Interview with Ethel Miman - 2309

SPEAKER B Revelation twelve, verse eleven. And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony. And they did not love their lives to the death. Welcome to by the word of their testimony. And here is your host, Kaysie Vokurka. Hello and welcome to the programme. We're so glad that you've joined us today on by the word of their testimony and I am so delighted to have a special guest with us today to share her testimony, Ethel Miman. Thank you so much for joining us on the programme today. Really, really appreciate it. And tell me a little bit more about yourself and where you're from. Are you born and bred in Australia or what's a bit of your background? SPEAKER A Yeah. So I was born in Sydney, in the. Grew up in the North Shore and the eastern suburbs. SPEAKER B Okay, eastern suburbs of Sydney. Nice. Very cool. And your family, have you got siblings or what's your family life? SPEAKER A What was that like? Yeah, so my dad is from Israel. SPEAKER B Okay. SPEAKER A And my mom is from Philippines. SPEAKER B Wow. SPEAKER A Yeah, I've got some siblings. Half siblings, three half siblings. I'm the oldest. SPEAKER B Wow, nice. So that's four in the family for the kids. That's quite a nice, bustling sort of family life. Yeah. So what was your experience with your faith journey from a young age? Were you brought up in a Christian environment or was it secular? Tell me a bit about that. SPEAKER A Yeah. So my parents both come from generations of very religious backgrounds. So my mom comes from a Catholic background, my dad comes from a Jewish background, and they both came from very religious backgrounds, but they themselves were quite secular. So my dad looked more like an atheist. My mom just went to church just as part of her cultural identity. So I never really got any spiritual guidance from them, but I got lots of guidance from the community around me. SPEAKER B Yeah. Okay. And what did that look like in terms of the spiritual leading? Where did that take you? Obviously. What timing are we talking about here? Is this like mid teens or mid childhood? What kind of a period are we talking about? SPEAKER A Yes, from childhood. So I remember maybe around seven ish. Yeah. I had aunties that came to visit and shared the Bible with me. Yeah. They had a big influence on my spiritual walk and my understanding of some of the Bible elements. SPEAKER B Nice. So they were really influencing your life and your journey from a young stage. And were you open to that? Did you like the idea of following God? SPEAKER A So before I was seven, I liked the idea of following God. I loved Jesus, I loved the Father. I didn't quite understand the things that I was being taught because Filipino Catholicism is quite scary, the way that it was presented to me. So I was quite scared of God and felt that he was quite unapproachable and quite unreasonable and quite scary. SPEAKER B And how did that impact your, I guess, desire from that point to continue in a deeper relationship with God? SPEAKER A Yeah, well, my parents had a very strong personalities, I would say very ambitious people that started businesses from childhood, and they both needed to be the boss, I guess, is what I'd like to say. So they separated when I was two because neither one of them could. Yeah, they're both strong people. Yes. And so they separated from when I was two. And so I grew up in two households. So when I grew up with my mom, that's when I had the experience of. Experiences of my aunt coming to visit and few other friends that came, Christian friends that would come in into our lives, Filipinos, and share love and grace. But, yeah, my life was not easy. Very, very difficult, actually. Yeah. So I went through a lot of challenging experiences before I was seven. SPEAKER B Yeah. Wow. SPEAKER A That led me to get to a point where I stopped believing in God. SPEAKER B Yeah. And those family dynamics would have made it very difficult for you in that key area of your life where there's so much development happening and I guess the instability of having those separate homes and no doubt the tensions between your parents would have been something you really felt deeply. SPEAKER A Yeah. When you're going through that, you don't know any different, so it's just my life and I didn't know any different, but, yeah, it was very difficult. SPEAKER B Okay. And so you're kind of moving away by this tender age of seven, really, you're moving away from a desire to connect with God further, at least for that time. And so where did you turn to from there? SPEAKER A Yeah. So when I was eight, I decided to move in with my dad. And he was from a Jewish background, but he was, like, atheist in his practises. So even though I had a relationship with Jesus, as soon as I moved in with my dad, he didn't believe in Jesus. So it wasn't long until he influenced me to believe that Jesus didn't exist and that the Bible as well was not real. And I looked up to my dad and he became my God. Really? My dad became my God. And I listened to everything he said and my identity was in him, in my dad and what he thought of me and how I was defined by my parents. SPEAKER B Yeah. Again, and you can understand that because at that age, especially young girls, I mean, young guys as well, they really do look up to the Father figure in their life, and you can understand how much influence he would have had over you at that time. And so, given that you were now so focused on him, where did that take you spiritually? SPEAKER A Well, my dad, being a Jew, was very focused on education, so he put me into