Baptism testimony - Joey Yoo

Unlike most of you guys here, I come from a non-Christian family. At the age of 5 my family and I immigrated into Canada. When we moved, we stayed at my uncle’s house for a couple months. There we followed his family to their church. Personally I believe that wasn’t the start of my family’s Christian life. Mostly because I’m pretty sure my parents were more interested in meeting Koreans in a foreign country. After the couple months of stay in my Uncle’s house, my family and I moved into our own apartment. We moved into an apartment right next to Pastor Kwack’s which I believe was God’s work. Pastor Kwack was starting his own church around the time when we moved in. Honestly, Without Pastor Kwack starting his own church at that time, I think my family would have been in a whole different world right now. Once his church was settled down and was named Mokmin there were so more things happening in the church like Sunday school, Worship team, and more. When the church settled down in the big church I was around 8-9 years old. There I attended Sunday school which I have to admit was a nightmare for me. Being such a loud kid, stuck inside another school when I was already going to school from Monday to Friday was enough for me. When I think about it now, I think I did trouble the teachers a lot. So I remember promising them I will become a Sunday school teacher when I get older. Till then, Christianity didn’t mean anything to me. Sunday was just another day when I played Pokémon except in another place. After those sorrowful years went by I finally moved into EM. My expectation was the one word “Freedom”. I thought there was going to be more Pokémon time and just talking to my friends but it actually wasn’t. This time there were longer sermons and more bigger people who were twice my size and looked scary. So at the end of the day, I just stayed quiet and followed along like what the rest of the people did. After about a year of being part of the E-Xit Ministry, Puberty started to happen. My puberty is more serious than other teenagers. I know we all go through tough times but I think I had more problems with my adolescence than others. Taking my mom’s personality of “Must win all arguments” really gave me trouble with the family. Also taking my dad’s “I love to have alone time” really isolated me from everyone else including friends. Out of everything from this world I had to like online gaming. When I hit puberty I started to take gaming to the next level. My personality changed and everything about me changed. Being such a loud kid everywhere made me loud in making trouble. Gaming was more important to me than school work, friends, and family. I chose to game over studying for a test or spending time with my friends or family. I hating going outside, so whenever I went outside the only thing that came up to me was “I have to get home quick before it gets too dark so I can start smashing the keyboard”. Whenever I fought with someone from my family since I had to take my mom’s personality, I had to win every fight which lead into huge fights which are unimaginable. Since I had no one to trust around me I was just always alone. I didn’t really hate God because I didn’t even really care about him. What actually started to change me was this book I read called “Catcher in the Rye”. The books pretty messed up but it really gave me the motivation to live life better. I could totally relate myself to the main character and I really didn’t want to end up like him. So every day I try my best to live my life to fullest. I try doing what non- normal teenagers do. Kiss their mom or do ehgyo. But it’s totally worth it because; you never know when someone you actually loved will be gone. I try doing things before I regret. So I took bible 101 and took Jesus Receiving meeting. When I took Jesus receiving meeting I felt very numb. I remember I had to pray and for about 10 seconds everything around me went white. This never happened to me so I thought that there was going to be something ahead of me. It actually came true. God gave me a mission. I have these two friends in school. One of them suffers from the exact same pain I had couple years ago. And the other one, I’m just really thankful to god for sending me him. There were of course times when I wanted to give up with Christianity but someone helped me think again. I really wanted to share this with you. If you hold hands with someone pretending the other person is the lord and you try to let go. No matter how many times you try, the lord will always be hanging onto you. That lecture really gave me the power to keep on living as a Christian. A lot of things about me changed. Although my passion towards gaming didn’t change, just me as a person changed and my view towards the lord. Every day I pray without myself knowing. That’s another signal that I am making a progress of and I am so happy for. I am just so excited for what other things are going to happen to. Maybe this is a new type of game god is introducing me to “life”. Thank you for listening.

Joey’s Baptism 20150628

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