About

Early childhood

My name is Cristiano Alexandre de Almeida Sequeira. My friends call me just Cris. I was born in the town of Lamego, in Northern Portugal, on September 29, 1989.

My parents came from humble backgrounds, large families, and spent most of their lives in a village called Resende, not far from my place of birth. Many of my relatives still live there.

Weeks or months after I was born, our family moved to the region of the Algarve. My father had worked in construction since he was a teenager and sought employment there.

In 1992, my first sister was born.

Sometime between 1994 and 1995, I attended a kindergarten in the town of Lagoa called Colmeia. It was here that my parents decided to settle down. Lagoa is the town I consider my home.

Germany

Around that time, my father traveled to Munich, Germany to find better employment opportunities. My mother, my sister, and I, joined him in 1995.

Between then and 1996, I attended a kindergarten in Munich, called Kinderhaus St. Benedict. It was located in the same building as a Portuguese Catholic mission, where my parents were able to befriend people who helped them to get off the ground in Germany.

Soon, I was old enough to start going to primary school. My family moved to an apartment near one that was called Torquato-Tasso Grundschule. This is where we stayed until we left Germany in 2000.

On Christmas Day, 1997, when I was just eight-years-old, my parents gave me a gift that profoundly impacted my life: a Nintendo 64 home video game console.

I quickly became addicted to the new toy and spent all free time that I had entertaining myself with it. My parents came to waste a lot of money on new games and accessories. It also became my default tool for socialization, as I was the only child in my class who owned that console. I would often bring my classmates home with me for all of us to play together. Furthermore, my anxiety to play, and the frustration I felt whenever I couldn’t progress in a game, led me to develop a habit of severe stuttering (which I was only able to learn how to control at around age 15). My stuttering and my agreeable personality made me a prime target for bullying all the way up to 12th grade.

My parents eventually decided to return to Portugal. My father didn’t enjoy living and working in Munich, and my mother was afraid that I would lose touch with my roots altogether. In fact, according to her, I asked her one time to stop taking me to Portugal for vacation (something we had done at least once a year). She had been worrying about this matter for a while. She even had me enrolled into a Portuguese language school for immigrant children, which I attended once a week.

Then, in 2000, my brother was born while we were still living in Munich, before we moved back to Portugal in the summer.

Early teenage years

That September I enrolled in a new school for 5th grade onwards. It was called Escola do Ensino Básico dos 2º e 3º Ciclos Jacinto Correia de Lagoa. I stayed in that town for more than a decade. This where I experienced the events that marked me the most in my conscious life.

Due to being a foreigner, and also simply, again, because of my agreeable personality, I had experienced some bullying and discrimination from my classmates and teachers in Germany. My experience in Portugal however, was, ironically, a lot worse. At ages 10 and 11, some of my peers were already involved in smoking, drinking, crime, and the night life. Many were sexually active. Most came from broken homes. I stood out on day one, and until I entered high school, I was bullied almost daily. Verbal humiliation was the norm. Fights occurred often. The teachers couldn’t do anything nor did they care. The simple reason, was that I was different from all the other boys. I did not enjoy conflict, I wasn’t aggressive nor competitive (and hated sports), I didn’t enjoy the same entertainment (I was still addicted to my “childish” Nintendo games), I generally behaved in class, and mostly obeyed my parents (in matters of curfew and similar). My habit of stuttering didn’t help. And unlike most other teenage boys, I never got to have a girlfriend during my time in school. There was no way for me to fit in.

Then it got worse: I somehow managed to convince my parents that I needed a computer to work on my assignments with. Soon, they bought me one and made the mistake of setting it up in my bedroom, and getting it connected to the Internet. It didn’t take long before I also got addicted to online gaming and pornography.

All of these experiences pushed me further into anxiety and depression, which, along with my suicidal thoughts, defined my teenage years.

But the Lord was preparing a way out for me…

In 2002, my last sibling, another sister, was born.

Sometime between then and 2003, my parents were going through some personal crises.

Until maybe 2005 (or maybe even longer), my father was still traveling back and forth to Germany for work. He would visit us every few months. My mother was taking care of their four children all by herself. Those were difficult times for us.

To protect my parents’ privacy, I will skip the story of how the Lord, through various providential circumstances, led both, separately, to accept the truth of the Bible as understood by the Seventh-day Adventist church. My parents joined the denomination sometime in late 2003, began to keep the Sabbath, adopted many changes to their lifestyles, and were now awaiting the second Advent of Jesus Christ to redeem His faithful followers.

