Latest / The Becket Cook Show / "I Felt God Embrace Me" Kawe Ferreira Testimony

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"I Felt God Embrace Me" Kawe Ferreira Testimony · The Becket Cook Show

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  Speaker 1: Life Audio.
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  Speaker 2: You are listening to The beck and Cook Show with
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  Speaker 2: your host, Beckett Cook. For more information about Beckett and
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  Speaker 2: his ministry, visit his website at Beckettcook dot com. To
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  Speaker 2: Becket Cook Show. Please consider subscribing to the podcast and
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  Speaker 2: leaving a five star rating.
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  Speaker 3: Hey guys, welcome to the show. Today.
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  Speaker 4: I have a special guest, Kaway Ferreira, and he has
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  Speaker 4: an amazing story of God's mercy in his life.
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  Speaker 3: It's fascinating. But first award from our sponsor. Please welcome
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  Speaker 3: kawait Hi beck It.
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  Speaker 1: It's awesome to be here.
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  Speaker 4: Good to have you on. Good to have you on.
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  Speaker 4: We had some trouble with the Wi fi, so but
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  Speaker 4: we're all squared away. So I want to jump right
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  Speaker 4: into your story. You were born in Japan and you
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  Speaker 4: live there until you're nine years old. Why where tell it?
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  Speaker 4: Tell me about your childhood and why you were born
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  Speaker 4: in Japan because you're not Japanese, yest.
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  Speaker 5: Yeah, So my family is Brazilian, but my grandpa from
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  Speaker 5: my mom's side, we are He is Japanese, and so
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  Speaker 5: that kind of makes me a little bit Japanese. There's
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  Speaker 5: no real reason why I was born in Japan. I
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  Speaker 5: think my parents just wanted to go there. I think
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  Speaker 5: because he was living there. So we went there. And yeah,
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  Speaker 5: they had me in Japan.
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  Speaker 4: What part of Japan.
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  Speaker 5: The city I was born in, it's called and it's
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  Speaker 5: like right in the belly you know, it kind of
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  Speaker 5: looks like a dragon Japan.
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  Speaker 1: It's kind of right on the belly of the dragon.
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  Speaker 4: Okay, because I yeah, I lived in Tokyo for a year.
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  Speaker 4: But so and then and you lived there until you
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  Speaker 4: were nine years old? What so, what did your So
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  Speaker 4: your parents just worked there? Your dad worked in Japan?
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  Speaker 5: Yes, they both did. They both worked there. They had
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  Speaker 5: very difficult jobs there. They were they worked in like
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  Speaker 5: the Toyota factories actually building the cars, you know, like
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  Speaker 5: the car parts and everything.
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  Speaker 1: And in Japan, like.
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  Speaker 5: As a foreigner because they're not citizens of Japan, and
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  Speaker 5: as a foreigner, things are very hard, very difficult, and
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  Speaker 5: so they Deepanies.
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  Speaker 3: Don't like foreigners very much. Yeah I don't.
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  Speaker 5: Yeah, Yeah, And so they worked there, like my mom
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  Speaker 5: worked at in the day and then my dad worked
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  Speaker 5: at night, you know, and I'd be like going through
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  Speaker 5: babysitters basically, but yeah, it was tough. It was tough
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  Speaker 5: for them there and then yeah, at nine years old,
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  Speaker 5: they decided to move to to America connect.
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  Speaker 4: And but what was your childhood like, Like, what was
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  Speaker 4: your family life like? Were your parents like you know, yeah,
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  Speaker 4: how were they?
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  Speaker 3: How were they?
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  Speaker 1: Yeah? So they were.
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  Speaker 5: The thing with my parents is like, for example, I
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  Speaker 5: see a lot of people who have, like I hear
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  Speaker 5: a lot of childhood stories that I'm like, Oh, my goodness,
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  Speaker 5: Like I feel so bad for you. You know, my
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  Speaker 5: parents weren't really like that. Like they weren't bad parents, right,
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  Speaker 5: but they had a bad habit.
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  Speaker 1: Of yelling a lot.
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  Speaker 5: And I was always very sensitive and so that yelling,
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  Speaker 5: like really, that's that's one thing that really made me
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  Speaker 5: feel just unsafe. And and so that I haven't realized
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  Speaker 5: how much that affected me until very recently, you know,
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  Speaker 5: like did it When a child feels safe, that's that's
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  Speaker 5: so important. And when you don't have that, it actually
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  Speaker 5: like affects much more than than you'd think, you know.
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  Speaker 1: And so yeah, and.
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  Speaker 5: So I didn't have that, like I guess stability right
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  Speaker 5: off the bat. And because of that, I think it
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  Speaker 5: made other issues in my life worse.
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  Speaker 3: You know, what were they yelling about?
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  Speaker 5: Just like when they would correct me or when they
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  Speaker 5: would you know, tell me not to do something. It
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  Speaker 5: wasn't really like I don't do that. It was just
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  Speaker 5: kind of just a lot of just like going to
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  Speaker 5: yelling very easily, you know, like the escalation was very
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  Speaker 5: very fast. And for a child, of course, that's that's yeah.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, So and both your parents were like that with you.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, both my parents were like that. Now they.
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  Speaker 5: Have yeah, yeah, now like they're they're very different. They
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  Speaker 5: they don't yell at all. I have younger sisters and
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  Speaker 5: you know, I see how they treat them, and it's
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  Speaker 5: it's very different now, which you know, thank god they're
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  Speaker 5: both Christians, so so glory be to God for that.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah. We we we've worked through that already, you know.
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  Speaker 4: Okay, So then you moved to Connecticut when you're nine
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  Speaker 4: years old, and what that must have been like dramatic,
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  Speaker 4: a dramatic change for you.
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  Speaker 1: It was a dramatic change.
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  Speaker 5: And you know, I again that's something that I haven't
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  Speaker 5: really like processed until recently, but it was it was
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  Speaker 5: a lot of cultural shifts, right because my my family
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  Speaker 5: is Brazilian, like we act like Brazilians, and I was
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  Speaker 5: living in a country that was, you know, Japanese, extremely opposite.
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  Speaker 3: Of it's very Brazili, yeah.
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  Speaker 5: Exactly, and and then coming to America having to adjust
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  Speaker 5: to that. What I noticed recently was that I I
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  Speaker 5: really have never really felt like I fit in, you know,
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  Speaker 5: not just because of the same sex attraction, but also
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  Speaker 5: because of like cultural differences. Like my like, I was
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  Speaker 5: always very Brazilian in my way of being, you know,
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  Speaker 5: but I think I was very shamed just for that
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  Speaker 5: because I was very extroverted. I guess these are stereotypical things,
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  Speaker 5: but very extroverted, very touchy, I guess. And I think
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  Speaker 5: like Americans are. They're not like the coldest, right, but
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  Speaker 5: they are. They tend to be a little more chilled
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  Speaker 5: out than Brazilians from from what I've seen.
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  Speaker 3: Well, it depends on what part of the country.
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  Speaker 4: Like in Connecticut they're probably colder, but in like.
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  Speaker 5: This very.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah that's true.
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  Speaker 5: But yeah, so I think, yeah, that played into it,
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  Speaker 5: the culture shift. That's kind of how I was affected
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  Speaker 5: by it.
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  Speaker 3: And why did your parents move to America at the
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  Speaker 3: United States?
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  Speaker 5: So in twenty eleven, there was that big tsunami that
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  Speaker 5: happened in Japan, and we weren't like directly affected by that,
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  Speaker 5: but they kind of just took it as kind of
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  Speaker 5: like a sign and they were like, you know what,
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  Speaker 5: let's just like they already kind of wanted to leave
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  Speaker 5: Japan because it was so hard to work there, and
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  Speaker 5: so they just said, you know what, let's just let's
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  Speaker 5: just go.
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  Speaker 3: You know, well, why didn't they Why didn't you guys
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  Speaker 3: just move to Brazil.
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  Speaker 1: Because Brazil is also.
