Dominic

As a family, we were members of a Pentecostal church for a long time. But when I was 12 years old, we left the church and founded our own house church.

During this phase of puberty, resistance to my family, my friends and my faith slowly crept in. I made new friends on the street. I had a great but superficial relationship with them. We produced hip hop and rap music.

But my parents continued to pray for me. On New Year's Eve 2005, I felt the desire to change my life and return to God. I wanted to get to know Jesus better and cultivate a more intensive relationship. I prayed to God and promised him that I would read his word and cultivate an intimate relationship with him. I also asked him for the miracle of meeting the woman of my life and finding a church where I could feel at home. I didn't want to go back to the way things were. At that time, I was in the 9th grade of secondary school.

One day, in biology class, I was sitting with some classmates. One of them was of the opinion that humans were descended from apes and that the world was created by a big bang. I myself still believed in creation. So I replied that this was not true. God had created the earth. My classmate thought that was funny and laughed out loud. This led to my classmate Alina getting involved. He then asked her if she also believed that the earth was created by the Big Bang. She denied that. She believed in creation and that God had created people. I was naturally delighted when I heard this and became curious. Was she perhaps Catholic or Protestant, I wondered. A little later I asked her where she had come to this realisation. She then told me about the Adventist Church and the Advent message. I had never heard of it before. But I was now extremely interested in this particular faith. Did God want to open two doors for me at the same time? One to the truth and a second to a woman who shares my faith?

She soon invited me to a meeting on a Friday evening at the Adventist Church. I was welcomed with open arms by the young people there. We celebrated the beginning of the Sabbath together. My hunger for the Advent message grew ever greater after that. The other church members also welcomed me warmly. God had given me a new spiritual home. Now, I was convinced, I was where I belonged, namely in God's true end-time church. Through two years of intensive study with the youth and the preacher, God led me to the point in June 2009 that I finally decided for the Lord Jesus Christ and gave my life to him. I was baptised. Now I know the truth that I had been searching for for a long time.

We developed a close friendship with Alina. We are now engaged and are planning to get married in summer 2011. God's ways are sometimes unfathomable. Nobody knows where they will lead. I have learnt: Trust in God and give him the glory. Everything else will follow.