Story II - My Baptism

I came from a small village in Northwest of China. As a "good kid and all-around student" all through my school years, I became one of the few communists students in college. After several years of great job in Beijing , I decided to pursue a MBA degree to advance my career path. I requested the MBA program guides from different famous Universities in China . But none of them interested me. So I decided to try some Universities in America .

I went to the Internet and searched for "American Universities". "ACU ( Abilene Christian University )" showed up on the top alphabetically. I clicked through and liked the way they handled my application. Pretty soon I was accepted. After overcoming several difficulties in passport and visa, I arrived in America in August 1999.

Before long I realized that I was surrounded by Christians (my host family - Julie and Brent were the first Christians I met). I had no interest in becoming a Christian nor associating with any religion. Although many people reached out to me, I carefully kept a distance from them. Three month later, due to the lacking of the MBA students, we were advised to transfer to other schools. Finally I transferred to UTD and temporarily "got away" from my Christian friends who always "nagged" me around.

Two years later, one of my friends from ACU (Jean) moved to Dallas . She asked me to find a church family for her. We visited several churches until we found one. She invited me to church with her. But I always told her that I had more important things to do on Sundays. One day, she told me that church just started an English conversation program. I thought that was exactly what I needed - to improve my English with Americans. So I went. My worker (now is my dear husband David) and I used Bible as the textbook. We read stories after stories. Until one day, we read about the Great Feast, that God invited everyone to the feast, but people found all kinds of excuses for not coming. I suddenly saw myself in it. I was the one who refused God's invitation again and again! The next thing happened was the reading about Peter's fishing experience. Peter and other “Professional fishermen" fished all night and didn't catch anything. Next day Jesus, the “Professional Carpenter" asked them to follow him to catch the fish. I thought, if I were Peter, why would I, a fisherman, follow a carpenter to get the fish? But Peter gave Jesus a chance and followed him. As a result, they caught a whole bunch of fish, more than enough! I thought, maybe I should give Jesus a try and give him a chance to work in my life.

I started getting up early everyday to have a private devotional time, to read Bible, "the purpose driven life", and "the life you've always wanted", to pray, to journal and see what would happen. Two months later, I said to myself, I wanted to be like Jesus! I wanted to live a Christian life! I was ready for a whole lifetime of growing in my understanding of Christ and of the riches, power, and life that He has already given me! My life changed completely since then, no turning back. Yes, Jesus has the power to change and transform everyone's life, for better! It's been my greatest pleasure to tell my story to friends who don't know Jesus yet. I wish they will experience the reborn and the touch from God, to be alive and refreshed as I did.