Explore the transformative power of faith and resilience in our conversation with Owura, who shares his remarkable journey from childhood in a Christian home to overcoming craniosynostosis through unwavering faith. Delve into the impact of the digital age on youth as Owura candidly discusses his personal struggle with online pornography, shedding light on the challenges faced by today's youth. Join us for a captivating blend of faith, resilience, and insights into contemporary societal realities.
View more resources on our website.
keywords: faith, resilience, life challenges, digital age, youth impact, online pornography, societal realities,
Explore the transformative power of faith and resilience in our conversation with Owura, who shares his remarkable journey from childhood in a Christian home to overcoming craniosynostosis through unwavering faith. Delve into the impact of the digital age on youth as Owura candidly discusses his personal struggle with online pornography, shedding light on the challenges faced by today's youth. Join us for a captivating blend of faith, resilience, and insights into contemporary societal realities.
View more resources on our website.
keywords: faith, resilience, life challenges, digital age, youth impact, online pornography, societal realities,
Death to Life is brought to you by Love, Reality, a good gospel ministry. Our mission is to tell everyone willing to listen that in Christ, by faith, they are free from sin. Everything that we make is made possible because of the generosity of people like you. Thank you.
Speaker 2:The world doesn't think that the gospel can change your life, but we know that it can and that's why we want you to hear these stories, stories of transformation, stories of freedom, people getting free from sin and healed from sin because of Jesus. This is Death to Life.
Speaker 1:So I was born with a condition called craniosynosis, which basically is your skull is supposed to fuse gradually over time so that your head and growth and stuff can occur normally. And in my case the plates in my skull started to fuse prematurely and so my head had started to be a little bit misshapen. Normally the surgery is done to correct that as a baby, but in my case took a couple of years to make that decision. Basically got to a point where that decision had to be made in order to prevent other issues from happening. So in a real sense God was a miracle worker.
Speaker 2:Yo, welcome to the Death to Life podcast. My name is Richard Young and today's episode is with my brother, aurora, and man. I've seen him on the internet, I've seen him on internet church and what he's doing on social media, and I love it, and I had no idea what his story was going to be, but to just to hear how, through life, god has just been revealing himself more and more. This is a story of our eyes being open more and more to truth and it landing because our hearts are ready to receive it. And so, yeah, a word stories, a story. It's a similar story that many of us have Struggle and then receiving truth. So, let's, let's hear it. This is Aurora, buckle up, strap in Love y'all, appreciate y'all, okay. So yeah, man, who are you? Where are you from? Where does your story start, man, when it comes to spiritual things, All right, so I guess we can start from the very beginning.
Speaker 1:I was born in DC 30 years ago, next month, to two parents who love the Lord who had also, two years earlier, had moved to the United States from Ghana and, from as long as I can remember, god was definitely a part of my life. He was a feature and, honestly, he became very real to me in a lot of ways because when I was born, I also was born at 29 weeks.
Speaker 2:Oh man.
Speaker 1:And so I had to spend the first three months of my life in an incubator to help with retinal detachment and some other health issues or part of the story, and so in a real sense God was a miracle worker, I think by age. So I was also born with a condition called craniosynosis, which basically is means that when you're born, your skull is supposed to fuse at a gradually over time so that your head and growth and stuff can occur normally. In my case the plates in my skull started to fuse prematurely and so my head had started to be a little bit misshapen and again because my parents were new to the country and had a little bit of mistrust of doctors at the time took a few. Normally the surgery is done to correct that as a baby, but in my case took a couple of years up to age three and to make that decision and it basically got to a point where where that decision had to be made in order to prevent other issues from happening.
Speaker 2:So what was your head shape like then?
Speaker 1:If I looked few five or pulled out baby pictures, you'll notice that kind of the top. It looks like what it does now and you could really notice that the top was starting to bulge out a little bit and that's like a common, the common way that disease plays out, for that birth defect plays out and people with a warm up the condition and thankfully it did not. Some of the more serious implications include like developmental delaying, different things like that, and thankfully, by the grace of God, everything with that was in terms of the surgery was successful and, aside from a very, I guess, annoying as a three year old because I remember the stitches for my head Very annoying experience with that, they tried to distract me with Spider-Man on a Game Boy Color but it did not work. I definitely remember that and it wasn't fun. But ultimately that was probably how the first like part of how God showed up in my life was in literally keeping me alive and keeping and navigating through all of these different health issues. One thing that comes to mind too is early on during the time I was in the incubator, I had stopped breathing at one point and there were no trips back and forth from Virginia to DC just to see me, and also in that situation it was rushed to the hospital and thankfully, I'm here talking to you right now. So that was the beginning and that was how God showed up early on. Also, I have a younger brother, about three and a half years younger than me. During all of this time, we actually celebrated his first birthday in the hospital after my surgery. So, yeah, that's where it starts.
Speaker 2:Praise the Lord that you're here. Man, that sounds like it was a stressful, high stress situation for your folks.
