Anja
I came to Germany when I was 19 to earn money. Shortly before I went back to Poland at the age of 27, I got married. My husband was from Turkey. We lived with my father in Poland. Three years later, my son was born. I now had a lot of work to do, as there were a few men to look after - in addition to my father, my husband and our son, my brother and his son also lived with us. They all lived with us. But that wasn't so unusual for us: we were Catholic and always very hospitable.
Unfortunately, my marriage fell apart after a few years. One day, my aunt from Belarus came to visit. She had learnt about the Bible and had become an Adventist. She had a strong sense of mission and often invited me to pray with her. I didn't want to say „no“, although I found her behaviour a little intrusive and excessive. One day, without asking, she came to our house with a book evangelist in tow. I didn't like that at all, but I put on a good face. Well, if he was already there, I said to myself, then he could also answer all the questions I hadn't been able to get an answer to yet. Maybe he knows more than the Catholic priest in our town. I was particularly interested in what happened to death and hell. I also wanted to know what the meaning of life was. Because I hadn't found it yet.
The book evangelist said: „Before we set about answering the questions, let us pray and then read the Bible. God will then give us the right answers.“ What impressed me most during the subsequent Bible study was that he didn't answer a single question himself. All the answers came so clearly and convincingly from the Bible. I was sceptical and asked if this was the same Bible as the Catholic one. He answered in the affirmative. That was important to me, because at that point I had already accepted the Bible as the authority.
The more we read, the more I became convinced that this was the truth. It has remained so to this day. As a result, I couldn't stop reading the Bible. During the day or at work, I also listened to Bible lectures on headphones. Now I was the one who must have seemed overly missionary to others around me.
When I returned to Germany shortly afterwards, I told my landlord that I couldn't clean the stairwell on Saturday, but that I would be willing to do it any other day of the week. He wasn't at all surprised, because a family who attended the Adventist Church lived in the flat above mine. The landlord immediately introduced me to the woman. The very next Sabbath I attended the church service in Ludwigshafen. Through this woman's sister, I learnt that there were some Polish Adventists in the Mannheim congregation. So I was quickly integrated, continued to receive Bible lessons and could hardly wait to be baptised. But that wasn't so easy. I can't swim and was afraid to put my head under water. But I wanted to be baptised. So I practised diving in the bathtub at home beforehand. I was finally baptised on 7 December 2003.
