By Chan Lim

My testimony for Pastoral Care School (PCS) begins several months prior – when God got my attention through back pain brought on by what turned out to be multiple disc tears and herniation. Still on my gradual road to complete recovery, I praise Jesus today as my Healer and Sanctifier.

In my pain the Lord told me one early morning, that everything we experience in this life, including pains and pleasures, joys and sorrows, was a tool He lovingly used to draw us near to Him. Jesus parted the clouds and told me personally, with as much love and mercy and compassion as I have ever experienced, that His back, too, had hurt as He carried His cross. All so that I could approach the Father in glory, no longer behind a veil. Read more →

By Elisa Cheng

I went to this summer’s Life Conference with a lack of enthusiasm, little expectations, and a lot of fear. But, through God’s gracious love and His life-giving words, I came out of the Life Conference with a refreshed excitement of His plan for me, peace that is attainable only by Him, and confidence in the promise that He will never leave me.

Throughout this summer, I have been specifically dealing with a lot of fears of college — whether the college I am going to (Case Western Reserve University or “CWRU”) is the right college for me, whether I will go insane and not be able to handle the heavy nursing course load, and whether I will find a community of friends and mentors that I so need. And so, I am amazed at how God used this Life Conference to show me that CWRU is the perfect college for me and that I am now free to be excited for what is to come in the next month. Read more →

by Abigail Kang

Many of you may know that I returned from my trip to Uganda this past Summer. Thank you for all your support and prayers. I want to start off by giving some context. I went with an organization called Teen Missions International, which is based in Florida. Every year, they send out over several hundred teens to 15-20 different countries in the world, where they also have bases in. This year, I was on the Uganda Footwashing Team–a team of 19 including 4 leaders. All teams start off at boot camp in Florida, which is an intense, 2 week preparation for the field. From running an obstacle course every morning at 6AM, to packed schedules from 5:30AM-9:30PM, to flooded, muddy tents almost every night, I had to rely on God from the get-go every single moment of the day. It was a tough two weeks that would prepare us for the worst situations possible on the field, and it was also a full two weeks in which I began to build my relationship with the Lord. After the two weeks, on Commissioning Night, we were sent out to the field.  Read more →

Hello everyone, my name is Benjamin Shih. I’ve always believed that God and Jesus are ever present in all our lives, partially due to my upbringing and partially due to my numerous encounters with Him, such as the ones on the Mexicali short term missions trips, the Youth Winter Retreats, church services, TWA (Time with Abba), and the list goes on. One of such experiences was last year in Mexicali. Pastor David Kao had met a man named Cornelias, who suffered from terrible pain in his neck and leg. David and some other students prayed for him and his leg was healed; the next day, he came and told David that it was the first night that he was able to sleep peacefully. That experience taught me 2 things about God…first, God is real because it could not have been a coincidence that after we prayed for him, his leg just suddenly got better. The Holy Spirit must have been at work, and the healing could not have come from any other religion because we prayed to GOD specifically. Not Allah, not Buddha, not Zeus, not any other deity…just God. Secondly, Jesus is our Savior and Healer, because He healed Cornelias of his ailments. Therefore, I want to get baptized in Jesus because I want to grow in God, know Him more, and fully commit to Him. Baptism is an outward declaration of one’s faith in God. I’ve always trusted God, as stated earlier, yet I have never really been one to publicly declare anything in front of a large group unless absolutely necessary, and I never really planned on getting baptized. However, Pastor Ted preached a sermon one day about baptism, raising the idea that someone could not really say they had faith in God unless they got baptized, and I was scared that I would end up away from God if I didn’t get baptized. That belief, albeit ill-founded, planted the seed that would eventually bring all of this to fruition. After some more thinking and praying, I decided to get baptized. Unfortunately, there was a major scheduling conflict that prevented me from getting baptized at that specific time. I was slightly annoyed at God, but He revealed to me it was because I was getting baptized for the wrong reason–fear. Making a spiritual decision out of fear is not an act that honors God. So I began to search for another reason to get baptized, and would not get baptized until I found one. The opportunity came up again during the beginning of the school year, but I didn’t have a good reason yet, and I had other things that would prevent me from pursuing it wholeheartedly. At the Youth Winter Retreat, God told me I had to get out of my comfort zone to learn and grow in Him, but I wasn’t sure in what areas that would apply to. Soon after, the opportunity to get baptized once again came up. I contemplated it, and I thought to myself, “Well, I would have to make a public testimony, and I hate public speaking, and I don’t want to have to stay longer on Sundays” and things like that, when I realized that this is what God meant when He told me that to learn from Him and grow I have to get out of my comfort zone. Before this, I had to stay an extra hour on Sundays (for baptism class) so I could do this. I have to give this testimony in front of the entire church, and after this, I’m going to be drenched in water that is most likely not the most sanitary anymore. It is completely out of my comfort zone, but I trust that God can and will teach me a lesson out of this entire journey. After baptism, I hope to grow in my relationship with God and I hope to hear from Him more as well. I anticipate that because I am going out of my comfort zone today, I will have the strength be able to do it on a more frequent basis and to a greater magnitude, which will in turn allow me to continue to learn and hear from God.

My name is Luz Gomez. I was born and raised in Medellin, Colombia. I grew up as a Catholic and studied Catechism in Catholic School.

Chantu Lee (from our English Congregation) and I were classmates in a Human Growth and Development Class at Mission College.

We had not seen each other since we completed the class in 2014. Last year, when I was taking a walk at the Redwoods in Scotts Valley with my grandson, I ran into Chantu. We chatted about the overwhelming problems I was facing at home and work. We exchanged phone numbers. Later I called Chantu and told her I was diagnosed with depression and anxiety…my heartbeat was irregular, my mind was cloudy, my husband was also sick, my grandson was in the Intensive Care Unit, and my boss was oppressing me. Read more →