Acts 26:18 – “…to open their eyes, in order to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among those who are sanctified by faith in Me.”
The following is the testimony of Selamawit. G of London, England, of how Almighty God worked in her life by His grace to bring her ‘from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, that [she]…receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among those who are sanctified by faith’ in Lord Yeshua the Messiah, Son of the living God.
Selamawit, roughly how long have you been saved?
I have been saved for over 34 years.
In your own words, what does “saved” mean, and where do you derive your understanding of the Scripture?
‘Saved’ means being saved from eternal death as a sinner by believing in God and repenting. Although many Scriptures helped me understand this, the following Scriptures are those which mainly come to mind:
‘But what does it say? “The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart” (that is, the word of faith which we preach): that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.’ Romans 10:8-9
‘If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.’ 1 John 1:9
‘For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.’ Ephesians 2:8-9
and
‘But God demonstrates his love towards us in that while we were sinners, Christ died for us’. Romans 5:8
Selamawit’s background
Can you share with us about your family background?
I was born to Eritrean parents in what is now known as Eritrea (following independence from Ethiopia in 1991) and in the capital city of Asmara. Both my parents were of the Lutheran denomination of Protestantism, as were my grandparents and great-grandparents, and despite the doctrinal disagreements I came to have with the Lutheran church practices, my parents believed in Lord Jesus Christ. This was particularly true of my mum, who used to pray a lot with us – I remember her crying a lot as she prayed, the times she held us tightly praying fervently, and despite the teachings against it, she also prayed in tongues.
I come from a family of six siblings, two from my father’s second marriage after my mother’s death, and I had a happy but strict upbringing during childhood. As a family, we read the bible, had family devotion times in God every evening, sang worship songs and my siblings and I went to Sunday School regularly. As part of the Lutheran church, the family was taught to follow the Lutheran teachings – for example, aside from the core Christian doctrines, they baptised babies and considered the confirmation ceremony of children of a certain age deemed to understand the faith as being “born-again.” It was clear that despite the confirmation ceremony, some were not born-again! I was therefore baptised as a baby, attended Sunday school, and attended Youth group until I later had to leave the country. By the time of my confirmation ceremony, I had a proper saving knowledge of Lord Yeshua, as explained below. Additionally, the Lutheran Church disapproved of “Pentecostals” and believed the gifts of the Holy Spirit had ceased however as mentioned, my mum had the gift of tongues which she often used in prayer. It was not only our family church but a “family church”. Entire families attended, and it was a tightly woven community of churchgoers, where everyone knew everything about everyone’s business, and people tended to marry within the church community. Among the churchgoers, some were true Christians and secretly belonged to Pentecostal home church groups (explained further below).
My mum died when I was about 11 and my dad, though reluctant, was later persuaded to remarry by the church and wider family for the sake of his children, specifically, my two younger siblings and me. Relatives in Europe wanted to look after us, but my dad didn’t want to let us go. Despite getting on well with my stepmother, I deeply missed my mum, and her death left a space in me that could not be filled by anything until Lord Jesus saved me.
Although my childhood with my family, barring my mum’s death, was happy in our home, the whole country was in the unrest of war, known as the Eritrean War of Independence. At the time, we were under the control of Ethiopia, but Eritrean independence fighters waged war against the Ethiopian government. As my family lived in the city, conditions were slightly better for us, but war is war, and no one was untouched by its devastation. To describe the conditions we lived in is difficult, but this included situations such as school being on and off; not being able or permitted to travel around freely and certainly not without a unique ID for teenagers; the confusion from the propaganda which existed; we (Eritreans) being subjected to searches, including in homes, for anything incriminating; people being found dead on the streets, some of these suspected as spies. I explain a little more below, but this was the context of the first 17 years of my life before fleeing Eritrea and eventually coming to live in the United Kingdom.
Being born and raised in a Christian family, clearly you knew there was a God. What were your childhood thoughts and feelings when you thought about God?