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  Speaker 5: Not as easy as not not that America is easy, right,
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  Speaker 5: but it's still difficult in Brazil as well in terms
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  Speaker 5: of work and everything, and so you know, it's I
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  Speaker 5: guess that immigrant vision of like the American dream, and
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  Speaker 5: so they kind of wanted to go for that, and
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  Speaker 5: they've already had those desires before, you know, of like
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  Speaker 5: going to America, and they just kind of took that
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  Speaker 5: opportunity that happening and just carried on with it. You know,
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  Speaker 5: there was no like real reason to come. It was
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  Speaker 5: just more opportunity, right.
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  Speaker 4: And then so what was school like when you were
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  Speaker 4: in the United States, like in Connecticut or because then
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  Speaker 4: you moved to Massachusetts at another point, But what was
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  Speaker 4: high school like junior high and high school.
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  Speaker 5: Like for you, Yeah, so junior high in high school,
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  Speaker 5: I was already in Massachusetts. In Connecticut, I only stayed
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  Speaker 5: there for like two years junior high and high school.
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  Speaker 5: For me, it was like in the beginning, right when
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  Speaker 5: I was like younger, still in middle school, I did
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  Speaker 5: experience some like bullying, right like because of the way
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  Speaker 5: I acted and like just like you know, the the
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  Speaker 5: regular teasing that people experience, like oh, you know, you
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  Speaker 5: don't act like like me, or like you don't you know,
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  Speaker 5: you don't like the things I like. So you know,
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  Speaker 5: I'm gonna call you gay and I'm gonna these sort
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  Speaker 5: of things, and yeah, so I experienced that. That was
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  Speaker 5: kind of more in middle school. But because I experienced that,
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  Speaker 5: and again, like I'm I've always really been like really sensitive,
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  Speaker 5: I decided to just kind of shut down, right Like
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  Speaker 5: my my mind subconsciously just kind of started shutting down
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  Speaker 5: and just like becoming very like, you know, just closed
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  Speaker 5: off and I'm not really expressing myself, not really acting
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  Speaker 5: like myself because I really hated that like I was
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  Speaker 5: perceived in the way that I was, you know, I
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  Speaker 5: was I really hated that I was you know, called,
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  Speaker 5: you know, gay, and you know all the other worst
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  Speaker 5: things and so yeah, I that caused like in middle school,
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  Speaker 5: that's when I started shutting down. And when I went
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  Speaker 5: through high school, that's when I started to sort of
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  Speaker 5: adopt like a new persona and just like be like
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  Speaker 5: a different person, a person that people wanted to talk
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  Speaker 5: to and to, you know, to to be around. Yeah,
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  Speaker 5: that that led to some success in high school, but
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  Speaker 5: ultimately it was still very empty because I knew people
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  Speaker 5: talk to me or you know, I guess even just
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  Speaker 5: tolerated me because I was acting like somebody else. So
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  Speaker 5: I never really felt like myself, you know, like I
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  Speaker 5: never really it got to the point where, because that
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  Speaker 5: happened so early in my life, I I'm still going
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  Speaker 5: through kind of a process of like discovering what I like,
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  Speaker 5: you know, and what I like to do, what I
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  Speaker 5: enjoyed doing, what I want to pursue because of how
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  Speaker 5: much I really like stuffed that down and tried to
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  Speaker 5: ignore that part of myself that you know, that caused
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  Speaker 5: like people to say thanks to me or whatever.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, we'll be right back after this short break.
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  Speaker 4: And were your parents your parents were Christians? Were you
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  Speaker 4: raised in a Christian home?
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  Speaker 5: So my parents. When we first got to Massachusetts, we
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  Speaker 5: already had like that sort of the mindset of like, Okay,
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  Speaker 5: we love Jesus, right, Like, they had that conscious of Christ,
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  Speaker 5: but they didn't really like pursue God. They didn't you know,
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  Speaker 5: they didn't really so like ultimately know, they weren't really Christian.
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  Speaker 5: But we did like thank God for our lives, you know.
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  Speaker 5: But it's only when we got to Massachusetts that we
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  Speaker 5: started to go to church. And and that's when I
• 12:01
  Speaker 5: started to like actually understand a little bit more about God.
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  Speaker 5: That's when I was like, I think eleven or twelve
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  Speaker 5: at that time, and so I ever since I was young,
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  Speaker 5: I really like I always believed in God, you know,
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  Speaker 5: even when I was younger. I have memories of me
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  Speaker 5: talking about God. And when I first started getting exposed
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  Speaker 5: to like what it means to be a Christian. Right
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  Speaker 5: when we started going to church, I started to learn
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  Speaker 5: more about God. But the only issue was that my
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  Speaker 5: church it was kind of stagnant spiritually, you know, the
• 12:47
  Speaker 5: first church that we went to, and it didn't have
• 12:49
  Speaker 5: like at any basically any discipleship going on. And so
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  Speaker 5: when that happens, as especially for children like you start
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  Speaker 5: to perceive.
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  Speaker 1: God in the way that you view the world.
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  Speaker 5: And so for me, I was always just very fearful,
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  Speaker 5: very anxious, right for all the reasons that I've talked about,
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  Speaker 5: And so I would like perceive God, view God as
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  Speaker 5: this judge and this you know, this just like.
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  Speaker 1: Strict judge.
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  Speaker 5: You got to do what I tell you, you know,
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  Speaker 5: and you got to do it well or like you're
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  Speaker 5: not right before me. And I've always wanted to honor
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  Speaker 5: God and to please God. I've always wanted to I
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  Speaker 5: think I've always wanted to do everything right for God
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  Speaker 5: because I was like God was basically all that I had.
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  Speaker 5: Like God to me was always like, you know, if
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  Speaker 5: nobody else loves me, I know God loves me. But
• 13:48
  Speaker 5: because I had that view of life, I thought, well,
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  Speaker 5: this is a conditional love, you know, and I have
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  Speaker 5: to maintain that love. I have to do the right
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  Speaker 5: things like go to church, read your Bible, pray so
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  Speaker 5: that God does.
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  Speaker 1: Not leave me. You know. That was kind of my
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  Speaker 1: view of God.
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  Speaker 5: And that only kind of started breaking through when I
• 14:10
  Speaker 5: was like nineteen years old, which was when I really
• 14:14
  Speaker 5: decided to seek God with everything. Yeah, do you want
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  Speaker 5: me to get into that or do you want to
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  Speaker 5: ask me?
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  Speaker 4: But in the meantime, well in the meantime though, before
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  Speaker 4: we get to that, So, how did you deal with
• 14:31
  Speaker 4: wanting a relationship with God but also being having this
• 14:34
  Speaker 4: you know, homosexual desire?
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  Speaker 3: Like what how did you deal with those two things?
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  Speaker 5: Yeah? So for me, I think, like, like I said,
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  Speaker 5: I always really suppressed myself and that included also like
• 14:58
  Speaker 5: not just my emotions, but because I I wanted to
• 15:00
  Speaker 5: honor God so much, I suppressed like everything like my anger,
• 15:05
  Speaker 5: my my sadness because in my mind, like growing up,
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  Speaker 5: I knew that these things would lead to sin, and
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  Speaker 5: so I just suppressed the crap out of it, you know.
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  Speaker 5: And I just like was like, Okay, no, I can't
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  Speaker 5: feel anger and I can't feel sadness like I'm because
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  Speaker 5: I know this is going to like lead me in
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  Speaker 5: a bad way, and so I'm not going to feel it,
• 15:23
  Speaker 5: you know. And that sort of included the the you know,
• 15:26
  Speaker 5: same sex attraction. I really just suppressed it. And but
• 15:32
  Speaker 5: of course, like I throughout that time, I developed a
• 15:36
  Speaker 5: pornography addiction, and so but that's the thing, right, so
• 15:41
  Speaker 5: I guess I have to get into that so it
• 15:43
  Speaker 5: can make sense So when I was like eleven or twelve,
• 15:48
  Speaker 5: I was exposed to pornography. It was straight pornography, and
• 15:52
  Speaker 5: that was my addiction for like a year. But then,
• 15:55
  Speaker 5: you know, after like something's happened in my life whatever,
• 15:58
  Speaker 5: I kind of fed my same sex attraction and I
• 16:03
  Speaker 5: got addicted to homosexual pornography.