Speaker 1:Yep, definitely, definitely, and actually that situation definitely did stress them out a lot and I think, in my case especially, they were just grateful to just have their child be alive and functioning and having none of this stuff that the doctors tried to scare. They try to scare, they try to give you the worst case scenario so that I guess you're prepared for it, but thankfully it was a huge sigh for relief when that came through. That's the beginning. That's probably the first three, four years of life and for me, thankfully, most of it don't remember anything but the surgery. Definitely that was one of the early memories that I had.
Speaker 2:For sure, man. So did you grow up in a Christian home? What kind of home was it? With your folks?
Speaker 1:Yeah, it wasn't Adventist home. Christian home went to church every Sabbath. This gives you a little bit of background. My dad, came into Christianity as an adult and met my mom afterwards and my mom had been lifelong at Venice and got married and, yeah, faith was definitely a huge thing. I listened to probably war out the adventures and Odyssey tapes that we had.
Speaker 2:I gotta know what's going on with a good old Whitaker.
Speaker 1:Yeah, mr Whit and Eugene and Connie and all. I miss that show honestly, whole squad. Yeah. So yeah, had that going. Had the Uncle Arthur, uncle Maxwell, I think, the blue story books, the blue books and bedtime stories for kids, all that stuff growing up in the background, and for the DMV folks in that might be listening to this WGTS 919. That was our radio station, that's what we're listening to, so God was definitely in the picture. Had Friday worship every Friday and early on before we relocated to where I ended up doing the rest of my growing up, we would actually have Wednesday at church. We would actually sometimes go over to family friend's house and have prayer there or go to the rec center, rent a room in the rec center and have what is the Bible study there. So yeah, God was definitely the picture, I think, to me. I saw his mercy, I saw his miracle in working miracles in my life, also saw a little bit of his, understood a little bit of his power and also had a great sense of respect For God. That was something that was awesome. I emphasized to you when you pray, take off your hat I still do that to this day and being quiet in church and not messing around during the service, we all sat down and it was yeah, god was definitely a big part of my growing up Funny memory about God's power. So when I was in kindergarten, I actually we actually would do journals, like a daily journal, to see how you were doing and what was on your mind, and one of the entries in that journal was me drawing a picture of God in the sky and he had lightning bolts. I don't really know where that came from, because I don't think that came from my parents, but Definitely had a sense of God's power and even as like a kid starting to go to school and growing up, there was some times where I'd try to do Bible studies with the public school kids.
Speaker 2:Good for you, man. I'm sure they were right.
Speaker 1:They didn't have a problem with it. But I think the guidance guidance counselor at the elementary school definitely wanted to have a word with me because I think the way that seven-year-old me was explaining some things came off wrong but-.
Speaker 2:How were you explaining Turner Burn? Not quite.
Speaker 1:I'm not even sure it was that, but one memory I do have is my best friend growing up actually was Mormon and he was a huge Harry Potter fan and I tried to tell this kid that hey, Harry Potter is bad, you got to stop reading.
Speaker 2:You got to chill.
Speaker 1:Got to chill with that and thankfully that was okay, like his parents and everything were cool with it. But yeah, that was that. I definitely had a nose for spiritual stuff from a young age.
Speaker 3:And yeah that was.
Speaker 1:That was where it starts growing, I think as I got started to get older. We had moved around a couple of times before I was in third grade and so I didn't have the same friend group going around and so by third grade we'd finally settled down into the town where I would finish out the rest of elementary school, middle school, high school down in Stafford Virginia. So that's about an hour from Washington DC, and I guess one of the first lives that would come in was feeling a sense of lack. I don't know if it was from moving around and not and being getting used to being like the new person all the time and having to make some new friends or what it was, but even though we still it's the same church and everything and had that going on and school, it felt at least socially hard. There was a sense of lack. I think that it almost felt, almost felt relationships with, with other people. You had friends that didn't know each other since girls since kindergarten, which when looking back now it's like dude, it was only three years of two or three years of your life. Kid, you're good.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And at that time it feels like forever. And so that was like one thing that had started to creep in the background. But I would say that childhood wise things are pretty good, even though it was like a variety of financial situations, but it was good. You had fun. When, again, like I was saying earlier, church was spiritual stuff, I saw it as a lot of fun. I didn't mind not being able to eat pepperoni pizzas and stuff in the cafeteria. I didn't feel like I was missing anything. In that sense, I had a good experience. Growing up is this that almost with when it comes to friends and stuff? Even it did feel a little bit like you were missing out, but it was almost like a bat. It wasn't like a nagging thought, but it was something that was snuck into the background. One of them makes sense.
Speaker 2:No, that makes sense. I don't feel like I missed out on playing football in high school. My dad tells this story about when my dad didn't grow up Adventist and he became Adventist a senior year high school and he would sit at home on Friday nights listening to the football game. And I'm missing out. I didn't have that experience because I didn't even consider any of that to be a possibility. Is that correct?
Speaker 1:Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I guess, so I would say, probably throughout my elementary school years definitely was like just a happy kid and it would continue into middle school. But then middle school, you know what happens when you're middle school, you start to notice things, kids are jerks.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and back to middle school, me, jk, everybody, not your kid. Your kid is cool. I'm talking about other people's kids, yeah those kids over there, not your kids. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Answering it to middle school definitely had you start to notice that things other than church and hanging out with your family is now you're starting to get curious about girls and you're starting to get curious about trying to see who's good, who was the better athlete. Sure, yeah, that kind of competitive part, and I guess this is another part where you feel felt like you were quote unquote missing out, but friends had started talking about things I didn't know anything about.