As a young child, I pictured God as a Big Man with a big beard who, if you did anything wrong, would kill you and you would go to hell, but if you did good, you would go to heaven. I had an understanding that God doesn’t like sin and that He is very holy, but I didn’t know anything of His love for us, that it was out of His love through His grace, He saves people. [Ed. e.g. John 3:16 ‘ For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.’] Although I was raised in a Christian home, grew up in a church, and therefore knew what Christ did for us, deep down I was not convinced personal and did not have an understanding of what all this meant for me. I used to think Christianity covers the whole family, i.e., if your parents were Christians, the entire family were also automatically Christians.
Can you remember when you first heard the Gospel? What were you told? What impact did that have on you? Where were you in life at that time?
As outlined above, I first heard the Gospel as a young child. Being raised as I was, it was just something I accepted unthinkingly. I just thought it was what everyone was told, taught, and knew from the Bible – that Jesus died for the whole world. I had no notion however of it being “the gospel”, nor that it was meant to be something personal to me; I just accepted what I was told. It therefore had no impact upon me at that time that I would have been aware of.
When did you become conscious of the Gospel of Lord Yeshua, that Messiah died for your sins, personally?
This was around 11½ when I came to saving faith in Lord Jesus Christ.
Selamawit’s Journey to Faith
What was your journey to saving faith? How did God work in your life to bring you to the light of the saving knowledge and salvation of Lord Yeshua, the Messiah?
As mentioned above, it was around the age of 11 that I gradually became conscious that I needed to accept the message of the Gospel in a personal way. My older sister, who was born again first [Ed. i.e., Spirit-born, see e.g., John 1:12-13; John 3:1-5], would tell me I needed to take the Gospel personally. By then, she had become part of a group of Pentecostal believers who would meet separately outside the Lutheran church community for Christian fellowship in someone’s home. This was very different to what I was used to – for us in the Lutheran church, all activities other than family devotions were done together at the church building. We were not taught to have individual personal beliefs and quiet time with God. I began noticing a change in my older sister; she would pray, and as I watched her, I began to be attracted to a deeper understanding of God. I began to feel that I needed – and wanted – what I saw in her, but I did not know how I could obtain it.
One day, while listening to my sister’s audio cassette gospel songs she brought from the home fellowship, the words grabbed my attention. The words were an invitation to be saved through Jesus Christ, and as the person sang about how we are all lost sinners and need to be born-again to have life, God was speaking to my heart. I began to weep as I continued listening to the Gospel message being sung in this song and was drawn to my knees with uncontrollable crying as the words penetrated my soul. I had believed that because I was born into a Christian family, that I attended church regularly, that my parents prayed together and that we sang worship songs together that this meant I was not a bad person or a sinner. I had believed that this was enough to take me to Heaven. On that day however, as I listened to that song and wept, I came to see that I had been wrong, that I was a sinner, that being religious could not help me, that having Christian parents could not help me and that I needed to be saved. Through that song, as the significance of what God did was made very real to me, I was enabled to heed the Gospel message – to repent and believe upon Lord Jesus Christ. I acknowledged my sinfulness and need to know Lord Jesus personally, and put my trust in His substitutionary atoning sacrificial death and resurrection from the dead from that moment. I made an inward decision to willingly surrender to whatever God wanted me to do in life from then on. I remember someone came into the room just then and was surprised to see me in a state, demanding to know what had happened and why I was crying. Without thinking, I immediately denied I was crying, probably feeling very conscious as a young 11-year-old girl at such a moment. Incidentally, the singer of that song was a believer who had been imprisoned for twenty years for his faith in Lord Jesus, living in Ethiopia, and his songs were indeed gospel songs – they were full of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the message of the Bible to us.
