Salvation Testimony_Berenice
Camargo (Good News Central Church, United States)
I now understand the love and mercy that God wanted to give to me. Because of this love, He broke down the pride that I strongly held on to. He slowly and patiently taught me to see my true self and eventually gave me the wisdom to understand why I needed salvation. Now, my life, instead of being empty and pointless, is full of hope and happiness through Jesus Christ.
I met IYF in June, 2008 at
UCLA through a Good News Corps flyer. I had the plan to volunteer abroad right
after graduation so this really interested me. I wanted to do volunteer work
because I felt it would help me find out what kind of career I wanted in the
future so when I read about the Good News Corps program, I really liked it and
attended the workshops.
Through those workshops, I
met the Good News Church. Besides the workshops, I was not involved in church
and I just kept living my life the same way. I had many plans and many things
to do that I didn’t have time for or interest in church. I thought that I was
better than most people, in front of God, because my whole life I had been
Catholic and attended church diligently and volunteered almost every day at
church until high school. I thought God was blessing me for serving him because
I was a good athlete and one of the best students at school. I believed and
trusted in all the good things I did and thought that I would always have a
good life. However, when I got to college, I began to go to church less and
less and I began to change into a very different person. I became very selfish
and arrogant but I tried to cover this image up by being a very nice person
outwardly to others.
I was continually invited
to Bible seminars and I would attend just to keep up a good Christian image and
not feel guilty for rejecting the invitations. However, truly in my heart,
there was no need for me to seek God or his Word. I would come, listen, and
return home unchanged. Nonetheless, God had a plan for my life that I never
could imagine.
Even though during that
time I was a student at a great university like UCLA, had a great job, many
friends and a loving family, I had a great emptiness in my heart that I could
not fill. It seemed that I had everything I needed but I was still searching
for happiness through spending time with my friends, traveling together,
spending money, going to parties and drinking. Even though I did all this, I
suffered even more. I tried to stop and become a good person so God could help
me.
I was still attending the
Catholic Church, from time to time, to feel better about all the “bad” things I
was doing and every time I went, I would determine myself to be good from then
on. I prayed for forgiveness in the morning and at night or whenever I felt
guilt. However, the more I did all of this, the more sinful my life became.
Even though I seemed to always be cheerful, nothing in my life brought me
happiness and my heart fell deeper into despair.
At the university, one of
the classes I took was Introduction to Buddhism. I began to study the religion
and its ideas out of interest but, later, I started to believe that this could
be the truth I was searching for. I still considered myself Catholic and I
thought that I believed in God but I also believed in the Buddhist theories. I
was trying to gain all the knowledge and wisdom I could. After reading a lot of
books and learning about Buddhism, I firmly believed that I could do good
things and that I could become happy through my own strength if I was truly
determined.
On the other hand,
whenever I attended the Good News Church, I would always hear the opposite from
the pastors and their wives. Their message was so different from what I had
always known to be true. As I listened, I would write everything down because
it was interesting but because I had ideas from other religions firmly
established in my mind, I would get confused and I was not able see my true
self through the Bible. I would hear that man is one hundred percent evil but I
thought they were talking about other people, not about me. As time went on,
God would show me that many of the things the church preached were true and I
started to believe that this was a true church. Whenever difficulties came to
my life, I would remember the words from the Bible and knew that whatever they
said was true. Because on my own I could not believe, and because I did not
know anything about faith, God taught me to believe in the Bible through
difficult things that were happening in my life.
My life at the time became
very uncertain so I did not know which way to go in terms of deciding my life.
I was going to quit my job and I was soon going to graduate but I had no idea
what I would do afterward. I had so much ambition for the future, but, little
by little, God was making me fail in many things even though I was working
harder than ever.
In April, 2009, I was
invited to another Bible seminar so I attended once more. I had heard many
times about Genesis 6:5, “And GOD saw
that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination
of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually” but I had never
once received that word. During those days of the Bible seminar, I would
continually think about this part of the Bible, and, little by little, I
started to see my heart reflected upon those words.
I was very shocked and sad
when I finally discovered that my heart was really one hundred percent evil;
but then a sister had fellowship with me after the morning session on the last
day of the Bible seminar. She showed me the words in Hebrews 10:17-18 that
said, “And their sins and iniquities will
I remember no more. Now where remission of these is, there is no more offering
for sin.” At that moment, I understood that I, too, had been forgiven of my
sins. I continually thought that I had to try to do good things to please God
but this word made me see that God had already done everything for me to become
righteous. When I read these words, I knew that I was righteous—without sin—not
because of my effort, but through the blood of Jesus.
At that moment, I threw
away all the knowledge, experience and thoughts I carried and I simply accepted
the Word of God in my heart. The burden of having to do something to make God
happy disappeared. From that day on, I felt so much joy and thankfulness with
the church because this is where God brought me to help me understand the
gospel. I finally found true happiness when I discovered that I had become
righteous and perfect in God’s eyes.
A year later, I went to Peru as a short term missionary and, during that time, God taught me faith and thankfulness. I also discovered the joy of preaching the gospel to others. I had many chances to share with others the Word of God; so little by little, I saw how easy and joyful it was to preach the precious message of salvation.
Nowadays, I am working
inside of IYF to help create and establish programs like the IYF English Camps
in Mexico. I am really happy because I feel I have the best and most enjoyable
job in the world. I now look back and I can see that God really wanted to use
me, but first, He had to teach me how to humble my heart. I am very thankful to
God because He didn’t throw me away when I complained and rebelled against Him.
Instead, He took me, washed all of my sins and is using me for the work of the
gospel. Through salvation, God gave me the happiness I could not find in the world.
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