Sometime in 2004, our whole family started attending a Seventh-day Adventist church which, ironically, had existed in our town for many years (some of the members even knew me since I was a child).

Conversion

I too came to believe the Word. My outlook on life improved significantly, though I hadn’t completely gained a victory over anxiety and depression. My addictions persisted, and it wasn’t until it was time for me to enter college that I experienced my own conversion.

It used to be that in Portugal, once you enter 10th grade, you must choose what course you attend for high school (which lasts until 12th grade). The local high school, Escola Secundária Padre António Martins de Oliveira de Lagoa, used to have a computer sciences course. Like many, I entered it thinking that I would enjoy school more if most of my classes were spent sitting in front of a computer. That course ended up narrowing down my options for college later. I spent those three years basically playing games and learning next to nothing.

Again, in my time in Portugal, once you finish 12th grade, you may apply to up to six universities/colleges. You compete for vacancies against other applicants (in a system that is 100% digitized). First, you average out all the grades of all the subjects that you took in all three years of high school. Then, you take a national exam in a subject of your choice (depending on what degree in higher education you want to pursue, most STEM fields requiring a math exam, for example). You then take your high school average, and your national exam score, and average them out. That final average is the score that you compete with. Vacancies are filled in order from highest to lowest, though, at times, preference is given to students who live near the institutions that they’re applying to.

Back then, I just stumbled through life, not weighing the consequences of my choices. I got into my first choice, which was the Instituto Politécnico de Tomar, located way up North (some five or six hours away by bus from my hometown).

I quit after just two weeks. I had never had to take care of myself, let alone study at the same time. My mother managed to find a room for me to stay in, but my roommates were “different” from me. I was also completely unprepared for college, so I was learning absolutely nothing. I somehow managed to convince my parents to allow me to quit…

Things got worse, again. Back in 2007, I had developed a pilonidal cyst. It basically is some kind of growth that appears near your tailbone, and is often the result of an extremely sedentary lifestyle (such as the one practiced by someone who is addicted to sitting in front of the computer/TV). It gets inflamed, then bursts, releases a ton of disgusting pus, then takes forever to heal back up, and the cycle repeats. There is no cure. It can go away for long period or keep coming back. In my case, it has persisted to this day and, at times, caused me insufferable pain.

Usually, people get these cysts surgically removed. I learned later though experts—and also by experience—that that’s the worst thing that you can do. The first time I had a surgery like that was in late 2007 or early 2008. I had to lay in bed for a few weeks while the incision healed back up. I couldn’t sit. I had to either stand or lay flat, including at school (though as a neat trade-off—for me at the time—I could skip PE).

However, just weeks after I quit college, the cyst reappeared. I had another surgery, which left that area of my body permanently scared and deformed. For the next two months, I had to lay flat again.

So, not only had I quit college, but I couldn’t even get out of the house. I was depressed like I had never been in my life. I didn’t know what I was going to do after I recovered, and I was dead afraid of the future.

At that time I somehow stumbled on a seminar called A Guerra dos 5 Sentidos (“The War of the 5 Senses”). It was presented in April 2008 at a Seventh-day Adventist church in Hortolândia, Brazil. The speaker though, was actually a Portuguese citizen. His name is Daniel Spencer.

I can’t remember what exactly drew me to listen to these sermons, but I was enthralled. I shed actual tears. During that seminar, brother (now pastor) Daniel spoke about how the devil is steering people away from salvation through wordily television programs, movies, and music. I wasn’t too concerned about those things, but I clearly saw the parallels between them and video games and pornography, and how my addiction had been hindering me from reaching my true potential, and—more importantly—from developing a deeper connection with God.

It was at that moment, sometime in late November/early December 2008, that I experienced a conversion. I began at once to push video games and pornography out of my life. Sometime later I also listened to a seminar called Life at its Best, presented by a gentleman named Walter Veith. After watching it I decided to adopt a vegan diet—which I’ve maintained to this day.

Finally, in January 2009, while I was pondering about what to do with my life, I had an experience, where I thought I had literally heard God talking to me, saying that I should dedicate myself to full time ministry by becoming a pastor. I talked to the pastor of my local church, and the process was set in motion…

Call to service

In September 2009, now almost 20 years old, I started what they called a “pre-internship.” Back then, the Portuguese Union of Seventh-day Adventists, used to have this program through which they would train and select new people to send out to a Seventh-day Adventist seminary, to become pastors after they finish their education. For that purpose, six young people (four boys and two girls, from different parts of Portugal), including me, who had expressed to the Union an interest in becoming pastors, were gathered together in the town of Moita, not far from Lisbon.

