Hello everyone, my name is Simon Zhang or Zhang Rui in Chinese, and today I am getting baptized. While I am only 16, I believe my journey was not short and has forever touched me and brought me closer to God.
My journey began even before I was born. My mother used to learn the Bible at the International Christian Fellowship (ICF) with Grandma Kathy and Grandpa David who are present today. Both of them are pious and faithful Christians. David used to be the leader of ICF. When I was born, Grandma Kathy was the first one outside my family to visit me at the Grey Nuns Hospital, even though I was too little to know at that time. Ever since that, my family always got invited to Kathy and David’s house to celebrate Christmas and Easter every single year. Both my sister and I receive birthday gifts and cards from Kathy and David every year.
When I was a primary school student, I studied at St. Monica and St. Mary school. We studied the Bible, and learnt about God and how much he loves us all. My parents, unbelieving in Christ at the time, still supported my decision in seeking God, which I will always appreciate.
Before COVID-19, I attended Edmonton Christian Community Church(ECCC). I must thank our friends, the Xu family, for bringing me to church initially, they will always be in my heart for introducing me to the house of God. From church, I learned so much about God and eventually came to love God and embrace God in my heart. Every Friday when I attended church I love to read His word and try to embrace the meaning. He has made me a better person without a doubt.
I am thankful for not being baptized at birth, If I were, I couldn’t have made this special choice by myself. These life experiences of mine only bolstered my faith in God and today I have chosen to take the next step in my spiritual journey.
I also want to thank many people for being so supportive during my journey and encouraging me along the way. My parents have been so supportive of me, thank you Grandma Kathy and Grandpa David for introducing our family to Jesus many years ago and keeping us in your prayer always, and the Xu family for bringing me to church. I am also very happy and excited to be baptized with auntie Annie today.
This is my next step in becoming closer to God and I thank you all for being here to witness it.
God has led me through to follow his pathway and has shown me plenty of miracles throughout my school year in terms of academics, financial and life, to get me to the position I’m in right now. God works in magical ways to show his miracles and his presence through holy spirit. Back in British Columbia (BC), I was an avid gamer even though bad. In summer breaks and even my first year of online university, I played game extensively on my desktop computer (PC) (Valorant, MW Warzone), especially on mobile, I played a game called Call of Duty Mobile (CODM). The reason I started playing because in March 2020, my 25,000 subs YouTube channel was hacked, and it took several months to recover. CODM gave me a sense of happiness which video production should have provided. Eventually due to unrelated external factors, I decided to quit YouTube. However, I enjoyed CODM in the few months of playing. I’ve played that game through the majority of my first year. Despite I played games frequently and competitively, it is a source of entertainment, and I still managed above average [maybe high] GPA (3.6) for first year. When class starts, I did play less games on both devices because I knew I had to control myself. Few days into the semester, I realized I need to take 5 courses instead of 4 for pharmacy requirement. I’ve only taken 4 courses in first year, and that is at home online. The transition from 4 courses to 5 is a big jump, and I decided I would stop playing games on PC. A week into Edmonton, I got a job; and they want me to work 40 hours on my first week. Realizing that, I decided to not play anything mobile or PC games for that week. The 43 hours of work and 5 courses are too much for me, I find myself struggling in class. For the second week, I asked for 15 hours of work, and they agreed, but I still struggle to catchup.
When class starts, I did play less games on both devices because I knew I had to control myself. Few days into the semester, I realized I need to take 5 courses instead of 4 for pharmacy requirement. I’ve only taken 4 courses in first year, and that is at home online. The transition from 4 courses to 5 is a big jump, and I decided I would stop playing games on PC. A week into Edmonton, I got a job; and they want me to work 40 hours on my first week. Realizing that, I decided to not play anything mobile or PC games for that week. The 43 hours of work and 5 courses are too much for me, I find myself struggling in class. For the second week, I asked for 15 hours of work, and they agreed, but I still struggle to catchup.
The way CODM works is that there is a battle pass system where you reach certain tier you get all the in-game rewards, and that is the bare minimum, there are more incentive to play the game for rewards. In BC, I would have the time to finish the battle pass and a lot more tasks. But not with the current condition here, I still want to get the rewards. So, I devised a way to play the game in the background and touch my screen every minute to prevent me from kicked out of the game. This way I could watch lectures and level up my game without playing the game. This seemed like a great plan as I could multitask, but I’m not sure if God liked that. He didn’t.
