Testimony of Conversion

I was born in Bogota, Colombia in 1977 in a poor neighborhood. My childhood was during the period of heavy drug trafficking in Colombia and our community was greatly impacted by the societal problems at the time. Over the years I became friends with some bad influences and I started down a bad road.

When I was fourteen years old I looked for a gym in order to train for boxing. That is where my sports career began. I completely abandoned my studies. In reality, I was already way behind in school, since at the time I had only advanced to 6th grade. 

At the gym, the trainer, who was a famous boxer, became a father figure to me. I did not have a father and my mother spent most of her time working to take care of her four children on her own. With the help of my trainer, I was eventually able to win some championships and became a member of the Bogota boxing team for several years. 

But there was also something else that was important about my trainer—he was a Christian. He shared the gospel with me and took me to church. He also met with a group of athletes in the mountains every Saturday morning at 7 am. I liked to accompany him to those meetings mostly because I wanted to spend time with him, and not so much because I was interested in the Word of God. 

When I was eighteen I decided to attend church more consistently. There, I became friends with a number of Christians, but I still did not understand clearly what Christianity really was. I continued sinning against God, even though I did not do many of the things my boxing friends or my neighborhood friends were doing. I abstained from those things mostly because my trainer had taught me how to be an ethical person and out of admiration for him, I wanted to do what was right.

A time came when my sin became a very heavy burden on my soul. I felt no peace and the pain inside kept intensifying. I saw that my life was in disagreement with God’s commands. My sin consumed me and I could no longer see it as trivial. I saw the seriousness of my sin and understood that it was committed against God Himself.

When I understood the magnitude of my sin, I began to look for ways to change my life and deliver myself from the slavery that tormented me. I started reading the Bible and listening to sermons on the radio. I understood that I needed the gospel but I did not have clearly in my mind what the gospel was. Much of what I was hearing in sermons had to do with health and prosperity, but those things did not interest me. I simply wanted to be set free from my wickedness.

One day on the radio I found a program that was playing a sermon. I believe that it was that day that I truly heard the gospel of the grace of God. After that, I purchased books that talked about salvation, conversion, the Holy Spirit. I fell in love with the Word of God and I saw that there was no other path in life that I could follow other than to follow the Lord.

When God saved me, He set me free from the leprosy of my sin. I was twenty-one years old when my life was brought into submission to the Redeemer of my soul.

I began looking immediately for opportunities to serve Him. My desire was that other people would come to know that there is freedom from sin through Christ. God put a missionary burden in my heart. I decided to abandon my boxing career and work in order to give myself the opportunity to do missions.