For one year, we, separated into two groups, would essentially work as pastors’ assistants. We literally drove around with a pastor every single day, participating in whatever it was that he was busy with: Be it Bible studies, evangelistic campaigns, church administration, etc. We were also given certain assignments, and had to attend some “classes”, led by different pastors, on various subjects. We also received a monthly stipend.

Looking back, I could have taken better advantage of that opportunity, but my inexperience and immaturity blinded me to that. However, regardless of the many things that went wrong, I still greatly enjoyed that period of my life. Not only was I surrounded by brethren of the faith (which made living away from home and taking care of myself a lot more tolerable), but I also did many things that felt truly meaningful.

I made many friends during that time, some of which I have kept in touch with ever since.

I also developed my passion for cooking by experimenting in the kitchen almost every other day.

At the end of that year-long period, we were expected to travel abroad and study theology at a Seventh-day Adventist seminary. Four out of us did go, but I wasn’t one of them. I basically chickened out. I think I may have had flashbacks from college. Everyone around me spent that year convincing me that I needed to go to France to study theology. It just so happens that a big chunk of all Portuguese pastors got their degrees from there, but it seemed a thing of impossibility for me. It was too far and too expensive.

Instead, I applied to computer sciences in Portugal again, this time, to the University of the Algarve.

Somehow, everything was suddenly working out in my favor. Not only did I just make it in with my terrible average, but my mother also managed to find me a room, in a house, literally across the entrance to the campus. To make it even easier for me, by pure chance, my roommates were a young Brazilian couple of Seventh-day Adventists. You cannot make this up. Someone wanted me to be there. For what reason, I will never know, because I ended up quitting after the first semester.

This time, I actually made an effort, but it was in vain. No amount of hours studying could make up for the fact that I basically was years behind in math. I needed it for all my subjects. I hoped to pass at at least one them, but I failed all. I got discouraged, and quit again. Once more, despite my parents’ bitter disappointment, they allowed me to quit.

Some time later, in early 2011, I got a job, working at a water slide park called Slide & Splash, which was literally located five minutes away by bike from where I lived. That year, between 2010 and 2011, I couldn’t have lived a more bohemian life if I wanted to. I went to work, got back home, and spent all my spare time either having fun with friends from church, playing Minecraft (my addiction at that time), or watching pornography. Nothing else was on my mind. I had no goals beyond finding another job at the end of the season. I had nothing to worry about, little to no bills to pay, and just tried to push the voice of the Holy Spirit out of my mind, but the Lord wouldn’t give up on me so easily.

The pastor at my church at that time was a gentleman named Daniel Gouveia. As far as I know, he used to lead a youth outreach program called IMPACTO in Portugal, which was held every August at a different city for about two weeks. Up to 100 young people from all the country would apply to participate. During the first week, several groups would be formed and materials would be prepared. Plans would be made. During the second week, we would then spend the evenings going out into town and present our programs to the locals, which included entertainment for children, free massages, health checks, Bible studies, and many other things. It would all then culminate with a choir on the last night and a public appeal by one of the pastors present.

I was not interested in attending that event. I would have had to quit my job to participate. Considering that I was making good money, it seemed like a ridiculous idea. My friends at church really wanted to go though, and I was easily swayed by them. Our pastor was also convinced that it would be a good experience for us, and since he happened to be at the head of the thing, he managed to smuggle us into it just days before the beginning of the event and long after the application period had expired.

I was honestly not quite sure if I was doing the right thing. I had a feeling though, that this would somehow become a chance for me to turn my life around and reconvert.

It turned out to be an unforgettable experience. It’s always great to labor for souls among God’s people. Also, since I was away from home and from everything that pulled me down, I was able to reestablish a connection with God. I searched Him for answers about my future. One day, early in the morning, as the sun was rising. I was reading Job. Before I opened the Bible, I prayed to God to reveal to me if I should attempt to become a pastor once more. As I opened up on chapter 42 (I had been reading the Bible from cover to cover for several months), my eyes fell on the following verse:

“Then Job answered the Lord, and said, I know that thou canst do every thing, and that no thought can be withholden from thee.”

As I finished reading that text, I heard a voice, almost as if someone was audibly speaking to me (and similar to what I had felt back in 2009), telling me something in the lines of, “I will accomplish it for you.”