a Jewish school because he knew he couldn't offer me that experience, being an atheist kind of person. And so he brought me to an Orthodox Jewish school. So I got to experience the Jewish culture, the Jewish community, and got to learn a lot about the Old Testament and the history of the Jewish people. Once I started to learn about that, it just sounded so depressing. It was just so depressing, to be honest. And it wasn't long until I just gave up on religion and gave up on God completely. God of the Bible. I just was sick of hearing stories about how God was angry with them and just all the heartache and the hardships. SPEAKER B That's so interesting, because from your previous experience with your mom, with the Catholic slIde, you'd gotten that initial impression of God being really harsh, and you need to have a lot of fear of him and that kind of thing, only slightly offset by your aunties who are presenting the grace aspect. And then now you're experiencing that same sort of picture, but from another angle, through the Old Testament, or at least the way it was being highlighted in the Old Testament, the, I guess, more harsher aspects, if you can call it harsh, the more just sort of aspects of God's character being strongly emphasised, helping to, I guess, reinforce this picture, which isn't encouraging you to come closer to God, is it? SPEAKER A No. So, yeah, unfortunately, there was a lot of elements that I was exposed to in the Bible that made me want to run as fast as possible in the other way, in the other direction, elements of hell and the Ten Commandments and just there being a monster like the devil and just feeling like you could never appease God, you could never live up to his expectations. And I just remember one time I was just sitting down, reflecting on the Ten Commandments and just thinking, there's no way that I can live up to God. There's just no way. As a child I was thinking that, yes, I turned away from God of the Bible, but in my heart I was always seeking for God, his character and the principles of Christianity, which I saw reflected in the characteristics of the people around me, in my Catholic and Jewish background, in the people at school. There was lots of beautiful people in my life, really, people's parents and the grace that they showed me and the love they showed me and my mom's friends, but I didn't necessarily see that in the home. SPEAKER B Okay. SPEAKER A Yeah. SPEAKER B So it was kind of like telling you that there is something out there that's another side to this or some aspects that are of goodness out there. But how do you find that? Because it's obviously not come from the people closest to you, but it's obviously there. So that search in your heart is still very much alive, isn't it? SPEAKER A Yeah. And I did feel that God was calling me from a young age as well, to do some big things. But because of my childhood, I suffered from a lot of low self esteem and a lot of depressive and anxiety symptoms. And I couldn't imagine that God could call me to anything. SPEAKER B Because of how you felt and how you perceived yourself and everything that you struggled with, you thought, how can God even use me? Yeah. And what would this be like in your teenage years that you felt this most strongly or younger? SPEAKER A Think I just remember God calling me, like, six, seven years old. SPEAKER B Wow. Okay. Yeah. Really young age. Isn't that amazing how God can speak to even the tenderest ages and did a call to himself. SPEAKER A Yeah. But because my parents grew up in religious backgrounds, I did get a very strong foundation of moral values and was brought up very strict. Yeah. Like knowing what's right and wrong and obedience. I really learned how to obey and also how to be of service as well. SPEAKER B Nice. So all of those values are values which would really help you in your journey just through life in general and in society. That grounding is something that's really valuable and something that would have helped you even though you didn't have that close connection with God you wanted. SPEAKER A Yeah. Really helped me to make some really good decisions in really bad situations. SPEAKER B Wow. SPEAKER A That I put myself into. Yeah. It was sort of the thing that held me from taking it. The next step in the wrong direction. SPEAKER B Wow. It's amazing, isn't it? SPEAKER A And to seek God, even though I didn't think I had a relationship with God, I still used to pray to him in crisis. SPEAKER B You knew he was there even though you didn't understand the fullness of, I guess, the balance of his character. Yeah. Interesting. And so where did this take you from here? You've experienced different aspects of exposure to God, and you're, I guess, left with still a burning longing and a burning sense of searching for something deeper. Which direction did that kind of take you into? SPEAKER A Yeah. So when I went to a Jewish school, we used to pray every day and do lots of songs and go into the synagogue and pray and have reverence, and I really liked that space. And I did like to pray to God and sing to God, but I didn't really imagine that I was singing to God. I just liked the experience of, I don't know, reverence and the idea of worship, but I didn't imagine that there was a God that I was worshipping. But I had a very strong sense of needing to know my purpose and wanting to find a sense of belonging and wanting to find, I guess, identity, wanting to know who I am on a deep level, wanting to know truth, wanting to find healing, because I went through a lot of trauma as a child and a lot of pain, emotional