Anastasia’s story
My Testimony
Starting from the beginning, I was raised in a Catholic family, and I always thought I was a Christian by virtue of going to church every Sunday, living by Christian morals, and doing the sacraments which are seen as a means to gain God’s grace in Catholicism. Around the latter 2 years of high school, when I was between 14-16 years old, I began asking questions about why we did certain religious traditions as Catholics, and where in the Bible the traditions came from. I don’t recall receiving any answers beyond the fact that the traditions were instituted by the Vatican and are how we worship God. I felt very confused when Pope John Paul II, who died in 2005, was canonized in 2014, which means he was officially declared to be a Saint in heaven who can intercede for Catholics in prayer to God the Father. I wondered, how can we be sure our prayers are heard if we pray through a recently deceased person rather than to God the Father or to Jesus Christ His Son directly? I had previously accepted that we could pray through the Saints who died generations ago, as is taught by the church. However, I think the recency of Pope John Paul II’s death sparked the realisation that all the other Saints canonized by the Catholic church were also humans who died and were buried, and there was no guarantee, or any evidence in the bible, that we could pray through them.
At this point I knew I was not a Catholic at heart, but I was also not an atheist and was not agnostic. I knew that there had to be a God because everything that is, i.e. the universe and life itself, could not have come from nothing. I believed there is a God who was incarnated in the person of Jesus Christ, who lived on this earth, died on the cross, and was resurrected. However, I had never been brought to the point of repentance and was not looking to the finished work of Jesus Christ alone to be saved. I also did not know that I even needed to repent.
When I started attending Cardiff University in 2015, I was very much living for myself in accordance with what I thought was right and moral. I thought I was generally a good person, who did a few bad things here and there, but was overall well-rounded in my eyes and in the eyes of the world. Towards the end of my 1st year of university in 2016, a new friend I met at an event on a Saturday evening invited me to church on Sunday that very next day. I accepted the invitation and attended; it was an Elim Pentecostal church called Cardiff City Church – bear in mind that I thought I was already Christian at that time by virtue of my Catholic background and Christian morals. After the service, when speaking to some of the students there, I was asked a few times when I was saved and how I came to know Christ. I had never been asked such questions before and didn’t know how to answer. I also noticed that when they spoke of Jesus, they spoke of “relationship”, which was again a new concept for me.
I continued attending that church and within a few weeks I was utterly convinced that I was a sinner heading to hell if I did not repent, ask for forgiveness for my sins, surrender my life to Jesus Christ, and cling to His righteousness alone for my salvation. I also became deeply concerned for my family, who are all Catholics, and who I knew were trusting in works as set out by the church for their salvation, not solely in the finished work of Jesus Christ.
Due to complex social circumstances, I had struggled with my mental health for many years since childhood. To now know that I had an eternal Heavenly Father who loved me more than any human ever has and ever can was everything to me as a new believer. I finally had a living hope which answered the question of “why do I even bother continuing to endure in this life?”. I’m not saying that I was instantly healed from all affliction, which was definitely not the case, but when the Holy Spirit showed me the reality of who Christ is and what His death on the cross means for me, I had complete assurance that my Creator and my Saviour, who had known me from before I was even conceived, would sustain me through it all.
I remained at that same Pentecostal church for about 18 months until January 2018 when I had a university placement in a town called Rhyl in North Wales. The only church there was a small one of about 12 members, called Gosen, and is a reformed evangelical church. I didn’t know what ‘Reformed Evangelical’ meant at the time, but I recognised that they preached the historical context and spiritual significance of the bible in a way that the Pentecostal church I had been attending did not come close to. I loved it and wanted more of it! I was only on that placement for 2 months, but my time at Gosen church was a pivotal and positively transformational time in my spiritual life. When I returned to Cardiff in March 2018, they recommended I attend Heath Evangelical Church, which I did, and by God’s Grace I was fed solid spiritual food by the preaching of the word and fellowship with the members there.
