Testimony of Conversion

My name is Johan Gregori Rosales Torres and I am 33 years old. I was born in the maternity ward of Caricuao in Caracas, Capital District. When I was 3 months old my parents moved to the city of Maracay, Aragua state for work reasons, city where I live since then.

Unfortunately, since my first years of life, my family was submerged in many marital problems and problems with other family members. During several periods of our family life, we had to share our home with other relatives who, due to economic situations, did not have a place to live. This exacerbated the conflicts within the home and, in addition, set a context in which our growing up was greatly influenced by other customs that were not beneficial for children.
The sins I grew up in (dysfunctional families, issues of aggression, anger, adulteries, immoralities) ended up strengthening the sinful inclinations I already had, now not only promoted from my heart but from those I lived with.

That made me a boy, who, although he studied and liked to play sports, was inclined to pornography, lies, lust, parties, alcoholism, to hide and promote the evil of others no matter if it was my own family members, among other embarrassing things.

God saved one of my aunts on my father’s side, she devoted herself to preach to the family, and since I was about 11 years old, every time she had the opportunity she would take me and my cousins to an evangelical church. My interest at that young age was not the Lord but to be able to share with my cousins the candy and food that they bought for us when we left the church. That was fickle, but I went enough times that I learned a few Bible verses and songs. The older I got, the less I went to church until I stopped going altogether.

I dedicated myself to playing soccer, without giving up my sins, on the contrary, devoted to them.

It was at the age of 14 that I met my wife, who is now my wife, already in the last years of high school. We saw each other often because we were interested in each other.
After a short time I found out that she went to church, “that she was a Christian”.

So in order to be with her as a boyfriend I had to attend church. So I began to attend that other church, my desire was to be with her, again my desire was not the Lord. But it was the constant exposure to the preaching that slowly opened my eyes. I must confess that those first 3 to 4 years in the church was a shaky ride, I was literally an unbeliever still wrapped up in his sins doing “church life” for the first 2 years, then the other two years were even worse because, even though I was getting more light I did not want to leave my sins, specifically my lusts, which unfortunately involved my wife, who at that time was my girlfriend.

From the age of 17 to 18 the Lord worked extraordinarily in my life, giving me the intolerant burden of my sin, He convinced me of the hypocrisy that I carried in my life and in my church, I was someone who served even publicly but in a hidden way remained in his sins, it was something that I could not stand anymore, and I went to talk to the pastor to confess what I really was.

Unfortunately in the first three years in the church, being already my wife’s boyfriend, in spite of my young age I was unfaithful to her, a matter that added to the immense burden that the Lord had placed on me. I understood that I really loved God and my girlfriend, I could not continue living like that, the holiness of the Lord crushed me, I could not take another step without confessing and being transparent saying who I really was, I felt that in that way I could only reach the true forgiveness of God and the peace that only He could give. So, just as I did with the pastor, I also did with her, I confessed my sins, my unfaithfulness, my stupidity, my foolishness. I wanted to marry her, I loved her, but I couldn’t go on with this deception. Knowing that she had the right to leave me for all the wrong I had done to her, I confessed anyway. The possibility of losing her was increasing, but I couldn’t be at peace with God if I got married and didn’t know how I had sinned against her.

By God’s grace after taking that difficult step, she departed from me for some time. The pastor helped me, and in time I was restored to service in the local church, but now converted, regenerated, with a new heart.

I can’t say that I immediately stopped sinning as I would have liked, but now I had the spiritual faculties and the help to fight and make decisions that would result in my sanctification and the advancement of the kingdom of God. That helped me to be able to serve with a more informed and clean conscience in teaching, I took theological courses and courses on hermeneutical and homiletical tools that helped me to continue forming myself as a youth leader and as a bible teacher, until now.

The Lord also gave me the grace to return to my beloved wife of 8 years, with whom I have two beautiful children.

Call to Ministry

As the Lord worked in me in that evangelical church, my desire and interest to get involved in teaching and serving others grew. One of the things that drove me at that time was my own experience, how the Lord had worked, remembering also the immense need that others might be going through because of the condition I was in.

Then, some of the brethren were able to see what God was doing and the abilities He was giving me to serve in teaching.

The Lord gave me the opportunity to train and serve as a Sunday school teacher to new believers, in addition to serving other young people in counseling and teaching. The Lord also allowed me and a brother from that same church to start a study group that had the purpose of teaching biblical interpretation and some fundamental topics of the faith, it was also part of their objectives to take the gospel to schools through courses in ethics and morals. This from the age of 19 until the age of 23, due to doctrinal issues in the case of the church, and in the case of the schools, because of the opposition of the state that does not allow teaching about the gospel openly and institutionally in educational institutions as part of the curriculum. At this point it was already clear that a strong desire was growing in me to serve the Lord full time, though not as a pastor but as a missionary, not knowing that the Lord would want me as a missionary in my own country.

Then because of some doctrinal differences I left that church to begin to congregate in a very recent work that some brothers had started. Since then I supported in teaching and counseling.

At the age of 25 I was sent by my brothers to prepare myself theologically for a year in Santiago de los Caballeros in the Dominican Republic. In the Grace Ministerial Academy of the Grace Baptist Church.

It was a precious year, of much theological growth, but above all spiritual growth, I matured in an important way.

Then I returned to Venezuela, and we began to receive help from some churches from which we had been needing assistance for several months to continue formalizing ourselves as a church. One of those churches was the Iglesia Bautista

Reformed from Caracas, this church had received help from the Bible Church of the Lord Jesus Christ of Santo Domingo Dominican Republic, who represented by Pastor Salvado Gomez Dixon ordained their then pastors.

They (The Reformed Baptist Church of Caracas) helped us among other things, in the process of identifying the candidates of the church by voting, of which I was one of those three and the youngest. After a time of evaluation by the pastors involved and by the church, one could be confirmed to the pastoral ministry. Since then I have served as Pastor of the church.

Certainly, because of age, lack of expertise, immaturity and knowing my limitations and sins I did not put myself forward as a candidate and the others did. Although I longed to serve the Lord, I knew it was an enormous responsibility and it crushed me. I desired to serve with another man, but in Divine providence it was not to be. That is why the pastors knowing the opinion of the church, being willing to ordain me, and also knowing my reluctance to serve alone in the ministry, motivated me to take it on. I was praying that the Lord would do His will and use His means to confirm that He wanted me there. That was my faith, I ran in the opposite direction, but the means I had been praying for (The church and the opinion of the pastors) led me to be consistent with my prayers. I was ordained as a pastor on July 3, 2015 at New Life Evangelical Reformed Church.