Hello everybody, my name is Gioele M. I’m 27, I was born in Agrigento (Sicily). I was raised in a family of believers and in 1994, when I was 8, my family and I moved to Germany for economic reasons. About two years later, we came to know there was an evangelical church in Stuttgart, so we began to go there on Sundays; there was also a Sunday school for kids, and I bought a Bible to attend the school. My teacher was Antonietta Viola. One of those Sundays, Antonietta told us: “One day the Lord will come and take His Church, that’s all the ones who believe in Him” and she went on explaining a lot of things, but all of a sudden she asked me if I had sinned, I said yes, admitting I had stolen something and I hadn’t obeyed my parents. She reminded me that in the 10 Commandments God gave us there’s written:
“Honor your father and your mother” and also “You shall not steal”.
So I recognized she was right and I began to cry, feeling guilty. Then Antonietta suggested me to simply ask the Lord to forgive me, so I headed to an empty room and I confessed my sins to the Lord. I was 12 back then. Two years later, I drifted away from God, I didn’t want to know anything about the Bible anymore, because my schoolmates were drawing me away from the Lord. I remember one night, I felt very bad, and I finally recognized I had been apart from God, so I went home, in my room, and I asked the Lord to forgive me, among the tears. After that I felt immediately better, I was happy and I knew that all that situation had happened because I distanced myself from the Church. So I restarted to read the Bible and to pray. Not a long later, my prayers were granted, I became aware the Lord had been next to me all the time even if I couldn’t realize it. This fact made me very happy and encouraged me to read the Bible with more interest. I remember I read the Psalms first and then I began with Genesis, when God created the Earth, the man.. and then I read also about Noah and the Ark, when God sent the Flood on the Earth because it’s written: “Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight and was full of violence. God saw how corrupt the earth had become, for all the people on earth had corrupted their ways. So God said to Noah, “I am going to put an end to all people, for the earth is filled with violence because of them. I am surely going to destroy both them and the earth”.(Genesis 6:11-13).
This passage made me think a lot, so I talked to myself this way: “Today it’s just the same thing. The world’s completely corrupted and the only hope to be saved, before Jesus coming, is by accepting Jesus Christ as my personal Savior, the One who died on the cross for my sins and for the whole world. This is the right Path to follow. Apart from Him there’s no hope”.
So today I want to be baptized to witness in front of everybody my faith in Him, I want to be His servant for all my life. I want to tell you something: can’t you see that it’s the same old story today? The world’s corrupted once again, there’s a lot of violence. We know the Lord came 2000 years ago to save us, He died on the cross because we’re lost in our sin, He died to give us His life. Our duty is to spread the Gospel, the Good News because He’s coming back
one day to take all His people with Him, in Heaven. That’s why I’m telling you: don’t wait anymore, because tomorrow could be too late. Believe in Him and you’ll be saved and rich in His love.