I was baptised by submersion in December 2019 at Heath Church. My family struggled with this as they saw my ‘baptism’ as a baby in the Catholic Church to be a genuine baptism which rid me of original sin (from Adam and Eve) and gave me salvation. However, I firmly believe the Bible teaches baptism of believers only, as an outward sign of the inward transformation that takes place when a repentant sinner is indwelt by the Holy Spirit. I was overjoyed to be baptised!
When I finished university in 2021, I moved to Wolverhampton for work. I chose to attend an Elim Pentecostal church called Birmingham City Church, purely because I thought if I attended a small reformed church, I would not meet or make any friends my age. I was well aware of the different doctrinal beliefs I had to the Elim church, which includes my complementarian view that scripture teaches that only men are to be preachers and elders, as well as a major difference in view of spiritual gifts, namely tongues and prophecy. I thought I could supplement the weak bible teaching there by continuing to listen to Heath church services online. However, it became apparent that I was not growing spiritually there, and I had a deep hunger for solid bible teaching and fellowship with like-minded believers. After a quick google search, I was excited to find an independent evangelical church local to me called West Park. I attended, and by my 2nd week there I felt right at home. By God’s grace I was able to build strong relationships with brothers and sisters in Christ there and was formally welcomed into membership around May 2023. I continued worshiping and serving at West Park Church until relocating to Yate in April 2026 after getting married. I now worship at Grace Church Yate.
I thank and praise God for His continued work of sanctification in my life, and I look forward to the opportunity to be in perfect fellowship with Him in eternal glory.
Fillia’s story
Where should I begin?
Where should I begin? That is what comes to mind when someone asks how I got saved. I believe that it is a long story of God keeping me.
I grew up hearing and learning the Bible. I remember being in awe of the God of Joseph, who intended good out of what I considered a sad story; the God of Moses who took the Israelites out of Egypt, cared for them, and performed the impossible; the God of Daniel who saved him out of the lions’ den. The same God who brought judgement to mankind at the time of Noah, who struck people dead, and destroyed nations. Such a great and mighty God must demand me to earn His love. This view of God, later I understand, came out of my childhood struggle of having to earn my parents’ love.
I heard the Gospel. It came with the gift of faith. Although I struggled to make sense of everything, it was easy for me to understand that I am a bad person, will never measure up, and need a Saviour. To know that Jesus Christ died on the cross for my sins was a great relief from the burden of having to earn God’s love. Though my faith was little, this gift was followed with a growing affection for God’s Word and the desire to surrender my life for His glory, which brought me to attend seminary in Jakarta, Indonesia.
I was in ignorance thinking I would study the Bible deeper in that seminary. It turned out to be a season of being exposed to liberal theology. With a lack of discernment and sound advice, I was going with the flow and was sucked into the school system for 5 years. I taught and preached in churches in Jakarta and various cities in Java, and in a rural church on Mentawai Island, Sumatra. I was also involved in various writing projects, and worked alongside one of my professors in having dialogue on social justice issues in churches and on a weekly radio broadcast. The Lord was patient with my ignorance and was at work in keeping me. Despite lacking discernment in so many ways, I knew there were things that seemed not right, but couldn’t pinpoint or articulate them then.
Just before I graduated, I met a Bible believing Christian missionary who taught Missiology temporarily at my seminary. He was often openly ridiculed for his convictions by other professors (including the one I used to work with). He became a friend and offered me to join a mission school in Australia, but with the visa situation I had, I ended up in the Philippines instead. I have never desired to be a pastor and joining mission school I believe was the Lord’s way of taking me out of the synodal system I was in —where the graduates are usually expected to do the vicariat process. However, my time at the mission school was also a season where I got exposed to Charismatic practices, and (what I would later call) pragmatic missions.
When I was 26, still driven by desire to glorify the Lord with all my life but still doctrinally ignorant, I moved to the UK for a mission project. Life was about doing, working, activism, and witnessing to people by being a kind and ecumenical Christian. I believed I raised Christ’s banner by doing so. Once again, the Lord plucked me out from this project as I met and got married to my husband. I remained in the UK with my husband and removed myself from the project.