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  Speaker 1: And then.
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  Speaker 5: But in my mind, right in my like child of mind,
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  Speaker 5: I I knew I had desires for like women as well.
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  Speaker 5: So I didn't really like I always thought like, okay,
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  Speaker 5: that part of me is going to go away, you know,
• 16:26
  Speaker 5: that part that part is going to like go away soon,
• 16:28
  Speaker 5: Like I don't really have to pay too much attention
• 16:30
  Speaker 5: to it. And so I never really like consider myself gay.
• 16:33
  Speaker 5: You know, I've never like took on that label for myself.
• 16:38
  Speaker 5: But it was definitely something that like there was like
• 16:44
  Speaker 5: a lot of shame there of course. Yeah, And so
• 16:49
  Speaker 5: I didn't really balance it well because I know, I
• 16:52
  Speaker 5: know that was the question, how did I balance it.
• 16:54
  Speaker 5: I didn't really balance it well. I think I kind
• 16:56
  Speaker 5: of just suppressed it and and yea try to ignore it,
• 17:03
  Speaker 5: you know.
• 17:04
  Speaker 3: So Kawai, tell me about the.
• 17:09
  Speaker 4: You had a girlfriend for six months and then something
• 17:11
  Speaker 4: happened with that that led to these stomach problems, like
• 17:15
  Speaker 4: talk about that.
• 17:16
  Speaker 5: Yeah, So when I was around like fifteen, I had
• 17:22
  Speaker 5: dated this girl. And I say that very lightly. It
• 17:24
  Speaker 5: wasn't really a relationship. We kind of just hung out
• 17:27
  Speaker 5: with our friends. But I had dated this girl and
• 17:31
  Speaker 5: something happened with her where I was kind of put
• 17:37
  Speaker 5: in a very like humiliating sort of situation.
• 17:44
  Speaker 4: And basically, you were you were at a party where
• 17:47
  Speaker 4: she like kind of did she kind of humiliated you
• 17:49
  Speaker 4: at a party?
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  Speaker 5: Yes? Yeah, and thank you. Yes, that's what happened. And
• 17:58
  Speaker 5: I remember when that happened been I felt like this
• 18:03
  Speaker 5: something I've never felt before, which it was kind of
• 18:06
  Speaker 5: like a pit in my stomach, but it's something I've
• 18:11
  Speaker 5: never felt before, and so I would like I felt
• 18:15
  Speaker 5: like I had to just get out of there, Like
• 18:17
  Speaker 5: I felt like somebody like stabbed me in my stomach,
• 18:19
  Speaker 5: and I was just like, oh my God, like there's
• 18:21
  Speaker 5: something I've never felt before. It felt so intense. And
• 18:28
  Speaker 5: ever since that happened, I noticed that I started to
• 18:32
  Speaker 5: get these like random stomach paints and these stomach aches.
• 18:36
  Speaker 5: And I already tried, like everything I tried to eliminate
• 18:40
  Speaker 5: all these foods from my from my diet. I tried
• 18:44
  Speaker 5: getting tested for like you know, like all these things
• 18:46
  Speaker 5: like crones, celiac, whatever, but nobody knew what was wrong.
• 18:53
  Speaker 5: Like I didn't have any any issue. I even had
• 18:55
  Speaker 5: an endoscopy done, and the doctor she told me that
• 18:59
  Speaker 5: I had like the stomach of it like an old man.
• 19:01
  Speaker 5: And she said that I had like a pre cancer
• 19:05
  Speaker 5: because of like how much it randomly just started hurting,
• 19:09
  Speaker 5: you know, and it was just really irritated. And so
• 19:16
  Speaker 5: I had that for like a really long time. And
• 19:22
  Speaker 5: the Lord started showing me that because there was one
• 19:27
  Speaker 5: day where I prayed and I said, Lord, you know,
• 19:33
  Speaker 5: if you took this away from me, I could do
• 19:35
  Speaker 5: so much more for you, because it's something that really
• 19:37
  Speaker 5: kept me from doing much like I would have to
• 19:41
  Speaker 5: plan my days around my stomach, you know, pretty much
• 19:44
  Speaker 5: because if it started hurting, like I really just couldn't
• 19:46
  Speaker 5: be around anybody, like I didn't want to be around anybody.
• 19:49
  Speaker 5: So it really it really messed me up. It really
• 19:51
  Speaker 5: affected me. But again nobody knew why. And so I
• 19:55
  Speaker 5: told the Lord that, and he told me, Cowie, even
• 20:00
  Speaker 5: if I took the pain away, that wouldn't fix the issue,
• 20:03
  Speaker 5: because the issue is a fear of man, you know,
• 20:07
  Speaker 5: it's a fear of man. And so that's when I
• 20:10
  Speaker 5: started to like slowly trace back, you know, when it
• 20:13
  Speaker 5: started and how it started. And I realized that, like
• 20:17
  Speaker 5: the pain was just like a symptom, a symptom yes
• 20:23
  Speaker 5: of like shame basically and just fear of getting shamed
• 20:30
  Speaker 5: or fear of humiliation. And so I would like brace
• 20:36
  Speaker 5: myself or prepare myself so that I wouldn't be put
• 20:39
  Speaker 5: in that position again, you know. And slowly God started
• 20:46
  Speaker 5: to work in my heart and sort of heal, heal this,
• 20:54
  Speaker 5: like teaching me how to stop being so anxious, right,
• 20:57
  Speaker 5: because like I, like I said, I was very anxious
• 20:59
  Speaker 5: as a child, and I was always fearful. I never
• 21:03
  Speaker 5: felt safe, you know, and so God was just slowly
• 21:06
  Speaker 5: started to teach me how to feel safe and you know,
• 21:09
  Speaker 5: how to not be worried about things that are going
• 21:13
  Speaker 5: to happen.
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 21:14
  Speaker 5: The Bible says, don't worry, you know, do not.
• 21:17
  Speaker 3: Be anxious or anything.
• 21:18
  Speaker 4: But in everything, my parents application make a request known
• 21:22
  Speaker 4: to God exactly. Yeah, And so what happened, so, like, uh,
• 21:30
  Speaker 4: you said that you started seeking God for three months. Yes,
• 21:36
  Speaker 4: you texted a friend and talk about that.
• 21:41
  Speaker 5: Okay, So I was at this church event, and this
• 21:49
  Speaker 5: church event there was you know something I don't want
• 21:51
  Speaker 5: to get too into it, but at this.
• 21:52
  Speaker 4: Point, but at this point was your was the stomach
• 21:55
  Speaker 4: Were you healed at this point of the stomach issue?
• 21:58
  Speaker 5: No, not yet, not yet, Okay, it was still there.
• 22:03
  Speaker 5: And this was before like I even knew God really
• 22:07
  Speaker 5: like this before this is this moment at the church
• 22:11
  Speaker 5: event was kind of what inspired me to like actually
• 22:13
  Speaker 5: like seek God. Right because at this church event, I
• 22:17
  Speaker 5: noticed like my pastor's heart, and I noticed these other
• 22:22
  Speaker 5: pastors who were there, and they were just like loving
• 22:25
  Speaker 5: the people right they were. They were showing how much
• 22:30
  Speaker 5: they loved the people there. And I saw that and
• 22:33
  Speaker 5: I was like, man, like I still don't understand how
• 22:38
  Speaker 5: they have this love and you know, and so I
• 22:44
  Speaker 5: made a decision that day because what I did was
• 22:47
  Speaker 5: all fear based, right, like I read my Bible, I
• 22:49
  Speaker 5: prayed every day, but it was all because I was
• 22:52
  Speaker 5: so scared that God would leave me, and and so
• 22:54
  Speaker 5: I didn't understand this love that they had for people
• 22:57
  Speaker 5: because I was doing everything based on fear, right, And
• 23:00
  Speaker 5: so this inspired me to like, okay, you know what,
• 23:03
  Speaker 5: I'm gonna seek God with everything. And so I decided
• 23:08
  Speaker 5: to just, you know, every night, go to my room, pray,
• 23:11
  Speaker 5: read my Bible, or just just pray and cry out
• 23:15
  Speaker 5: to God. It's funny because during this time, I actually
• 23:18
  Speaker 5: stopped reading my Bible and I just said, you know what,
• 23:22
  Speaker 5: like Lord, I just needed to show me who you
• 23:24
  Speaker 5: are and I needed to just you know, come and
• 23:29
  Speaker 5: fill my heart up and you know, help me understand
• 23:31
  Speaker 5: what these people understand, because I still apparently don't. And
• 23:36
  Speaker 5: so after like around three months, I texted this friend
• 23:40
  Speaker 5: because I felt like God was telling me to text
• 23:42
  Speaker 5: him because he needed help. And I texted him and he,
• 23:50
  Speaker 5: you know, I helped him out, so he actually didn't
• 23:52
  Speaker 5: need help. But then he asked about my my sexuality.