I understood that God was telling me that He would open the way up before me to bring His purpose for my life to pass. More specifically, I thought at that time that He was calling me to be a pastor.

Indeed, it just so happened that three students from the Seventh-day Adventist theological seminary in Collonges-sous-Salève, France, were there as well. I talked with them and they agreed to pick me up at the airport in Geneva Switzerland (the school is not far from the border) and drive me up to the campus.

At the youth event, I began a relationship with a girl I had maintained a long-distance friendship with since we met at my home church around 2005. She convinced me to buy the flight ticket in faith, which I happened to have enough money for, since I had been working those months before.

Later, when I returned home, I relayed my plans to my parents, who were not too happy to see me leave on another reckless adventure, but were hoping that, at least, I would get a degree in higher education in something. God parted the Red Sea for me once more…

Theology

My experience at the Seventh-day Adventist theological seminary in Collonges-sous-Salève, France, just a few minutes off the border with Switzerland, was a mixed bag.

As a growing experience, it was great. Just being away from home, in a different environment, surrounded by a different culture and language, meeting and befriending new people, working with my local church in various outreach activities, while also living near the beautiful, mountainous landscapes of that region, expanded my horizons like nothing else up to that point in my life.

I was already fluent in Portuguese, German, and learned English as a teenager, but now, because the school was run in French, I added that language to my repertoire (pun intended). In fact, I didn’t make it into the Batchelor’s program in theology right away. Starting in September 2011, because my French was too limited, I was asked to take their French course for one semester. It was pretty good. Not only did I learn how to speak French, but I actually learned how to write it properly. It wasn’t too difficult for me, since I had already had French as a second language in school for a total of five, non-consecutive years.

That period was a difficult one for me though. Initially, my new (and first) girlfriend asked me to keep our relationship secret from her mother. Immediately when she told me that I knew that it wouldn’t end well. That didn’t prevent me from becoming infatuated to the point of obsession (which is somewhat normal for a first relationship). Her mother inevitably found out, a big scandal ensued, and my girlfriend broke up with me. For the next few months, she proceeded to give me mixed signals, which further added to my misery. This experience taught me the importance of going no contact after a bad breakup.

In the spring semester of 2012, I then formally entered the Bachelor’s program in theology.

2012 was an amazing year in my life.

One thing I look back to with longing from that year is the amount of opportunities that I had to do public speaking, either through sermons or lectures. For example, I was given three opportunities to speak at my local church, the Adventist Fellowship Geneva. In early 2012, I also met a Portuguese pastor named Paulo Cordeiro, who, after we had a discussion about video game addiction, invited me to preach on the topic at his church in Aveiro, Portugal, in late October that year. That would be the first of a total of four seminars that I presented, at four different churches, between then and mid-2013 (the others being Queluz, Cascais, and Caldas da Rainha). I also spoke on a different subject at the church of Sertã. It was an exciting time for me. I felt that I had finally accomplished a dream. It was ironical, that a kid, who had been socially awkward and a stutterer, was now speaking to large audiences. The Lord was blessing me in ways that I had not anticipated.

I also finally pushed back on my addiction to pornography. That year, I read a book written by an ex-pornstar named Shelley Lubben (now, unfortunately, deceased) entitled The Truth About the Fantasy of Porn. Ironically, learning about the reality of the unspeakable misery and suffering that every person (especially women) who do pornography and prostitution for a living go through, is what actually helped me to defeat that addiction. I did not want to support that industry any longer.

The part that was less pleasant for me was the actually studying. Most of the subjects were either uninteresting to me, seemed unimportant and unnecessary (for soul-winning work), or were too intellectual/philosophical/theoretical. It felt like I was a student at a regular university rather than a disciple following Jesus and learning from His example. I was often told by my teachers (in passing) that I was training and studying “to become a theologian.” I did not like that idea. In spite of this, and on top of the fact that I had never been a good student anywhere, I had surprisingly good grades in some subjects.

In fact, at a certain point during my experience there, I remember that my morning devotionals had turned into futile exercises in excessive exegesis: I had several Bibles in front of me, commentaries, digital resources, and other tools and materials. I would read a ton of everything, except the Bible. I would analyze every single word in the Scriptures to dust, until I thought I had grasped everything that there is to know about it. Put simply, I had become “educated.”

