Latest / Why I Believe / Bob "BZ" Fabien Zinga: My Name Is Faith, My Name Is Hope

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Bob "BZ" Fabien Zinga: My Name Is Faith, My Name Is Hope · Why I Believe

• 0:01
  Hello and welcome back to Why I Believe.
• 0:03
  I'm your host, Michelle Von Ruden, and today I have Bob BZ Zinga with me.
• 0:08
  How are you today, Bob?
• 0:09
  Great.
• 0:10
  Uh great honor and privilege to be here with you.
• 0:12
  Thank you.
• 0:13
  Yeah, thanks for jumping on and sharing your story with us today.
• 0:16
  Can you just tell us a little bit about yourself before we dive on in?
• 0:20
  Yeah, so I am Bob Fabian Zinga and uh I've been in the Navy for um over twenty one years now, almost twenty-two.
• 0:28
  So I will be retiring very, very soon.
• 0:30
  And throughout my Navy career I've been in both active duty and reserve.
• 0:35
  So my last job as a civilian, I was the chief information security officer for Santa Clara University before I got recalled back to uh active duty a few years back.
• 0:45
  But yeah, and uh also I guess no we have mostly a Christian audience here.
• 0:51
  I have been saved, I've had a personal relationship with Jesus since I was twelve years old.
• 0:57
  And I got called into the ministry when I was about fifteen years old and today I am a local pastor at Redemption Church San Jose.
• 1:05
  So uh glad to be alive.
• 1:08
  Yes, well thank you so much for your military service and your pastoral service.
• 1:11
  Appreciate both of that.
• 1:13
  So now we have to know what happened when you were twelve.
• 1:16
  You can't leave us hanging there, you gotta start somewhere.
• 1:20
  So very long story, but to make it short, basically when I was growing up I I was sick all the time.
• 1:28
  And um it was kind of a mysterious sickness.
• 1:31
  My doctors didn't really know what was wrong with me.
• 1:34
  I had several of them.
• 1:35
  And if you look at my teeth closely, you're gonna see all of my teeth are yellow.
• 1:39
  Uh not white.
• 1:40
  That's because I they gave me so many um antibiotic it dis dis discolored my teeth.
• 1:45
  And
• 1:47
  Many, many times growing up my parents told me I almost died so many times.
• 1:51
  But now some of your uh members of your audience may not believe in this, but I was I'm originally from Africa, point north, uh Republic of the Congo in Central Africa.
• 2:04
  Uh and uh I believe it was witchcraft.
• 2:07
  Again, some people don't believe in in demons and all all of that, but in in Africa we we definitely do.
• 2:13
  Uh make a very, very long story short, I
• 2:17
  I had an older brother.
• 2:18
  His name was just like me, Bob, but his middle name was Aime, in French, which means love.
• 2:23
  Bob Aime Zinga.
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  He was born uh two years before I was, and he died as a baby, as a as a child.
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  I I don't re I don't re remember him.
• 2:34
  I have I've never met him.
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  But then I was the next the next one born.
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  So my my mother was extremely happy when I was born.
• 2:41
  So she called me Bob Fabian.
• 2:43
  My other middle name, I have two middle names is Mino, which
• 2:47
  In Larry it means hope, it means faith.
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  So she was having faith and hope in a God she didn't even know and she was hoping that he would let me at least grow up to become an adult.
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  That that's why she she she called me that.
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  I I I was her her hope.
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  But then again, I was very, very sick.
• 3:04
  It looks like my sickness was similar to my uh older brother, which uh
• 3:09
  whom I never met, but um in anyway, it was very, very strange, very mist mysterious.
• 3:16
  My parents believe witchcraft and jealousy was all behind it.
• 3:19
  But anyway, when I was a a kid, uh my doctors told me that I would never live to grow beyond 17 years old.
• 3:29
  They didn't know what was wrong with me, but but they they knew something was terribly wrong and there wasn't very much they could do uh for me.
• 3:37
  And uh
• 3:39
  Then when I was twelve years old, uh I don't know if you guys have heard um full gospel businessman fellowship international.
• 3:48
  I think it started uh in in in the US, but basically it's a bunch of businessmen who believe in Jesus and they have those uh meetings across America and around the world.
• 4:00
  They invite other business people and then they talk about Jesus, right?
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  Not a religion, uh but Jesus, how to have a personal religion.
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  Relationship with with with God through Jesus Christ.
