I was born in 1980 at 6.00 p.m. in a hospital called Adolph Cisse, in a lovely multicultural city called Pointe Noire. My home city is the economic heart of the Republic of Congo, a Central African nation with a population of about 3.000.000 people. Pointe Noire is well known as one of the most exciting tourist attractions in Central Africa, due to its beautiful beaches and blue sea.
I was born a normal child; There were no problems whatsoever either during my mum’s pregnancy, or at my birth.
My mum was a nurse and Catholic woman; she was a believer in God, whereas my dad, an engineer for train companies, was a confirmed atheist.
As children, we had more affection for our mum, as she was always there and cared the most for us. She made a smaller salary than our dad make, but spent four times more on us. She taught us all our basic life principles, including the meaning of life and the importance of finding good friends, and instructed us about the bad effects of taking drugs. She also cautioned us against engaging in sex before marriage and becoming gang members. All her teachings stemmed from her religious background—whereas our dad was rarely at home, always away.
My dad was more focused on his job than his family. Drinking was what he mostly spent his money on; he could and did spend even days without seeing his children. He was a truly irresponsible man, and so we grew up as if we did not have a father.
I was a quiet but thoughtful child. I felt I had an average family, in the sense that we were able to go to school and have what other kids had. As with any family, we had our own issues and struggles—but for us, things were worse. For some reasons I could not understand, our neighbours were always against us, always attacking us—not because we were an average family, but because they hated us for some reason.
We were persecuted so often; people constantly came to our house to fight with us, wanting to argue. Others even wanted our deaths…and we could never understand the reasons behind all this. These attacks made us feel rejected and abandoned, causing us grow up with fear as a constant companion.
Nevertheless, every time anybody in our neighbourhood tried to attack us, somehow God always delivered us. My mother did not have a lot of knowledge about the Word of God, but she always had faith in Him.
I started going to Church early in 1992, because our mother wanted her children to know about God.
This is the story of my salvation:
From the age of twelve, I loved the things of God. At this stage, however, I did not have any personal relationship with God; all I knew was that going to Church was part of our customs. I did not always enjoy attending the services, but my brothers and sisters did. There were times when I just went to Church to please my mother. There were times when I slept during the service; my mother would wake me up, and I would not even remember what had happened during the service.
Even though I went to Church, I always felt empty inside; I knew that there was something missing. However, one sunny day in the dry season of 1992, a young Christian named Mito came to me holding a Bible in his hand. He spoke to me about the Lord, reading the Word from the Book of John 3: 16: “For God so loved the world that He gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life.”
He told me that the Lord loved me, and He wanted to save my life. I told him not to come back to teach me the word of God again, or I would harm him. However, what I did not know was that God was sending him to minister to me. Despite me telling him so, he was at my house the next day with his Bible again, telling me that Jesus loved me and He had a plan for me; and this time he even invited me to visit his Church.
I therefore decided to attend his Church, just to please him. At that stage, I was still young; I did not know why I had to go to Church, or why I had to attend Bible study. For me, all this was for fun. I had more fear of men than of God. There were times when I used to hide myself away from the people of the Church whenever I did something wrong. I also had more passion for the Church than God did. I could talk about my local Church all day long, more than I ever did about Christ.
Because I felt empty inside and did not have the Holy Spirit within me, one day I decided to leave the Church and go back to the world. I made friends with all sort of people, the kind who carried knives and occupied themselves with smoking, drinking and clubbing. I compromised my values and conscious by joining in with all the juicers, drugs users and the immoral for acceptance.
I found out that I had friends as long as I was in the midst of them accepting what they were doing, though all the while I was slowly destroying my mind and running away from the purpose of God. Then I wanted some love from friends to medicate my pain but all I received was false and hypocritical relationship. Nevertheless, there’s still something in me that always told me that it was wrong to do what I was doing, and that I should not be in such environment; but because of my rebellious heart, I continued that way.
Then, early in 1994, I woke up one morning and realized that I was having problems with my eyes. When I went to consult the doctor, he told me after diagnostics that I had a disease called hypermetropia—a sickness that caused all sort of troubles with vision, brain and nerves.
It even started to affect my studies and the rest of my life. I began to wonder: what else should I do in life? There were moments when I thought there was nothing else I could do, because I had chronic pains and was obviously not able to perceive the light. Due to that infirmity, I chose to disconnect myself from my friends and because of some issues and struggles in our home, I felt rejected and lonely all the time and sometimes found myself sobbing while walking down the street.
