I know you get exctied with good stories... so, here is a praise!! We have three baptisms this weekend.. here is the testimony of Jiayi, a chinese girl who has recently become a Christian... I knew youl would be excited!
Ashley Kelly, Celebration Church, Ottawa. June, 2005 
There was a random day, in my life, where there was a girl who knocked on my door and asked to borrow a pen. She and a friend wanted to leave a message on my floormate’s door to get him to come to her bible study. You might have guessed that it was Ashley, and of course, since she was there asking for a pen, she asked me to go to the bible study. I actually went with her right then to join the Bible Study and see what it was all about.
That was the beginning of my journey. I went to the bible study most of the time and learned a lot about God and about being Christians. I was afraid at first that people in the bible study would not appreciate the fact that I don’t have a lot of thoughts to share because I don’t know God, but I quickly realized that they simply wanted me to learn more about God. I really like the Bible studies because each time I go, it’s like a time out of my busy schedule of seven courses and it gave me peace psychologically. I guess God was already working on me at this time.
Then, when my friend Jessica from my bible study got baptized in March, she invited me to witness her baptism, so I came to Celebration for the first time. Then I started to come to church and get know more people.
One of the first Celebration people I knew was Ann-Marie, who just got married a week ago. She guided me a lot. I was influenced with the theory of evolution and I go a lot with logic, so Ann-Marie convinced me with examples. I will give you one of the examples she told me: “if you disassemble your watch and put all the pieces in a cup, and shake it for a million years, is it possible that all those pieces will just form a watch again on their own? Humans are so more complex than a watch. Our brain alone is one of the most complex things of the universe. And, yet evolution teaches that over millions of years, inanimate objects somehow over time formed living objects. And, then over time that small one particle organisms somehow just randomly formed humans with all of our complexity. So, the chance we are here by evolution is just as big as make up the watch by shaking it. I finally realized there had to be some divine help in creating the universe and us, it didn’t just happen. Therefore God created humans, not the time.”
Also, one of my best friends at UOttawa, Edem, was also a Christian, sent from God all the way from Ghana. And I asked her questions about God and the Bible as well.
At the same time, I was really impressed by the environment at church. We are in the 21st century and I’m so used to seeing people guard against strangers and people who are depressed or angry. But church people are so different from them and had this peace and love as in the most perfect of families. This MUST come from God.
So at last, almost a year later, I was convinced that Christianity is the Truth. I started to believe in God and asked him into my life. I believe that Jesus died on the cross for my sins and I wanted to follow Him. I thought why would I not follow the one who created everything. And Ashley and Ann-Marie were super excited when I told them. They then told me that one of the first steps the Bible tells me to do as a Christian is to get baptized. They explained to me that since Jesus had forgiven my sins and given me a new life, that getting baptized was a symbol of that. Since I had decided to follow God, I wanted to be obedient to what the Bible says. That is why I am here today. I hope that for the rest of my life I will try to be obedient to what the Bible says because I have decided I want to follow God.