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  So my uh both of my uncle, one of my my uncle, Dr.
• 4:17
  Jeremy Kinkinwani, he was a doctor.
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  ah He went to France to finish his study, and then he went to Gabon, where he had a practice, and then God called him back to the to the to the Congo where I was born.
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  And he was a pastor too.
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  He was a minister as as well.
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  So God called him to the ministry.
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  So he started a church in Pont North, and then he happened to.
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  To be the president of the full Gospel Business Mentorship International, the brand new chapter in Pont North.
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  And then one of my other uncle, Thomas Kinwani, was his vice president.
• 4:49
  So it was uh the local chapter was run by both of my uncles.
• 4:54
  They knew Jesus, they had the relationship with God, and they invited my mom, and my mom brought the entire family to that meeting.
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  And uh while I was there, there was a uh guest preacher, and he just talked about his relationship with the Lord Jesus and
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  my entire family got saved that moment.
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  And then uh what I realized is uh after the the prayer, okay, I knew I I was saved.
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  I felt like a huge burden fall off of my uh back.
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  And uh
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  There was another another thing I forgot to say.
• 5:27
  It's a very, very long, long, long story, but I'm gonna try to try to t to keep it short.
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  Because my mother was desperate, she actually was seeking out because no medi medical science says they couldn't do anything for me.
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  So she actually went to see some witch doctor, voodoo doctor, and all all of those crazy kind of people to try to help me out.
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  And one of the things that they they did, you won't be able to see it clearly, but if you look very closely, you're gonna see some incision on my hand, like that they would take
• 5:52
  blood and mix it with some what whatever.
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  And then they would sacrifice like chicken or s or something.
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  But anyway, that didn't help help me at all.
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  Even at one point my mom told me one of which doctor told her to go to specific place uh on top of a bridge and bring like a bag of money.
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  I think it was almost like a a million francs, maybe about two hundred thousand dollars or something.
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  And then at a specific date, specific time throw it over the uh the the the bridge so that you know the good guard.
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  or karma or whatever would do something for me.
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  But anyway, she lost a lot of money.
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  She did all kinds of crazy things to try to get me here.
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  She didn't want to lose a second child.
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  But anyway, none of that worked.
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  So basically as a teenager, I was forbidden to eat certain things, including chicken.
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  And they said the day I eat chicken I would die on the spot because that's what they used to do their incantation or whatever it is they they were doing.
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  But I was like, no, if any man is free in Christ, he's free indeed.
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  I am free, I am saved, it's not going to hurt me.
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  So I asked my my mom and my my my my auntie, my cousin were around and said, Okay, bring me some chicken.
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  I've never had chicken, I asked that the chicken is pretty good.
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  I I want I want to to have some.
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  And they were really, really scared, they thought something would happen to me, but no, absolutely nothing happened and I've been doing well ever since.
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  And today I am in my late late 40s, almost 50 years old.
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  So really technically, every single day I've lived beyond the age of 17 years old.
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  Like Paul says, no, it's not I that live anymore, but it's Christ who lives in me.
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  uh Every single day I've been alive is because of the Lord, and I live it unto the glory of God.
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  Again, it's a very, very long story.
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  But what I what I wanna say is uh
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  Jesus has given me a second chance at life.
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  That's why nobody will ever, ever be able to uh really change my faith.
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  I cannot be shaken.
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  Regardless of what's happening around me, I know that I know that I know because I've lived it.
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  I haven't just not just read it in my Bible.
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  I don't know, nobody just told me about it, but I have lived through it.
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  It's literally taken me from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of light, or the kingdom of death to the kingdom of life.
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  And I am a living testimony that God is alive.
• 8:07
  Amen.
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  Amen to that.
• 8:09
  Wow, that is quite the story.
• 8:11
  So just to recap this, you're you had an older brother who is also named Bob who passed away at a very young age.
• 8:18
  Your parents your parents then named you Bob and in hopes that you would survive.
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  You got really sick.
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  They tried everything under the sun.
• 8:28
  And it wasn't until your uncles got involved with the International Businessman of Christ that
• 8:36
  They invited them to a meeting and your whole family found Jesus and you were saved and healed and you were able to move forward as a normal child.
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  And the first thing you did was eat chicken.
• 8:47
  uh
• 8:50
  in my family ate chicken except for me.
• 8:52
  But yes.
• 8:54
  that is quite the story.
• 8:56
  That is quite the testimony.
