Full-Time Training - Testimonies

The Best Two Years Spent, Maribel Rodriguez

My first quarter at the University of California at Irvine (UCI) my roommate decided that she wanted to be a Christian. So, she joined Christian Students at UCI. She would sometimes have Bible studies in our dorm room so I would listen to them while I studied, sometimes I would join them. Then some of the sisters in the group started to invite us over to dinner so I went along with my friend. A month later we got saved and baptized. I started to feel like they were part of my family. I really enjoyed my time at the Friday night meetings. Eventually, I began to attend the local church meetings on a regular basis. I had an inner sense that I had found my family, a real home. The brothers and sisters had a genuine love for me that I could not explain. There was just something so attractive about them because they expressed Christ.

I began to meet with the local church regularly in college and enjoyed being at all the meetings and enjoying the Lord with all the brothers and sisters. Eventually, I moved into a house full of sisters who loved and pursued after the Lord. They encouraged me to read and study the Bible, especially to spend personal time with the Lord in prayer. They always encouraged me to have a personal, intimate, relationship with the Lord. When I was about to graduate from UCI they began to encourage me to go to the Full-Time Training in Anaheim (FTTA). At the time I had already decided I was going to graduate school. However, in my personal time with the Lord I felt that the Lord was telling me to not go to graduate school but to go to the FTTA. The more I prayed about my future the more I felt I should give the FTTA a chance.

I began the FTTA in the fall of 2000. It was the wisest choice I have ever made. At first I was only going to stay one year but the Lord again lead me to stay for the two year program. I have no regrets coming to the FTTA. These past two years I have gained so much of the Lord. The Lord has opened my eyes to what is at the center of His heart. He wants a corporate expression of Himself, not individual Christians. He wants many sons to express Him together as His Body (1 Corinthians 12:12). So I just praise the Lord for His mercy in bringing me to the FTTA. They have been my best two years spent.

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