Speaker 3:I was just like what's that?
Speaker 1:What's that thing you're talking about? And me being a curious person, it led me onto the part of the internet that we shouldn't really be on at any age. Really, yeah, it led me down into the darker side of the internet.
Speaker 2:Were you pretty young when you saw this side of the internet? Then Middle school?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I was probably, like I want to say, 11 or 12 years old at that time.
Speaker 2:Yeah man, Same story, right? How did that affect you?
Speaker 1:So for me, I definitely knew that it was wrong. I didn't really know what to do about it, because that wasn't something that we talked about, that wasn't something that was in the playbook, and so there wasn't really a place for, I guess, an outlet where you could be like oh, I was exposed to this thing, and so it was something that I kept on the back burner for definitely throughout the rest of middle school, high school and starting even early college. That was something that I carried with me for years, did it?
Speaker 2:become a thing where you're just a problem, or were you like it's not a problem, but from time to time? What was your relationship with it then?
Speaker 1:It definitely became. It definitely was a problem. It became a problem as I was growing up and getting into high school. Definitely getting into college it would become problematic and then but it wasn't something that was like on, it wasn't something that was constantly 127 on my mind. It was well like. It may have been for some, in some experience. It wasn't something that I was like constantly thinking about, but it definitely was not something that I wanted.
Speaker 2:I think the younger you are and you're 10 years younger than me the younger you are, the more of a fact of life that it is.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:It just is because you can't get away from it. They don't even make movies that are sexy movies anymore, because this thing has so saturated our culture that it's like why make a movie like that when you're like two clicks away for everything, for free? It's funny.
Speaker 1:Exactly yeah.
Speaker 2:And so, like you said, you're 30 years old, it's just a part of life, and how we're able to deal with it now, that's something else. So did you feel like guilt, condemnation and shame? Or you and your folks probably didn't sit down and have a conversation about it, or even in your church, so how would you deal with it?
Speaker 1:Definitely felt shame or felt guilty, because the other part of it too was around maybe a year or two later. Probably was like 13, 14. This is when I guess the conversation around internet safety and different things like that was don't do X, y, z or don't go here, don't go here With the assumption that, oh, we probably haven't been. The assumption was these kids probably don't actually know anything about this. We're getting ahead of the curve here, but they were not ahead of the curve. That was not the case in my experience, and so I was like, dang, it's already too late now for that part. So I was dealing with that and then, at the same time it started to get into a little bit, realized that sports wasn't a thing that was going to be my breadwinner.
Speaker 2:I'm not sure if I'm going to go pro.
Speaker 1:Figure that I wasn't going to be LT Well the day in Thomas or any some coffee running back or anything, so I had to put aspirate. That aspiration died pretty quickly.
Speaker 2:Like did you go to public school or did you go to?
Speaker 1:So I was a public school all the way through. Actually, this is another aside too is that most of even in the average to me. I grew up in most of us did not go to academies. That's another thing. Most of us went, most of my friends, we all went to the public school system and so going to academy and playing sports was not. I guess we all had to navigate playing sports on Friday nights and different things like that, and for me I didn't get too far with that.
Speaker 2:For that reason and also because I was pretty good, hey guys not going to try out for varsity football because of the Sabbath and they're like you're not fast.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I'll get to that a little later, but yeah, so there's that, and so what I did have, though, was you were pretty. I was a pretty good. I was a pretty good student in going through primary, secondary, elementary school, middle school, high school education. I was pretty. I was known for being one of the smart kids, so that was something that I figured out would get me things, get me accolades. Obviously, I come from a culture that prides education, my dad in particular. He's got first bachelor's, master's and PhD while raising my brother and I, and so that was definitely what does he have his PhD in?
Speaker 2:In public health administration. And so he's. So. Education is a value in your family.
Speaker 1:Yeah, definitely. It was definitely a value to my family as well and I had no problem doing that. It wasn't an issue for me in that season of my life. I think I would say like all throughout. I think the worst struggle that I had academically at that point was some issues with math and with pre algebra at high school. But aside from that I was like mostly an A and B student, some C sprinkled in there, but that was not like. That was more of a bug, not a feature. So I figured out that was that was going to be the thing. And then also on top of that, music was a thing that I gravitated to from a young age. I started taking piano lessons at six and I stopped, stopped after one of the moves because the distance to the teacher that I had time was pretty far and the teacher that I had that wasn't much closer ended up having a few personal issues with maroon that, and so I put piano on the shelf and went straight to orchestra. So I was an orchestra kid from seventh grade until I still play now, but formally from seventh grade until senior high school.
Speaker 2:Well, I'm going to guess what instrument? The viola, that's right.
Speaker 1:Really no, that's 100% right. I'm like dang Richard, have you been snooping?
Speaker 2:on me. I'm just a G man, that's what's up. All right, wow, let's go. I'm feeling pretty good.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I actually picked that because Shullo and Bass were too big and expensive to the transport and stuff and everyone plays a violin.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's why I said the old, because I didn't see you as a violin guy. You're a different kind of cat.