Yet, I was actually not being prepared to take on the fearful responsibility of leading God’s people. With every new subject I took, my simplicity died a little more. Jesus once stated that, “Except we be converted, and become as little children, we shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 18:3.) Children acquire practical knowledge and apply it. They don’t waste as much of their time theorizing about its supposed hidden meanings.

I also have to add that the $14,000 to $15,000 in aggregate that went into that degree every year placed a heavy financial burden on my parents. I contributed with about a third from my own work, but I was disappointed that it cost so much money to prepare laborers for God.

My fate was not to become a pastor, and so, in December 2013, I quit studying theology at the seminary, after completing two and a half years there. I made that choice for two reasons: First, I was dissatisfied with what I was being taught at the school. It was not what I had expected, nor had wanted to learn. Second, in late 2012, I started a relationship with a girl from Portugal. It was a long-distance relationship, and we decided that I would move in with her and her family after I quit.

Wildwood

That last decision turned out to be a regrettable mistake. Living under the same roof while being unmarried was a sin that could have cost us our eternal future. About one and a half years into what was a very intense relationship, I also realized that our goals in life were considerably different. I felt used, abused, and depressed beyond redemption. We were already engaged, but about eight weeks short of the wedding day, I ended the relationship. Our entire experience (which I won’t go into details about to protect my ex-girlfriend’s privacy, and that of her family) left me traumatized and it took me more than a year to fully recover from it.

Within that year I had two more relationships, both very short-lived (less than two months) but worthy of mention. While this time around, I could more easily discern the lack of spiritual qualities in the girls I pursued, I was still too weak to resist lust. I did love both, no doubt, as I had loved the two first girls I’d been with before. However, those two last relationships were very much founded on sensual infatuation. The lesson I learned from these two experiences is that, if principle makes the parties incompatible, and if the attraction has no spiritual foundation, then it’s dangerous to even as much as talk to the subject of one’s interest. Flirting can quickly morph into an intimate relationship without one even noticing. I ended up unintentional and needlessly breaking two girl’s hearts.

In May 2014, I found myself back at my parents’ home. One day, while praying about what I should do next, an audible voice akin to the one that talked to me years before, suggested that I become a student at the Wildwood Center for Health Evangelism, a medical-missionary school located in Georgia, USA.

It was at the theology seminar that, one day, a colleague came to me and asked me to translate his application for Wildwood into English for him. Through that person, I was made aware of the institute, and also of medical-missionary work, the kind of work that all Seventh-day Adventists are to take a part in to spread the three angels messages (as revealed by God to Ellen White). I decided then that I would look into Wildwood after I get my degree in theology, but I ended up putting that plan into action a lot sooner than I had anticipated.

Through several miracles—too many to list here—I applied for Wildwood, got accepted, got a visa, got a flight ticket, and landed on the United States of America, in December of 2014.

My experience at Wildwood contrasted wildly (pun intended) with that at the seminary. Honestly, if the perfect opportunity presented itself for me to move back there (or to the United States in general), long-term, I would jump on it without hesitation.

The only thing it had in common with the seminary was the beautiful, quiet, and clean environment, out in nature, far from large cities. On top of that, I met some of the nicest, most sincere Christians ever there, many of which became close friends that I have kept in touch with ever since! Not only through the densely-packed, six months-long course in Health Evangelism did I learn one thousand times more about missionary work than in all years since I joined the Seventh-day Adventist church combined, but also outside of it, as an assistant in the student cafeteria with my former boss Kevin Lee, during the many outreach activities, being mentored by amazing men such as Pr. Wilbur Paul Atwood and brother Luther Yates Keith, as a member of the Student Association, a regular participant in the chapel’s youth-led choir, in the churches that we ministered to in our area, and so many other wonderful things that I was able to be a part of there, did I grow as a man, expand my horizons in terms of my potential for usefulness in the gospel work, and experienced a re-conversion and a renewed and deepened relationship with my God.

Wildwood also changed my life in another meaningful way: I met my wife Katrina there. On Monday, June 15, 2015, I saw her for the first time as she entered the student cafeteria. As I looked at her, again, I felt a voice telling me that she was “the one.” While I don’t recommend to anyone choosing a life partner based on voices that one hears in their head, Katrina turned out to be the greatest blessing God has bestowed upon me to this day. Our friendship grew quickly, but we were kindly asked to abide by the institutes’ rules and not start a relationship before we had both finished the Health Evangelism course (which was an inconceivably difficult challenge for me, though not so much for her).