• 24:00
  Speaker 5: And it's funny, right, because I heard God and I
• 24:04
  Speaker 5: obeyed him, and then somebody comes and to me, that
• 24:08
  Speaker 5: felt kind of like getting exposed in a way because
• 24:14
  Speaker 5: I've never talked about that with anybody before, and so
• 24:18
  Speaker 5: I kind of deflected what he asked me. But then
• 24:21
  Speaker 5: that made me very I'm not sad, but like kind
• 24:26
  Speaker 5: of just like anguished, you know, and I was like
• 24:31
  Speaker 5: Lord like. And so what I did that day was
• 24:33
  Speaker 5: I went to God to do my daily encounter. And
• 24:37
  Speaker 5: that was the first time after I told God, you know, Lord,
• 24:41
  Speaker 5: this is making me feel bad, you know, like I
• 24:45
  Speaker 5: like everybody always says this about me, you know, like
• 24:48
  Speaker 5: why can't I just just chill? You know. And that's
• 24:52
  Speaker 5: the first time that God actually encountered me. And he
• 24:58
  Speaker 5: I basically felt like, uh, what I think I said
• 25:02
  Speaker 5: this to you? But I felt like like the jealous
• 25:06
  Speaker 5: love of God. Right, Like there's that song how He
• 25:08
  Speaker 5: Loves Us and and and one of the lyrics is
• 25:12
  Speaker 5: he is jealous for me, and that's what I felt like.
• 25:15
  Speaker 5: I felt God just embrace me. That was the first
• 25:17
  Speaker 5: time I felt like like like I felt the Lord saying,
• 25:22
  Speaker 5: you know, like I can't believe people make you feel
• 25:24
  Speaker 5: this way about who I made you, you know, or
• 25:27
  Speaker 5: how I made you. And that was the first time
• 25:31
  Speaker 5: I was like, wow, like this is the love of God.
• 25:33
  Speaker 5: You know. It's like it's hard to describe, but yeah,
• 25:39
  Speaker 5: that was That was the first time I really encountered God.
• 25:41
  Speaker 5: That was what set me set me on a journey
• 25:46
  Speaker 5: to to actually desire to pursue Him and not just
• 25:49
  Speaker 5: pursue him based on fearing and all that stuff.
• 25:54
  Speaker 4: And and God, you said that. God said, like you
• 25:57
  Speaker 4: heard God say something about like you need to heal correctly.
• 26:01
  Speaker 5: Yes. So during this encounter is very intense because I
• 26:05
  Speaker 5: felt like God was throwing a lot at me, right,
• 26:08
  Speaker 5: I felt that embrace, and then I felt God like
• 26:11
  Speaker 5: just like like I kind of understood everything that I
• 26:13
  Speaker 5: went through, you know, like the purpose of everything that
• 26:16
  Speaker 5: I went through, and I like the Lord l just
• 26:20
  Speaker 5: like prophesied over my life. And he said one one
• 26:24
  Speaker 5: of the things he said, waskw wait, now take the time,
• 26:27
  Speaker 5: take the time to heal correctly. And the reason he
• 26:31
  Speaker 5: said that was because I I'm always have I've always
• 26:34
  Speaker 5: been somebody who like if I want to do something,
• 26:37
  Speaker 5: I'm gonna do it, you know, like, and I want
• 26:40
  Speaker 5: to do it, and like I'm very like anxious in
• 26:44
  Speaker 5: a way of like going on and doing it quick,
• 26:47
  Speaker 5: you know.
• 26:47
  Speaker 3: Being proactive, like you want to be proactive.
• 26:50
  Speaker 5: Yes, exactly. And so in my mind, you know, like
• 26:54
  Speaker 5: I was like, Okay, now I'm ready. Now I'm gonna
• 26:56
  Speaker 5: I'm gonna do something for God, you know what I mean,
• 26:58
  Speaker 5: Because I've always wanted to, right, But I never knew
• 27:03
  Speaker 5: the right time, and I felt like, you know what,
• 27:05
  Speaker 5: like I just encountered God, now now is the time, right,
• 27:08
  Speaker 5: So I'm gonna I'm gonna start making some YouTube videos.
• 27:11
  Speaker 5: And I started making these YouTube videos kind of disregarding
• 27:16
  Speaker 5: what the Lord told me right and take the time
• 27:18
  Speaker 5: to heal correctly. And I had made these YouTube videos.
• 27:24
  Speaker 5: It helped some people. But after like seven months, I
• 27:30
  Speaker 5: started to get burned out and I started to to
• 27:36
  Speaker 5: just like have no motivation, you know, pretty much. And
• 27:40
  Speaker 5: I remember there was this one one day where I
• 27:45
  Speaker 5: had like kind of like a fight with my dad
• 27:47
  Speaker 5: for yeah, it was kind of an argument, and I
• 27:50
  Speaker 5: got up, like I left my house, went to this
• 27:53
  Speaker 5: random parking lot. And at this point, like God was
• 27:57
  Speaker 5: already telling me about how I needed to feel my
• 28:01
  Speaker 5: emotions because I've suppressed myself a lot, Like I told you,
• 28:06
  Speaker 5: I've always suppressed myself a lot. And God was telling me,
• 28:10
  Speaker 5: you know, you got to feel things out. You have
• 28:12
  Speaker 5: to process things. You cannot just ignore them, right. And
• 28:15
  Speaker 5: so at that moment, like I was very angry. I
• 28:18
  Speaker 5: knew I needed to let it out. I needed to cry, right,
• 28:20
  Speaker 5: but I couldn't, And so I was there in the
• 28:23
  Speaker 5: car for like thirty minutes, and I was like, okay, Lord,
• 28:28
  Speaker 5: Like I tried, I tried crying, you know, but it's
• 28:32
  Speaker 5: not coming out. And so I kind of give up
• 28:34
  Speaker 5: and I go on my phone and on my phone
• 28:37
  Speaker 5: a video pops up and it's this man. The title
• 28:41
  Speaker 5: is something like like stop doing Christian things or something
• 28:45
  Speaker 5: like that, and so I clicked on the video and
• 28:47
  Speaker 5: the guy basically said like, you don't have to do
• 28:50
  Speaker 5: anything Christian to earn God's love. You don't have to
• 28:54
  Speaker 5: do things for God to earn his love. You know,
• 28:56
  Speaker 5: you don't have to to do work to earn his love,
• 29:01
  Speaker 5: to earn your position as a child before him. And
• 29:05
  Speaker 5: that is when I started crying. And I was like wow,
• 29:09
  Speaker 5: Like I was just doing these videos because, you know,
• 29:12
  Speaker 5: I felt like I needed to do something for God.
• 29:15
  Speaker 5: Not because I actually wanted to, you know what I mean,
• 29:18
  Speaker 5: Not because I was, you know, doing it from a
• 29:19
  Speaker 5: place of like overflow, but because I have this thing
• 29:23
  Speaker 5: where I keep trying to earn his love and I
• 29:25
  Speaker 5: keep trying to to maintain his love, which is ridiculous.