pain. SPEAKER B Yeah. SPEAKER A And I struggled very much with my studies because I couldn't concentrate, and it affected all parts of my life. So I lived in a lot of fear because of the expectations that were put on me to be perfect. SPEAKER B Yeah. Wow. SPEAKER A From a very young age and to put other people's needs above my own needs. So there came a turning point when you live under that kind of stress for a long time. SPEAKER B Yeah. SPEAKER A Where your own body doesn't belong to you and your own mind doesn't belong to you and your life doesn't belong to you. Yeah. Which is how I felt by the time I got to 16. By the time I got to 16, I started to rebel. SPEAKER B Yeah. SPEAKER A And it was painful to rebel because I felt that I was quite an obedient child and quite good and really tried my best, but it just felt that my best just wasn't good enough. Ever. Was never, ever good enough. SPEAKER B Yeah. And that would have made you feel really quite hopeless in that situation, because everything that you had power to do, it amounted to nothing, really, in terms of what you were hoping for, in terms of getting, I guess, the approval, the sense of peace in your heart that you were longing for that would relieve those really strong negative emotions of the fear and anxiety at all of those things. And I guess, yeah, I can understand that. In that sense of hopelessness, you would have felt quite desperate. SPEAKER A Yeah. And I guess I just got to a point where I felt like I waSn't valued, I didn't matter, people didn't care, and I really didn't feel that God cared, that's for sure. By the time I got 16, I was quite depressed, suffering from major depression by the time I was 16. And there was just a desire in me to get freedom, to find freedom, to just do what I wanted to do, just express myself, explore myself, have people that just love me for who I was. And unfortunately, yeah, I got into the next chapter, which took up probably 15 years. SPEAKER B Wow. SPEAKER A Yeah. SPEAKER B And this chapter, is this a chapter that's pretty much going away from God, or. Yeah. Well, how do you find that? SPEAKER A Yeah, well, actually, I was probably going towards God, okay. But I didn't feel that I was going towards God. I thought that I was going away from God because I'd shut myself off from God. Like, by the time I was 16, I thought that I was an atheist. I didn't believe in God, and I didn't believe in the Bible. So there was sort of, like, this wall between me and religion and me of God, of the Bible, but I was desperately seeking everything that was in the Bible. So God and his mercy allowed me to go on a journey and turn over every stone and look through every little crack and every ditch. Yes, in his mercy. But, yeah, a lot of pain came from that journey. So when I was 16, I got involved in some self harming behaviour, and I intentionally wanted to meet people that were on the wrong side. The fence, as in people that wanted to go out partying, people that wanted to drink, people that wanted to just have fun, like any teenager would want to do. And I became best friends with a girl that gave me that. She was, like, the answer to my prayers in some ways. So, yeah, we went out nightclubbing from 16, and I lived a double life. So I was very good at trying to pretend to be the obedient good girl behind the scenes, but then going nightclubbing and drinking, and I used to drink to hurt myself. I used to drink to block it all out, literally. Like, I would drink 20 to 30 drinks easy. I couldn't wait to hit that point where all the pain and all the hurt and all the memories and all the. SPEAKER B Yeah. Was just gone and relieved. Like, you were looking for that remedy in the midst of all of that, weren't you? SPEAKER A Yeah. SPEAKER B And look, I know that there would probably be many other people out there who have gone in that same path. Like, on the outside, it looks like they're being really rebellious, as you say, and that's kind of a thing, but inside there's this deep pain and deep longing for something to give them relief and healing in the midst of that. SPEAKER A Yeah. And I suffered as well from body dysmorphia, undiagnosed. But I used to look at myself in the mirror and see a very ugly, fat kind of person. I just couldn't stand looking at myself, and I would just critique myself all the time and, yeah, I lived with a lot of shame to leave the house. It took a lot of courage. SPEAKER B Wow. SPEAKER A Took a lot of courage, yeah. SPEAKER B So did you find that you would try to isolate in many situations and then only certain ones where you had confidence to go out, you would. What did that look like for you? SPEAKER A I think that's why drinking really helped, because it really blocked that out, blocked out the inhibitions. I didn't have all the thoughts in my head to worry. I just sort of enjoyed life. So I guess I was brought up as well from a very health conscious family. So my dad was extremely healthy to the point where it was like a religion to him. So I think that really helped me a lot to balance out the destructive. And so I also had another journey of being very interested in health and healing and natural health. So that took me on a journey. And it was kind of like this sort of spiral takes you very gently into the darkness kind of thing. SPEAKER B Okay. So at first it seemed like this journey into the world of healing remedies and things was something that would obviously help you be in a better place. It would help you manage and cope with some of the things that were not going so well in terms of your lifestyle, what