• 8:57
  I gotta say that is um I had chills listening to you talk, Bob.
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  And I think um as a mom, so I have two kids, I have a 15-year-old and I a seven-year-old daughter now, she's seven, and I could understand her desperation, you know, for someone
• 9:15
  to take what 2,000 francs or 200,000 francs and
• 9:19
  throw it over a mountain just in hopes that you get better.
• 9:23
  I mean that's such desperation and man, if they would have only known about Jesus, you know, twelve years prior, right?
• 9:30
  They could have saved a lot of time and effort and money.
• 9:32
  But I must say my family was religious though.
• 9:35
  We did go to Sunday school and all of that, but it was really a religion, no special personal relationship with Jesus at all.
• 9:42
  It was like custom and tradition.
• 9:45
  But uh what happened, it was in uh nineteen ninety, this December third, nineteen ninety, I was twelve years old.
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  What happened there was something completely, completely different.
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  It was having a living relationship with the Jesus of the Bible.
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  No, the preacher says no, what Jesus did is the same yesterday, today and forevermore.
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  Jesus of Nazareth is alive right now.
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  That that was a completely different revelation.
• 10:07
  I I did read the Bible when I was a kid, but it was like you know a book of me for uh nice stories, but that day it became real to me.
• 10:17
  Yeah.
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  And
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  and so you said that you felt the burden lift.
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  Just that all that weight that you're carrying.
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  That's that's so amazing.
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  Because up to that point I really felt like
• 10:30
  Nobody could love me more than my mother, right?
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  And I was uh Pauline, Pauline Zinger.
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  It's like this woman loves me so much.
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  I mean, uh there is no way there's anybody out there who could look love me as much until of course I had this experience with Jesus.
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  And uh it it took me a a while though to uh come to the revelation that God loves me more than my mom, because she's done just so much uh for me.
• 10:54
  I mean, she was willing to sell her house, to sell everything she had to make sure that I had a future.
• 10:58
  That's why when I was seventeen.
• 11:00
  years old that's when i i i came to the to the us she actually came with me and she's like no i just know deliver you into the hand of god you're gonna be in this big country by
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  yourself you already speak the language but at least we had we we knew some some people from from uh that were affiliated to the to the to my uncle's uncle's church an evangelist
• 11:19
  from task alabama came to my church maybe two two years prior so we we we kind of knew them so that became my home church when i came to the us but yeah my my mother was very
• 11:29
  very
• 11:29
  very concerned she came all the way with me and then I had to tell her okay mama I'm good now please go back home but yeah it's it's yes she did she did she she she stayed for
• 11:40
  about a a month but yeah but yeah she because I've I've always been her little baby and and I think she really loved me more than my other sibling she had two other children
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  after afterward but
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  Even my baby brother and sister, when they needed something from my parents, they really wanted them to say yes, they would always go for me because they say mom will never say no
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  to you.
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  So an it should you know parents they love all of the kids the same, supposedly, but I know my mom loves me just a little bit more.
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  So and my brothers and and my sister they differ than you.
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  Yeah, I think it's definitely a different experience when you have a child that's so sick and then they're not, right?
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  were your were your younger brother and sister born with the same affliction?
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  And did you ever figure out what it was that made you so sick?
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  So I had oh a whole bunch of sentence.
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  Looks like I I was hospitalized uh many, many, many times and uh just a bunch of uh hurt and pen.
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  I mean i it it it it it was a lot.
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  I'd I
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  I I don't think my mom ever gave me a specific diagnostic.
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  Just as as an example, she she also t told me I didn't remember this, but I think I was five or six years old.
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  She told me she was so desperate, she even took me to the uh China Chinese.
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  We had to travel, we lived in Pondos, we had to travel to Boisadil, the capital, so they could do acupuncture uh on me uh to try to to help.
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  And then I think something went wrong.
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  I guess one of their needles went the wrong way or something.
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  I was paralyzed for a while where I c I could
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  couldn't even uh walk.
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  Uh but anyway, my my my mom she she she's done all kinds of crazy stuff just trying to get her little boy healthy and uh yeah she if she could move mountain she she definitely would
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  have done so.
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  That that's why there is a verse in the Bible I like so much where uh the Bible says no even a a mother would never never abandon their children but even if a mother did God says
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  I will never
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  abandon you.
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  And that verse really means a lot to me.
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  Based on everything I went through with my mom.
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  That there is this God who loves you so much.
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  He gave his only begotten son so that you might have eternal life.
