My name is Aurora Caparas, I was born in the Philippines to a family with a strong Catholic background. We learned religion during our elementary school years. We were taught about heaven and hell, so I strived to always be good, because I wanted heaven as my eternal destiny. I believed in God and so I was always striving to be close to Him. I thought that if I said the rosary and did what was right in the sight of man, it would accelerate me to heaven. God who is an all-knowing God saw my heart and began drawing me to Himself.
One time while on my way to school I read a flyer inside a passenger’s jeep which said, “Have you been born again?” I was puzzled, it became a deep question in my heart. I wondered how can you be born again when you are bigger than your mother’s womb? My desire was to know God however, so I went to mass every Sunday.
I worked and studied at the same time. One night, as I listened to a radio program, I heard the song “I Will Carry You.” The song said, “There is no problem too big that God cannot solve it.” This song touched my heart, it was the first time a song ministered to my soul. It was my earnest desire to be a part of that radio station, especially when I heard them praying for different families. After that, God began to move speedily in my life. Someone invited me to a Bible study in our office, I joined immediately, they were Baptist. One person gave me a Bible and I read the book of John. I could feel God strongly talking to me in His Word. That was the turning point of my life.
I was hungry for the Lord and wanted to know more about God, to experience a deeper relationship with Him. The Lord Jesus began to reveal Himself to me in dreams. In one of my dreams I saw a big, tall man wearing a white robe holding a book in His hand, He was in front of me while there was a countless number of people behind me. This man went ahead of me and entered into a narrow gate only wide enough for one person to pass. As I followed Him, He led me into a narrow path, a good path, but after a while it was a dark road and I could no longer see Him anymore. However, I kept on walking because I longed to see Him again and eventually, I came to a very beautiful, bright, and joyful place.
After a few weeks, I became a leader of one of the ministries in the church. Then I was transferred to another ministry called, Cell Outreach Ministry. I was the overseer and after two years the ministry became the most fruitful outreach in the church. After this I got the heaviest trial of my life, my husband was kidnapped and murdered. I was left with the responsibility of our three children and experienced many trials. I praise God though who didn’t leave me alone, but caused me to rise in victory and faith! Hallelujah!
It has long been my desire to have deeper training, I have earnestly wanted to know more about our Lord Jesus. I tried to enroll in a Bible school but the tuition fee was too much for me as I have a menial job with a minimum salary. I believe CLI is my answer from God to this deep longing. I was so excited when I heard about it that I enrolled immediately. I have volunteered for many years to serve God in His kingdom. I have also been involved in the mission field. My desire is to plant a church and to be mightily used by God all the rest of my life.
I thank all the gifted teachers here who have a willing heart to train disciples and leaders to fulfill the great commission. Recently, the Lord Jesus gave me another dream about His second coming: I was in a very big building crowded with people when someone called me to come out. So I came out and followed him. When we got to a place not very far from that huge building, he told me, “All prophesies must be fulfilled,” then he pointed towards heaven and told me to look up. When I looked up to the sky, I saw very bright clouds which began to open and then I saw Jesus coming down. The Lord gave me a verse in Rev. 1:7 “Behold, He cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see Him, and they also which pierced Him: and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of Him. Even so, Amen.” and Luke 21:36 “Watch ye therefore, and pray always, that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of man”.
I greet you all in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ the Son of the living God. My name is Alfred Macala and I’m from South Africa in a town called Kroonstad, it’s a medium size community with very cool people who know and love God. I am married to Sibongile Sylvia Macala and feel blessed by God to have such a lovely wife.
I was brought up in the Methodist church by my parents. As I grew up I joined the Methodist Young Men’s Guild, and there I was taught to read the Bible and how to spread the word of God to the young people of the church. As time went by the desire to do this started burning in my heart and I wanted to do more, but the laws of the church would not allow me to express myself whenever I wanted to and with those I felt wanted to know more about God, so eventually I left the church and never became a believer.
Then later I made the decision to join another church because I believed that it wasn’t good to live without the word of God, but as time went by I felt the same thing I felt previously, I wanted to tell people about Jesus the Son of the living God, but I was not allowed to do it. There you couldn’t say anything unless you were a preacher in the church, and to be a preacher you had to be ordained by the founder of the church. Though I thought that it was the gospel of God they were preaching, as time went by, I realized there was no God in their preaching.
Thanks to Jesus, I was introduced through my wife to a church that taught me how to be born again and in 2011, I accepted Jesus as my Lord and Savior. It was there I finally realized how to be a Christian, how to live according to God’s will, and how to utilize the Bible as your weapon, your guide in life, and to listen to the word of God. In this church I feel the power of the Holy Spirit within me and I feel like this is where I was supposed to have been from the beginning.
Now I feel the need for more training, so I went online seeking help, and that is where I came across CLI’s website. I hope and trust that CLI will be able to help me so that I can pursue what the Lord Jesus wants me to do before His return. I believe that with CLI, I will be able to study no matter where I am living, and I also appreciate that their courses are very clear and understandable. I don’t know what all of us would do if we didn’t have CLI classes available to us online.
I send my gratitude to CLI.
My name is Theresa Dillard and I live in the United States. In the U.S. we can speak freely about the God that we worship. We are free to minister to those hurting and in need of the hope and love that only Jesus can provide.
I have known God for 20+ years now, but at the time never really knew what it meant to have a personal relationship with him. It has been just over the past 4 years that I have really known what it means to have that personal relationship with Christ. I have grown in my maturity as a child of God and really want to serve the Lord.
My ministry dream is to help those family members and friends who have people they know who are incarcerated in jails and prisons around the U.S. I feel that being an evangelist would fit me. I love to interact with people and not only talk about Jesus, but to bring hope to those who are hurting.
I can’t say that there has been any one particular event in my life that has prompted me to pursue my ministry dream. I believe that over the last 20 years God has been preparing me for this. I find that every time I get to talk to someone about my ministry dream I also hear that either they have a loved one incarcerated or know someone who is incarcerated. I have been discussing this with my pastor at church as well as other believers and everyone believes that this would be a good ministry for me to start.
A scholarship to CLI would be very helpful for me because I have knowledge in business and may other types of instruction that the world would like for people to have, but I want more instruction on what God wants for my life. Combining a good Bible based church and more instruction through the Bible will offer me a deeper look into what God wants for me and teach me how to be a better disciple for Him.
I would ask that you pray that while I am taking these classes the God shows me how to bring this ministry into the lives of those who really need to hear the good word of God and the love that only Jesus can provide for what they feel they are missing in their lives.