My old blog stuff

I just found out that I still have an old blog account through blogger, with a different email account, which I can't seem to find the password... *sigh*  I've enjoyed reading what I was thinking 6 years ago.  :)

My Testimony

I never knew why I waited this long to tell my story.  (And my greatest inspirations come at night.)

I think since I was a little girl, I was always wondering if there was something out there that created us.  I remember one time when I was 7 or 8 that I found a Bible on a shelf next to my parents bed.  I asked my dad, “What is this?”  And he said, “It’s the Bible, it has a lot of stories.”  I asked, “Dad, can you tell me one of these stories?”  And my dad, in his best translation and story telling, told me the story of Noah’s Ark.  I later found the book again and tried to read it myself but it didn’t have pictures and the words were too complicated to read.  So, I put it down and never thought about it again.

I remember one night as I was falling asleep in bed, the glow of the moon shown through the window.  I lift up my hands, looking at it, and wonder, “Who or what made me?  And why am I here on earth?”  It might have been the same night or many nights after that I had a dream that I was viewing a volcano erupting with lava, gas and rock spewing from the mouth.  Many people at the base of the volcano were scared and running away from the melted flowing lava.  I remember being frighten by this dream but didn’t know what it meant. (Maybe more on the volcano dream later - It had reoccurred 2 other times in my life.)

Fast forward to high school.  By now, I had learned some basic knowledge of different religions in middle school and was very interested in learning religion and philosophy.  At the time, through working with my parents at their restaurant, we have become friends with a Spanish schoolteacher who regularly came to the restaurant.  She invited my brother and me to church, a United Methodist church.  We both became more familiar with Christianity and the routines of the United Methodist services. 

Although I learned a great deal and knowledge about God and Christ, I didn’t have a true relationship with God.  Towards the end of my senior year in high school, I hit a time of depression and anxiety.  Although I was young and had everything going for me (going to North Carolina State University that fall), I was left with the thought of, "What will my future hold next?" A friend at the time, who is a Christian, shared with me various verses on God's love, and the more I dwell of these key verses (namely, John 3:16-17 and 1 Corinthians 13:4-13), the more I realize God is bigger than anything I can imagine. God is love.  That summer, I started to read the Bible on my own.  I’m not quite sure how much I read or what I read but I remember I read a lot.

That fall, I went to NC State University.  And like most freshmen, I want to connect to people and make friends.  I met an older friend who went to my high school and he invited me to his church, which met in Chapel Hill.  I started to connect with these “friends” and became a part of most of their church activities.  One girl took an interest in me and asked me if I wanted to become part of a “Discipleship” Bible study.  Most of the time during this discipleship study, it was one-on-one, just me and her.  I began to learn much of their “theology” and practices of the church.  But something was telling me that there is something wrong with this church.  Although, I felt these people were genuine with their teachings and I thought the truth was taught, there were also times during this Bible study that I left with heavy guilt in my heart, like I have done something terribly wrong.  I started to doubt if my own family was good, if my friends outside of this church was safe to hang out with, the thought of being truly accepted by any groups of friends if I did anything wrong.  I was getting brainwashed and I never felt at the time the true grace of God.  However, the girl did challenge me to read John and that was when my eye and hearts started to open towards Christ.  After the very last study, my friend asked me if I was ready to accept Christ and I told her “yes”.  The next night, we were meeting at the church for mid-week and already the baptismal pool was ready for my immersion.  (One of the practices they held was that you are not truly saved unless you are baptized into their church.)  After the “prayer” and the “dunk”, I came out of the water and I felt a sudden presence of the Holy Spirit coming down on me.  And the Holy Spirit clearly told me right then and there, “Get out of this church NOW!”  I felt the presence of the Spirit around me as I walked out of the pool and I heard people singing and clapping around me.  But all of the noise was darkness to me.  It was the strangest thing to me but I felt the peace of Christ in my heart.

That Thursday happened to be the start of Fall Break.  I had already booked a train to go home and decided to go as plan to go home.  I left Raleigh with a lot of confusion already.  So many of my so-called friends were telling me, “Be careful, don’t talk to anybody, they will pull you out of our church.”  When I arrived home, I talked to my friend, the one who invited me to the Methodist church and she said quite bluntly, “That is a cult.” 

When I went back to Raleigh, I ignored all phone calls from the cult members.  “You will not be saved, you will not go to heaven, you will be so lost out there.”  I heard it all.    But the Spirit in me told me, “You should continue to search for fellowship.  You are now a Christ follower”.  After a few months, the calls ceased.  I was quite determined to find a fellowship and started to check out the local United Methodist church before I ended up in Grace Community Church (moving forward called “Grace”), which is part of Great Commission Churches (probably best described as "evangelical baptist").  I have another older friend (who was also my brother’s friend from Boy Scouts) who happened to go to this campus church and I was curious why a church service would be held on campus.  So, by his invitation and my own curiosity, I started to go to Grace.

My first impression of the church: Oh my goodness, they sing contemporary songs and meet in homegroups (small groups that met in homes/apts).  This looks kind of like the previous (cult) church.  But as I started to meet people and connect, it wasn’t what I expected from my previous experience.  Actually, I kind of like these folks!  They were genuine, honest, and really loved the Lord but have a mind of their own (meaning they were not brainwashed).

Those 7 years (5 years while I was a student at NC State plus 2 more years in Raleigh) was an incredible year of my spiritual growth.  There are a lot of details in between but some notable experiences I had when I was with this church:

• I learned the importance of having a quiet time with the Lord.  It was a time set aside almost daily, between me and God, to pray to God and read the Word.  Mainly, to have a true relationship with God.
• I learned the importance of small group fellowship.  Acts 2:42-47 tells how the early Christians met in homes because at the time, they were persecuted by the Romans for their faith.  They could not meet in public like Americans do today in church buildings.  They met privately in homes and broke bread and sang and prayed and shared whatever they had with each other.  Service today is important to connect people but small group fellowship is where the real growth takes place.
• I learned message of love and salvation and the message of the Great Commission, Matthew 28:16-20.  These verses are the foundation of the Great Commission movement.
• During my sophomore year at NC State, God gave me a vision to be a missionary.  (My May 16, 2009 entry has some details.)
• I became a part of international ministries.
• And somehow, at one time, I worked 3 part-time jobs after I graduated from college.  But God was good and He provided.

When my mom was diagnosed with cancer in May of 2005, I decided to move and be with my parents.  I was very sad to leave Raleigh and my spiritual family.  Little did I know, from these first 7 years as a Christian, it set the fundamentals of my beliefs and how these practices led me to where I am today.  Maybe if I have some more time later, I can be more specific.  But this night owl needs to go to bed soon.  :)