In my 30s, the Lord’s grace and mercy led my husband and I to study in a Bible college in the USA. By the Lord’s grace we worshipped at a Bible believing church where the Gospel was preached clearly and was adorned by the lives of its people, and the Scriptures were exposited faithfully. It was a sweet season when the Lord, in His sovereign grace, gradually exposed all my ignorance, and stripped me away from false worldviews. The doctrine of grace started to make sense, and as I looked back, I finally can articulate those things that didn’t sit right within my conscience.
“So having overlooked the times of ignorance, God is now proclaiming to mankind that all people everywhere are to repent, because He has set a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness through a Man whom He has appointed, having furnished proof to all people by raising Him from the dead.” – Acts 17:30-31
The Holy Spirit convicted me of my guilt and shame. I repented of my sins. I felt so ashamed of my ignorance, ashamed of my years teaching falsehood, and oh what filthy rags are all those things I considered good works before His holiness. I grieved over my sins and the thoughts of having misled people to destruction haunted me. I prayed for those who have heard me preach or read my writings. I trembled thinking I will account for all those years before God, but His mercy is sufficient to help me rest in His sovereignty.
In His mercy, the Lord has granted me that little faith. And in His long suffering, he has kept me, and I am assured that He will hold me to end… until my faith turns to sight, when I finally behold my Redeemer in person.
Where should I begin? That is what comes to mind when someone asks how I got saved. I believe that it is a long story of God keeping me.
I grew up hearing and learning the Bible. I remember being in awe of the God of Joseph, who intended good out of what I considered a sad story; the God of Moses who took the Israelites out of Egypt, cared for them, and performed the impossible; the God of Daniel who saved him out of the lions’ den. The same God who brought judgement to mankind at the time of Noah, who struck people dead, and destroyed nations. Such a great and mighty God must demand me to earn His love. This view of God, later I understand, came out of my childhood struggle of having to earn my parents’ love.
I heard the Gospel. It came with the gift of faith. Although I struggled to make sense of everything, it was easy for me to understand that I am a bad person, will never measure up, and need a Saviour. To know that Jesus Christ died on the cross for my sins was a great relief from the burden of having to earn God’s love. Though my faith was little, this gift was followed with a growing affection for God’s Word and the desire to surrender my life for His glory, which brought me to attend seminary in Jakarta, Indonesia.
I was in ignorance thinking I would study the Bible deeper in that seminary. It turned out to be a season of being exposed to liberal theology. With a lack of discernment and sound advice, I was going with the flow and was sucked into the school system for 5 years. I taught and preached in churches in Jakarta and various cities in Java, and in a rural church on Mentawai Island, Sumatra. I was also involved in various writing projects, and worked alongside one of my professors in having dialogue on social justice issues in churches and on a weekly radio broadcast. The Lord was patient with my ignorance and was at work in keeping me. Despite lacking discernment in so many ways, I knew there were things that seemed not right, but couldn’t pinpoint or articulate them then.
Just before I graduated, I met a Bible believing Christian missionary who taught Missiology temporarily at my seminary. He was often openly ridiculed for his convictions by other professors (including the one I used to work with). He became a friend and offered me to join a mission school in Australia, but with the visa situation I had, I ended up in the Philippines instead. I have never desired to be a pastor and joining mission school I believe was the Lord’s way of taking me out of the synodal system I was in —where the graduates are usually expected to do the vicariat process. However, my time at the mission school was also a season where I got exposed to Charismatic practices, and (what I would later call) pragmatic missions.
When I was 26, still driven by desire to glorify the Lord with all my life but still doctrinally ignorant, I moved to the UK for a mission project. Life was about doing, working, activism, and witnessing to people by being a kind and ecumenical Christian. I believed I raised Christ’s banner by doing so. Once again, the Lord plucked me out from this project as I met and got married to my husband. I remained in the UK with my husband and removed myself from the project.
In my 30s, the Lord’s grace and mercy led my husband and I to study in a Bible college in the USA. By the Lord’s grace we worshipped at a Bible believing church where the Gospel was preached clearly and was adorned by the lives of its people, and the Scriptures were exposited faithfully. It was a sweet season when the Lord, in His sovereign grace, gradually exposed all my ignorance, and stripped me away from false worldviews. The doctrine of grace started to make sense, and as I looked back, I finally can articulate those things that didn’t sit right within my conscience.
