Nike, Indonesia
When I was in high school, a friend asked me to go to a retreat. But the day before leaving, I got a terrible headache. I wanted to cancel it but I felt that I had to go. I followed my feelings. I decided to go. After arriving at the retreat place, when I climbed the stairs inside it, I fell down from the top of the stairs to the bottom of the stairs. The stairs had many steps. However, My head was ok and I did not feel anything. The pastor of the retreat picked me up and brought me to a room. There was a very nice woman who took care of me. She fed me for 3 days and slept with me. Because of my bad headache, I did not attend the retreat programs.
On the last days of the retreat, the pastor challenged people to receive Jesus into their heart. That woman asked me whether I wanted it or not. I felt that I wanted to accept Christ. When they sang about the cross, I cried non-stop and I received Jesus. The pastor said if you received salvation from God, He wanted you to share the good news to others. After becoming a believer, God changed my bad attitudes and because of His Grace my family knew Jesus.
For every experience that happened to me, I told my mom and dad that God intervened in my life. My dad liked to drink, gamble, and smoke. He was an abusive father. When he hit me he used a belt and he spinned it and hit me. He hit me many times like whipping a horse until I was bleeding and he felt satisfied. Afterward, he was the one who gave me medicine for the wound. God wanted me to forgive him and I felt sorry for him.
Before I became a Christian I liked to cause trouble at school from kindergarten till high school. I liked to fight. However, God changed me after I became a Christian. I did not want to fight anymore because I wanted to obey His commands to be at peace with my friends.
One Christmas season, when I was a teacher at an elementary school, I went with my friends to a different school to sing Christmas songs. On the way home, I was in the car with my friends. We were going to a railroad track but there was no gate. Because of the traffic jam, the car stopped in the middle of the railroad track, but it could not move forward or backward. The train was coming toward the car. Because I was panicked, I could not find the car door latch to exit the car. I asked God to help me. Praise God that the train stopped before it hit the car..I told that story to my mom and testified that God helped us. She cried and she accepted Jesus into her life.
In 1998, my father went to a hospital because of a throat and lung problem. He smoked too much and it caused the problem. He went to the ICU at the hospital for 8 days. I already lived in the US at that time. I could not go back to my country to see him because I did not have a green card yet. I called him by phone and told him that Jesus is the only way to salvation. I asked him whether he wanted to receive Jesus. He showed movement. After a few days he got better and went home. Not long after that he got baptized at a local church. God gave him 7 more years to live.
My parents became believers because of God’s grace for my family. My God is real and I am blessed that he chose me to become His child.