you were doing, and in that sense, really, really attractive. But you're sort of saying that it took you to a place that maybe you didn't expect it would. SPEAKER A Definitely, yeah. I was very attracted to light and love and peace and joy. I wanted that in my life. But, yes, I was seeking that and I really wanted to learn about how to get there. So I believed my dad was quite intelligent and quite experienced. He'd done a lot of travelling before I was born. He had me when he was 40, which is my age now, and he'd already done a lot of travelling and set up lots of businesses and done his own sort of research into health and spirituality and all that. So I felt like he had all the answers, kind of thing. And so he used to give me books and things about how to influence people, how to make friends and influence people. Even when I was a teenager, he gave me that book and gave me a book on naturopathy, sort of like in those books. It kind of exposed me to certain modalities and used to go to the gym. So I got involved in yoga and then meditation as well. I found a lot of relief in that at school. So there were just like little kind of, I guess, little seeds that were being planted. And I also went, like, travelling around with my dad because he was a traveller and he took me on some backpacking trips around Asia and Europe and Middle east, so got exposed to a lot of beautiful temples. So I got attracted to Buddhism. So when I was 16, I actually started calling myself a Buddhist and started to even read books on Buddhism because they believe in seeing your body as a temple, and they believe in letting go of self and trying to reach your best, trying to entertain enlightenment, and they don't want to hurt animals and creatures and they don't believe in God. So it kind of fit your where. SPEAKER B You are at, it kind of fit. SPEAKER A So that was my safe kind of place to kind of go on that journey. And they've got some similarities in Christianity, I guess, in the way that they want to do no harm. SPEAKER B So you are seeking, again, seeking all the different ways that possibly resonated with that void in your heart for a spiritual experience that was going to relieve, I guess, the ill feelings and condition in your heart from all of the childhood experiences and that. And so where did this, like, obviously Buddhism, you mentioned about how that had a bit of a health philosophy in there about caring for your body, caring for the planet, caring for animals, et cetera. What other things did you sort of dive into that were in that healing sort of space? SPEAKER A The turning point, I guess, of bringing it up a notch in my spirituality was because up until then I really saw it as just some principles to live by, maybe just helping my body and my mind to help me with my depression, help me to have a good body, lead me in life, to be a decent person, maybe lead me to a community. So it was all kind of like, I guess on a superficial level, I didn't see it as spirituality as such. But I guess one of the turning points was when I was in my late 20s or mid twenty s and I went through some big changes. So my dad decided to leave Australia and start a new family and I started my first year of my work, which was very difficult. And I also ended a really traumatic relationship as well. And I did some meditation. I went on a meditation retreat for ten days. And up until then I didn't believe in the supernatural world. I just thought that. I don't know what I thought, but I knew it didn't exist. So I was quite surprised when I started getting some supernatural experiences. And it took six to twelve months for me to just finally just surrender to the fact that it was a supernatural experience because I made up lots of excuses in the beginning, like, it's just my mind, it's just because I've gone through trauma. It's just because whatever the excuses are. So that kind of opened me up and I was quite scared because the supernatural experiences were quite intimidating and quite threatening. And so I started going on my journey of desperation, desperately trying to find more modalities that might be able to help me. So that's when the box kind of got opened a little bit more and I started getting more interested in, I guess I'm not sure how to describe where I was at at that point, but I guess maybe more like shamanic healing. But I didn't realise at the time, but I met a lady and she was into past lives and she just told me that in my past life I had hurt this person and that they were angry with me. It really made sense to me and I just bought it and started believing in past lives. And she sort of, like, I guess, exposed me to crystal healing and to sage and, yeah, I didn't think too much of it, but it opened sort of a doorway. And it probably wasn't until a few years after that. That's when I started really taking the journey into that space. SPEAKER B Did that take you quite deep? How far did that, you know, you've gone bit by bit down in this kind of. A bit more of a supernatural, but still healing kind of blended space. SPEAKER A I moved to Melbourne after my first year of uni after my dad had left Australia. And I felt really called to study, I guess, a healing modality. Yeah, I decided to study that for a year and I found it very therapeutic for me. So I got to really heal a lot in many ways and did it with other people. So it was really like a big support group. And up to that time, I still didn't really believe in God. I didn't really believe in supernatural stuff. That was just kind of a one off experience. SPEAKER B Okay. Yeah. SPEAKER A But then