Speaker 1:Exactly.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so those are the two things like school and music were the things. As I got into high school, I actually was in the church choir and we had an a cappella group too.
Speaker 2:Let me guess you're soprano, jk, you're the bass, obviously, right yeah yeah, exactly, uh-huh, 100%.
Speaker 1:That was something that people noticed as well. They're like hey, this guy is good at school and also really musically talented. The interesting thing, though, was, as I got to the end of my high school time obviously, we're not going to pay. You're not going to pay for a music theory, because a music theory doesn't actually get you anything economically, or at least that's like the thinking that I was thinking. I was like I don't think I could take this past high school, and one other interest that I developed over my growing up was technology, and so I was like you know what? I'm going to try engineering, even though math was a little. I should have seen the writing on the wall when I was struggling in pre-calculus, but I was like no, I think I got this. I'll be able to go to college and just knock this thing out and I get to college and for it. I guess another part of this, too, is I did not go to Adventist College for college either. I went to Virginia's largest state school, georgia Mason Go.
Speaker 2:Patriots, that's the largest, isn't that Virginia Tech or Virginia?
Speaker 1:Nope, a lot of people don't know that actually.
Speaker 2:But the campus is not very big but in terms of enrollment, Do you know this, since you're a George Mason guy that when George Mason made their final four run, there was a player on their team that was Adventist?
Speaker 1:I did not know that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he went to Tacoma Academy. His name is Tony Skin.
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, tony Skin, I've heard that name before.
Speaker 2:But he went to George Mason and when they went on their big final four run. He's a crazy guy. Anyway, keep going. You went to George Mason Patriots, yeah.
Speaker 1:Let's go. Yeah, I was a page. Any Patriots listening to this? Go there's. I'm sure there's many. Yeah, and so when I got there I found out within probably the first two, three years of being there that engineering was not going to work out as I hoped. Took me three tries to get through Calp One and after the second time on Calp Two, and struggling in physics I was like all right this.
Speaker 2:Why did you want to do engineering if math was a huge struggle? Just because of the idea of engineering.
Speaker 1:I think that's what it was like, the idea of it, and I liked technology enough that I thought that, okay, the map can't be that bad.
Speaker 2:And it was that I was told there would be no math.
Speaker 1:And the funny thing is my one of my homeboys a little older than me, tried to warn me because he was also in school. He had gone to a rival VCU.
Speaker 2:I'm not a fan, dude. They beat Kansas in the elite eight. I'm not a fan when they had shock of smart.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, you, my bro. Yeah, my brother is a VCU. Vcu all along as well.
Speaker 2:No, and he had a bunch of losers.
Speaker 1:They yeah, like Richmond, those guys can go somewhere. Anyway, he tried to warn me about whatever what was to come, but I was a high school senior. I was like no, I can't be that bad yeah. And so, yeah, I was, so I had to go to plan B, which was information systems, and that was actually a much better fit for me, basically kept all the technology and didn't have to do anymore. So that was a relief. But what? The reality, though, with that was I ended up in school for eight years, so from 2012, with the last three of those years being part time because I had become a employee of the full-time employee of the university, and that was because your boy needed some money, so pay for this class.
Speaker 2:Were you working in technology at the school? Yeah, or was yeah?
Speaker 1:So I was working for the IT support center.
Speaker 2:They're like the wifi is down and you show up and you're like how can I help you?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so it started. Yeah, so I started off working as a student, like a part-time student worker, and I would actually go into people's dorms and troubleshoot their issues, meet some quite a few friends that way, and then the full-time position was just in the call center and so I would actually be dispatching people and dealing with cybersecurity stuff and doing some side projects as assigned as well. So the perk with that was that tuition up to a certain point was covered because they were an employee and that was, I honestly think that was God, because it was that point where my financial aid had conveniently run out because I was in school too long.
Speaker 2:Let me ask you this, towards the last part of college who is God at this point, at this?
Speaker 1:point. God was someone that we always talk about God as love and all of those things. But it felt like God was somebody that I was working for Throughout this whole time in college. I had gotten connected with the church that was closest to my school and they really took me in, made me part of family. It felt like home. And I also got really knee-deep in Pathfinders and so I was working, going to school and doing Pathfinders. It was a lot of fun. It was like I was just doing a lot of stuff like Pathfinders, doing praise team, doing all these activities that were great and I think it helped keep me spiritually grounded because around that time I'd also gotten distracted by the fraternity life. I was in a professional fraternity and with that that was partially how I got the job that I got into GMU. But it also came with the party life and so naturally I was like, well, if I'm going to be here for a long time, I'm going to have a good time. And so I started getting into the party life, close in parties, going to parties and drinking, carried on and doing that stuff.
