Chinese Baptist Church of New Orleans 新奥尔良华人浸信会 - 紐奧良華人浸信會
Wednesday, February 23, 2022
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Baptism Testimony: July 2009 Testimony of the Newly Baptized
July 26, 2009
Jesus Will Always Be With Me Leslie Sito Guan
Becoming A True Christian Richard Tang
The Most Important Favor of My Life Yasong Wang
 My name is Leslie Sito Guan. I am here today to be baptized. I dedicate this day to God. Now I am willing to lay down my life for God as he did for me with His amazing grace. Baptism means everything to me because it means that I can be reborn again through the forgiveness of sin by Jesus’ sacrifice for me.
Before I accepted Jesus as my personal savior and made the decision to be baptized, I doubted whether I was truly saved or if Jesus would ever live in my heart. Many times, instead of reading my Bible every night, I chose to watch television. Sinning was an easy way to satisfy my desires, but it made me lose my faith in Jesus. But as I place myself before Jesus, I learn that everything I do will affect me. I can choose my actions but I will be responsible for the consequences. Thanks to Jesus, all the sins I have done in the past mean nothing to me anymore—Jesus has forgiven all my sins. However, I may still walk in the valley of darkness in this world. But now I am a strong Christian who realizes that God is light. I am so blessed that God called me here today to be baptized. I took the two crucial steps to success in life—become a Christian and be baptized. We are all blessed to be able to gather here today in our Father’s house to worship and hear the words of God. My old life is now behind me, and today I begin my new life in Jesus. No matter what I do, wherever I am, Jesus will always be in my heart.  Jordan River
Growing up in a Christian family, I was very familiar with Jesus when I was very little. However, I could have cared less who he was and what he did for mankind at that time. As I became older, I learned from Sunday school that he was sent by God the Father to die on the cross for us. Little did I know how much this single fact would change my entire life.
Ever since my childhood, I have been going to church frequently. In fact, I went so often that going to church felt like a chore—becoming more and more loathsome, less and less meaningful. Most of the time, the only reason I went to church was because my parents forced me. Despite my regular church attendance, my life felt empty—something was missing. In addition to this emptiness, I also felt that I was separated from God, straying far off of God’s path for me. Trying to fill this emptiness inside, I look to fill my mind with more secular items, which only made it worse. Nothing could get rid of the gaping hole in my soul. Rapidly losing my faith, I went to church less and less until I stopped completely.
Last summer, I found out that our church received a new English pastor. Having met him at tennis camp before, the new pastor, Christoph Bajewski, seemed like a great person. At that time, I had no idea that he would be the instrument of God that led me to stand before you today, delivering my testimony after baptism. I decided during the summer that I would return to church to listen to Christoph preach. I connected well with Christoph’s sermons well and realized my past disobedience to God. Learning more and more about Christ, I decided it was time for me to be baptized. Ready to be saved, I planned to do exactly as stated in Acts 22:16: “Now why delay? Get up and have yourself baptized and your sins washed away, calling upon his name.”
Now that I have entrusted my life to Christ, I can shout to the world that “I am not ashamed to be a part of God’s family.” With God watching over me, my faith matures every single day. Although living a true Christian life may not be an easy path, I know that God will bless and guide those who are willing to make great sacrifices for Him. With today’s baptism, I now know that Jesus lives inside me, shielding me from sin with the “armor of God,” as stated in Philippians 4:13: “I can do everything through Him who gives me strength.” To those of you who are still considering baptism: "repent and be baptized every one of you… and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit," (Acts 2:38) as I have done today.
In conclusion, I would like to give my personal thanks to pastor Christoph, my parents, and all those who have supported me in my spiritual conversion. Finally I have been given a new life to fulfill my only purpose in life—to glorify God and show His love to the world.
 Sea of Galilee
Becoming A True Christian
by Richard Tang
I have come before you all today to share my personal testimony and story behind my decision to accept today's baptism.
