared about us but I figured he was more of an outsider looking in at us, like ants in a jar. I thought of him as the God that just steps in when the mood strikes. I have been through a lot of things growing up in a broken family and struggling to break free. Many of us can sympathies with one another in life struggles. I know many people with what I would consider much harder life struggles than mine. I will not go into all the details at this time but I would like to share with you some of my journey in finding a personal relationship with our father.
Many Christians on first meeting tend to ask, “When did you become saved?”
I was baptized Catholic when I was a baby but my parents were the occasional Church goers. We went on Christmas and Easter mostly. Then My Dad found Christ on a different level. Many of us occasional church goers would call him an extremist. This was hard on my parent’s relationship. My Mother and father eventually divorced and he remarried a Christian woman with 2 kids. My mother also remarried and stopped going to church or seeking fellowship. My sister and I attended church with my Dad on the weekends he had us. I had accepted Christ as my savior when I was around 7 years. I was water baptized by my grandfather at the age of 12. I continued to go to church when I could but I had two parents giving different examples of how to live a good life with very different morals. My father and mother both eventually divorced again from their second marriage. My father stopped attending church. Intermittently I would attend church on a regular basis for a while and start going to bible studies but I felt like something was missing. Many of the things that turned me away from “church” fellowship are the same reasons non Christians today steer clear of the “Religious” scene. The word religion is no longer used by many Christians and instead they refer to spirituality. Do to my past a lot of times I felt judged by my fellow Christians and looked down upon for the lack of knowledge I had when it came to the bible. I was looking for comfort, support and acceptance in people and not in Christ.
What was truth? I had no idea and many of the churches I attended never spoke about subjects such as: sole ties, generational curses, speaking in tongues, the difference between knowing about God and having a personal relationship with God. These are topics I learned more about through seeking Christ, fellowship with other Christians and YWAM. Most churches I attended studied scripture from the bible but avoided controversial subjects. Throughout my life I prayed the sinner’s prayer many times and I still felt like I was missing something. I prayed like most do before meals, at bed time, and more often when life struggles seemed to peak. Looking back I can tell you I am here today because of the mercy God has shown me. Now looking back I can point out many ways God has been there for me throughout my life.
So when was I saved? Well I would say it is a journey with Christ. I believe we are saved as it is written in Romans 10 v 9-10: That if you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved. There are many scriptures that God gives us to show how we are loved and saved by his sacrifice, mercy and grace (Ephesians 2 v 8-9, John 3 v 16).
I went to South Africa and joined the Jan 2010 WYAM J-bay team in search for a closer relationship with God. In Cairo God told me I didn’t have to travel across the world to find him and that he has always been there. I learned to listen to God and found a relationship with Christ that I never knew I could have. Many good and bad things happened during my DTS experience just as in life. My recent experience’s with our father has changed who I am and who I want to be. I am a sinner by definition and it is through Christ I am saved (Luke 18 v 9-14).
For those reading this that may not be sure about who Christ is I encourage you to seek a relationship with him (Jeremiah 29 v 13: You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart).
I was baptized Catholic when I was a baby but my parents were the occasional Church goers. We went on Christmas and Easter mostly. Then My Dad found Christ on a different level. Many of us occasional church goers would call him an extremist. This was hard on my parent’s relationship. My Mother and father eventually divorced and he remarried a Christian woman with 2 kids. My mother also remarried and stopped going to church or seeking fellowship. My sister and I attended church with my Dad on the weekends he had us. I had accepted Christ as my savior when I was around 7 years. I was water baptized by my grandfather at the age of 12. I continued to go to church when I could but I had two parents giving different examples of how to live a good life with very different morals. My father and mother both eventually divorced again from their second marriage. My father stopped attending church. Intermittently I would attend church on a regular basis for a while and start going to bible studies but I felt like something was missing. Many of the things that turned me away from “church” fellowship are the same reasons non Christians today steer clear of the “Religious” scene. The word religion is no longer used by many Christians and instead they refer to spirituality. Do to my past a lot of times I felt judged by my fellow Christians and looked down upon for the lack of knowledge I had when it came to the bible. I was looking for comfort, support and acceptance in people and not in Christ.
What was truth? I had no idea and many of the churches I attended never spoke about subjects such as: sole ties, generational curses, speaking in tongues, the difference between knowing about God and having a personal relationship with God. These are topics I learned more about through seeking Christ, fellowship with other Christians and YWAM. Most churches I attended studied scripture from the bible but avoided controversial subjects. Throughout my life I prayed the sinner’s prayer many times and I still felt like I was missing something. I prayed like most do before meals, at bed time, and more often when life struggles seemed to peak. Looking back I can tell you I am here today because of the mercy God has shown me. Now looking back I can point out many ways God has been there for me throughout my life.
So when was I saved? Well I would say it is a journey with Christ. I believe we are saved as it is written in Romans 10 v 9-10: That if you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved. There are many scriptures that God gives us to show how we are loved and saved by his sacrifice, mercy and grace (Ephesians 2 v 8-9, John 3 v 16).
I went to South Africa and joined the Jan 2010 WYAM J-bay team in search for a closer relationship with God. In Cairo God told me I didn’t have to travel across the world to find him and that he has always been there. I learned to listen to God and found a relationship with Christ that I never knew I could have. Many good and bad things happened during my DTS experience just as in life. My recent experience’s with our father has changed who I am and who I want to be. I am a sinner by definition and it is through Christ I am saved (Luke 18 v 9-14).
For those reading this that may not be sure about who Christ is I encourage you to seek a relationship with him (Jeremiah 29 v 13: You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart).
