Testimony of Conversion

In 2000, my wife lost one of her kidneys due to a health crisis. Both of us were deeply involved in Spiritism. Deeply disappointed in all the things we had done according to the rites of Spiritism, I accepted the invitation of a friend to visit the Methodist church where I live. My wife and I traveled to the church that day, yet we almost left because of the overwhelming doubts in our minds. Finally, we decided to enter since we wouldn’t lose anything and were already there.

We went in, and the service began with the usual worship of those denominations, which was a different experience for us. Strangely I was experiencing something different as I felt a mixture of deep sadness and a joy that was inexplicable to me. After the sermon, I experienced both joy and anxiety I could not explain. I began to weep when the pastor asked at the end of the sermon if anyone wanted to accept Christ that night to raise their hand. For some reason, I knew that’s what I wanted to do, so I raised my hand. The doubts in my heart disappeared, and I no longer wanted to reject God or the church. Immediately the pastor proceeded to pray for those who had made their decision, and I know that I didn’t hear anything else because I couldn’t stop crying in the midst of the inexplicable joy I felt.

I left that place that night and said to my wife. We were greatly moved, so we decided to keep attending every week. Shortly thereafter, my wife also experienced the real salvation that, up to that point, she had never experienced before.

Over the next few months, I repented of every sin in my life that I was aware of. The Lord cleansed my life of all the sins I practiced openly. No one had even instructed me about the gospel or repentance at that stage in my faith. It was the Lord who taught me through the Holy Spirit.

Call to Ministry

I became a leader in that church until I left over certain disagreements. In the years following, we moved from church to church, finding doctrinal issues in each. Yet the Lord used this time to help me learn proper doctrine, specifically surrounding Calvinism and the Reformation. When we decided to leave the last church we attended, I tried to explain my reasons to the pastor, but he refused to hear them. My wife and I left without problems, along with my children and other brethren who did not want to continue there after we left.

Shortly after leaving and having nowhere to congregate because no church conformed to the Calvinist doctrines and much less to the reformation, the brothers who also left there with us asked me to be their leader and to start a Calvinist church, the first in our city and until today the only reformed church. I must say that there are other groups, but they are neither Calvinist nor Reformed as we know their practices, their public testimonies, and the things they believe.

A year after we had been meeting and after many attempts and prayers to contact IBSJ, the Lord finally put us in touch with brothers of IBSJ. We are currently in the final stretch to complete the biblical organization of our church, and we hope that happily, in a short time, our beloved church can biblically ordain its minister, and we will have our first Lord’s Supper that we desire and need so much.

This is my testimony to the glory of the Lord, blessings to you, my brothers.

Sincerely Ivan.