Speaker 2:Was there any weirdness with that, or were you like? No, this is weird to be doing the knot tying on her and then also throwing a kegger.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. And so there was definitely in the back of my head, dude, you got a. There was like a little bit of a point where I was like, yeah, like this, you're wearing trying to wear two hats here and it's not really it's working. But it's not really working because, like I said earlier, it had my spiritual life to that point felt like more of a job or a role that I was playing, rather than a relate, an actual relationship, and that's not anyone's fault, of course. That's just how it ended up turning out for me because of the dog, as we would call it, the double mindedness on have one foot in church and I also have one foot in the club, so to speak. So that was going on in the background. And then one thing that start that really woke me up was when I got into a relationship with my wife. That was what was? That was the wake up call. That was the beginning of the wake up call. I would say, why is?
Speaker 2:that? Hey, wake up. Or did you meet her at the fraternity party?
Speaker 1:I'm trying to know she was already done with school and working, she moved into the area for work. And basically she didn't directly tell me this or anything, but as we're getting to know each other, I just realized and I knew this, I realized how, like, this lady is not suffering any fools, she wants what she, and she's someone who knows who she is, grew up knowing exactly who she is in terms of like gospel and different things like that, and so I was the one that was like dude. You basically got to a point where I was like, where it was like or you need to figure out.
Speaker 2:Are you really about it or are you?
Speaker 1:Are you about it or are you about it? That was the question that was going on, and so at that point, I was just turned 25 when we met and 26 when we started dating, and this is 28. At this point, this is 2019. So guess what happens in 2020?
Speaker 2:I know what you're going to say the chiefs win the Super Bowl and COVID-19, obviously.
Speaker 1:So COVID-19 happens and so now this is my last semester of school and there's no more parties, no more distractions, and even with church we couldn't really do anything really because we actually canceled, had canceled Pathfinders for the rest of it. My friend was actually I actually skipped over this. The other good thing about church that was awesome was that I had other friends that we went. We all went to the same college and I had other friends there that we were in school together and going through going through the college life together and trying to navigate that. And so my friend of mine, alex, was the director and and he was he called me. He was like, yeah, we got a canceled Pathfinder for us in a year and basically everything was shut down. So the only thing I had going on was my relationship with my wife, school and a whole lot of free time. And it was during that time where, especially as the time had gone on and when school is no longer in the picture, started to really ask myself hey, you know what, who are you and what do you want to be? And as I was trying to answer that, because you try to answer it with school, try to and that was rocky I was a C student in college. C's got degrees, c's got degrees. Um, try to try to answer it with a whole lot of other things being a little bit of try to be a little bit of a big man on campus. So it was that there was a lot of doing church things that were good. That definitely kept me from going all the way off the deep end, but it was just stuff and none of those things actually answered the question. And towards the end of I want to say it was the end of 20, beginning of 2021, I had noticed on what came before my Facebook feed was Arise online, shout out to the algorithm. Shout out to shout out to Mark Zuckerberg Appreciate you guys Arise online was doing every year they do a Christian sale of their course and so I was like I got some extra money, Let me go ahead and invest in my spiritual life. And I tried to read the Bible cover to cover before, and didn't it really get anywhere, Because I was just. I'd done it once as a kid with my mom and dad and obviously there was their example. They got. They definitely got my brother and I do it then. But since then I hadn't tried to do, hadn't really tried to do that for my son before, and I skipped over. This is why I write stuff down. I actually skipped over a detail. I'd actually had gotten baptized before going to college at 17. So at this point I was baptized and checked the spiritual box and the speak.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you're good.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm good. And another detail too is that before, shortly before that point, I'd gone, you know, got through Bible study Also, had heard a little bit of LGT, last generation theology. We had an evangelist come to town and do an evangelistic series.
Speaker 2:He was LGT.
Speaker 1:Not now I think about it. I wouldn't say it was like the extreme, like it wasn't like the extreme stuff that you hear about, but definitely what I got out of that was okay. I got to know the right information and know the right things about God and keep going to church, keep the commandments, do all these things and then I'll be good. So that was like the background. Fast forward all the way back to when I did a rise, and the one thing that I took, one thing that blew my mind, was honestly something so simple about the gospel but so profound. But that is that God is love and that all of scripture is a story about God's love. Not a story about what period of history we're in to know when the end of time is coming so that we can run for the hills, but a story about how God's love has played out throughout history.
Speaker 2:And yeah, End Times does fit into that.
Speaker 1:but it isn't the point. And when I spent the year 2021 going through, that actually helped me realize. It started to come into focus who I really am and during that course of time, there was like renewed interest in church and, of course, in my relationship with my wife. At that point we were talking about marriage. She also had questions about how my experience with Adventism was, because she did not grow up Adventist and had only heard negative things from friends of hers. Right, and that forced me to really come to terms with okay, why do I? What is the purpose behind all of these things that I do? Right, what is the purpose? Why continue to stick out, stick with this thing? And it became more and more clear to me that the story of Scripture is a story of how God actually loves humans and everything that is connected to it. Adventism that movement of Adventism included is a connection to all that. That started to really solidify my mind a little more and at church they started to get brighter in terms of how it was relating to my involvement with ministry and ministries and different things like that, like the party, the internet, stuff that had gone on. That was not a thing that I even really thought about anymore, like that was in a, that was like a big change that had happened in my life. I wasn't really gravitating to that anymore, praise the Lord. And now it's starting to gravitate towards just being interested in spiritual things. In spiritual things and participating, not just because I had to do it or because this is just a thing that I do, but because God loves me right.
