Nyawanglel known as (Mary Lul) was baptized together with her mother who is 101 years old and 7 other people on the 11th of December 2021. She had been going to the Presbyterian church since 1962 and held various positions including church planter, Sudan Presbyterian women representative and was ordained as elder in 1994 at the Presbyterian church. Nyawanglel got married in 1974 and her husband joined Seventh-day Adventist church in the same year. Her husband had made many attempts to convince her to join him in Adventist church, but she refused. Mary loved Presbyterian church more than the Adventist Church because she had grown up in that denomination. Mary said, she “loves Presbyterian worship because people made a lot of noises during the worship compared to the Adventist church.”
Despite, her commitment to worship on Sunday, she found a lot of things that troubled her. Struggling with the ideas about baptism and the Sabbath that were presented in the Bible. During the lockdown, when people could no longer attend churches, she stumbled across Gatkuoth Chol Springvale South Sudanese Minister preaching live on Facebook. Although she had no idea about what Adventists believed however, she still followed his preaching. Mary found herself looking at the Bible in a different light. She decided to contact Gatkuoth and have Bible studies with him and other church members. After studying, Daniel, Revelation and Job, books that she had never studied before, she decided to get baptized. Before she was baptized, she called her children, telling them about her decision.
They were overjoyed when they heard the news, as they had been praying for her to become an Adventist for years. After she informed her children, she decided to inform her church leadership, this was met with mixed emotions. Some church members advised her to move to another Sunday church, some told her that she was lost, and some did not believe it was true that she was leaving the church. After the realization set in, some of her former church members were shocked, others felt hatred towards her saying unpleasant words to her and others congratulated her. Mary said, “I always ask God to give me a new heart of forgiveness and show love to those who are against me for my decision, because they haven’t seen what I have seen. Also, I don’t blame them because I used to behave the same way that they did.”
“I really, thank God for my mother’s baptism,” Mary said. “My mother was old and with some health issues, sometimes her breathing becomes low as a signal that her death is near. It was announced on many occasions by a doctor over the years that she would die within a week, two weeks or one month or sometimes we prepared for her funeral. Today we have seen the Mighty Creator God, it’s amazing and a miracle to be alive up to this moment. No one believed or expected that one day she would be baptized, and it as happened. Thank God for His gracious love that He has shown to me and my mother, before both of us has to fall asleep.”
Gatkuoth Chol
