Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / October 10, 2023 | Expresso - Karina Soto

Transcript

October 10, 2023 | Expresso - Karina Soto · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: So my name is Karina and I am um a mother of five children.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: I have two girls and three boys.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: I have been with my significant other for 11 years.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_00: I don't come from a Christian home.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: Um my family was never into church.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: Um I was born in Mexico, um, where I was raised by my two siblings and um neighbor at the time.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: My parents would work full-time uh to be able to provide and uh you know put food on our table.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: So they were very non-existent in the home.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: I went through a very traumatic uh childhood.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: I was stripped of my childhood at a very young age, and as I grew up, I noticed I noticed some things about me I felt um that were out of my control.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: Um when I meditated on some of the addictions I had, um, which was unhealthy sexual um relationships and drinking to have a good time.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: Uh it wasn't something I enjoyed doing.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: Um I actually felt horrible after the fact, but that was my way of coping with my childhood trauma.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_00: And so um growing up, I felt unworthy.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um I felt very lonely, full of shame and guilt, and I self-blamed myself um for a lot of the things that happened.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_00: At age eight or nine, um, I actually moved to the United States when I was um almost six years old going into kindergarten.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: And I started attending Salvation Army.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um I actually was invited by a friend, and um that was my very first time going to church.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: And back in the day, um Salvation Army had uh vans that um they would dispatch to pick you up.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_00: All you had to do was call the pastor, and they'd send vans to um bring you to church.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: And um, you know, I reflect on it, and you know, I was an eight nine-year-old girl calling a pastor to pick me up to go to church.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: Um, my parents never went with me.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um I was always by myself um going to church, and me having a nine-year-old daughter now, um, especially with how crazy the world is now, it's not something that I would feel, you know, safe putting my daughter through, um, or you know, just let alone call somebody to pick her up.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but I felt like I I was there for a purpose.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: Later, um, about I was 11 or 12 years old, I found out my mom was not my real mom.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_00: And I was born out of adultery.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: So my dad had an affair, brought me into the marriage, and my mom, which was his wife, which she's my mama, um, she took me in with open arms.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: And um, I could I couldn't be more grateful that God really placed her in my life.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_00: Um, again, I self-blamed because um, you know, at that age, I know my dad did something wrong, so I felt like God was punishing me for um my father's actions.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: And so fast forward to meeting Eddie, which is my now husband.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: Um we started dating when I was 17.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I got pregnant and had my first child at 18.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_00: And um I was living life so fast.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: Um, he was a drug addict and an alcoholic, but he hit it very well.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: And um on the weekend of my 18th birthday, I moved in with his family, and he was um addicted to a couple substances, and he was a drunk.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but Eddie also came from a broken home.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: He didn't grow up with his parents, he um was given away to one of his uncles, and so he didn't have somebody to teach him better.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um his uncle uh was a drug addict, so Eddie was with his uncle, um, who he's seen as a father figure, and did drugs with him at age 13.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um we were both um two very broken people, and it's like our brokenness is what attracted um us to each other.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um days, months, and years passed and nothing changed.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: Um at this time, you know, I was fighting him to get out of his addictions, and at this time we only had one child, um, and I have child children back to back, so our family grew pretty fast.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: Um he always tried so hard to change and stay sober, and Eddie was always a provider, he was such a great father, but he was just not a good husband.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um he was always um missing something and uh he would always fall back to his addiction.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_00: Um he would, you know, promise to stay sober and he stayed sober three, four weeks, and he would go back.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: So he would reopen the wound again, and it was like that first straight um nine years straight.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: It wasn't long until I knew he was gonna fall into the trap again.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: And um I was just so tired of the broken promises.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: We never celebrated holidays, we never celebrated birthdays.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: I was just too scared to surround myself with anybody because anybody anybody we had around us was not a good im influence in our life.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: We were always surrounded by n drugs um or friends that were not doing good.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_00: Um during my pregnancies, you know, even after having my kids, he was um not much help because of his addiction.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: And then years later, he got another addiction.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: And it's like everything just kept getting worse.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um we were miserable for nine long years.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_00: In 2021, I mentally checked out of my marriage and I started pursuing another relationship without sugarcoating.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_00: I committed adultery.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: It wasn't until my husband seen me gone that he really thought that he needed to change.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_00: And it hurt me to see my children hurt.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_00: And although I was already pursuing a future with somebody else, it was like I was still missing something.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_00: And um we just didn't want to repeat the cycle.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_00: We really wanted to break that chain and we wanted to change those curses for our children.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_00: Our kids were sad and miserable going back and forth.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um, in July of 2021, uh, we decided to give it another shot.