Arúmbaro
Memorial

Good morning, my name is Salomón. Some of you know me as Pedro or Samuel's brother. Today I want to share with you some of my testimony. Which in reality is the testimony that Jesus Christ has done in my life and about how sweet it is to trust in Jesus. But I'd like to start out telling you a little bit of what it was like where I grew up. And how it was that I heard the gospel.

My dad is a person who killed someone else in self-defense when he was 16, if I'm not mistaken. And he fled to the United States for one year. Then he came back to Mexico and the day he came back they caught him. He was incarcerated for 10 years. He wouldn't have had to spend so much time in prison but because of his behavior, he ended up spending more time because he had such a bad record. He was involved in drugs and things like that. So he got out when he was around 27 years old. And a few months after he got out, he met my mom a young girl of 17, and they were married a few months later. So they decided to immigrate to the United States, both of them. And it was through that that I had the blessing of being born in the States. But when I was a few months old they brought me back to Mexico. And I grew up in a village called Arumbaro which is around 40 minutes from here. I was raised there for 16 years. Helping my dad in the fields, raising livestock and things like that. You might say I grew up in a Catholic home, my dad would say he's a Catholic; I don't even remember if my mom would accompany us to the Catholic church or not. But what I do remember is two people who came to knock on the door of my house one day, they were Vanbeker's parents--Ivan and Leslie. And they shared the gospel with my mom. At the time my dad was in the States. My mom showed interest, so they started giving her a Bible study. Eventually the whole Clark family started coming and my mom decided to accept Jesus into her heart. At that time I was around 6 or 7 years old. I loved the Clarks to come to our house because they would give us things and I liked that. So I would wait for the days they would come. But something I didn't like one little bit was that my mom started spanking us. I was rebellious, very rebellious. So my mom had to spank me several times a day. And I say this to my own shame, but I will never forget that one day I lifted my hand against my mother. I was on the ground and I lifted my hand so that she would stop hitting me, but I had intentions of, I'm not sure, doing something bad. And I remember I had my hand lifted up like this and I put it down again. Then I was really in for it. It went really bad after that. She spanked me even more. I still remember that I would always watch for the boxes that Priscilla would bring down because I knew there could be spanking sticks in those boxes. And I remember I would take them and hide them. My mom caught me doing that several times and things always went really bad after that.
My rebellion was so great I didn't want to accept discipline in my life. I would say, "It's ok that they give us stuff, I'm fine with that but what I don't want to accept is discipline." But as time went on, my mom would always make us read our Bible and things like that. And I remember I would watch the movie Left Behind, where the rapture would happen. And I would hear people talking about the end of the world being near. Now that worried me a lot. I knew it was real because the Bible talked about it. But I didn't want to make a change in my life. I didn't want to say goodbye to my friends; goodbye to my Catholic relatives. I wanted to please them. But my need became so great for a Savior finally said, "I can't keep on anymore." Then I remember once I was hearing some people say, "Hey, the world's about to end." I went to my house and I was sincere with my mom and told her, "I can't keep on living this way, knowing that I'm going to be left behind and not knowing what's going to happen if I die today. I don't know what's going to happen to me." My mom told me that I didn't need to continue on this way. That I could have an assurance of my salvation through Jesus Christ. That He had already paid for my sins on the cross. And that it was a gift of God, and all I had to do was simply receive it, to believe in Him and through faith I would be saved. I remember telling her, "I don't know how to do that." So she helped me, and I remember that that night I was crying so much from joy and excitement over knowing that I no longer had to worry about whether I was going to be left behind or what would happen to me. I knew that I was a child of God through Jesus Christ, and that now I didn't have to worry about that.

And I remember the thing that made me wonder what about what would happen when I died, was something that happened a few months before with my dad. He was drunk, and was at a little store not far from our house and around midnight my mom called me and said "we need to go and find your dad and see why he hasn't gotten back yet." So we went. He was drinking and he told me, "I'll give you a beer." and I told him, "No, I'm not going to drink." And my mom told him, "You're not going to make him drink if he doesn't want to." Dad got so mad he went in front of us, and as we were going into our house there was my dad in front with a rifle saying, "You're not coming in here." So we said "Okay we aren't going in, it's okay." We went for some family members and they calmed him down. But I asked myself the question, 'What if I had died at that instant. What if my dad, not being in his five senses had fired, and ended my life.' I didn't have my confidence in Jesus. We don't know the day we're going to die but one thing I know now, is that I know where I'm going the day I die.