Both of us entered Wildwood as “work-scholarship” students, meaning that, in the first half-year we spent there, we worked on campus to pay off our tuition (which was peanuts in comparison the seminary). The next half-year we then formally entered the Health Evangelism course (which taught us thousands of times more in a tenth of the time that it takes to get a degree in theology). My wife arrived in June 2015, about half-a-year after I did, so I finished the course in December, and she finished hers in June, 2016. Our courtship was officially approved by the executive committee and formally announced on the campus newsletter, after the which I finally asked her to become my girlfriend on May 16, 2016. We have been together ever since.

I got accepted into one of the two advanced courses that Wildwood offers, and so, while I was never able to continue the course, I was able to extend my stay for another half a year. Through a generous friend, God worked a miracle to provide the money necessary for Katrina and I to extend our visas, and get flight tickets back to Europe. On June 19, we left the United States of America and flew to Riga, Latvia, where I met my wife’s family for the first time. We also spent two weeks in Portugal after that, where my wife was able to meet my family. This last trip was also funded by our friend (who had also, in the spring of 2016, taken me on a trip to a different state, just for fun). Years later we were able to save the money to pay him back, but he refused. We’ll never forget his kindness.

Missionary travels

We got an opportunity to do useful work right away, helping at the first ever LIGHT school in the Baltics, which took place between July and August 2016. It was a wonderful experience for us to work together and to help teach two dozens of young people everything that we had learned at Wildwood.

Not knowing what to do next, we prayed and contacted several different Seventh-day Adventist, self-supporting, missionary institutions in Europe, among which was “Our Home”, in Novi Obikhody, in the Vinnytsia oblast of Ukraine. We were accepted as volunteer workers there for the duration of our visa-free stay (90 days). I taught English to their missionary students, while my wife worked in the physical therapy department of the lifestyle center. We often look back at the many wonderful experiences that God gave us there which drew us closer to each other, such as, for example, the habit we started of reading the Bible together every morning, which took us four and a half years to finish.

One day, while taking our digestive walk after lunch, we came across a litter of kittens, probably between one and two months old, shivering out in the winter cold. Apparently it was common for people to abandon kittens around the property of the institution. We managed to find homes for two of them and kept one female. We named her Punktiņa, Latvian for “little dot”, because of the little black dot on her forehead, in contrast to the rest of her snow-white fur. For two weeks we kept her, feeding her, playing with her, taking her out to do her necessities. She was very affectionate and cute. But unfortunately, the administrators of the institution decided to take the kittens to the nearest city, so as to not increase the cat population on the property (there were already a few stray cats around). We don’t know what became of her. It was a heartbreaking experience for us.

One good experience I like to recall from that time was the amazing, home-grown food that was served in their staff cafeteria there. Truly the best food I have ever eaten.

Finally, we also had a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to meat Dr. Neil Allen Nedley, author of a book that have made a profound impact on my life: The Lost Art of Thinking. He lead a two-week long mental health seminar there in September that year, which we attended and were also able to later purchase as audio recordings. All these materials helped both, my wife and I, to make important reforms in our lives that have helped us to grow and mature, make great strides in learning to control our depression and anxiety, and also develop a closer, more trusting relationship with God.

After our time there ended, we returned to Latvia. I was able to rent a room in the house of a lady who is a member of the central Seventh-day Adventist Church in Riga and also a dentist, who had kindly fixed me a tooth that summer. I stayed there until the day of my wedding.

Late in 2016, I also began working for Dabas Stacija, a health food business run by Seventh-day Adventists, which operates a store in the center of Riga, and also owns some space at a warehouse near the Imanta borough of the city, from which it serves its wholesale clients. My wife started working as a babysitter. I had formally proposed to Katrina in Ukraine, on September 16, so we were now getting ready for the big day on June 25, 2017, two years after we met.

The Lord did outstanding miracles through the kindness of many friends to give us an unforgettable wedding day. Everything went without a hitch. Around 100 people were present and we enjoyed every minute of that day and our honeymoon out on the beautiful and green Latvian countryside.

Two weeks before our wedding though, I received a message from a friend who had been my roommate at Wildwood, asking if I was still interested in doing missionary work in Japan.

Shortly after I had arrived at Wildwood, I realized that there were opportunities for missionaries wanting to labor in Japan. It had been a childhood dream of mine to visit Japan—for all the wrong reasons—but now I had a good one.

Katrina and I made a video call with the leaders of a small missionary institution located in the Gunma prefecture, on the foot of Mount Akagi. We were accepted as workers there and flew to Japan in September 2017.

