‘Jesus Has Redeemed My Life’

Testimony of Oscar Fernandez, gathered by Tito Placeres,
UBS Program Consultant for South America, and Opportunity 21 Regional Manager

“I felt frightened because of the sinful life I was living,” he says. “I knew that if I worked at the meetings I would be in front of God. I felt my conscience was accusing me.”

BOGOTÁ, Colombia — “Today Jesus has redeemed my life. Many things have changed and other things are still changing.”

This, in summary, is the testimony of Oscar Fernandez. Oscar, whose life for a long time had been dominated by his use of alcohol, marijuana and cocaine, came to the week-long event in Leticia, which was part of the Colombian Bible Society’s (CBS) Opportunity 21 project The Bible: a River of Blessing. (See World Report 356 for a full report.) There his life was transformed.

Violence

Oscar is 31 years old. From the early years of his childhood his father was an alcoholic and consequently home life was characterised by rows and violence, experiences which have stayed with him, in both his conscious and his subconscious memory.

However, in God’s mercy, the Gospel came into his home and changed his parents’ lives. So the young Oscar was able to make a new start with an upbringing on biblical principles.

In his early adolescence he was surrounded by Christian friends, attended church regularly, praised God and behaved like a young evangelist.

When he reached 15 years old, however, he felt he wanted to be ‘different’ and feelings of rebellion began stirring inside him.

“The devil started to affect my life,” he says. “It began through my friends at school. I stopped going to church and then I joined a rock group. By the time I was 18 I had already been in three groups. That meant I had a certain prestige among my friends and I led a dissolute life with lots of parties. I started drinking and found I was having more each day to make myself feel better.”

Heavy drinking was not the end of the story. “I was introduced to marijuana and then cocaine,” he says, “and the amounts I was using increased rapidly until my resistance disappeared and I lost all the moral values I had acquired as a child. My life became very complicated. I became irresponsible about work and ended up losing my job. I also lost the closeness I had with my family and friends.”

Oscar lived in the city of Leticia, in the southernmost tip of Colombia, close to its borders with Brazil and Peru. The city is the base for the CBS project The Bible: a River of Blessing and the organisers, working with the local pastors’ association, needed a technician who could take care of the sound system at a week-long series of meetings they were planning.

Fearful

No Christian could be found to do it, and, so, with some trepidation on the organisers’ part, an enquiry was put to Oscar. Oscar was surprised to be asked and he, too, was a little fearful.

“I felt frightened because of the sinful life I was living,” he says. “I knew that if I worked at the meetings I would be in front of God. I felt my conscience was accusing me. Inside myself I wanted to be free but during the seven nights I worked I was frightened what might happen to me.”

“I was introduced to marijuana and then cocaine, and the amounts I was using increased rapidly until my resistance disappeared and I lost all the moral values I had acquired as a child.”

It was during the last night of the meetings that something happened. “After preaching the Word and calling people to get saved, the preacher looked at me and said, ‘Come up to the stage, Oscar. The Lord Jesus has a word for your life.’ With that Word, the Lord said that he had something great in store for me, but that first I had to change my life. I had to rediscover my relationship with him, because otherwise he was not going to leave me in peace.”

“Later I forgot the words,” says Oscar, “so the Lord started to discipline me with problems in my health, in my job and in my family. I had to accept this treatment from God and accept him as my Lord and Saviour.

“Today, Jesus Christ has redeemed my life. Many things have changed and other things are still changing. I have started to work for the King of Kings and I hope that through my testimony many other people will come to salvation.”

The Amazon River Distribution has completely changed the direction of Oscar’s life. He is no longer ruled by the need for alcohol and drugs. Instead, there is a new strength inside him which he finds to be the “streams of living water” which the Bible speaks of.