After being saved, I began reading the bible for myself and soon started going with my sister to our cousin’s place nearby, where some Pentecostal believers fellowshipped together in a sort of house church. I recall talking with my cousin about the song, which she also had listened to, and what happened to me as I heard it. She explained the way of salvation further to me, about the conviction of sin, repentance and saving faith in the Lord Jesus when a person is ‘born-again’ by the Spirit of God. I knew that this was what had happened to me, in me and for me. In saving me, God taught me that I have received His gift of salvation that cannot be earned nor is deserved. God loves me forgives me and saves me not because of who I am or what I do but because of the work of Christ. As the bible says, I am saved by grace through faith in Christ Jesus and not by my works (Ephesians 2:8–9). Even though I am a sinner who has done nothing for God, God sent Yeshua, the Messiah, to pay for my sins through His death on the cross.
When did the assurance of salvation come? When did you know you were saved? Can you describe how that felt?
It came immediately after I heard that song, repented and prayed to Lord Jesus. After this, I felt such joy and happiness – a happiness different from anything I had experienced so far in my childhood, which was generally happy. I sensed that I was filled with God and felt I just wanted to go straight to Heaven to be with Lord Jesus there and then. I wanted to tell everyone about Jesus, how He saved me and how they too can be saved. I shared with everyone I could. The assurance of salvation deepened as I saw God change me by His grace through His work in me by His Holy Spirit. Another significant change for me was that after I was saved, the knowledge of God was no longer rooted in being afraid of going to hell but in love for Him as my Father in Heaven, who first loved me.
In your own words, what is repentance and its connection with salvation?
Repentance begins with knowing that you are a sinner and need Someone to save you, to take away your sins. You recognise that your sins can only be taken away by repentance, which is turning away entirely from what you used to do and thinking to turn to God and His way. As mentioned above, I used to think I was not a sinner because I grew up in a Christian family, and this automatically made me a Christian too, but I had to change my mind. I came to see in the light of the truth about Lord Jesus that even to think of myself as not a sinner is a sin! You can be religious but not right with God – a churchgoer but not truly born-again and saved. You change your mind completely from how you think and see yourself to how God sees you, as laid out in the Bible, and as a result, turn from your way (sin) to another life. Its connection to salvation is that repentance is towards God, the Saviour who alone saves and gives you that salvation when you trust in His Son, Lord Jesus.
From Then To Now
Since then, can you share how the Lord Yeshua has worked in your life?
After coming to saving faith in Lord Jesus, regular attendance at the Pentecostal house church group began to present difficulties for me. The group was hidden from public knowledge, and my dad was very strict about me not being allowed out without him, particularly after my mother’s death. With my mum no longer there, my dad feared us being wrongly influenced and led astray, so we were generally not allowed to socialise with others. To go to my cousin’s place, which was close by, I needed to secretly sneak out to go there instead of doing something else, such as playing outside. Gradually I also secretly began to go with my cousin to other fellowship groups which were in the area nearby. It was in my cousin’s house group however that I grew spiritually and was filled with the Holy Spirit.
What I was not happy about though, was having to sneak off to the fellowship group and making excuses to my dad. By nature, my character was a little different from my siblings in that I sometimes voiced my opinions, especially on things I disagreed about. Out of all my siblings, I was likelier to say “no” to things I disagreed with, although I was not a rebellious child. Rebellion in children was not tolerated or something that would have easily entered our minds as children raised in Eritrea – it is not the African way for children raised by African parents in Africa! However, my family and neighbours discovered I was visiting a house group fellowship. I had not shared with my dad that I had been born-again, and although his discovery may have come by following me to a fellowship meeting, I believe the changes he saw in me made it apparent. My peers also noticed the changes and began teasing me and name-calling, especially about me being around the older believers. I noticed the changes also: experiencing more grace and humility; not wanting to argue with other children in the neighbourhood; latent anger from losing my mum was taken away, and the void within left by her death being filled by the Lord and being enabled to listen to my older sister and dad more. I felt the change, and I felt an absolute joy. This change in me was the deepest part of the assurance of the salvation of Lord Jesus – that God saved me. Despite the difficulties in my life then – and now – His joy remained with me.