On the second week of work, I only had 15 hours compared to 43 last week, but I have to catch up on what I missed last week, I need to watch a lot of recorded videos, which gives a perfect opportunity to play the game in the background. I have a reliable income, not so busy work, and managing school and games, I thought it’s going to be a great year; at work, one of the managers said I was doing a great job. On a Saturday, I left the game in background and played extensively, while went through a lot of missed lecture materials, I don’t feel like anything is wrong next day.
The following Sunday, when I woke up, I saw the message that I got terminated at work, for no reason, no explanation, randomly out of nowhere. Then everything started to fall apart after that. To be clear, the reason that I got terminated is because of God’s plan, to put it in human’s analytical perspective, it’s completely bullshit, no reasons why, no warnings, everything was going well and then it occurred out of nowhere. A reasonable human being would not come to a conclusion at all, but with God, it is his plan, and his plan is always righteous, and I believe it is best for me.
I did not make that connection between gaming and termination (because it’s unrelated). So, I continued doing this during the weekends. The following week, my Organic Chemistry lab started. Every Friday, I was supposed to write a post-lab report that is due at 12 at noon. Since I don’t have a job, I played video games in the background on Friday morning while reviewing lectures. Then, I forgot about the due date and thought it was due at midnight, I missed the deadline.
Tragedy struck after I played games in the background, twice. I knew it was suspicious, but I still couldn’t make the connection. Thus, I played games the following Saturday as well. I knew I had an exam coming up. Cell Biology (CELL 201) is a difficult course with heavy concepts to learn, I have not done any studying apart from watching professor’s lecture and time is approaching fast.
During Sunday, September 26th, the CELL 201 discord group decided to have a call and do the review problems. I joined that call, it lasted for about an hour. I did not understand a single thing people said. I’m definitely not ready to take the exam. Knowing that I have a lot of studying in the upcoming days, I decided to pray on my bed, I started praying and suddenly it struck me. I can feel the holy spirit, this is not my normal response to stress. It started with me praying on the bed, then I find myself kneeling on the floor, praying to God. Desperately talking to him to “repent my sins” of gaming in the background and realizing my 40 hours/week work has drastically crippled my academics. Although I don’t think gaming has crippled my academic as working, I knew gaming in the background is not pleasing to God. Even though I’m not playing the game directly, God still doesn’t want me to multitask and affect my academics. As said in statistics, correlation does not imply causation, these 2 tragedies are not directly linked to gaming, but it happened at the right time, like a sign from God. From that moment forward, I realized God has been telling me this the whole time and I need to stop gaming directly or indirectly. I prayed on the ground relentlessly to God to forgive my sins for working 40 hours/week and gaming.
After that prayer, I made the decision not to engage in any kind of gaming, regardless of device or method, and focus on studying. I knew I had to cover a lot of stuff, so I vacuumed my floor after playing, I found a piece that I’ve been looking for since I moved to Edmonton, in short, the thing is tiny, and it is damaged in transport. It’s like God’s temptation for me, but I rejected, I put it back and never touched it again. Suddenly, all the urge for me to play games has been gone, completely, it seems like a miracle to me that I would get off that game this easily.
For the rest of Sunday, Monday, and a little bit of Tuesday, I studied relentlessly to cover all the concepts, by the time of exam, I can solve the difficult practice problems that I did not understand before. The studying, assisted by God, has made me understand the cell biology concept in a deeper level. Thanks to God’s forgiveness, I managed to get 88% on the exam. It was better than what I expected. It is miraculous to me that on Sunday I knew nothing, and in such short period of time I was able to study and excel on the exam. Meanwhile, completely stop playing a game that I enjoyed for over a year. Just like that, when God says he doesn’t like it, it will be gone. Within a week, I unfollowed all the news, videos and friends related to that game to prevent me getting hyped from it; then it’s like the game never happened in my life.
It is God’s miracle and his signs that made drastic changes in me. The 2 tragedies occurred at the right time for me realize God does not please multitasking and gaming. And my repentance caused by holy spirit caused God to forgive my sins and allowed to excel on the exam in short period of times. After that incident, I vowed to God I would not play any games during weekdays, and it slowly turned to everyday. Right now, for more than 2 months, I have not touched a single game, mobile or PC in any ways.
God has a perfect plan for me, and everyone. The reason I was terminated from PresoTea is not because of humanly reasons; but God wants me to focus on my study and get the best GPA for Pharmacy, and not wanting me to work for a company that participate in illegal and suspicious practices. The reason why I’m struggling in school is not because I’m stupid, but God wants me to challenge myself and push harder, or to re-evaluate my study methods. The reason why I don’t have desired marks is because he wants me to realize I don’t pay attention to details, so I would be more cautious on bigger assignments. The story happened at CELL 201 exam, and quitting games is nothing short of a miracle.
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