Level 2 Training Testimonies

Pete

I was born in Colombia in 1966. I was raised in a normal Catholic family. There were eight children. My father provided for us but he was not around much, so my mother basically raised the family. Being the seventh child, I was very dependent on my brothers and sisters. When my brothers and sisters began getting married and moving out of the house, I began to feel lonely, so I poured myself into educational pursuits. In high school I studied and became more independent. There I began to experiment with alcohol and smoking. After high school, when I started working I had more money for my vices. I worked in a snack food company. I was promoted quickly. My sister became a believer through a C&MA missionary, and my sister invited me to a meeting. After that, her friends would often witness to me and invite to meetings. Sometimes I'd go. They got me reading the Bible. I really enjoyed reading the Bible. I learned that the Catholic church did many things that the Bible said were wrong, such as worshiping objects, praying to people like Mary, calling the priests "Father," etc. When I was 18 I prayed to receive Christ, but my life did not change much, other than I went to church. I had the same friends. But my other brothers and sisters began going to the C&MA church.

My older brother moved to Venezuela, and when I was 26 he invited me to follow him. It was easier to find a good job there. So I moved there to make more money. At first I worked as an accountant for an agricultural firm that employed 5,000 people. They managed many farms. Again I received several promotions. I loved my job. My bosses were from Chile and Spain and being foreigners they favored me. I was assigned to manage a farm that was losing money. That was a hard job, so I moved to a computer firm. There I was in charge of shipping products, mostly to and from Japan. I became a department head, where I learned how to evade taxes, alter invoices, and bribe the government. I was placed in charge of opening new stores. Due to poor maintenance of the equipment the company began to lose money. I had to close stores I had opened. It was a hard time. At that time I went back to Colombia to visit my family. An old friend and I went out drinking on a Friday night. Someone drugged my drink and I woke up three days later in a hospital. My wallet, watch and jacket were gone, and they had drained my bank account using my ID and bank card. When I woke I did not know who I was. My hospital bracelet read "John Doe". I learned later that the police had found my friend and I passed out on the street and so they took us to the hospital. My friend was in the hospital with me. He never regained his memory. As my memory returned, I realized how God had been taking care of me. When my brothers and sisters visited, I recommitted my life to God and this time I meant it. I started to go to church again.

After that I was unemployed for two years. I struggled with what God was doing in my life. In 1998 I was being discipled, so I was baptized and seeking God for what He wanted to do with my life. I went to visit a missionary family. This missionary couple told me they believed I was being called not to serve in the church, but in some unusual way. I audited a missionary training program. The trainers encouraged us to consider working with Muslims. Romans 10:14, "How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them?" was a verse God used to move me toward Muslim work.

Our church had a split, so I left and joined a C&MA church like the one I had gone to in Colombia. The C&MA do a good job of training people for missions, which I also liked. The new church leaders encouraged me to attend a Baptist missionary training center. There I asked God for a burden for a specific people group. In one class I heard about the Bedu, so I did my final project on that people group. I attended a mission conference, where Bill Jones of Frontiers spoke. God used Bill to finalize my calling to Arabs.