After my dad’s discovery, there came times of disagreement and conflict between us over my attending the group, and I received many prayers about this from the fellowship. My dad would say, ‘If you want to obey me, don’t go,’ and I would try to explain to him that we – the fellowship group – read the bible, that we were truly Christians, and he would reply, ‘so are we’ (meaning the Lutheran church). As one of the teachers in the Lutheran Church schools, it must have been hugely problematic for him, especially as my older sister had become born-again before me, also attending house church groups. He believed that because he had taught us the bible, we did not need to go outside the Lutheran Church to other church congregations. I’m not sure that I can say he was against the other churches but rather disturbed by some of the teachings, such as believers’ baptism, lively praise and worship and the gifts of the Holy Spirit etc. A large part of his disapproval was also because the Pentecostal fellowships were born out of people coming out of the Lutheran church when they had become born again. Later in my life however, after a lengthy discussion about why I attended other churches as a youngster, I felt he did come to understand my reasons for doing so. He told me that even as a child, I always wanted to know the truth about a matter and would not readily accept something I did not believe to be true.
Life for me generally at that time, as a child, was attending the Lutheran church out of obedience to my dad but also secretly attending the other Christian fellowships where I grew in the faith and knowledge of the Lord Jesus. Being under my dad’s authority, I participated in the youth group and joined in with activities in the Lutheran Church. I could not see any noticeable change in my peers who attended the youth group, and it became clear to me that we did not have the same understanding of the things of God. I felt more comfortable with the believers in the house church fellowship group than when I attended the Lutheran Church with my dad. Everyone in the house group was a born-again Christian, and I sensed more freedom to pray and talk over the Bible’s teachings. At the youth group at the Lutheran Church when asked to pray, I was laughed at by the youth and this made us wonder whether they were indeed believers. I wasn’t sure why they laughed at me; perhaps it was how I prayed, as this differed from their recited prayers which did not seem to be heartfelt. Maybe it was my young age, but I thought they needed Christ but their laughing at me also used to make me cry. Older Lutherans, like my dad, did pray from their heart, but in my peer group, these were essentially prayers they had merely learned from set religious devotional times. There was a born-again youth teacher there however who would teach me by sharing Scriptures and was particularly influential in my growth as a believer. He also attended the same house church fellowship as I did, and I believe there was much reaching out by the house-group fellowship believers to the Lutheran Church.
At 13, I went through confirmation as an act of obedience to my dad. The purpose of confirmation in the Lutheran church, we were told, was to “affirm your faith”. Their practice is to baptise babies and confirm their faith later when they are at an age to understand – although some go through the confirmation process without being truly born again. I praise the Lord that I was genuinely born-again by the time of my confirmation, knowing in my heart what the truth was. After I had come to saving faith in Lord Jesus, I asked why babies were baptised since the Bible says we must believe first and then be baptised. The response was in the form of a question, ‘What if the babies die?’ Those baptised babies, they taught, are allowed to confirm their baptism through confession of faith in the confirmation ceremony. They did, however, teach that you cannot be baptised twice – so if you come to true saving faith later, you cannot have a believer’s baptism. Therefore, I could not be baptised as a believer until later, after leaving Eritrea.
As I continued reading the Bible, it was being made personal to me, and God enabled me to take it in. It was no longer “the Bible” as it had been to me at Sunday school, where we received Scripture verses to learn; it became as it truly is – the word of God – and it became personal. The Lord also brought fellowship to me at times. Even though as children we were not allowed to sleep over at friends’ homes, those approved by my dad were sometimes allowed to sleep over at our home. One of my friends, who was also born-again, was allowed to stay, and I remember how we secretly prayed together when everyone was asleep.