during this time, during this course, because part of the course was about trying to connect with a higher power or messages that could come. And it was sort of like very connected to finding meaning in all your experiences, like metaphors in all the experiences that you're having specifically maybe in nature or in art or in different things. And so I just found that it probably took my spirituality another notch because I started to see meaning in my experiences and started to connect with a higher power because there were messages that came that were quite. I could feel that it was not from me. So that's when it kind of opened a doorway to me, communicating with a higher power and believing that there was some kind of other world than what we could see. SPEAKER B Yeah. So I guess this point, then, is really solidifying that switch in belief, because you said before you didn't believe in a higher power, and it's taken quite a journey for you to now believe, or at least in the supernatural powers, and it's taken quite a journey for you to come to the point of actually realising, you know, what, this is real and I'm actually interacting with it. And I believe this. SPEAKER A Yeah. So I guess, to cut a long story short, because we could be here for hours, I pretty much started to get initiated, I guess, is the right word, by this other higher power, I guess. So I guess that's for another day. That's just a whole nother story. But I started to get, I guess, messages from nature and in a very big way that it was trying to communicate with me. And so I started researching a little bit more and started connecting to shamanism. So shamanism believes in a real connection to nature and that it's communicating to you. So certain animals have certain representations and things like that. So I was seeing a lot of crows that would be waiting for me as I was on my way to and from work, and they'd be on every light post. And then when I got out of my car, there'd be like a whole murder, I guess you call them, or a whole group of them waiting there and going through that for weeks, months, because I was like, that's just coincidence. But then after a while, it was like, there's something in this. So it really started to lead me into that, connecting the dots and realising that there was some kind of higher power that was trying to guide me. So that kind of led me into lots of different areas, consulting with psychics and tarot cards and divination and different things, which led me into discovering. SPEAKER B You'Ve gone way into the depths of the different avenues in this space of the supernatural. And I guess all in that effort to seek a meaningful, deep connection with something bigger than yourself that would give you the sense of belonging and purpose that you longed for from your very childhood. SPEAKER A Yeah. And it was very powerful because that's what I was seeking when I rebelled, when I was 16 and went drinking, nightclubbing, did all the things I did, dressed how I wanted, acted how I wanted. That was my way of trying to find empowerment, trying to find power in my life when I felt so powerless. And then when I discovered shamanism, it gave me a lot of power. It made me feel really powerful, like I was God, like I had this big purpose and that higher power was guiding my life and initiating me to higher things. And I really wanted to heal people. I really wanted to help people. I really wanted to have that bigger purpose. I felt called to that. I got a lot of validation for that too. And it led me on a journey around Australia and around the world and I guess the turning point. SPEAKER B Yes. Tell us, where did this go to from here? How did you move from here to where you are today in terms of a real relationship with God? Again? Take us from there. SPEAKER A Yeah, I guess a few things happened as well in my life just before the turning point. So I was in a relationship for like a long term relationship with a guy. And it was the first guy that I ever trusted. And unfortunately, one day I discovered some things that meant that he was living a double life and had been living it, talking to other men. And it kind of just triggered something inside me. And I kind of shut myself off from Mem. And also I thought, well, if he's discovering himself, maybe that's an unexplored territory. If I'm trying to find my identity, trying to find fulfilment, I haven't found it so far. Maybe this is an unexplored territory that I should go into. Maybe I can find belonging, I can find someone that understands me and someone. Maybe it's not men that can understand me, maybe it's women. So I decided to go down that journey, and it was kind of a bit exciting because it was like, wow, what am I going to discover? Maybe I'm going to discover another part of who I am. That was a difficult journey, but I just wanted to include that because that's been a big part of my journey, sexuality as well. Just trying to connect with another human being, wanting to be loved, wanting to love, wanting to feel safe, wanting to find my identity. And that was part of the journey as well. So anyway, going back to the supernatural element. So I was all in. If I was a gambler, I'm all in 100%. I had complete faith in shamanism and in the. I guess the guru that I was following, he became like my God. Because my dad left, he was no longer my God. Now this guy kind of became my God. Yeah, because I don't believe in God, so this guy's my God. So I was 100% in and really believed in everything that I was following. And shamanism believes in the hero's journey, which is that the healer needs