I could not make the simplest decisions anymore, even supermarket shopping felt overwhelming. The routine that I used to know had gone and I felt lost. My interaction with other people had suffered and I felt less able to communicate effectively.
Yes, I tried almost everything a young person could try, and came up empty and lonely and my conscious was still saying that something was not right. I woke up drenched in sweat and felt lethargic most of the time. I had always been described as ` `outgoing`, ` confident`, `bubbly`. However, it seemed to me there was nobody to talk with about the reality of my life. However, I just wanted my life to return to some normality.
Then In May 1994, I woke up one day and said: “God, if you are real and if you can hear me, why can’t you heal me? If you really love me, why am I suffering this way?” Because I could not find an answer and my condition was getting worse, I made up my mind to commit suicide. The fact that I was not getting any better caused me to become hateful of God; I even took all the Bibles from our home and thrown them away.
On 31st of December 1996, as I was still struggling with the pain, I definitely made up my mind to commit suicide. The same day, as I was sitting outside our home, I suddenly saw the same young Christian, Mito, coming towards me. I remember that it was about 7 p.m. He gave me a leaflet to attend the New Year’s evening all-night prayer service in his Church. He did not know what I intended to do in my heart that same night but I thank God that he did come to minister to me once again—otherwise, I could not have been alive today, writing to you at this very moment!
I know one thing: because it was God’s time, I did not resist that invitation. I even went to search for those Bibles that I had thrown away. We went to his Church. It was very crowded and the service was very long. At some point, the pastor preached a word of salvation for an hour; and just at the end of his sermon, he asked people to confess their sins and invite God into their hearts as their personal Lord and saviour. Amazingly, I was the last person to stand up in front of the whole congregation. It`s on that very moment that I confessed my sins, my wrong-doings and mistakes and finally asked the Lord to come into my life as my personal Lord and Saviour.
I cannot express the emotions I felt that night; my eyes were full of tears of joy, and my heart was touched because of the presence of the Holy Ghost that filled me. I got saved; I was born again! I am a new creature in Christ Jesus. Praise God. Amen!
The Bible says: “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold all things are become new.” (2 Cor. 5:17)
Dear reader, does any of this ring a bell? If so, let me tell you clearly that there is an answer to every questions of your life. God our creator has designed us and knows our needs and problems. He has given each of us the freedom to either love and obey Him or turn away from Him. Sadly, we all have chosen sin, to rebel against His commands, and all the result is physical and spiritually death (Genesis 2:17). Spiritual death ultimately brings separation from God forever, away from the only source of everlasting love. In order to have joy and peace, we must be reconciled to God!
God has done His part: “ God commendeth His love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” ( Romans 5:8).
Jesus Christ suffered the death penalty for you when He died on the cross in your place and mine. He rose from the dead the third day, and is now alive forever (See 1Corinthians 15 :1-4). He asks you to come to Him. “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are laden, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28). God has cleared the way for you to come to Him. He offers you love, acceptance, forgiveness, peace, and eternal, joyous life with Him.
I tried all the other ways; maybe you, too. Now it is time for you to fulfil your purpose and begin a loving, eternal relationship with God by seeing your need of Jesus and trusting Him to forgive all your sins. When you do this, you will be spiritually “born again”, and begin to experience “life more abundantly” (John 3; 10; 15:11). For this time, you will also be equipped for true happiness and satisfaction which come from knowing and following God or from aligning your will to His (Psalm 16:11; 144:15).
“For whatsoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved” (Romans 10:13). The word call means to appeal to Him. You do the calling and He will do the saving. Eternal life is free, a gift from God through Jesus Christ (Romans 6:23).
You can live out the same experience of salvation today if you open your heart to receive Jesus Christ as your Lord and personal Saviour. God`s arms are opened wide to receive you if you make up your mind to surrender unto Him.
Today is the day for salvation; I invite you to make Jesus Christ the Lord of your life.
If you are willing to make Jesus Christ as your Lord and Saviour, you can do this prayer right now…
Prayer of Salvation
Please Pray this way:
“O Lord God, I come to you in the name of Jesus Christ .
Your word says,“…Whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved” (Acts 2:21)
I repent of my sins
Let your blood wash away my sins
I ask Jesus to come into my heart, to be the Lord of my life
I make him my personal saviour
I receive eternal life into my spirit
I declare that I am saved; I am born again; I am
a child of God and a new creature in Christ!
I now walk in consciousness of my new life in Christ Jesus. Amen!
Congratulations! You are now a Child of God
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