• 29:34
  Speaker 5: And so that was a big breakthrough for me. From
• 29:37
  Speaker 5: that point on, God started to you know, he continued
• 29:40
  Speaker 5: to work in my heart. I started to learn what
• 29:44
  Speaker 5: sonship meant and being a child of God and accepting
• 29:48
  Speaker 5: that life is a process, it's a sanctification is a process, right,
• 29:53
  Speaker 5: And we have a hard time, I think, understanding that
• 29:57
  Speaker 5: because the Bible says behold for I am Holy, right,
• 30:01
  Speaker 5: and so we read that, we're like, oh, okay, so
• 30:04
  Speaker 5: you know, we can't do anything or we're gonna end up,
• 30:06
  Speaker 5: you know, in hell. But God, more than anybody else,
• 30:11
  Speaker 5: understands that it's a process. He understands that you're human.
• 30:13
  Speaker 5: And honestly, for a long time, I really hated my humanity,
• 30:18
  Speaker 5: right because I've always wanted to honor God. I've always
• 30:21
  Speaker 5: wanted to please God, and my human desires always like
• 30:25
  Speaker 5: really frustrated me. I'm not even talking about like same
• 30:27
  Speaker 5: sex attraction, you know, just in general, Like I hated that.
• 30:30
  Speaker 5: I like there were moments where I would, you know,
• 30:34
  Speaker 5: like get angry at somebody or like I hated that
• 30:38
  Speaker 5: I would feel sad and then want to sin, right,
• 30:41
  Speaker 5: because that's that's why we seek sin. It's for comfort
• 30:44
  Speaker 5: and pleasure. And so I just hated my humanity.
• 30:47
  Speaker 4: And it's like Paul Paul in Roman seven when he says,
• 30:50
  Speaker 4: why do I do the things.
• 30:51
  Speaker 3: I don't want to do? That kind of thing? Yes, exactly,
• 30:54
  Speaker 3: if that's Romans.
• 30:56
  Speaker 5: But yeah, anyway, yeah exactly. And you know the best
• 31:01
  Speaker 5: thing I've ever learned from God is that he meets
• 31:06
  Speaker 5: you where you are at, and that he meets you
• 31:09
  Speaker 5: in your humanity. Right, Jesus Christ literally comes down and
• 31:14
  Speaker 5: meets you in our humanity. It's amazing. It's you can't really,
• 31:19
  Speaker 5: you can't make that up. Yeah.
• 31:22
  Speaker 4: And so but then you were your your dad hired
• 31:25
  Speaker 4: you as a consultant, or your dad hired you and
• 31:28
  Speaker 4: you worked with him, and he your dad had a
• 31:34
  Speaker 4: consultant who was like a marry He was a man
• 31:36
  Speaker 4: who was married to a man.
• 31:37
  Speaker 5: Is that correct, Yes, So what happened was I started
• 31:41
  Speaker 5: working with my dad at his company and he hired
• 31:45
  Speaker 5: this consultant, like a business consultant for like general business
• 31:51
  Speaker 5: operations and employee relations and all that. And what he
• 31:56
  Speaker 5: didn't know though, was this consultant was married to a man,
• 31:59
  Speaker 5: so it was a gay couple. And so he kind
• 32:06
  Speaker 5: of spoke to all the employees in one on one
• 32:09
  Speaker 5: just to kind of like help people, you know, and whatnot.
• 32:13
  Speaker 5: And so when it came to for my turn to
• 32:15
  Speaker 5: speak to him, he that's when he kind of revealed
• 32:20
  Speaker 5: to me, you know, that he was married to man.
• 32:21
  Speaker 5: I was like, oh wow, okay. And so, in my innocent,
• 32:25
  Speaker 5: in my innocent mind, in my innocent heart, I at
• 32:30
  Speaker 5: this point, I was already you know, like very much
• 32:32
  Speaker 5: had my relationship with God, but I still had my
• 32:36
  Speaker 5: pornography struggles, right, my same sex attraction struggles. However, I thought,
• 32:43
  Speaker 5: you know what, like I'm gonna tell him, I'm gonna
• 32:45
  Speaker 5: try to help him. You know, I'm gonna say, hey,
• 32:47
  Speaker 5: because something about this person was that he was even
• 32:52
  Speaker 5: though he had this relationship with this man, with this
• 32:56
  Speaker 5: other man, he was he still considered himself a Christian, right,
• 33:02
  Speaker 5: but he kind of accepted the fact that, like he
• 33:07
  Speaker 5: he accepted that the idea that you know, God will
• 33:09
  Speaker 5: that he's right before the Lord in that lifestyle, right,
• 33:15
  Speaker 5: living in that lifestyle. And so, like I said, in
• 33:19
  Speaker 5: my innocent brain, I thought, you know what, let me
• 33:21
  Speaker 5: try to help this guy. And so I tell him
• 33:24
  Speaker 5: I share with him, Hey, man, you know, like it's okay,
• 33:27
  Speaker 5: Like I understand you. I deal with these desires as well,
• 33:31
  Speaker 5: but you don't have to live like this, you know, God,
• 33:34
  Speaker 5: like God can sustain you, right. And I didn't even
• 33:37
  Speaker 5: hide the fact that I that I had my my addictions. Still,
• 33:41
  Speaker 5: I was very open about it. I was just like,
• 33:42
  Speaker 5: you know, we just gotta take it one day at
• 33:44
  Speaker 5: a time. We just gotta proceed and you know, like
• 33:49
  Speaker 5: and and trust God. And so that was my biggest
• 33:53
  Speaker 5: Mistake's what's telling him that? Because after he kind of
• 34:01
  Speaker 5: started to like, you know, work in the company and whatnot,
• 34:05
  Speaker 5: we became close professionally, and he sort of felt like
• 34:11
  Speaker 5: he had like a sort of liberty to joke around
• 34:14
  Speaker 5: with me, right, and to to like make jokes right like, oh,
• 34:20
  Speaker 5: you know, even if if you don't identify or like,
• 34:22
  Speaker 5: even if you if you don't practice, you still are gay,
• 34:26
  Speaker 5: you know what I mean, If even if you don't
• 34:29
  Speaker 5: act on it, you're still gay. And of course that's
• 34:33
  Speaker 5: not how I identified, right, But that really started to
• 34:39
  Speaker 5: bother me. It's really started to get into my mind
• 34:42
  Speaker 5: because the main issue was, Okay, well, here I am
• 34:46
  Speaker 5: telling this man he doesn't have to live like this,
• 34:48
  Speaker 5: but I'm still struggling with it, you know, and God's
• 34:52
  Speaker 5: not right from my perspective back then, God's not helping me,
• 34:56
  Speaker 5: you know, He's not taking this away from me. So
• 35:00
  Speaker 5: you know, that's why his words kind of started to
• 35:04
  Speaker 5: affect me in that way. And you know, I told
• 35:07
  Speaker 5: him to stop a few times with those jokes, but
• 35:12
  Speaker 5: it took kind of like a freeze out for it
• 35:15
  Speaker 5: to stop anyways, And so I was like having to
• 35:21
  Speaker 5: deal with him sort of every day, right, and I would,
• 35:25
  Speaker 5: you know, in front of him, I'd be like, you
• 35:26
  Speaker 5: know what, like that's not right, and you know, I
• 35:30
  Speaker 5: don't agree with you. But then at home, I'd be like, lord, like,
• 35:35
  Speaker 5: if he's wrong, why am I still you know, struggling
• 35:40
  Speaker 5: with this? Why why why am I still dealing with this?
• 35:43
  Speaker 5: If I'm literally telling him what you can do? Why
• 35:47
  Speaker 5: is it hasn't that been done for me? Right? And
• 35:50
  Speaker 5: this led me to like a big spiral, right, a
• 35:54
  Speaker 5: big spiral because one of the things about me that
• 35:56
  Speaker 5: I've learned is that because I suppressed a lot of
• 36:00
  Speaker 5: my emotion, I always tried to rationalize everything, and that
• 36:03
  Speaker 5: was my escape. Was just like, Okay, if I don't
• 36:05
  Speaker 5: want to feel that, so I'm going to think about it,
• 36:07
  Speaker 5: you know, and I'm going to find an answer, and
• 36:08
  Speaker 5: that's going to be good enough. But the thing with
• 36:12
  Speaker 5: you know, this topic is that nobody knows what's going on.