to go through the pain and the suffering and the journey in order to come back and help others. So I interpreted my experiences from that lens. And I went through a lot of suffering, but I went through it because I had this lens that supported me. If I didn't, I don't know what would have supported me, to be honest, because it was very difficult, very, very difficult journey, and you just couldn't imagine. My life could get even more difficult. It was like the volume went up. SPEAKER B Wow. SPEAKER A Went up from three to seven or three to eight, and it didn't happen overnight. It was gradual again. It was nice and fluffy in the beginning. Really beautiful community and feeling loved and feeling purpose and it's beautiful, really beautiful in the beginning. And then I think the turning point was. So I got into a relationship with a female for a long term, and we were travelling around the world and she was quite spiritual as well. And we decided to go to India. And during that time, we wanted to go to a yoga retreat. So we went to a yoga retreat, and during that time, I became very ill, like life threatening ill. And I really believe that it's only God. That's the only reason I'm still here as well. There was just one experience I wanted to share. I mean, at this point, I wasn't following God. I guess there were a few life threatening experiences in India, and I guess it was really my prayers to God that helped me to get through that. Even though I didn't believe in God, I was still kind of praying to God in a cris. So, anyway, I won't go into that story that could be for another day, about the life threatening experiences, but those are testimonies in itself. SPEAKER B So you felt, though, that because you had this life threatening condition and you called to God and he obviously saved you out of it, did that have an impact in your mind about God? SPEAKER A It didn't have an impact in my mind because I already felt that I was being protected and guided by my higher power and whatever that was. Like, I believed in different gods and different things, like worshipping idols and crystals and getting incense and smudging the place and doing sort of, like, prayers, like worship kind of things. So I may not have thought of God the way that we look at God now. Yeah, I looked at God more as, like, maybe lots of different things, but God and his mercy, I think, knew that. I knew he existed, but I just didn't want to admit it. So, yes, he probably did make, I. SPEAKER B Guess, more in retrospect, you're seeing it a lot more for sure, that he was protecting you, helping you, even though you didn't realise it or understand it at the time. SPEAKER A Yes, 100%. 100%. I guess when I went to India, India is just full of sorcery. Full of. Yeah. So when I was there, I think I had a few people that sort of gave me the evil eye kind of thing. And after that experience, my whole supernatural experience just went up volumes. Like, it went up to a ten of the suffering and the pain that I went through. And it was two years of that before I found Jesus. It was just. It escalated every day. And I just kept trying to hold on to the feeling that this is part of the hero's journey. This is part of the journey. I'm a healer. Like, I got to go through this, got to go through this, please protect me. But that didn't really work that well. And there came a point where I actually went to my guru, and we don't call him a guru, but I'm just saying guru. He's a shaman, very big shaman and very respected internationally. And he was running in a retreat, and I said, I have to go, because I became very ill. I was getting a lot of just horrible kind of things that you wouldn't wish upon your enemy. And I just felt very helpless, like I needed some intervention. So I went straight to the source of who I thought could help me. And I had 100% faith in what I was following. So I went to, I guess, a retreat that he had in the desert, like a big group of people. And it was kind of like a beautiful experience to me. It was amazing. Yeah, I asked for him to do some healing on me, so I was sprawled out like an eagle, kind of in the middle of this circle with all the shamanic practitioners around me in a circle, as if I was ready to have surgery on me or like, I'm dead. Just completely surrendered. And I just said a prayer to God, just in case. God help protect me, because this is so vulnerable right now. So he did a healing on me, and straight away I felt healed. But then after that, didn't take long for it to completely go the other way. And I started to feel worse. And he started to feel worse. He got sick for weeks and he said, it's never happened to me before. And so I guess my faith got shaken in following that path. I thought, wow, okay, well, the hope's kind of gone now. Like, if he can't heal me, then where's the help here? So that kind of opened me up, I guess, to other things without realising. And, yeah, I kept going on this journey, and then I guess I got led to Baron Bay because I just was trying to seek for relief, healing, protection. My experiences were just life threatening every day. SPEAKER B Wow. SPEAKER A Just life threatening. Horrible, horrible experiences. Terrifying experiences that you wouldn't even imagine. Just seeing the worst things in humanity all the time. Just all the different horrible things you could even ever imagIne. Murder, paedophiles, all kinds of different things every day and feeling like I knew too much and that I was going to be the next one kind of thing. And just always watching my back and sometimes even staying awake till five in