“So having overlooked the times of ignorance, God is now proclaiming to mankind that all people everywhere are to repent, because He has set a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness through a Man whom He has appointed, having furnished proof to all people by raising Him from the dead.” – Acts 17:30-31
The Holy Spirit convicted me of my guilt and shame. I repented of my sins. I felt so ashamed of my ignorance, ashamed of my years teaching falsehood, and oh what filthy rags are all those things I considered good works before His holiness. I grieved over my sins and the thoughts of having misled people to destruction haunted me. I prayed for those who have heard me preach or read my writings. I trembled thinking I will account for all those years before God, but His mercy is sufficient to help me rest in His sovereignty.
In His mercy, the Lord has granted me that little faith. And in His long suffering, he has kept me, and I am assured that He will hold me to end… until my faith turns to sight, when I finally behold my Redeemer in person.
David’s story
I saw that I was lost
I was brought up in a Christian, God-fearing home. However, I wasn’t really interested in God, and when I was sixteen, I rebelled against the strictness of my upbringing. Although still attending church as a formality until I was twenty, I was getting further away from God. I still thought I was a Christian because I believed the facts of the Bible, even though I disobeyed them and didn’t keep God’s commands. For ten years I lived a life without much regard for God. I call these my wasted years.
In 1989 I went to a local church for a while but then stopped attending because of work commitments. In 1991 I went to Majorca with some friends and after I got back, I met a friend in town who invited me to West Park Church. I went along somewhat apprehensively but found things getting home to me, even though I’d heard the Gospel many times before.
These people weren’t extremists and I thought to myself, “Now I’m going because I want to, not because my parents are dragging me along!” I found these people friendly, and I could see God challenging me by my friend’s example.
One Sunday, in November 1992, a particular message spoke to me. It was about the Old Testament character, Noah. When we came to the part where God saw how evil the world had become and was going to judge mankind for their sinfulness, I thought how God’s word came true. Men laughed and sneered at Noah because in those days no-one had seen rain, only dew, and they didn’t believe Noah when he said he was building an ark because God was going to end all mankind. Men laugh and sneer at Christians today when we say that the Lord Jesus is coming back, this time as judge.
I saw that I was lost and that I needed a radical change in my life. I wasn’t a Christian just because I believed facts. I turned from my sins and wanted to be baptised.
In the summer of 1996, on an Oak Hall Christian holiday to Tuscany, I met my wife, Sarah. We married in London, where Sarah lived, in 1998 and we set up home in Wolverhampton. Sarah joined me at West Park Church and we continued to receive good, solid Bible teaching together.
God has been kind to us over many years. We have been blessed with three lovely sons and we aim to bring them up for Him. Our prayer is that they may come to know God at a young age, like Samuel in the Bible. We worship each Lord’s Day as a family.
Things haven’t always been rosy. In 2007 I was made redundant from my long-term employment. Having found another job, I was then made redundant again in 2008.
It was at this point that we found out that Sarah had breast cancer. An operation, radiotherapy and chemotherapy followed, and we were to-ing and fro-ing from hospital for 6 months. Because I was out of work, I was able to look after the children while Sarah had treatment. At just the right time I was approached by my present employer with an offer of a job, doing the same as I did before, and I returned to work in January 2009. Looking back, we can see how God had his hand on all this with the timing of everything.
It has been over 18 years since Sarah was first diagnosed and she is still doing well. We thank the Lord for our brothers and sisters in Christ at West Park Church. They have been a great comfort and blessing to us through prayer and helping to meet practical needs and they continue to show us much love by this.
Life isn’t easy being a Christian, but we do have a hope and an assurance:
“That all things work together for good to those who love God” (Romans 8:28)
These trials that have beset us are for our own good; they draw us closer to God, who knows our beginning and our end. We sometimes look at the here and now but only God can see the whole picture. Sarah and I draw near to God through prayer and worship and thank him for his many mercies day by day. We don’t look too much to the future but pray for grace for each day.
David