• 36:17
  Speaker 5: And so I would obsessively search up why does homosexuality happen?
• 36:23
  Speaker 5: You know, what caused the same sex attraction?
• 36:25
  Speaker 2: Uh?
• 36:26
  Speaker 5: And I would see all these theories and all these things,
• 36:30
  Speaker 5: but nothing was coherent right. There was no like, oh,
• 36:33
  Speaker 5: this is why this happens. There's no like one way
• 36:36
  Speaker 5: to put it. And so that really messed with me.
• 36:40
  Speaker 5: It really frustrated me because I had all these points
• 36:43
  Speaker 5: that I could think of, but nothing was coherent, right,
• 36:48
  Speaker 5: And so I was like dang, like, and then I
• 36:51
  Speaker 5: started to get this like anger towards God. You know,
• 36:54
  Speaker 5: I started to be like, Lord, like I can we
• 36:57
  Speaker 5: can explain everything. It seems like we can explain everything
• 37:01
  Speaker 5: else except this, right, And and so I was just like
• 37:07
  Speaker 5: you know, being real, Like it got to a really
• 37:10
  Speaker 5: bad point where like I never considered leaving God, but
• 37:17
  Speaker 5: I I did have many arguments with him. And you
• 37:22
  Speaker 5: know what, that's a wonderful thing, by the way, right,
• 37:25
  Speaker 5: because that's how you create intimacy with the Lord. It's
• 37:29
  Speaker 5: you have to speak with him, you have to air
• 37:31
  Speaker 5: things out right. He like, I said, well, that's what
• 37:36
  Speaker 5: exactly speaking of, which during that time where I was
• 37:42
  Speaker 5: having these struggles, these this sort of obsessive researching about
• 37:49
  Speaker 5: this that lasted about a year and a half, and
• 37:52
  Speaker 5: during that whole year and a half, the Lord just
• 37:54
  Speaker 5: told me to read Palms, Read Palms, Read Palms, read
• 37:57
  Speaker 5: some and so that's the only book that I read
• 38:00
  Speaker 5: that whole year and a half. And you know, that
• 38:05
  Speaker 5: was like that was my life. When David says, you know,
• 38:08
  Speaker 5: how long Lord do I have to stay in this
• 38:10
  Speaker 5: bed weeping? You know, how long do my tears have
• 38:13
  Speaker 5: to be my food? That was my whole life for
• 38:16
  Speaker 5: a year and a half, you know, just because I
• 38:18
  Speaker 5: was so like obsessed with this topic and trying to
• 38:22
  Speaker 5: resolve this. You know, I tried to find an answer
• 38:26
  Speaker 5: because I thought in my head, if I can find
• 38:28
  Speaker 5: the answer to homosexuality, then like it's but then there
• 38:33
  Speaker 5: is like a solution. That was like my my my
• 38:35
  Speaker 5: thought process, it's like if I can find the cause,
• 38:37
  Speaker 5: I can find a solution. And so yeah, it got
• 38:45
  Speaker 5: to the point where the Lord said, okay, caw wait, stop,
• 38:49
  Speaker 5: like chill, You're done, You're done looking at this trying
• 38:53
  Speaker 5: to figure things out, and I was like, okay, all right,
• 38:56
  Speaker 5: and I really got to the point where I was exhausted.
• 38:58
  Speaker 5: I was like, yeah, okay, fine, And it's crazy how
• 39:05
  Speaker 5: the enemy. I just remember, like it's crazy how the
• 39:07
  Speaker 5: enemy really he really, he's sneaky. I remember during that
• 39:13
  Speaker 5: time when I was obsessing over this, I started to
• 39:16
  Speaker 5: get angry at God, right, and like I said, I
• 39:18
  Speaker 5: started to argue with him. But it got to the
• 39:22
  Speaker 5: point where I knew in my conscious mind when I
• 39:25
  Speaker 5: was going to a place of when I was losing reason, right,
• 39:29
  Speaker 5: because you start questioning God because you're struggling with something,
• 39:33
  Speaker 5: but then you start you start trying to be a
• 39:36
  Speaker 5: social justice warrior for others, right. And so for example,
• 39:40
  Speaker 5: in my feed sometimes on Instagram, I have a point here.
• 39:44
  Speaker 5: I know it's kind of all over the place, but
• 39:46
  Speaker 5: in my feet on Instagram sometimes there's like videos of
• 39:49
  Speaker 5: like these poor children in Africa, like struggling with like
• 39:52
  Speaker 5: tumors or starvation, right, And so I remember when sometimes
• 39:58
  Speaker 5: I'd be like thinking about my struggle and be like Lord,
• 40:00
  Speaker 5: you know, like you don't take this away, and you know,
• 40:03
  Speaker 5: like how do you expect people to follow you if
• 40:06
  Speaker 5: it's this difficult, right, how do you expect And I
• 40:09
  Speaker 5: started talking talking about these kids, how do you expect
• 40:11
  Speaker 5: these kids to follow you, you know, and to have
• 40:13
  Speaker 5: this faith that you're asking of me when they're like
• 40:17
  Speaker 5: dealing with things that are even worse than I'm dealing with. Right,
• 40:20
  Speaker 5: And I just start trying to like just really just
• 40:24
  Speaker 5: fight with God. And I remember when I when I
• 40:27
  Speaker 5: was having this argument, I remember God put in my heart.
• 40:30
  Speaker 5: He said, he said, how do you know the faith
• 40:35
  Speaker 5: that I'm requiring of them? He said, how do you
• 40:38
  Speaker 5: know that I'm requiring the same faith from you as
• 40:44
  Speaker 5: as I am from them. I was like, oh, okay,
• 40:49
  Speaker 5: that's fair. I was still angry though. I was like,
• 40:52
  Speaker 5: you got me, but I'm still bad at you, bro anyways,
• 40:56
  Speaker 5: And so yeah, and so I got to the point
• 40:57
  Speaker 5: where the Lord just told me, you know how, he stopped, like,
• 41:01
  Speaker 5: you need to chill now. And I was like, okay, fine,
• 41:04
  Speaker 5: you know I'm gonna I'm gonna chill now. And and
• 41:07
  Speaker 5: God just started to two like he told me to
• 41:15
  Speaker 5: stop thinking about it, right, stop thinking about the struggle,
• 41:18
  Speaker 5: stop thinking about the temptation. And I was like, okay,
• 41:23
  Speaker 5: all right, And I remember during this time.
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: Was when.
• 41:32
  Speaker 5: I went to the Send. I don't know if you're
• 41:35
  Speaker 5: familiar with the Send, but the Send is like like
• 41:37
  Speaker 5: a big Christian conference and there's like multiple speakers. And
• 41:42
  Speaker 5: one of the speakers there was Francis Chan and he
• 41:45
  Speaker 5: was talking about the verse in Romans that says not
• 41:49
  Speaker 5: good at memorizing verses, but something along the lines of
• 41:53
  Speaker 5: there is now therefore no condemnation for those who are
• 41:56
  Speaker 5: in Christ Jesus. And he was preaching that verse, and
• 41:59
  Speaker 5: I remember he's said a lot of pastors are scared
• 42:02
  Speaker 5: of preaching this because they think they'll preach this and
• 42:05
  Speaker 5: then people start going off the rails, right, people will
• 42:07
  Speaker 5: start sinning everywhere because you know, there's no condemnation. But
• 42:12
  Speaker 5: the truth is that verse was the beginning of me
• 42:17
  Speaker 5: becoming set free from my addiction from my same sex attraction.
