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“…I will not leave you, until I have done that which I have spoken of to you." It is certain that God’s way is not man’s way; neither God’s thought is man’s thought. He makes a way where there seems to be no way. He comes and meets us in unexpected ways. As Jacob is traveling, rushing to his uncle’s house not only to find his bride, but also running away from his brother’s anger; tired and sleeping on the stone, he sees a dream. God told him: “Behold, I am with you, and will keep you, wherever you go, and will bring you again into this land. For I will not leave you, until I have done that which I have spoken of to you" Genesis 28:15. |
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Being an African, educated and trained in Moscow, married to a Russian Jewish lady and today pasturing a messianic congregation in Brooklyn, NY, my testimony is another story of how God does things with a great care and a good sense of humor. I was born in 1969 in a small country in central Africa, just south of the equator- Rwanda. (It is bordered by Uganda on the north, Tanzania on the east, Burundi on the south and on the west by the former Zaire, now the Democratic Republic of Congo). My parents were religious Catholics: crosses everywhere, bunch of saints and prayer books; and all the names they gave to us somehow reflect a relationship with God. For example, my Rwandan name “Ndayishima” means “I thank Him”. After four girls, they were thanking God for a boy He had given to them. I grew up in the Catholic tradition in a loving and well off family. As my father who was a director of a gas company, was a well known man in the region, our house often had many visitors: politicians, businessmen, intellectuals, Catholic priests, relatives and different friends. Since my early age, God placed in my heart a desire to serve Him, and responding to His call I wanted to become a Catholic priest. Helping the priest to conduct the mass as an altar boy, I thought this was a sure path to fulfill my calling. When I was eleven years old, my father died after a long sickness. As my father was struggling for life, the number of our visitors sharply declined. Politicians, rich people and even priests stopped coming to our home. As I was too young to understand all of what was going on, I was as always a happy boy, I still had my personal neighbor friends to play with. But this did not last for a long time.
“When my father and my mother forsake me, then the Lord will take me up”. Psalm 27:10 Three years later, when it was time for me to enter high school, a priest did not allow me to take an exam for a Catholic seminary. This sounded to me like losing the whole dream of my life and my heart was broken. Asking myself “Why?” I finally understood - I was an orphan and no longer presented any interest to anyone. I now saw why my family had lost so many “friends”. I lost my hope, and my faith was destroyed. I thought that there was no God! I convinced myself that if there was God, He would see my sincere desire to serve Him and should allow me to go to the seminary. After attending the mass twice a day for a number of years (in the morning and in the evening), I decided not to visit the Catholic Church anymore. I passed another test to enter a bio-chemistry high school. For all those years, I became anti-God, anti-religion, and anti-mass. In 1988, my closest sister died in her early twenties. I was called from my boarding high school and on my way we were caught in an accident. I could not even burry my beloved sister. This was heart breaking. I did not know what to do. I knew that there is heaven where people can meet after their death and my only chance to see her again was there. But in order to get to heaven, you need to be in a relationship with God while living. And here I found myself guilty of my anti-God anger. I knew there was no way to go back to the Catholic mass but I understood my need for reconciliation with God. I decided to visit a group of Protestants who used to meet in my neighborhood. The very night I came, I repented and received Jesus as my personal Savior and gave my life to God. In 1990, I got a scholarship and was sent to Russia to pursue my degree in Chemistry. In 1992, I learned about an underground church in Moscow and as soon as I came there early in 1993 God prophetically spoke to me saying that He knew me, He had brought me there, and He would teach me, prepare me and send me to another people as His minister. In 1994 I was ordained to serve as an assistant pastor and in 1996 was ordained pastor. Even though in Moscow I had to go through many trials, God was ever faithful to me. For instance, in 1994 when I lost touch with my family and my country was being destroyed by the civil war – the really genocide, God preserved me in Russia and comforted me - I married Yekaterina - a Russian Jewish sister in Jesus. She is now the mother of my two sons and three daughters. In 1999 God led me and my family to the US through immigration. Truly, “the everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, faintest not, neither is weary, there is no searching of his understanding”. God has entrusted to me a ministry in New York City to begin with Brooklyn, where there is the biggest Russian-Jewish community. God is doing great things among people from the ex-communist empire. I believe that God restores hope and builds up whatever evil has destroyed, God puts together whatever the devil has crushed into pieces. For his is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever and ever. Amen Pastor Jan Berkmans |
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