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  And that is really powerful.
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  It really gives me hope.
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  Yeah, so how did your life change from that moment forward?
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  So obviously you were healthier, you started feeling better, but you said you got into the ministry at 15.
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  That's quite a young age.
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  I was called into the ministry.
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  So um
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  When I was about thirty thirteen years years old, uh I joined my unc my uncle's church.
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  So i it was a brand a brand new church, so he needed a lot of help.
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  And I I knew how to play the piano, which is another story.
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  this is one of my pianos here, but my my father is the one who forced all of his son to learn to play the piano.
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  I was only seven seven years old.
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  At first I was playing just because my dad forced me to, but then I really got into it.
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  First I did no classical music and I was w reading notes and stuff, but then I I
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  I really enjoy playing music.
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  So then I started playing the the piano for my uh uncle.
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  So I I was this minister of uh worship.
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  I was only thirteen years old and then after a while the the band kind of grew within a couple of years there are people to play the bass, the drum, and all of that.
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  So I became a uh the band leader.
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  We started our own brand.
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  We had um actually back then they called them cassette tapes and album, but we produced a couple of those uh our our own songs and and yeah.
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  So
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  I I I was the minister of music, but around that time I was about fifteen years old.
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  That's when the Lord called me into uh ministry.
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  But of course with my youth I I was helping out with a youth group uh as well.
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  Some sometimes I I would preach with them.
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  I still lead music uh for for them.
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  So I was very, very involved in my uncle's church.
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  And that's also when uh when I was about yeah, about fifteen years old, an evangelist from the double portion church in Cascosa, Alabama came to
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  our church to preach for a revival for a couple of weeks.
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  And then when she was done, she said one day uh I came all the way from uh America to the Congo, but the Lord is going to send a plan to take some of you guys back to America where
• 15:58
  I live.
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  And no that became um true when I tr traveled at 17 to come to the US to continue my study.
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  No, the Lord sent me to Tascaloosa, Alabama.
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  So yeah my my my life completely changed.
• 16:11
  I mean it's in our church, Pastor Ace
• 16:14
  was the senior pastor of the church is the one who uh ordained me and uh yeah into the ministry.
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  So what does your walk in faith look like on an everyday basis?
• 16:27
  Well uh actually this morning I I I have my own podcast.
• 16:32
  I I was talk talking to uh Kevin Johnson uh who is a retired DOD ah
• 16:41
  chief of staff, but he's also a pastor and is also a a coach.
• 16:45
  Like like me, we've we've been trained by Dr.
• 16:47
  John C.
• 16:48
  Maxwell.
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  So we're part of the Maxwell uh leadership certification program.
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  But but anyway, one one thing we we talked about this morning was Second Corinthians five, seven, right?
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  ah
• 16:59
  The judge shall live by faith, right?
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  Not by sight.
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  But we walk by faith, not by sight.
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  So I feel like that's really the story of my life.
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  Like like I say, my second middle name, which it really means the most to me, because Bob, my my father's name was Robert, Robert, in French.
• 17:17
  When he went to school in Germany, he got the nickname Bob.
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  So when he came back, my brother, which I I I never knew, Bob, Bob, myself, I am uh Bob and he my father has two other
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  Sons uh from his first marriage, and both of them are called Bob also.
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  So Bob doesn't really mean mean mean much, Bob Robert, he doesn't have meaning.
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  But my mother is the one who called me Minu.
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  And again, she she called me Minu because she had faith in a God, she had hope that I would live.
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  So that that that name really means a lot to me.
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  And when you read in the Old Testament, many times people would get names that have significant meaning.
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  It's not like in America we just name people all kinds of names that doesn't mean anything.
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  So even when
• 17:59
  I go for challenges today, though, I remember who I am.
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  I am Minu.
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  So even if it seems like there is no hope and there is no way, I know there is a God that is going to make a way out of nowhere because my name is Minu, my name is faith, my name
• 18:10
  is hope.
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  So there's got to be a way because faith comes from what you you hear, right?
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  It's the evidence of things not seen.
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  So there is a God who is all powerful, almighty, who can make a way out of nowhere because nothing, absolutely nothing is impossible to him.
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  So to me, that work of faith is really who I am.
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  That's my essence.
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  God will do for me what nobody else can do.
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  So it's really keeping that uh intimate relationship with God.
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  It's about reading the word of God.
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  Now Paul talked about praying without ceasing, but always being aware that the life I am now living is not my own.