the morning so that the sun can come up and I can feel safe again. And just living like that all the time and having pain in my body everywhere and literally feeling like the life was being sucked out of me. Just feeling very scared because I knew that there was a supernatural world, so I could feel that there was something that was trying to get me. SPEAKER B And so how did this lead to God? Where is the connection? SPEAKER A So I guess the turning points were that I started to have a few really life threatening experiences. And during those times, I prayed out to Jesus because in the New Age world, which I call it, which it might not be where I was, but I call it New Age world, they believe in Jesus being a master, ascended master. And so I just let him in, kind of as one of the people that I was praying to on top of all the other gods and goddesses and angels and different things that I was praying to. And then that's where the turning point was. So praying to Jesus started to allow Christians into my life who started helping me. And I didn't know it directly, but indirectly, when I traced my steps back, I could see that it was like breadcrumbs. Christians had been along my journey throughout life and had been the ones that were helping me. SPEAKER B Wow. SPEAKER A Yeah. And there's so much in the testimony, really, about how I came back to God, so many ways that God showed that he had been there for me from the beginning of my journey, since I was born. And even just the way that he put Adventists into my path, like years before. And he brought me straight into a Christian's home, even though I was still identified as gay and I was living a very open spiritual journey in the New Age world and I was kind of homeless because I was just sort of searching and looking for where my healing path was. So I ended up being in a Christian home without realising it was a Christian home. SPEAKER B Wow. SPEAKER A Friends I'd met along the way and they were praying for me behind the scenes and they never once really told me about Jesus or told me about the Bible because I wasn't ready, but God was preparing my heart. And eventually I had a friend that they introduced me to who was a counsellor, and he prayed for me in Jesus name. And I was really suffering a lot. And suddenly I saw this hedge of protection around me. All the visions that I'd gotten, all the pain in my body, all the fear that I had. And I saw a bright white light, and it's like a still, small voice was saying, it's been the Bible the whole time. Jesus is the one that's been. It was just like this very subtle, gentle kind of presence that Jesus reminding me of that relationship I had with him when I was a child. And I said a prayer in my heart for God to lead me to a church. Because I was a Jewish background, I knew the Sabbath, and I'd gone to an Orthodox Jewish school, and I believed in reverence and I believed in. I was 100% in with my faith. So I needed something that. I needed a church that really believed in the Bible and that were sort of modest and had lots of music and health. Health message was important because I grew up as a vegetarian and health was important to me. And maybe I'd met, obviously, I'd met Adventists along my way to believe there was a church like that. But I didn't know that. But yeah, I said that prayer specifically to God for him to send me that church, if that was a church that was based on the truth. And within a few days, I started a course, like a business course. And there was one lady in there that I did not connect with and she did not connect with me, and we did not connect with each other. But God allowed us to have a day or a few hours where we were just alone and we had to be kind of polite to each other. SPEAKER B Okay. SPEAKER A And during that time, I pretty much revealed that I was on my way to seeking Jesus and she know wanting to minister to me, and she said, can I buy your Bible? And was sharing with me a few things. And the things that she shared, it was like the Holy Spirit really was being led because everything she shared with me was exactly what I needed. SPEAKER B Wow. SPEAKER A She shared a verse about the Ten Commandments and it just sort of ministered to me. It was like, yep. Well, I'm obviously not doing these things. I'm not worshipping one God. I'm not honouring my parents. I'm committing adultery. I'm probably stealing in some ways without realising, what else am I doing worshipping idols? And she showed me a verse about homosexuals and drunkards that won't enter the kingdom of God. And it didn't seem that she didn't know me, so for her to pick that one, it was just. And I didn't even see it so strongly. It was just. She kind of brushed over and I was like, whoa. Like the Holy Spirit just kind of spoke to me and said, this is why you're being attacked. This is why you're going through. This is why you don't have peace in your life. This is why you don't feel safe. Maybe this is the healing bomb that you've been looking for. And so straight away I was convicted that marriage was between man and woman, and that was what God wanted for us. Yeah. And the Ten Commandments, and that they were important, and the Sabbath. And then just from then on, I just really started to learn about the Bible, my friend. Really, like, God brought all the right people into my life to accelerate my learning. Within three to five months, I already knew more than most Adventists, I would think. Well, I thought, maybe I'm not right, but I knew quite a lot of stuff in a very short amount of time. Yeah. And during that time, I learned about the great