I would also like to tell you a little bit about how my life was afterwards and where the Lord has me now. It was definitely not easy, friends always influence you very much. I wanted to be a testimony to them but many times I discovered that it's necessary to separate ourselves from them if they are going to influence us more than we will influence them. It's the same with family members. Many of them would criticize me. When you place your faith in Christ you're encouraged, but then discouragements and temptations come. I was not always victorious, for sure I had my falls. I grew up more focused on work than anything else. When I was 15 years old, Sammy's age, I had two jobs which were, cutting tomatoes and cucumbers. So I was always carrying heavy crates. So I would do one thing in the morning one thing in the afternoon. That only lasted a few months, because I was abusing my body so badly I got a hernia. I had to have an emergency operation, I went through several months where I couldn't do anything. After that my dad told me "You can't stay here, you have to go to the States to study or do something. The work here is too hard for you."

So he sent me to California to live with one of my uncles who was Catholic. I remember when I got there I told my Uncle about my faith. He rejected it immediately and told me, "While you're under my roof you're not allowed to go to church." One day he went into my room not knowing I was there and he wanted to hide my Bible. The first year, however was an encouragement, because I was so lonely I would seek the Lord's company. Another thing that was a blessing was that my uncle wouldn't allow me to be with bad influences. The second year changed though, because they put my uncle in jail so I had more freedom. I began to drive, I made friends, things were going so well for me in my job that I would say "Wow, I'm used to this now." (Because before I had wanted to go back to Mexico). But now I thought 'no this is where my life is, my job, my school.' It's amazing how the Lord can use anyone. He used my dad to tell me, "You have to come back to Mexico, and if you want to finish high school you have to go to Arkansas to live with the Perssons." My answer at that moment was, "No! I'm fine here with my job, my school and I don't want to go." My dad said 'okay' that day but the next day he bought my ticket and told me "your flight back to Mexico is in 2 weeks. Take it or leave it."
It made me think a lot. I knew my relationship with the Lord was not doing well because I knew I was being pulled more by my friends than I was pulling them. I knew I needed to attend church so I said "Okay I'll obey you." I came back to Mexico and was here for 2 or 3 days before driving with the Perssons to Arkansas. I didn't know them, I didn't know English very well and in reality I had never talked to any of them I had heard of them but I didn't know them. My mom had known them for years. I knew they had the fear of the Lord. That decision taken by my dad which afterwards became my own decision, I think has been one of the biggest decisions full of blessings in my life after having trusted in Christ. For those of you who don't know the Persson family, it is amazing really how the Lord has used them in my life. It's amazing how close I am to them now. When I need to make a decision in my life I will ask Uncle Nate and Aunt Lisa for their counsel because I know the wisdom that they have and I know that they love me as a son. Literally they treat me without distinction as a son. But if you ask Gracie, she'll say they treat me better than they treat their own children. But that's not true. But it has been amazing how they have influenced me to take a year to go to Jackson Hole for Bible college which definitely changed my life. Something that I'm so grateful for, is Uncle Nate's example. As he was saying last night he is a hard worker but his focus is not to work hard to be rich, his focus is to work so that he can serve others and be a blessing to others. So the Lord has blessed me hugely with great examples not only in him but also in his brothers and I know it was nothing I deserved nor was salvation anything I deserved nor being in their lives. But the Lord has been totally good through Jesus Christ. I have become His child and He has never let me go since then.

Now just to end I want to encourage those who already know Jesus to seek those examples to follow. We know that Jesus should be our primary example, He should always be our focus. But I think they're also mature people in church who will help us grow spiritually and give us good counsel. My encouragement for those who have not trusted in Christ, is that I would like to ask you what is detaining you? What is it that's keeping you from giving your life to the Lord. He promises to open the door to everyone who calls and He will give living water of eternal life. That would be the best decision you could make in your life. He calls us today; don't leave it for tomorrow because we don't know if we'll be here or not.