• 42:24
  Speaker 5: That verse helped me to stop judging myself, right. I
• 42:30
  Speaker 5: started to look at myself in the way that God
• 42:33
  Speaker 5: looked at me, and I started having grace for myself. Hey,
• 42:36
  Speaker 5: you know what the Lord says, There's no condemination for
• 42:38
  Speaker 5: me even when I sin, So I'm not going to
• 42:41
  Speaker 5: feel bad about myself, right, because what I would do
• 42:44
  Speaker 5: is after I looked at pornography or something, I would
• 42:48
  Speaker 5: like give myself space between God. It's exactly what Adam did, right,
• 42:52
  Speaker 5: he said, Oh I hate the fruit. Now I'm going
• 42:54
  Speaker 5: to run away. And I thought, for some reason in
• 42:57
  Speaker 5: my human brain that if I just did that, that,
• 43:02
  Speaker 5: you know, like, I'm gonna give myself like I don't know,
• 43:04
  Speaker 5: like a day between me and God and and things
• 43:06
  Speaker 5: will reset or something. And so I thought I couldn't
• 43:12
  Speaker 5: like come to God right right after I've sinned, right
• 43:14
  Speaker 5: because like now I'm like unholy, right, as if that's
• 43:17
  Speaker 5: what made me unholy, But of course not. And so
• 43:22
  Speaker 5: and so that those intervals, right as I meditated on
• 43:26
  Speaker 5: that word, they started to become shorter. And you know,
• 43:30
  Speaker 5: there'd be days where I, you know, I watch pornography
• 43:33
  Speaker 5: and I just like put my phone out and be like,
• 43:35
  Speaker 5: oh Lord, I'm sorry, and I just start talking to
• 43:39
  Speaker 5: God and developing a relationship with God, you know what
• 43:42
  Speaker 5: I mean, because that's what it's about. That's what it's about.
• 43:46
  Speaker 5: It's a relationship with the Lord. And you know, something
• 43:51
  Speaker 5: that that that's in my heart and that I want
• 43:53
  Speaker 5: people to understand is just how close you can become
• 43:55
  Speaker 5: to the Lord, just how how much of a friend
• 43:57
  Speaker 5: God can be to you. You know, religion really kills
• 44:01
  Speaker 5: that that understanding that that we have of God. God
• 44:07
  Speaker 5: is your friend, he is your father, and he's not
• 44:10
  Speaker 5: There's nothing you can do to take yourself away from
• 44:14
  Speaker 5: his presence unless you take yourself away from His presence, right,
• 44:20
  Speaker 5: And so that that sort of understanding of how I
• 44:27
  Speaker 5: cannot earn my sonship and I cannot take away my
• 44:30
  Speaker 5: sonship right before God, that sort of understanding really broke
• 44:35
  Speaker 5: me free from this addiction, right, this pornography addiction, like this,
• 44:41
  Speaker 5: this hole that I had in my heart, the reason
• 44:43
  Speaker 5: why I sought that out started to break, right. And
• 44:47
  Speaker 5: you know, around this time there was still the question
• 44:51
  Speaker 5: of like of homosexuality and same sex attraction. And it
• 45:00
  Speaker 5: was around this time where I found your channel, right,
• 45:05
  Speaker 5: and I watched a lot of the videos, right, and
• 45:09
  Speaker 5: none of them really talked about like like there was
• 45:13
  Speaker 5: a lot of testimonies which were so good, but at
• 45:15
  Speaker 5: the time that I was like trying to find an answer, right,
• 45:18
  Speaker 5: there was nobody talking about the answer. So I was like, Okay,
• 45:21
  Speaker 5: this is not how gonna help me. But then around
• 45:26
  Speaker 5: this time you posted the video with doctor Nickelosi, and
• 45:32
  Speaker 5: he talked about so many points that I had already
• 45:36
  Speaker 5: thought about, right, but that I couldn't connect, and he
• 45:40
  Speaker 5: talked about all of it. He explained it in such
• 45:42
  Speaker 5: a good way, and I was like, oh wow, okay,
• 45:46
  Speaker 5: that that makes so much sense. Right, just some of
• 45:49
  Speaker 5: them is like, uh basically right, an overarching theme is
• 45:54
  Speaker 5: like just an insecurity in your masculinity.
• 45:57
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 45:58
  Speaker 5: And that was like a big deal for me because
• 46:04
  Speaker 5: I was like, okay, wow, I I realized how much
• 46:09
  Speaker 5: that fueled my same sex attraction. And so I started
• 46:14
  Speaker 5: to after seeing that video, right, and after things started
• 46:18
  Speaker 5: to make a little more sense. And by the way,
• 46:20
  Speaker 5: God only allowed me to see that video after I
• 46:23
  Speaker 5: rested in him. Right, we want answers, We want answers,
• 46:26
  Speaker 5: and God says, chill, you gotta chill, you gotta you
• 46:29
  Speaker 5: gotta wait for his time, right, And so finally had
• 46:35
  Speaker 5: some answers, right, And I was like, okay, Lord, you
• 46:37
  Speaker 5: know what, I'm just gonna bring it to you. I'm
• 46:40
  Speaker 5: just gonna bring it to you. And I started to
• 46:43
  Speaker 5: bring uh, you know, these insecurities that I started to
• 46:47
  Speaker 5: realize I had, you know, like about my body or
• 46:50
  Speaker 5: or my yeah, just like my way of being right,
• 46:53
  Speaker 5: like oh, I'm not like you know, like man enough
• 46:55
  Speaker 5: or whatever. And I started bringing this to the Lord
• 46:59
  Speaker 5: and he started to just heal my heart. Like that's
• 47:02
  Speaker 5: the best way you can put it, is like he
• 47:04
  Speaker 5: started to heal my heart and and like that same
• 47:09
  Speaker 5: sex attraction. That that for me, right, I'm not gonna
• 47:12
  Speaker 5: speak for a bunch of people because everybody's different, but
• 47:14
  Speaker 5: for me, a big thing was like man, I just
• 47:18
  Speaker 5: I that what fueled that for me was just like
• 47:21
  Speaker 5: an insecurity in myself, in my manhood, you know. When
• 47:25
  Speaker 5: I was younger, Like I remember, I I fantasized about
• 47:30
  Speaker 5: like a relationship with a girl. I really did, and
• 47:33
  Speaker 5: I really wanted that, but I felt like I was
• 47:36
  Speaker 5: enough for a girl. Like that was a genuine thought
• 47:39
  Speaker 5: I had, was like I'm just not enough for for
• 47:41
  Speaker 5: a girl. I'm not man enough for a girl, so
• 47:43
  Speaker 5: like I have to settle for guys, which you know
• 47:46
  Speaker 5: doesn't make any sense logically, But it's all these like
• 47:50
  Speaker 5: weird wounds we have, you know, these traumas we have,
• 47:53
  Speaker 5: and the way we make sense of it as kids,
• 47:55
  Speaker 5: which usually doesn't make any sense. There's no truth to it, right,
• 47:58
  Speaker 5: But that's how we reason things out. And you know,
• 48:02
  Speaker 5: God just started cleaning my heart out and cleaning my
• 48:05
  Speaker 5: heart up, and these desires just started to fade away.
• 48:09
  Speaker 5: And it's really insane. Now I want to make something clear,
• 48:12
  Speaker 5: Like I'm not saying like I don't have temptation anymore, right,
• 48:17
  Speaker 5: but I can say that I'm free from that hole
• 48:21
  Speaker 5: that I had in my heart. I don't have that
• 48:25
  Speaker 5: like that need for it anymore. Right, Paul says, be
• 48:29
  Speaker 5: careful if you are, you know, standing not to fall.
• 48:32
  Speaker 5: That just means like be aware of the environment you're in,
• 48:36
  Speaker 5: be aware of you know, don't be dumb, you know, like.
• 48:39
  Speaker 3: If yeah, if yeah, bless you fall.
• 48:43
  Speaker 5: Yeah yeah. So like I'm not here saying like, oh
• 48:45
  Speaker 5: I'm mister, like you know now I'm together. Yeah, Like.
• 48:53
  Speaker 4: Uh, but.
• 48:56
  Speaker 5: Like I I I can say that I'm set free,
• 48:58
  Speaker 5: you know what I mean, Like I have that understanding
• 49:02
  Speaker 5: that the Lord literally sent me free, the Lord healed
• 49:04
  Speaker 5: my heart. I don't have that that hole in my
• 49:06
  Speaker 5: heart anymore. You know. And people they're very they want
• 49:13
  Speaker 5: black and white answers, right. I remember I recently posted
• 49:16
  Speaker 5: a video talking about my story a little bit and
• 49:19
  Speaker 5: some guy comments and he said the comment was kind
• 49:23
  Speaker 5: of funny. He said, man, this is a long video.
