C&C Chairperson time testimony sharing

Hi everyone, my name is Debbie and I am the Chairperson for C&C this year. Our fellowship’s theme is from 2 Corinthians 5:17: Therefore, if anybody is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!

I must tell you that I have not always been a Christian, at least not in my heart. In fact, I’ve spent the majority of my life wanting nothing to do with the church, and far, far away from God. As I look back at my life, I still can’t believe that I am standing here as the chairperson of a Christian fellowship, speaking to you about God!

Often times, people turn to religion as a last resort, when they have run out of options, when they are faced with a dead end. Desperately we come before God, and whether or not we really believe in his existence, we cry out to Him to help rescue us from our messy lives. But the truth is, when we come to Jesus, we are not whole but broken. When we accept God into our lives, we still fall into sin. God’s spirit begins its work when we give up ownership of our own lives and let Jesus take the driver seat.

So tonight, I want to share with you part of my faith journey, and be a witness to the work of the Holy Spirit on how God has steadily and faithfully transformed my life into one that is new and full of hope.

I was baptized as a child in Taiwan. But after my family moved to Vancouver in the early 90’s, I resented going to church. I always thought I was too cool for church, and that it was for boring people who had no fun.

On the outside, I always appeared to be a very well adjusted person. In high school, I was an honour student, and when I graduated went straight into university. After university I found a job working as an engineer at a consulting firm in Vancouver. I was lucky to be working only within months after I received my degree. I busied myself with activities such as yoga, going to the gym, doing the grouse grind. And on the weekends, I went out with friends and spent my money on eating out and partying – going to pubs, clubs, what have you’s. To the world, I was a young and promising professional, having the fun that a young person was supposed to be having, and on the right track to becoming a success in life. I was an ambitious person - I wanted to better myself in every single way, because I wanted to get ahead. I thought that being and doing better than others was the only way that I could ever be happy in life.

I might not have realized back then, but something huge was missing from my life and I was looking for something that would fill in that missing something. I would go to another party, buy some more clothes, buy the latest gadget, try to become more fit, or rush into another relationship, to try to fill that emptiness in my heart. Looking back, I now see that I was unfulfilled and unhappy, always looking to the next thing, thinking, “If I just get to that next step in life, I will be happy”. I was living in darkness, and my happiness depended on whether or not things in my life, including my family, my job, my relationships, my physical appearance, were just the way I wanted them to be. I was controlling, self-centered, hot-tempered, extremely proud, and I took pride my own self-sufficiency.

During this time, I had started to attend the English service at VTPC, because I thought it would be good to connect with some Taiwanese people in the city. I enjoyed listening to the sermons and found these messages to be thought provoking and challenged the way I saw life. The good news of the gospel carried much liberation, to free people from the bondage of worldly expectations. The pastor and his wife, Glen and Linda Inglis, also showed me how it was possible to be gentle and humble, yet at the same time, self-assured and living with purpose.

However, the frequency of my church attendance was low. I started helping out with presiding at the service and I would only show up on the weeks I was presiding. And yes, I was still partying. At times, I remember waking up completely hung-over and then having to go to church to lead the congregation in prayer. Eventually, and with the encouragement from my friend Emily, my attendance became more and more regular, until I was going to church almost every Sunday.

For the next year or two, I attended the 12:30 contemporary service each Sunday, continuing to be nourished by the word of God and developing relationships with the people at the 12:30. I hadn’t noticed how my faith was becoming more and more important in my life, until one day I thought about the relationship that I was in at the time, and decided that things weren’t going to work out if only one of us was a Christian. I broke things off shortly after wards and although it was painful, I knew it was the right thing to do.

Yet with the end of one relationship, the desire and neediness in my heart to love and to be loved resurfaced. I soon found myself in another relationship, with somebody I met while away on a work trp. The relationship was emotionally draining. My determination to want to make things work cost me not only a lot of tears, but also a lot of money – I was now spending my pay-check on plane tickets. Approaching one year into our relationship, I came up with a plan - I was going to quit my job, go and teach English near where my boyfriend was living, and after wards, go travel through South America together. I thought this way, I would get to spend more quality time with him and get to know him much better. Crazy as it sounds, I went ahead with my self-devised plan. I even enrolled in a “Teaching English as a Second Language” course to get myself ready for the task. To give myself a time limit to be away and to slightly calm my parents’ nervous hearts from my decision, I applied to go back to school for a one-year master’s degree program starting in the fall of 2008, one year after I would have been away. Even though I was going through the motions of making all the preparations, I still constantly prayed to God during this time, because I wasn’t sure about whether or not I should really go off into a distant country to be with someone I hardly knew, and I was looking for a green light, and OK go ahead, from God.

