Testimony of Conversion
The town in which I was born and where I now live and serve the Lord, is historically known as “The Town of Witchcraft.” This is because it’s a place where there is a high level of both witchcraft and Santeria, which is an Afro-Cuban religion. In addition to these superstitions, there was also a lot of secularism and Darwinism. It was in the middle of this controversial mixture of superstition and atheism that I was raised. On top of all of this, there was also the fact that from the time I was born, my father was an alcoholic.
When I was seventeen, I began to get into a lot of violent fights. As I continued to grow, my life was becoming more and more disgraceful, and although I was still just a youth, I began looking for refuge in alcohol, women, and fighting. Often, I would drink large amounts of rum just to be able to then go out and live in sin, and I would always end up fighting in the streets.
In the midst of all of this, from time to time I would read a little pocket New Testament that had been sent to my mom from the United States. I read Psalm 91 over and over again, to the point that I learned it by heart, along with the Lord’s Prayer that was in the back of the Bible. Still, I see now that I only read the Bible in pursuit of temporal comfort to make all of my problems easier. Somehow, I felt like it gave me protection.
At nineteen years of age, my life had reached such a state of disorder that, for a moment, I was convinced that I had gotten AIDS—but in the end, it was a false alarm. Nonetheless, that episode led me to spend hours weeping and thinking about how miserable and filthy my life was. There were times in which everything that I had been doing crashed over me with waves of guilt. I would sometimes try in my own strength to fix my life, but time after time I realized that it was impossible. Whether it was because of the pressure of my friends or the lack of pleasure I found in living a cleaned-up life, I would always go back to the same types of things.
Every day I was drowning more and more in my sin. In my mind, there existed a certain awareness of the God that I would read about from time to time in my little New Testament. However, the “god” that I imagined was one that I had created in my mind, one that approved of all the sinful things I was doing. In reality, he was just an idol that my unregenerate heart had produced. Things continued to get worse in my life. Because of his excessive drinking, my father developed a nerve disorder, and my brother also experienced mental illness while living in our home. Not only was my own life a type of hell, but now my closest circle of relationships had also become one.
It was then that my mom decided to look for spiritual help in the local Baptist church, even though it seemed to me to be an absurd idea. However, each day I began to feel more and more the burden and guilt for the life I was living. Once my mom started going to the church, several brothers and sisters began visiting our home, and they invited me to participate in the church’s activities. At that time, I resisted, but inside of me there was a battle in which I felt like the God of the Bible was beginning to pull me to Himself. I fought and resisted. I wanted to continue living in my sin, but several problems began to make my life even worse. Time after time, I tried to look for spiritual help in Santeria, but nothing happened. It seemed like everything in the world at that moment was against me.
One of those nights, I decided to go with my mother to the church; they had been praying for my salvation. In reality, I don’t remember what the preacher preached about that night, but I do remember that something supernatural was happening inside of me, and I couldn’t explain it. The sin that had given me so much pleasure now pained me, and I began to read the Scriptures with great passion, to the point that I read the entire New Testament in a matter of weeks. On several occasions after that, I was exposed to the preaching of the gospel by both, the pastor and others from the church that spoke to me about the work of Christ on the cross. So, in desperation I went running into the arms of my Savior. I knew that my life was not good, but I also knew now the depths of His love for me, and that was motive enough for me to let myself fall into His arms.
From that moment, my life began to change. Everyone talked about what was happening to me; many could not explain it. In my own heart, I felt a longing to obey everything I read in the Bible or learned in the discipleship classes or heard in the preaching. Day after day I experienced changes. I no longer wanted to drink alcohol, and I felt repulsed by the life I once lived. I started sharing the gospel with everyone around me. It was so natural for me that I couldn’t keep from talking to everyone about what God had done for me in the person of Jesus Christ.
Call to Ministry
After my baptism, I began to preach the gospel in several different communities where no church existed. I also visited the prisons to preach the gospel to the inmates. One day, my pastor decided to begin a Bible study on the gifts within Christ’s church, and after hearing him teach on the pastoral gift, I felt that God had called me to serve Him as a pastor of His flock. When I spoke to my pastor about my desire to be in the ministry, he began to be more involved with me and began to mentor me. Little by little, he started delegating to me more responsibilities in the church and the surrounding missionary work. I started a new group in a town out in the country where there was no church, and I also served as a preacher in several churches in our region.
As the church observed my work in the Lord, the brothers and sisters began to express publicly that they perceived God’s calling on my life. So, I continued serving until I was approved by the church to go and study in a theological seminary. While I was in seminary, I continued to go out and serve local churches on the weekends. After graduation, I joined a Baptist church where I was ordained and installed as pastor. I have served God from the time I was converted, and though I’ve passed through difficult moments in the ministry, to this day I have never regretted—nor will I ever regret—serving my Lord, Jesus. To Him and only Him belongs the glory both now and forever. Amen!