Speaker 2:Sounds like you're experiencing all of this stuff for yourself. It's like you're now an adult, not just in because of how old you are. It's now God doesn't have any grandkids. I'm like this is for me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly, and during that time, our associate pastor CJ, if you're out there listening to this, thank you. God bless you.
Speaker 2:Shout out to pastor CJ.
Speaker 1:We had started to do a. He had written a devotional guide as part of his ministry called Living for Him TV, and the devotional guide was talking was like a guide on how to read scripture through the eyes of Jesus. Right, not just like the gospel, but also or not just the gospel was like, but the old testament and all but the old testament and everything right. And so we started an online Bible study that was just going through the whole Bible and I actually went through it and finished the whole thing, and I'm like man this has to be God, because old me would use to fall asleep in the balcony at church and our senior pastor at the time would only preach 15 minute long sermons.
Speaker 2:And you were falling asleep, and I was falling asleep because I was tired from being busy. Yeah, yeah, busy.
Speaker 1:It's wild, but, yeah, like over the course of that year, it started to. We had started to do this group, this online brokerage together and eventually our wife came into it and it was great, like it was a great time, and at this point, 2022 is when it really, I would say, started to really heat up and I really started to come into confidence, because at this point, I knew that God loved me, I knew that this thing is for real, that Jesus is found in all scripture. But how does it relate to me and my life personally, like today, like right now. And that's when, again, pastor CJ shout out to you. He's reshared one of Justin's early posts, and this is on Facebook. And Justin Koo, justin.
Speaker 2:Koo J Koo, the homie.
Speaker 1:Yeah, which reshared a post talking about how Jesus didn't die for Jesus in confidence to the world for years in, but came to redeem lost sons and daughters, and he was like the premise, the post is like from two or three years ago, so I'm like having a hard time remembering exactly and that blew my mind.
Speaker 2:What about it blew your mind.
Speaker 1:Because for a long forever, this is in this dichotomy where it's okay yeah, jesus came, he died, he rose again, died for your sins.
Speaker 3:Thank.
Speaker 1:God, because not really sure how you're gonna make it, and you see yourself as all the stuff that you did, all of the things in your past. You see yourself as okay. Did I go to that website today or did I do that thing that I said I wasn't gonna do? Your view of yourself is fluctuates, based on how you happen to be performing and there was like a cycle of feeling hard, getting harder on yourself or for me, that reason cycle between getting harder myself and also feeling kind of good because I wasn't as bad as XYZ, because I've seen other people in my life really go off the rails. And I was like it's not that great, but at least it's not as bad as that when you have that judgmental.
Speaker 2:Sure, it's a weird place to be right, yeah.
Speaker 1:And when I saw that I'm like man that kind of flipped the story, for instance, of the lost coin, the parable of the treasure, how the King of God is like a treasure that the master sold off his field, sold off his property for yeah, and for a long time I thought, okay, I have to really work really hard to find this treasure, because the King of God is just that valuable and whole time he was talking about me but I'm that valuable to God that he gave up the entire, all of his glory in heaven to come down to earth to bring us and the world along with it back into the heavenly places where we belong.
Speaker 2:Conciliation right.
Speaker 1:Exactly what reconciliation actually is, but it's not something that's gonna happen in the future when Jesus comes back. It's the second time, but it's something that is happening to you already and you are growing in now, and that was the game changer for me.
Speaker 2:Salvation. While there certainly is something to come in the future, salvation is also something that we participate in right now, because we have been saved. We have been the word sozo, which salvation comes from in the Greek. It's kept safe and sound, delivered, made whole All of these things that are now true of us in Christ, and maybe we've been waiting and waiting for something that's already happened 2000 years ago.
Speaker 1:Exactly and before our salvation seemed okay, yeah, I've accepted Jesus, I've been baptized, I've checked all the boxes, but I'm still waiting on salvation, which is when because the present world is not what it's supposed to be you think to yourself. We can't possibly be saved, because they're still sin, they're still all of this stuff going on. But actually it's not dependent. What I started to really sick myself in as this Washington wave one and all those how did you get to that?
Speaker 2:You see this thing with Justin.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:What did you end up finding where you just started following Justin?
Speaker 1:Yeah. So I started following Justin's account and what ended up happening was when he started the digital, because at this point I wasn't participating in Bible study or anything like that just yet. What happened was when you started the Digital Missionary Academy. That's when I really got in. So this is in the past year now. So when you started the Digital Missionary Academy, that's when I really started to sink into that. Because, through the Digital Missionary Academy and through learning the tools of the trade, the tools of online social media industry because I had a nose for it, posting on social media, but Old Me was doing it for likes and giggles and stuff and I'm like this is pretty cool. This DMA thing is really cool. Let me. This seems like this is also would be a powerful tool for to share what God is actually doing right. And it was through that experience of learning social media ministry that I started to also just see, really start to think what is God teaching me and what is something that the world at large needs to hear? And that's when I and I would say that, like life experiences and different things like that played a role in it. At first, I was doing a lot of just generic leadership stuff, like I'll have been one quiz kind of stuff, but then I really over the last few months, especially as getting ready to for marriages, prepared for that. It's like what is really the thing that God is teaching you right now? And the thing was that you are my kid and because you are my kid, you can look at other people as my kids. You can look at your wife as my kid and you can look at your boss and your coworkers and all the people you interact with that may or may not know who they are themselves as my kids.