God is truly amazing. Although I was praying for God to tell me to go away, in the end, he changed my heart and allowed me to see how the relationship was not going to work, and gave me the courage to end things. So, I decided that I wouldn’t go going away. But, I still had one year to kill before going back to school so I thought I may as well head back to Taiwan. I started looking for a house sitter and that’s when I was connected with Julie, a seminary student who had come to study in Vancouver from Taiwan. She agreed to be my house sitter, arrangements were made, and I went off to Ontario to visit my sister and some friends for a week before flying back to Taiwan. Then during my trip one night, I was sitting on my friend’s couch checking my e-mail and received a letter from a professor at UBC who had seen my application for graduate school. He asked if I would be interested in doing the 2-year program instead of the one-year program, and asked when I could start. I was nervous and excited at the same time. With my grades, I never thought I could get into the 2-year program. Within one week, I had the chance to meet with the professor at UBC and had decided that I was going to start school in the fall. If I had gotten the e-mail even a few days later, I would have been back in Taiwan already. To this day, I still strongly believe that it was God who gave me the opportunity to do a Master’s. Without him opening this door, I would have never made it into the program on my own.

Before Julie moved in, I had no idea at the time what blessings God was going to bring upon me in the upcoming years. I don’t remember how Julie and I became close friends, but eventually I started coming to the C&C fellowship with her on Saturday nights and soon became a regular member of this group that I had never once been part of in my 10 plus year at this church. God’s spirit was at definitely at work in my heart.

Some would say that Julie and I are as different as night and day. She had spent most of her life living in Taiwan, I had spent most of my life living in Canada. She is an introvert, and I am an extrovert. She takes 20-minute showers, I take 3-minute showers. She thinks cooking should be done quickly and with as few steps as possible, I like to see cooking as an actual activity, to be done carefully and slowly. She was a devout Christian, with a pure and firm faith. I was still full of doubt and fear Yet, our friendship deepened quickly. We spent many hours discussing our faith and sharing our life experiences.

The stories Julie told me of personal testimonies that attest to the goodness and faithfulness of God really inspired me and helped build up my faith. Her gentle spirit, and her patience contrasted with my buoyant nature and my extreme edginess. She often joked affectionately that I was a ‘crazy woman’ because of all the stories I told her about myself. She never judged me when I failed or gave in to temptation. She only listened, and encouraged, and always, always pointed me towards the God himself. Whenever I had a problem, she would always say, “我們可以禱告看看上帝怎麼回答”.

We often prayed together at night, for our families, for the church, for C&C, and for many other things. Julie spent a lot of time praying for a lot of individuals, for God’s spirit to work in their hearts so they would know and experience Him. She was there to pray with and for me in my lowest of lows, when a member of my family was hospitalized and when I went through yet another very painful break-up. Through Julie, God taught me many valuable lessons. And in her, I see someone whose entire being has been transformed by God, whose faith was pure and simple, like that of a child’s. Now that Julie has moved back to Taiwan, I know that having her as a roommate was a true gift of Grace from God. It was as if an Angel of God’s was living next door to my bedroom.

Because I was taking classes at UBC, I also started attending chapel at Regent College (seminary schools on UBC campus) and sometimes Vancouver School of Theology on Tuesdays. There, my faith was not only nourished, but I also met wonderful, people who loved, sought, and served the Lord. Spending time with them, seeing their great passion to serve God and love His people, and listening to their amazing testimonies encouraged me to follow Jesus even more closely. Because I was at UBC, I was able to spend a lot of time at the Regent College, in the library studying amongst the seminary students. During this time, I also became more serious about my prayer life and studying the word of God.