• 49:27
  Speaker 5: So are you gay or not? And you know, it's like, man,
• 49:34
  Speaker 5: you're focusing on the wrong thing. You're focusing on the
• 49:37
  Speaker 5: wrong thing. It's not about your sexuality. Man, God wants
• 49:40
  Speaker 5: your heart. He wants your heart. And I think people
• 49:43
  Speaker 5: just want a black and white answer because it's easier
• 49:45
  Speaker 5: to help them support their worldview, right. But I can
• 49:54
  Speaker 5: only share what I've lived right with the Lord, and
• 49:57
  Speaker 5: that's the beauty of our testimony.
• 50:01
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and then what and so did your parents liked?
• 50:04
  Speaker 4: Do your parents did they know about all this? Now?
• 50:08
  Speaker 5: They do?
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: They do know.
• 50:11
  Speaker 5: They're they're a little hesitant. It's funny because they're Brazilian,
• 50:14
  Speaker 5: you know, and in brazil culture, like you can still
• 50:19
  Speaker 5: you can still die for being gay, you know, like
• 50:21
  Speaker 5: in Brazil, like people will literally like kill you. And
• 50:24
  Speaker 5: so they're very like they're not scared. They were just
• 50:28
  Speaker 5: very like hesitant. They were like, Okay, well make sure
• 50:31
  Speaker 5: you're doing this, you know, because you feel the Lord
• 50:34
  Speaker 5: is leading you. Because well we also go to a
• 50:37
  Speaker 5: Brazilian church as well. And so even though I'm I'm
• 50:42
  Speaker 5: in mass Now.
• 50:46
  Speaker 4: You know even though you're in wait, what did you
• 50:48
  Speaker 4: say when even though what.
• 50:50
  Speaker 5: Even though I'm in Massachusetts? Now, yeah, I go to
• 50:54
  Speaker 5: a Brazilian church. And so they were kind of just like, okay, well,
• 50:57
  Speaker 5: you know, be prepared for what's to come. And they're right,
• 51:00
  Speaker 5: the devil is a liar, the devil is dirty.
• 51:05
  Speaker 4: And now what and what's happened with your stomach problems?
• 51:09
  Speaker 3: Are they gone?
• 51:11
  Speaker 5: So? Right? So I had this this relates to my
• 51:20
  Speaker 5: to my my testimony, right, So I after the Lord
• 51:26
  Speaker 5: started to sort of push me forward and you know, say, hey, Kyi,
• 51:29
  Speaker 5: you should start sharing your testimony. I was like, okay, Lord,
• 51:34
  Speaker 5: I'm gonna start sharing my testimony. And I was gonna
• 51:36
  Speaker 5: stay it in front of my whole youth group, right.
• 51:38
  Speaker 5: But then I remember that there's some people that I'm
• 51:40
  Speaker 5: so close to, and I was like, you know what,
• 51:42
  Speaker 5: I'm not gonna like drop this bomb on them because
• 51:44
  Speaker 5: at this point, nobody really knew anything right about the
• 51:47
  Speaker 5: same extraction, pornography, addiction, none of that, And so I
• 51:52
  Speaker 5: was like, I'm not going to just drop this this
• 51:54
  Speaker 5: bomb on them. I'm gonna speak to my close, my
• 51:56
  Speaker 5: close friends first. And so I gathered them up this
• 51:59
  Speaker 5: one day and I spoke with them, and I spoke
• 52:06
  Speaker 5: with them. They were very They received me in such
• 52:08
  Speaker 5: a wonderful way. They were so loving. And I remember
• 52:13
  Speaker 5: as we were leaving, two of them were in my
• 52:15
  Speaker 5: car and because we're going to go somewhere. And then
• 52:19
  Speaker 5: one of them he called me while I was in
• 52:22
  Speaker 5: the car and he was like, hey, Kywi, I know
• 52:23
  Speaker 5: that you talked a little bit about your stomach issues, right,
• 52:28
  Speaker 5: and I think we should just pray for your stomach.
• 52:32
  Speaker 5: And I was like, okay, awesome, And so you know,
• 52:36
  Speaker 5: we all just prayed. We all prayed and prayed and prayed.
• 52:39
  Speaker 5: And that raw feeling that I had in my stomach,
• 52:42
  Speaker 5: because my stomach at this point was very damaged, right,
• 52:46
  Speaker 5: But that raw feeling that I had in my stomach,
• 52:49
  Speaker 5: it literally went away like during that prayer, and I
• 52:52
  Speaker 5: felt the Lord tell me, like, Kwie, the more you
• 52:54
  Speaker 5: share your testimony, the more I'm going to heal your stomach.
• 52:58
  Speaker 5: Because the issue with my stomach was always just like
• 53:01
  Speaker 5: the fear of man right and humiliation and shame. It's
• 53:05
  Speaker 5: like that's what that all kind of became somatic, right,
• 53:09
  Speaker 5: and then it manifested itself in my stomach, and so
• 53:16
  Speaker 5: people ask me like, oh, is your stomach healed? Now,
• 53:18
  Speaker 5: I believe the Lord healed my stomach from the damage
• 53:21
  Speaker 5: it had. However, my issue is I have to position
• 53:30
  Speaker 5: myself so that I don't get tempted into fearing man, right,
• 53:37
  Speaker 5: get tempted into being ashamed, because when I do, my
• 53:41
  Speaker 5: stomach it hurts a little bit, you know. And that's
• 53:44
  Speaker 5: so it's such a it's so interesting because you know,
• 53:47
  Speaker 5: again people want to make things like and white. Right,
• 53:50
  Speaker 5: Oh is your stomach healed or not? The Lord he
• 53:53
  Speaker 5: healed the damage. I believe that, but he's not going
• 53:57
  Speaker 5: to take away something things because he wants us to
• 54:02
  Speaker 5: learn from it, right, he wants us to to grow.
• 54:06
  Speaker 5: And growth it comes through, you know, living life and
• 54:12
  Speaker 5: living through the difficult things and just walking all these
• 54:15
  Speaker 5: things out with him. And so yeah, I believe the
• 54:19
  Speaker 5: Lord healed my stomach. But I have the conscious consciousness,
• 54:24
  Speaker 5: the awareness that I have to remember too to be
• 54:28
  Speaker 5: who God has called me to be, right, somebody who's
• 54:31
  Speaker 5: bold and who's courageous. Right, That's that's what my name means.
• 54:34
  Speaker 5: It means strong, brave, and courageous. And it's so funny
• 54:38
  Speaker 5: because the devil tried to literally, you know, kill that
• 54:43
  Speaker 5: in me ever since I was a kid. Yea. And
• 54:45
  Speaker 5: so the Lord really he's amazing.
• 54:51
  Speaker 4: Well, praise the Lord. That's awesome, Kawe. I'm I'm happy
• 54:56
  Speaker 4: for you. I'm happy that you that the Lord just
• 55:00
  Speaker 4: showed you what the root of all these issues were
• 55:04
  Speaker 4: and that he's working all this out with you, like
• 55:06
  Speaker 4: it's amazing. And yeah, well, everyone just keep praying for
• 55:11
  Speaker 4: Kawai to continue to grow in that and like to
• 55:15
  Speaker 4: be healed of all of this shame and like that
• 55:18
  Speaker 4: he's felt since a child. It's this shame and fear
• 55:22
  Speaker 4: of man. So thank you for coming on the show
• 55:25
  Speaker 4: and sharing your story.
• 55:26
  Speaker 5: Kahway. Thank you, Becky. This is awesome.
• 55:30
  Speaker 3: Wait, don't touch that dial.
• 55:31
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• 55:35
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• 55:38
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• 55:41
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• 55:44
  Speaker 2: Thank you, Thank you for listening to this episode of
• 55:49
  Speaker 2: The Beckett Cook Show. Your support makes this content possible.
• 55:54
  Speaker 2: All episodes of The Beckett Cook Show are also available
• 55:58
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• 56:02
  Speaker 2: his website at Beckettcook dot com.
• 56:06
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• 56:08
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• 56:09
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