My wife and I consider our experience in Japan a sort of extended honeymoon. We literally only had each other there to rely on. We miss it very much. We made many new friends there, saw God working miracles, and did meaningful work. Our responsibilities were mostly linked to a small bakery that the institution operated. We worked there four days a week to prepare healthy bread and other baked goods (really) early in the morning, and then load them onto a car to drive into the city of Maebashi and sell them to many different stores. I loved absolutely everything about that job: It was manual, it involved food, I could do it in an orderly and routinely fashion, I was supporting our financial independence (and that of the institution), I got opportunities to go out into the city and talk to the locals, and we were in Japan! We experienced so many amazing (and often unusual) things there! It was almost like we were living in a dream.

My wife and I were blessed by the many wonderful people that we met in Japan, mostly from the small Seventh-day Adventist church that we attended. Some of the members were our coworkers. They were very nice to us. During our time there, we saw God’s hand work in mighty ways to add two additional members to that church’s family.

One lady, searching for answers about God and the meaning of life on the Internet, found a Japanese media ministry run by Seventh-day Adventists. She then searched for a Seventh-day Adventist church in her area, which happened to be ours. She got baptized within months of joining us. It was a rainy day and God parted the clouds to reveal the sunshine after the pastor made a prayer. It was a spectacular event.

This experience was also a good illustration of how God works in countries where talking openly about Christianity and the Bible to people might be illegal or frowned upon. Japan is the latter. Aggressive methods of outreach rarely work. Befriending people for long periods of time, and tending to their needs through medical-missionary work, as exemplified by Jesus Christ, is the only method with any chance of success. Yet God will often lead the Japanese into the church on their own, because little outreach is or can be safely done.

So, our efforts at the bakery bore one fruit. One day, literally out the blue, a gentleman knocked on our door wanting to know more about the bakery. He had been enjoying our products for some time and got curious about how we manufactured them. He ended up staying with us for a week and later joined our church.

Another noteworthy event during that period, was my wife’s laparoscopy (a type of surgery, and her second one at the time). My wife has severe endometriosis, which developed cysts on her ovaries over the years. We tried to get her pregnant while we were in Japan, but fruitlessly. The endometriosis had clogged her fallopian tubes, and otherwise made it impossible for her eggs to become fertilized.

For years, my wife had endured excruciating pain due to endometriosis. But for some reason, while we lived in Japan, it almost went away, to the point where, for a few months, she even managed to get off the painkillers. Something about the natural mountain environment, the clean spring water, or our lifestyle habits at the time was making a significant difference. We’ve never been able to replicate that ever since.

But the cyst that developed grew very large in size and had to be removed. By God’s providence, it just so happened that the Gunma University Hospital had a leading expert on endometriosis among their staff. The lady (who was also a surgeon) was very kind and supportive and even helped us to get pregnant. We followed her instructions and by account of all the tests we did, my wife should have become pregnant, 100%… but it didn’t work. We attempted a few more times later, but that experience was so bitter that it dashed all our hopes.

Unfortunately, our days in Japan were also numbered. The leaders decided to focus on the development of a media ministry through the institution, and we were asked if we would like to join that effort. I understood that our goals differed and so it was with a heavy heart that we decided to leave Japan. We had stayed for an entire year.

As God opened the way for us to travel there, through the generous gifts of the friends who attended our wedding, so too when we left, it was the generous patronage of close friends—a couple from the United States—that made it possible for us to safely return back home. The Lord had been leading all the way through.

Latvia

We returned to Latvia in September, 2018. At first, we moved back in with my wife’s parents (where we had spent two months after our wedding). At the end of that year, both of us began working for Dabas Stacija. In the summer of 2019, my wife then found a job working as a physician’s (family doctor’s) assistant at a clinic in Riga. I remained as a worker at the warehouse for Dabas Stacija.

In September 2019 we were finally able to rent our first apartment together, near Uzvaras Parks in the Āgenskalns borough of Riga, and in November that year, we added one new member to our family: A cute little kitten which we named Aiko (in memory of our experience in Japan). Her presence has given us much joy, taught us much about God’s love for His children, and also helped to make our cozy little place feel more alive.