As mentioned above, the broader context of my life in Eritrea was marked by challenges and difficulties because of the war, which continued until I was forced to leave Eritrea. In my younger years, Ethiopia and Eritrea were one country – no country was known as Eritrea until around 1991/2 when Eritrea gained independence and became a separate nation. The war between both ethnicities had existed before my birth and continued even after I left Eritrea. At the time, Ethiopia was ruled by a communist government, so there was no absolute religious freedom to speak openly about God. What we see happening in China is exactly what used to happen in Ethiopia when I was a child. The later Eritrean government was also communist. I remember times the government publicly declared that there was no God and that Marxism/Leninism was to be followed, esteemed, and even taught in public life, including education. Many believed that the leaders in Ethiopia were under the influence of Russia, who supported Ethiopia against Eritrea then. The only churches allowed were Catholic, Ethiopian Orthodox and Lutheran churches. Today, believers in Jesus Christ are persecuted in Eritrea, particularly born-again Christians. [Ed. For further information on this, please visit the websites of Christian ministries to the Persecuted Church, such as Open Door (https://www.opendoorsuk.org/), Barnabas Aid (https://www.barnabasaid.org/gb/), Voice of the Martyrs (https://www.persecution.com/)].
This greatly impacted Eritrean Christians, making it difficult to get regular fellowship with born-again believers. It also made having consistent discipleship where strong Biblical Christian foundations could be laid down difficult, especially for those not raised in Christian homes. This made it easier for questionable doctrines to incubate within groups and give rise, in some cases, to a weak understanding of the will of God for those who are His.
I was 17 years old when I was persuaded by siblings who had already left for Europe and other relatives living there to leave Eritrea to join them. Around this time, the war was intense as Eritreans had taken over the area’s government, now known as Eritrea, and many people were being killed. At that time, the Ethiopian President fled to Zimbabwe, and the country with no leadership was in chaos, causing people to be scattered to escape the hazardous situation. When the government’s leader fled the country, the entire government completely collapsed, and the Eritrean rebels took over the city and everything. I would say that it was not I or my family who decided I needed to leave Eritrea, but rather, to a large degree, it was the danger to life because of the war which chose for me.
Everyone wanted to escape, including my dad, but he chose to stay with my step-mum and youngest sibling. Despite the chaos and danger, I was unhappy about leaving my family, home, and familiar though troubled country. One of my sisters had left to go to Addis Ababa to continue her education, living with a relative away from the troubles of our region but I did not want to go there, and neither did my dad. As stated, it was not a personal decision to leave Eritrea – it was a matter of life and death. One example of this is that on one occasion, during a particularly intense period of fighting, a bomb hit our home and badly damaged it. On that day, I had gone out to get an ID card as the aim was to go to Addis Ababa to visit a relative, and it was as I returned home that the bomb struck. Many people died – I was thrown about a hundred meters away by the force of the blast to “safety” but the neighbour, who was also a friend and had been with me, was killed. My dad and step-mum, who were home at the time, survived. I was so distraught and could not work out how the blast could have separated my neighbour and me, blowing me away but killing her instantly. This was one of my last memories of Eritrea before I had to leave.
At that time, there was a window of opportunity to leave the Eritrean region for Addis Ababa and, from there, flee the country. Thankfully, I made it safely to Ethiopia, staying with a relative for a few months while the arrangements to leave were processed, and I took the plane to safety.
I initially stayed with relatives in Holland, but I wanted to go back to Eritrea, to my dad and family – Holland was so very different to what I knew. It was difficult for me to settle, especially spiritually. It was a case however of having to go to whichever of the relatives could accommodate you, and about six months later, my younger sister and I came to settle with other relatives in London, England.
One of the first things I wanted to do was to find a church fellowship, so my cousin took me to visit an Ethiopian Pentecostal congregation. As Ethiopian was a second language taught during my school years, I could follow what was being said for the most part and found it to be a good church. I remained until there was a split and ended up going with the splinter group, which formed a new church fellowship, mainly because they spoke in my mother tongue. Being new to the country, this felt important to me. By this time, I was 18 and living in a hostel due to overcrowding at my aunt’s home. I could continue with my education, being able to read and write English due to the excellent education from my dad, who taught English and Maths. As I progressed from college to university, my confidence in speaking English grew, and I got on quite well with my university education.
During this time, I continued attending the Eritrean church fellowship, continuing to grow in the knowledge of the Lord. My flatmate at Uni was also a believer and I sometimes attended church fellowship with her. In my final year of University, I met the man who would become my husband at my home church, and after we married, we settled into married life, attending and serving in the church.