Speaker 2:Okay, we're going to take a quick break and I'm going to introduce you to my friend, misha. Misha, how long have you been rocking with Good Gospel? For around two years, two years. How did you get introduced to this gospel?
Speaker 3:Well, my best friend Savannah found you guys and she told me that I needed to get onto the Bible studies and I never did. And then I finally did just get on, and then I loved you guys ever since and yeah, that's awesome.
Speaker 2:I remember seeing you on there for the first time. What has this revelation and understanding of how good the gospel is? What has it done in your life?
Speaker 3:It transformed it. I was living in anger and in lust, and now I live in love and in truth.
Speaker 2:Oh, just the transformation you hear in the gospel. That transforms people's lives and just transforms your life. That's it, absolutely. I love that. So you've gone to the next level and you actually donate to the ministry, donate to the Dead to Light podcast. What has motivated you to give some of your finances to keep this movement going?
Speaker 3:Love motivated me just that. To love others is to give, and what you guys put out the gospel and it's just like I 100% back it up in everything. So it's like, why not, why wouldn't I not give to this?
Speaker 2:Man, you're a testimony that blessed me so much. Thank you so much, Misha. I love seeing your life lived. I love seeing how you pour into people and you're a blessing and a testimony to us. Thank you so much.
Speaker 3:Thank you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, digital Missionary Academy that really sucked into it. And, yeah, it sucked me into the good gospel ecosystem, if you will, and I would say that now I wouldn't say that I have others on the podcast to describe crazy spiritual experiences, like attending an event in person or different things like that. But for me it was more like a gradual realization and, as God had started to show and reveal certain things to me, it was like the light bulb was turned off and then it was turned on and externally, I'm just going about my life, I'm doing my life. Nothing had ever changed, but everything had changed. It's almost tall. When he had his Damascus moment, the scales fell off his eyes and people still thought that he was the same guy that he used to be, but he wasn't, and at that moment everything had changed. And so I think for me now it's curing people's stories.
Speaker 2:How did you start with the podcast? It was just like oh there's a podcast too. I think that.
Speaker 1:I want to say that the Justin Goodwin episode 55 was my first one.
Speaker 2:Were there episodes after his, or was his the latest episode?
Speaker 1:No, there were ones after.
Speaker 2:And you just started with Justin Goodwin. I did, yeah.
Speaker 1:And so I just finished through all of it, and then there wasn't too many after at that point. I think maybe there was I can't remember the exact number, but that was one of the more later ones at that time. And then I started from the beginning with Tyler.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because we just dropped 133 today.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And so there's been 80 since then. So you've really been just like taking it all in then.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I've been taking it all in and it's more been like a gradual yeah, just like a gradual thing, just gradually just getting into it, and I think that just to testify real quick, I think that what is happening here is, in my case, a lot of the stories I heard were people who had had to really go through the fire in terms of with relationships and different things like that, and I feel like for me, a lot of it was the episodes were priming, serving as a primer of hearing like how God actually works in real life, and also a little bit of just getting really solid in your identity before, in my case, before entering into marriage. Because I finally got married in January. I've been married nine months and I would say that just hearing the story, hearing people's stories, really helped me put to paper in real life, or in 21st century terms, what all of this actually means.
Speaker 2:Man that's so powerful.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And the podcast is really. I think the testimonies are the thing for me.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Because if there's no testimony, it's just cool book guys, Exactly. But if it doesn't transform our lives, if it's not actually dealing with your day and I'm not even talking about transforming your life, big thing like being a good husband, being a good father, being a good wife, being a good mother, because the gospel has empowered you to walk out Christ in you, the hope of glory. That is our purpose, that's our destiny, that's what we're built for. Not all of us are going to speak up in front or have 80,000 people following us on Instagram like Justin Koo, but all of us deal with people every single day. And if this doesn't have to be a podcast, it could be you telling somebody that's the purpose of the testimony to say, yeah, my God's doing this, Like he's softening me in this area and he's molding me in this area. And, man, I think the story is a great way to do it and obviously these stories are real life and they're not. They don't all end with just the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow If the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow is in Jesus Christ.
Speaker 1:Exactly exactly, and I think that's part of it. That part, too, is awesome. It is awesome Something that I think really helped me as well in really putting the experience into the gospel, because in the Bible it's the same thing. Not everyone's story in the Bible ended. If you look at Hebrews 11 and just go down the list of people in the Hall of Faith, abraham died without receiving the promise and Samson is even listed in there. And a lot of times when we talk about Samson in the Bible, we're talking about how he messed up with Delilah and we're talking about oh, don't get you with Delilah in your life, but Samson is counted as a faithful person in the same sentence as Abraham, abraham and David and Moses and all the other spiritual giants that we talk about. And it's the same thing with these stories. Everyone's story ends with this, perfectly neatly tied, and I think that's what changed it for me is because you hear about when people tell their stories. Usually, or in my experience at least, there's always some kind of good ending at the end, right, and sometimes that kind of can lead you to a place where it's okay, that's great for you, but what about me?