Born on April 8, 1992, I was baptized several days later according to the Catholic tradition of infant baptism. From then on, "church" played only a minor part in my life. For the six years that I lived in Hawaii, "church" was the daycare that my parents left me during preschool. After preschool, we ceased to attend church altogether. When we moved to California, church turned into "the party place". My family and I went to our Chinese church during Easter, Summer time, Christmas, and New Years. Those were good, fun times, albeit for the wrong reasons. But I eagerly looked forward to Friday night fellowship at Aunt Jing Feng's house. My parents would sing hymns and talk late into the night in Chinese, while my brother and I watched television with three other kids who were invariably there. Everything changed when we moved to Houston, however. As Sunday school was now on Sunday afternoons, I started attending church regularly; the youth group on Friday nights was an actual fellowship rather than a weekly Cartoon Network marathon. It was at Discovery Camp, hosted by the Houston Chinese Church, that I first accepted Christ and a long road steeped with joy and depression, happiness and sadness, and most importantly the knowledge that I know the one true God. It was several months ago that I realized that I needed to be baptized again in the true fashion described in the Bible. Although I had always thought that my infant baptism was enough, one Sunday morning I heard the pastor say that only those who had been willingly baptized were allowed to partake of the Lord's Supper. I had been taking part of the Lord's Supper for as long as I remembered; even in California, I would drink the grape juice and eat the unleavened bread without hesitation. Now, though, I am ready to be baptized in the name of the Holy Spirit under my own will in order to proclaim my status as a Christian. Thank you.  Zion Gate, Jerusalem
The Most Important Favor of My Life
by Yasong Wang
I was born in Henan Provence, China, and I have been in America for one year now. Both of my parents served in the Chinese army as college professors, which means that they have been Communist Party members for more than 20 years. Born in a family like this, I feel extraordinarily blessed that I could still become a Christian at the age of twenty-one. Thanks to God! Today’s baptism is the best birthday present in my life.
The first Christian I met was my deskmate when I was in eighth grade. I was very surprised when he told me that he was a Christian, so I began to ask all sorts of questions. From him I learned a few basic ideas about the Bible, though he was not able to explain all those big, difficult questions that I asked deliberately. It was six years later when I met another Christian. She was a middle-aged woman who sat next to me on my flight to America. She came originally from Mainland China, and was on a business trip to New Orleans. She turned out to be a nice, caring person. When she gave me a two-hour long speech on Jesus, I listened very attentively. She spoke about a lot of things that I had never heard before, such as the creation of the world and the salvation plan of God, both of which touched my heart dearly. But to be honest, I was not ready to believe completely everything she said because of my educational and cultural background. However, my heart opened and has been yearning for God ever since.
As soon as I settled in New Orleans, I began to go to church on Sundays and UNO Bible study on Fridays with my uncle's family. By the way, my uncle is Wang Zhenjun. During the next couple of months, the words of God have quenched the thirst in my heart like waters from an eternal spring, through Sunday worship at the church and fellowship with other Christians. My trust in our Lord grew rapidly like a fresh sprout, until one day the question of "why I need Jesus" became a solid answer of "why not". So on the evening of February 16, upon returning from Bible study, I shut the door of my room and bowed down on my knees, and prayed that I wished to accept Jesus as my personal savior.
Not long after this, in February, there was a baptism ceremony at the church. At that time I hardly knew anything about the importance of baptism, thinking that everything would be fine as long as I would believe in Jesus. I decided that I did not have to be baptized. But God wouldn't abandon His children in the desert, and He kept calling me. So on our way to the church on that baptism day, I couldn't help whispering to Lucy, my cousin, "do you think I should be baptized?” Surprising she replied, "Have you already accepted Jesus? If so, you should be baptized." But I was still hesitating. Only a few days after, things began to run out of my control. The next thing I knew was that everyone in the church suddenly found out that I was going to be baptized. This is ridiculous since I had not decided to be baptized, but there was this news circulating about my planned baptism. How did everybody hear about this? The answer is obvious—someone must have been telling others. I have never confronted anyone about, but today I like to ask: Was it you, Lucy, who did this? If so, I would like to thank you dearly. You have done to me the greatest favor of my life. I could not have asked for a better cousin in this world.
Later Mrs. Liu told me the significance of baptism. I learned that being baptized is the command of our Lord. So I strengthened my mind to be baptized. Since then God's amazing power began to appear in every part of my life. For example, in the past I would become nervous very easily so that I was unable to sleep well at night. During the past few months, things have changed so much that my friend began to notice a change in my sleeping pattern. He was my roommate. Recently, he went back to China on a plane that took off at 6 O’clock in the morning. The night before he left I told him that "in case I don't wake up tomorrow when you leave, I want to say goodbye to you now.” To my surprise he answered: "Sure, you do that. I know you well enough. And you sleep like a dead pig at night." God has given me to ability to relax and sleep well!
In my path to be baptized and become a true Christian, my uncle, aunt and cousin Lucy have played the most important role. This fulfills the scripture saying, "If one member is saved, the whole family would be saved." The Bible also says, "the kingdom of the God is near!” So those of you who have recently accepted Jesus, please get yourself baptized as soon as possible! Do not wait for your cousin to do you a favor!
 Nazareth
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