I joined my church choir and began serving in the Sunday School ministry but came to sense the need to grow and have more teaching than was being received at that time. While we would visit the church I had often gone to with my Uni flatmate, it never became our home church. This was probably because our lives as a married couple became busy with us both serving in the church. Although my husband taught in the main services and bible studies, and I taught in the Sunday School, we both felt we needed something more. We were aware of conflicts in the church, and we began seeking the Lord about where to go as we both came to believe we needed to leave. We saw that the church had spiritually weak foundations primarily because those attending came from various doctrinal backgrounds.
This was one of the effects of the Ethiopian-Eritrean war – we were thrown together from differing backgrounds and understandings, and some had picked up the various winds of doctrines in their adopted country. A particularly noticeable difference was those who followed “the prosperity gospel” [Ed. In broad terms, this “gospel” preaches that Jesus wants everyone healthy, wealthy, and happy in their earthly life all the time – a false unbiblical doctrine – and has a distinct lack of teaching the whole counsel of God.] At times, you could see that the true God was not in their thoughts. Without solid foundations, the consequence of being scattered from Eritrea by the effects of war together with the risk of imprisonment for believing in Jesus Christ – however loosely or firmly – was wrong doctrines creeping in. Some who fled West fell prey to forms of “Christianity”, which without the necessary discernment, went undetected as unbiblical. I am very thankful that my upbringing was grounded in the word of God, sound biblical doctrines and being filled with the Holy Spirit at a young age. In our house church fellowship in Eritrea, we spent much time in deep-hearted prayers, sharing the gospel with others and were taught to live for Christ. Sadly, the conflicts in the church arising from some of these things made life very difficult.
We continued seeking the Lord about this for around two years while we were still serving in the church and then when the children came along, we stayed home, having family fellowship times together and listening to sermons online. We eventually started attending a new Ethiopian church fellowship, where we settled well for about six or seven years. Towards the end of our time there, we came across the teachings of the Senior Elder in our present church and subsequently visited the fellowship a couple of times. My husband and I had been praying and seeking the Lord at that time as we had become increasingly disturbed by the direction of the teachings at the Ethiopian church fellowship. In 2016 when we believed that God was leading us to leave, we approached the leadership about this and after they prayed for us we departed peacefully to our present church fellowship.
My husband and I have now been married for 24 years, have two children and continue to seek to serve the Lord Jesus however we can.
Can you tell me about the ministry you serve in now and how you came to know the Lord was calling you into this ministry?
I currently serve in the Sunday School ministry as a Sunday School teacher. Before this, I had been seeking the Lord for any way to serve Him. I was eventually asked to help with the Sunday Schools, and I think this was probably because the church recognised my passion for children to know the Lord. This burns in my heart, particularly for children raised in Christian homes who have turned from the Faith and for the younger generation to know the Lord. I am still thrilled to serve in this ministry and learn by God’s grace as I continue to serve.
What is your heart’s desire for this ministry?
To see children and youth coming to know the Lord Jesus Christ and to pass on the Bible (the true gospel) to them, especially those young children raised in Christian homes.
Within the will of God, do you have any hopes for the future that you can share with us?
I hope to see the next generation of believers serving the Lord Jesus, going beyond my generation – doing better, more wondrous works than us in preaching the true Gospel.
Last words
Can you share one Scripture passage through which the Holy Spirit has really encouraged, strengthened, or instructed you in your walk of faith in Lord Yeshua?
I would like to share Psalm 73:25-26 which says: ‘Whom have I in heaven but You? And there is none upon earth that I desire besides You. My flesh and my heart fail; But God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.
Finally, how can sisters in the faith of our Lord Yeshua the Messiah pray for you?
My heart is filled with the thought of the soon return of the Messiah, and therefore, please pray that I am enabled to give myself entirely to the will of God, to preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ in any way that I can, that my children will know the Lord Jesus Christ and, as the psalmist prays in the above Psalm, that my desire be for God over anything else.
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