Speaker 2:And I think the good ending is this that the ending that we're looking for perhaps these are not the droids you're looking for. We're looking for the huge house or the huge all of the money, but the piece that passes all understanding is Christ.
Speaker 1:That's right.
Speaker 2:And you can be very happy without what the world says brings happiness, Because the world says it does bring happiness. And yet there are many people who have a lot more money than me and I am happy. I'm one of the happiest dudes on earth because of what I've received, and so I lack nothing. I'm not out here looking for everything. I lack nothing.
Speaker 1:Right, and this has allowed me to face a lot of things that maybe in a different season I probably would have folded. I would have probably gone to some place, you know, gone to a place where I didn't need to go, in my mind right and like, for instance, a year ago. This time I got into a pretty serious accident and the wild thing is that car that I was driving at the time was completely paid for months, like not even a year after, before this happened. And the miraculous thing about all of that was just the piece that I felt in navigating that whole situation. Figure out how I'm going to do a 50-mile commute from my parents' house to work without a car, all those different things, that and how much money this is going to cost, because in between the insurance situation and the in-between getting your insurance payout and looking for a new car, all these different things. But the piece isn't in getting the situation resolved, it's knowing that in Christ you lack nothing. Same thing with jobs. I've gone through two job changes in the last three years and the latest one was an honestly an act of faith. I had no idea what my current job in working for the government was going to be like or read to. It was like applying my traditional cybersecurity skills to a completely different career, different area of technology that I had no experience in, really, and it was like really an act of faith and it was God that is empowering me even today to continue in that situation and not knowing what's next. I think a lot of people in my age and younger especially really are. We try to plan out and whiten up our I think everyone does this, but especially now with the internet and things everyone tries to figure out okay, what's the best career plan for me? How do I get this pot of gold, this pot of money at the end of the rainbow? How do I get to the place where I'm ready to buy all these things? That we think is a marker of success. And it's no, the better life that your mother immigrated as well, right, yeah, so, yeah, you understand this. But yeah, the better life that our parents want for us, especially being second generation, isn't in the letters behind your name, it's not in the car, it's not in the house, it's not in all those things. All those things are great and if God gives them to you, when God gives them to you, we praise God for it, right, but it's really knowing and being settled in your identity and I think that's ultimately what I'm growing in and what God is showing me every day. It's been a it's been quite a fun journey in going through it all.
Speaker 2:Praise God. Man, I'm trying to think where are we going to go back to. If we could go and grab a whore? How about this? You get to go and talk to your folks your story of this happening to you and all of this fear that's going on as you're born early 29 weeks and there's health complications and all this. If you got to pull your folks aside and hopefully they're walking in freedom and courage, and all that, if you go back in time to that time and you get to say hey, and you get to pull them aside, what kind of encouragement would you give them?
Speaker 1:Oh, okay, that's a great question. What I would tell them is the same words that Jesus spoke to me, or things that really encouraged me, and that's John 1633. In this world you will have trouble, but, being of good courage, I've overcome the world. And then, on top of that, my other Bible verse, hall of Fame, another one is Jeremiah 2911. A lot of people don't know that verse, that I know the plans that I have for you, plans to prosper you, not to harm you, plans to give you a hope in the future. That was given to Israel while they were in captivity, while they were in the pit. And so that would be what I would tell my parents, who were my age at that time Be of good cheer, god has a plan for this baby, and what you see right now is not the end, and I'm sure if and when they listened to this, they would agree.
Speaker 2:And praise the Lord. Thanks so much, man. We've never met in person, but I just see you and your fire. I see it on the internet, I see it at internet church. I see, man, your heart is for people and you just want them to know what God has done and you're a testimony of His faithfulness. Man, thank you so much for coming on.
Speaker 1:I appreciate it, rich. I got a chance to meet JCoo in person yesterday, so hopefully we could add Rich to the list sometime soon, so looking forward to it.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, man. Thanks a lot brother.
Speaker 1:All right, take care.
Speaker 2:Man. I love hearing the word talk about peace. I think that's the main thing I took from this episode the way that he's moving in his life, that he understands that God didn't necessarily come to get rid of all of our trials but so that we would shine in the trials. And that verse that he quoted in John 16 is so powerful. Yeah, trials will be a part of our lives. Christ had trials in his life, but we could be of good cheer because he has overcome the world. So if that's what you're struggling with right now and you thought that believing in Christ that was going to take all your trials and you were just going to be on easy street, but now that you're seeing it, you're like I still have these trials that this is for you. Father, I believe that you love me even though I'm going through this trial. I believe that you're good even though I'm going through this trial. And, father, because I believe in you, this trial is going to make me and it's not going to break me, because you poured your spirit into me through love. And while I am not enjoying this trial, I do believe you. I take you at your word. Your yoke is easy and your burden is light and I accept it and I receive it. Thank you that you have overcome the world and that my life is a victory lap in you. I pray these things in Jesus' name Amen.