But our life was about to be thrown into a tailspin. In July 2021, my wife and I were infected with COVID-19 and had to rest at home almost the entire month. After we had finally recovered, we were asked to do some blood work. It was then discovered that my wife had developed chronic myelogenous leukemia. Simply put, a certain type of immune system cell in my wife’s body has a chromosomal abnormality in its DNA and replicates indefinitely until it “suffocates” the rest of the cells and other things in her blood, leading to complications that can be fatal.

And so, my wife became a cancer patient. We immediately attempted natural remedies, as we know several people who have successfully fought other types of cancer that way. We hoped and prayed that my wife would be able to do the same so she would not have to submit herself to aggressive chemotherapy, which would likely not work anyway. My wife moved to the countryside, where her brother lives, for a few months, and applied every remedy she could think of. Nothing worked. She was fast approaching the so-called “blast crisis” phase of the disease, at which point recovery may have become impossible.

But praise God, He presented us with an alternative solution: Through an acquaintance, my wife was able to get in touch with a different hematologist who was not keen on using aggressive chemotherapy to treat this type of leukemia. She suggested a drug called Imatinib. It is a drug that was developed by an international team of physicians and scientists in the late 90s, and has since helped many to increase their life expectancy or get rid of leukemia altogether. It’s used in what’s called “targeted therapy”. The drug inhibits certain enzymes that can help to prevent these abnormal immune cells from growing. Thankfully the government sponsored this extremely expensive drug, and it almost immediately began working.

But there was a catch. My wife was taking strong painkillers for her endometriosis. The drug and the painkillers could not be combined. Her health was in fast decline. The church graciously donated 3,000 EUR to my wife for a hysterectomy, to remove her womb, the scar tissue that developed due to endometriosis, and remove a new ovarian cyst. This money, sadly, was what was left over from money that had been donated to help another lady, who had a very rare disease that ultimately killed her. That donation extended my wife’s life. Though it meant that our dream of having children of our own was dead for good, we rejoiced that now my wife was not only beginning to fight leukemia back, but also finally living pain-free.

Some changes were taking place in my life in the meantime. In August 2021, an ad for a job vacancy at the Baltic Union Conference of Seventh-day Adventists was brought to my attention. I applied and became the new office secretary in September. It was a new experience for me, working directly for the church, getting involved in many business and administrative tasks. I had an opportunity to become acquainted with many brethren from Estonia and Lithuania, and even travel to the former. I learned much about the inner works of church administration and explored some skills I always knew I had (communication, organization, events), but had never had the chance to explore before. It was an exciting time.

Just a few weeks after my wife’s surgery in 2022, on April 1, my wife, our cat, and I moved from our previous apartment in Āgenskalns to a different one in the Imanta borough of Riga. This apartment had a few advantages for us: We would pay a flat sum every month for rent (which, at 300 EUR, was quite doable), it was slightly bigger and in much better condition (though still a studio apartment), and the space was divided in such a way that would allow us to use it to host a small group (which we had been wanting to do). (Sometime around this time we also officially moved our membership to Riga’s 3rd church, which was located in Imanta. So now, we could walk to church.) The apartment was located 15 minutes by foot away from the warehouse I used to work at. We helped a young Indian boy who was studying in Latvia to rent out the previous apartment (serving as middlemen between him and the Ukrainian landlord who lives abroad, and occasionally helping him with the bills whenever he needed a bit more time to save money, as he was working and studying simultaneously).

Another advantage of the new apartment is that it was located 15 minutes away by foot from the warehouse I used to work at. And that is what I would eventually return to. As exciting as my new job at the Baltic Union was, I also began to burn out, and decided to quit it, which I did in October 2022. I now earned far less, but had the advantage of not needing to commute to the center of the city, having set working hours, and doing manual labor (which helped me to lose the weight I gained while working at the office).

Once my wife was diagnosed with leukemia, she entered a sick leave, which lasted for a year. She stopped working from July 2021, all the way to September 2022, when she found work with a Latvian organization called CareLat. It’s an agency that assigns assistants to kids, mostly women, mostly children with special needs. My wife has since taken care of children with autism and other conditions, and worked at different kindergartens and schools. My wife really enjoys helping the children and their parents, and finds meaning and purpose in her new work.

Then finally, in January 2023, we began our small group, where every Friday we would study a portion of the book The Great Controversy. It was a new and blissful experience for us. Since we held the group in Latvian (and though at this point, I could already participate and read), my wife lead the spiritual part. I mostly helped with preparing food for the guests. My wife also occasionally played hymns on her ukulele for us to sing along, and I once played a hymn on my ocarina! At its peak, the group had 9 people.

To be continued…