Julie also invited me to attend the fellowships that she was helping out with. For one year, I was able to put my love of cooking to work, as the chef for Mandarin Fellowship at St. Andrew’s Hall Residence at VST. As my interest in God and theology grew, I also read many books on the subject of Christian Faith. The more time I spent serving God and being around people who followed Christ, the more I realized that before I knew God I was living as a lost soul, desperately trying to make my way through the confusing world without knowing any guidance or truth.

More and more, I started to notice how the spirit worked to transform my heart. I became a calmer person. I didn’t get angry as often. I became more loving and much less cynical, and saw more of the good than the bad in others. I was more accepting of people’s faults and more ready to swallow my pride in conflicts. God taught me that success in the world’s eyes doesn’t necessarily mean success in God’s eyes. That instead of using the gifts and talents God has granted us to get ahead, we are to use them to glorify God. I was able to learn to let go of the many things in life that I cannot control and to trust God to lead the way. I felt that I wanted to live a righteous and Holy life before God. He found and brought me out of the darkness, and my heart desired to please Him as a response to his goodness. I found true freedom in living my life in purity and childlike innocence. Most of all, through many ways God has allowed me to experience him in many ways – his righteousness, his justness, his anger, his mercy, his forgiveness, his humour, and his divine love. And indeed, I have found Christ to be the one who can indeed fulfill the emptiness that sits in the deepest part of my soul. My heart has been permeated with peace and joy. Through the ups and the downs in life, I sense God’s secure hand guiding me every step of the way, paving the road ahead for me, promising to walk with me through the difficult times. Again, God reminded me that it was about letting Jesus take the driver seat in my life, but not trying to do things on my own.

God’s transforming process of our lives is continual and will take our whole lives long. Each day we ask the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts , we die little deaths to our earthly selves, and become transformed to be more like Jesus Christ. The process is not easy, and I have not, in the past few years, become a saint. In fact, the more closely I walk with God, the more clearly I see my own sinfulness, my need for God, and feel grateful for his presence in my life. Many times, the transforming process can be painful, just like the physical growing pains we experience as adolescents. I, even in the past six months, have had to learn some hard lessons from God. Many times I have run off with the gifts and blessings God has given me, and thought that I could make it on my own. Yet, when I stumble and fall, I come once again, bowed down before the Lord, confessing that he is the only one true God, who should always be at the centre of my life, my number one priority. The world will always call and beckon to follow its way, and many times, I will stray, because I am only human. The main difference between me now and me five years ago is that I have experienced the divine of God, and know now in my heart which Master I should be serving here on this earth.

Over the past years I have found great joy in serving God in many places, and I have never enjoyed doing anything else more. But, it has been at C&C that I feel that I’ve found my true home. Serving on the committee last year and serving the people in this fellowship, I really experienced God’s goodness and faithfulness to us. He has brought so many new people to be here with us. More so, God has transformed the atmosphere of the fellowship of one that feels like a big family. I have seen spiritual growth and maturing in so many around the room tonight, and I have faith God will continue to work in each of our hearts. There is really nowhere else I would rather be than to be here on a Saturday night than to be here with all of you.

So it is with gratitude that I stand here before you today, to share with you part of what I have experienced, some of which have been very personal. Yet, I wanted to tell my story, or rather, God’s story, of how out of his own grace and mercy, my life has been redeemed. I don’t think I will ever know why I am so lucky, that even before I knew God, he prepared the way for me to come to know him intimately. He opened up my eyes so that even though I was blind, but now I see.

I hope my story has made you look to God and see how amazing he is. The good news is that we don’t have to scramble, like the rest of the world, to make sure have a place in the world. We are already sons and daughters of God. If we live faithfully, letting Him be the Lord of our lives, He can do much more through us than we could ever on our own.

So, I want to encourage each of you here tonight, whether or not you are new to the fellowship, or have been coming for a while, male or female, young or old, to come to C&C each time with an open and curious heart to God. Ask questions, discuss with each other, share with each other what God is doing in your lives. I pray that here at C&C, we can be a group of people who, although are far from being perfect, can walk together, encouraging each other in our lives and faith journeys. Open up your hearts to God and seek him earnestly. Then, watch as he transforms your life into something new and full of hope. Thank you for listening.