controversy, which was very important to me, because what I'd gone through was Satan really trying to kill, steal and destroy, and really trying to separate me from God. And I saw God in the picture of God and his love and the way he pursues us and the way that he wants to. He's battling against Satan for us. So that was really important for me and also just following the Bible and God's principles to try to make sure that I don't allow the enemy to have any space in my life again, because he had a lot of space in my life and it was very difficult for me to get out of. Even when I came into the church, it took months to really get through the bondage that he had me in. So you can have a will, you can try to practise, but you need. SPEAKER B The redemption that Christ, like he is the one who frees us from the bondage of Satan and sin isn't. SPEAKER A And you need his power. You need his power completely. It's not in our human strength at all. SPEAKER B Amen. SPEAKER A Not in our human strength. And even till today, he will really still try to get in and try to attack me. SPEAKER B Yeah. So you really feel the constant need for Christ's protection in your life? SPEAKER A It's a constant battle, but God has been restoring me. I've been in the church for seven years. I got baptised within a year of my first stepping into the church. Yeah. I got involved in chaplaincy studies and medical missionary studies and did a bit of Bible work here and there. So God is restoring me. He has brought me so far from where I was seven years ago and now he's really called me to some big things. SPEAKER B Yeah. SPEAKER A Even in the last few months, it's just been like, he's revealed a lot of things to me and he's shown me that we can depend on him. He's shown me that he is really very, like, he's the only thing we need. So he's been helping me on my journey to let go of all the things that I was attached to. But he did it in a very gentle way. Like, he just held out his hand like a gentle Father, saying, can you give it to me? Give it to me and I will give you something more. SPEAKER B Yeah. SPEAKER A But because we're human and we want to hold on to things, we're like, no. And God's so gentle. He keeps saying, give it to me. SPEAKER B Yeah. Let go and trust him and his power to handle it. Yeah. SPEAKER A So now I'm in a place where I have given him pretty much a lot, so I don't have much surrendered place and I'm seeing the fruits of that. SPEAKER B Wow. SPEAKER A Which is that he wants to use us in a very mighty way. And it's not in our strength, it's not in our wisdom, it's not in our planning, it's in his power, his spirit, his wisdom. And I have a really big heart for reaching out to the people that have my testimony. People who are caught in addiction, who are seeking to be loved, to be people that have lost everything, who are struggling with their mental health, that they feel alone, they feel abandoned, they feel lonely. I have a really big heart for those people and just ministering to them in a gentle way, like, taking them where they're at, in a place where there's no judgement, they're just loved. And that's the way that God ministered to me. Yes. And using what God's given us, like the Health message and Prayer ministry and the Bible as well. Scripture. Very powerful. SPEAKER B Yeah, absolutely. SPEAKER A And music. SPEAKER B Yeah. SPEAKER A Those are the things that help me. And I know that we need that as our weapons because it's a very real battle. Very real. SPEAKER B Yeah. SPEAKER A So I'm working as a trauma counsellor now in private practise and I've got quite a big caseload and God's calling me to a few different areas, like I'm training in some ministry at the moment. And it's a prayer ministry to help people. It's called Straight to the Heart Ministry, and it's there to help people that come from backgrounds of trauma and addiction and help them to heal through prayer. And I found it very powerful for me. SPEAKER B Nice. I guess it gives you an edge in reaching them in return now that you have the understanding of Christ and what he can do to save us, rescue us and fulfil our deepest heart's desires. In the midst of that, he really. SPEAKER A Showed me what true love is, what true, true love is that I've never experienced in the world, in my journeys, in my experiences. SPEAKER B Wow. SPEAKER A It doesn't come from the world. It comes from heaven, doesn't come from the world. And people are seeking it through movies, because movies are fake and it's real, but it's in heaven. It's from Jesus and the Holy Spirit that can come into people and shine that light for a brief moment. Because we're human. We're all human and we're sinners. And it's only through the Holy Spirit that can bring heaven down. SPEAKER B Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Thank you for sharing that, and especially that last point there about how Christ is the only one who can show us true love. And I think that's, from your experience, a real deep lesson for us to be mindful of that the things that we are seeking for are very much what we can find in Christ. And so we would encourage anyone who has been listening today and anyone who's heard your story, Ethel, to be mindful of that. And if you have some of those deep longings that are as yet unfulfilled, to take a step towards Christ, and he will certainly be ready and waiting for you. So we thank you so much for listening to, by the word of their testimony, I am Kaysie Vokurka. And until next time, may God richly bless. SPEAKER A You've been listening to a production of three ABN Australia Radio.