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  I am living this life through Christ.
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  So that's really what faith is.
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  It it's it's it's it's really something that is real to me.
• 18:53
  Christ, His presence is more real to me than you are on my screen right now or this table.
• 18:58
  That I see.
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  See, because there is this this other um portion of the scripture where it says no weeping may enjoy for a night, but joy, joy comes in the morning.
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  And also says that God is not a man to lie or a son of man to repent.
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  So whatever God says, it is right then and there.
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  God cannot lie.
• 19:15
  If God says it is nighttime, even if there is a sun right now, that means the sun is going to turn into darkness because he cannot lie.
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  His word cannot fail.
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  And I stand on that word.
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  That is what it means to me to live by faith.
• 19:28
  Mm.
• 19:29
  Yeah, I love that passion.
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  And obviously it's so understandable where it came from, right?
• 19:32
  I mean, people say that I've been healed and you know, I have some of my own healing stories.
• 19:37
  But yeah, I mean it it changes the game.
• 19:40
  It changes everything.
• 19:41
  Um I you mentioned that you're a part of John Maxwell team.
• 19:45
  I just want to let you know I am too.
• 19:46
  I didn't know if you knew that.
• 19:47
  uh So that's uh it's always fun to learn little tidbits about how we connect.
• 19:53
  So
• 19:53
  you didn't know but Dr.
• 19:54
  Maxwell, I knew him when he was a pastor before he became this uh leadership guru.
• 19:59
  He used to pastor a church, I think, in San Diego here in California.
• 20:03
  Yeah, yes, yes, which is pretty, pretty amazing.
• 20:07
  yeah, I met him for the first time.
• 20:08
  I think it was uh two thousand and seven.
• 20:10
  He he came to uh the the church I was a member of in uh Birmingham, uh Church of the Highland.
• 20:17
  That's that's when I I met him for the very first time.
• 20:19
  But I've read his book and I've been back in the day he used to have Castette Teppi would send about.
• 20:23
  lead leadership and stuff but yeah it it was definitely life changing.
• 20:27
  I remember the sermon he preached that day and the the message still resonates with me today but uh it's amazing
• 20:36
  Awesome.
• 20:38
  Well, thank you so much for being here, Bob.
• 20:39
  I have one final question for you.
• 20:41
  What is your favorite Bible verse or what Bible verse are you walking through today?
• 20:45
  I have so many, but one that I really love is uh John 10 10, right?
• 20:50
  Jesus says the faith come but to steal, to kill, and to destroy.
• 20:54
  But it says, I am come that they might have life and that they might have it more abundantly.
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  And that verse literally changed my life.
• 21:03
  that's why I have two daughters, and my second daughter, her name is Zoe, which means life.
• 21:08
  that's that's when I add that revelation.
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  The very life of God is in me.
• 21:13
  As God was alive in Christ, so Christ is alive.
• 21:16
  In me, right here, right now.
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  Greater is it that is in me than he is that is in the world.
• 21:20
  I have the life of God in me.
• 21:22
  That's is that's not the good news.
• 21:23
  I don't know what good news is, but it doesn't matter who you are and what you are going through, there is a God who wants to live his life for you and is going to empower you in
• 21:31
  order to live holy and to follow his precept.
• 21:35
  God loves you so much that uh he came to this world and he gave his life on the cross so that you might have life.
• 21:41
  But I think when no, we call it sal salvation and and this it it is spiritual, and yes.
• 21:45
  That is true, but I think it is also emotional, it can get rid of all of your trauma.
• 21:50
  But I believe it's also physical, he can heal your body, he heals mine, and what he's done for me, he can do for you because he's no respecter of person.
• 21:56
  But even more than that, I believe that salvation also makes sure that you are taken care of, it is also financial because the Lord will provide for all of your needs.
• 22:05
  There is nothing too big for your God.
• 22:08
  My God will provide to all of my needs according to his riches and his glory in Christ Jesus.
• 22:13
  So that salvation, that life of God.
• 22:15
  is the only life you need.
• 22:17
  It takes care of your spirit, your soul, your body, your finances, absolutely every area of your life.
• 22:22
  And that's good news.
• 22:25
  That's great news.
• 22:26
  Well, thank you so much, Bob.
• 22:27
  I appreciate you.
• 22:28
  It's so great to hear your story and I look forward to chatting again soon.
• 22:31
  you.
• 22:32
  Thanks so much, Michelle.