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Volume. XXIII, No. 20 Testimonies Part 2
Testimony of Pastor David Weng
I was born into a ‘Christian home’ in Kaohsung, Taiwan in 1975. From the time when I was a young boy, my parents would bring me to Sunday school and encouraged me to join other church activities. In 1984, my family moved to the Philippines and two years later, at the age of eleven, I was baptized by immersion in a Baptist Church in Manila. However, I had never understood what the gospel really meant before and after I got baptized but no one in the church seemed to bother. In 1987, my family moved to Japan and I received my junior high school education in Japan and completed it in 1990. During those years studying in Japan, often reluctantly, I would invite some of my classmates to come for church service. More often than not, what I got in return was mockery or sarcastic comments. Discouraged and dejected by my ineffectiveness as a ‘Christian,’ I started to inquire into the purpose of the ‘religion’ I had embraced since young - and things got worse. Under the bombardment and influence of Darwinism and secular Humanism taught in the Japanese secondary school, I almost became a self-proclaimed atheist as I begun to cast doubt about God’s supernatural Ex-Nihilo (created out of nothing) creation and the origin of man. I struggled and wrestled sorting out between my ‘old Christian religion’ and my ‘new-found faith’ in ‘Darwinism’, I had soon begun to question about my own eternal salvation. When my family had moved to Saipan in 1990, God sent a missionary from Singapore to bring us His Good News. At last, the glorious gospel of Jesus Christ was never before so clearly preached and explained to us right from the Scripture. It was the first time in my life that I realized that a person can come to God only by the enabling grace of His Spirit (Titus 3:5), by his faith alone in the Person of Jesus Christ (1 Tim 2:5), and it is through God’s grace alone (Eph 2:8,9) that a person is redeemed from the damnation of sins and his salvation can never be lost (1 Thess 5:23; John 10:28)! Despite my unworthiness, shortcomings and inadequacies in many areas, at the age of twenty one, God called me into the full-time ministry in 1996. That same year in July, I begun my four years of under-graduate theological training in Singapore. Having served in Maranatha Bible-Presbyterian Church for two years, my family and I went for further Studies in the States for Seminary trainings at Pensacola Theological Seminary in Florida for four years. It was during those years of theological trainings, that the LORD laid a burden in me for pastoral ministry. After rejoining Maranatha Bible Presbyterian Church in 2006 after my seminary studies, the LORD opened the door for me to serve Him at HOPE Bible Presbyterian Church. Jer. 3:15 “And I will give you pastors according to mine heart, which shall feed you with knowledge and understanding.” By God’s grace and enablement, I pray that God will enable me to be His servant and under-shepherd after His own heart and feed His people with His knowledge and understanding so that God’s people may grow in the fear and knowledge of the LORD and many sinners may come to the saving knowledge of JESUS CHRIST! Amen. Testimony of Sis Susan Weng I was born into a non-Christian family where my father was a nominal Buddhist and had been actively involved in the temple as one of the head officers. During my childhood years, I had attended Pentecostal worship services and can still remember enjoying all the singing at the Sunday school classes, but as a non-believing child. It was during my secondary school years that an evangelist couple came to preach the gospel in my hometown and came to visit our family and invited us to come for worship services. By the grace of God, one of my elder sisters believed. Nevertheless, I and my other siblings remained unmoved. Many months later, my dad was diagnosed with cancer in the throat, which became one of my life’s greatest turning points. The same evangelist couple visited my dad and prayed for my father as he was fighting cancer and the rest of us were left utterly helpless. Despite our attempts in doing everything we could as non-Christians, my family had sunk into utter despair, which eventually led us to seek the help of witch-doctors as we presumably thought that my dad might have had black magic cast on him. Yet, there was nothing those witch-doctors could do to help. My father, eventually, had to seek medical treatment in Singapore where, by God’s providence, members from Life BP Church reached out to us by showing much concern and Christian love, My parents were provided with temporary accommodation at Beulah House, an extended building of Life Church, diagonal to the main Life Church premises. Meanwhile, the witch-doctors we had consulted wanted us to pay a large sum of money and threatened us with disturbing and destructive ‘evil spirits’ visits that would supposedly wreck havoc in our family, if we did not con sent to their ‘payment request’. My siblings and I were helpless, disheartened and afraid that what the witch-doctors had said would come true, but we decided not to give in and ignored them completely, though in much trembling and uncertainty. It was during those weeks, I often secretly and personally pleaded to the ‘God of the Christians’ to deliver us from all the miseries, anxieties and troubles that overshadowed our family. Praise and thank God that not many days after, I was convicted by the Holy Spirit that I must come to Jesus Christ and ask Him to be my Saviour, to forgive all my sins and deliver me from the future eternal damnation. A few months later, after doing whatever was humanly possible, my father eventually passed away. Yet, I thank God for using such trying circumstances to bring my whole family to the Lord and be baptized as a family, including my father, before my father went home to be with the Lord. Ever since I was saved by the grace of God, I know that Jesus Christ is the only way to heaven, for only He can take away our sins! Acts 4:12 “Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.” Despite the criticism and mockery often received from our relatives in Indonesia, my family remains firm and strong in the Lord over the years serving Him in a church in Tanjung Uban, Indonesia which became a missions outreach of Life Church. Over the years, God has been comforting my mother and giving my mother unspoken peace and joy, especially during the time of bereavement. And I know that one day, together with my family, I shall meet my earthly father again in a place called heaven where there is no more pain, sickness, sorrow, death and tears and praising the Lamb of God, who redeemed His people with His blood, in joy forever and ever! All praise and glory be to the Lord Jesus! |
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