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_00: And this time I went back to misery.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_00: Um, nothing changed and just opened that wound back up again.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_00: And this time I wasn't strong to hold everything together anymore.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_00: And then I fell into addiction.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_00: In the blink of an eye, I became the person that I was fighting for nine years to change.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_00: And I felt into the trap to use drugs as a coping mechanism.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_00: And now we're both two drug-addicted parents.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_00: We were like that for every weekend for about two months.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_00: And finally, before Thanksgiving, I said enough was enough.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_00: Thanksgiving came up and I finally um stood firm in my decision.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_00: And told him that if nothing changed, that I was moving on.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_00: I was becoming a person I wasn't, and finally I realized I was sick of living like this.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_00: I was sick of living in a world where I just felt like I was getting dealt a bad card after bad card after bad card.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_00: In the sense of my childhood, my marriage, and where I was going.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_00: I was miserable.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_00: I was sad.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't want to.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_00: And that day was our first day staying sober.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_00: We still had fights and we weren't genuinely happy.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_00: And on New Year's Eve, I told my husband we need a church.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_00: And scared and contemplating, um he agreed, and he said he would do anything to keep our family.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_00: And so I knew I wanted uh to join a church that was gonna have an amazing youth program for my kids.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and you know, usually when you're scrolling on Facebook and you say you're looking for shoes, you get ads showing you shoes, and TBC came up on my suggestions, and I seen a very happy family, and that's something that I really craved.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_00: And so we gave it a shot.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_00: I told Eddie that my husband that we were gonna start going the first Sunday of 2022, and he agreed, and we sat outside Topeka Bible Church parking lot for like 30 minutes, contemplating if we wanted to get off or not.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, when you come to church, everybody seems perfect.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_00: And we were broken, two broken people, a broken family.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_00: So finally we came in, and the very first person we met was Doug.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_00: Doug showed us everywhere around the church, and we went to um worship and we left church, and Eddie said this was this was our second home.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_00: And as months passed by, we had such a fi a fire for God, and we were just so hungry for his word.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um we did absolutely everything.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um I joined in I joined TBC in January, and I believe Fed and Lead started in February.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_00: And the very first day to our parenting class, um, we were driving here, and I told Eddie, uh, my husband, I was like, you know, I really want a Bible.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_00: Um so I got here and you know, we took the kids, we were taking the kids to class, and Ashley McIntosh, she was checking in my kids, and um I have no idea how she knows my name.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but she said, um, Karina, she said, I want to give you a Bible.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_00: So I said, okay, I was like, thank you.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_00: She said, yeah, I just got um, I ordered one from Amazon, and it's the exact same one as the one I have, and I want to gift it to you.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_00: And that day just changed my life forever.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_00: And I've always prayed to God for guidance.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_00: Um, at this point, we were a couple months into sobriety, and I just felt like serving God.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_00: Um because He had already changed us so much in just the very short time we were here.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um, then I started volunteering.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_00: Um my very first camp that I volunteered was Camp Catapult, and I signed myself up for absolutely everything except being a leader because I was um in church six months in, and so I said anything but a leader.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't feel capable of um taking on that title and showing kids about God.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_00: I was new into scripture myself, so I didn't feel like I was equipped to do so.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_00: So fast forward a couple months, I got my job title and I was a leader.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_00: And I was gonna call Jason and tell him that I didn't feel comfortable taking on that role, and my husband told me that I had prayed to God to put me where I he thought that I was needed, and I sucked it up and I did it, and I left out of here crying on my very last day.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I just felt very fulfilled, and he had just changed us so much and brought our family back together.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_00: Um these are our five kiddos.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_00: So then uh Kemp Caterpillar in the Wild came and I didn't volunteer for that because everybody here told me that nobody wanted to do it because it was so hot and it was the hottest week of the of the month.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_00: So I didn't volunteer.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_00: And um the following Sunday I showed up to um worship and uh a service ended.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I seen Jason and Jason's like, are you ready for next week?
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, What?
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_00: And he's like, Are you ready for next week?
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_00: You're gonna be a leader, and I was like, No, I don't think I signed up for that.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_00: He's like, Yes, you did.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_00: He's like, but if you don't want to take it, um, let me know.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_00: And I felt like God was just really throwing me out there.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_00: So I did it, and again I felt fulfilled.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_00: Me and my husband decided to surrender our lives to Christ on August 28th, 2022, when we got baptized.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_00: And then we did Fed and Lead again, and this time we did marriage.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_00: So just the very first year of being here at TBC, we joined a parenting and a marriage class.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_00: And then the light show came, and we both volunteered for that.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_00: And then Sam was downstairs recruiting people for the tech team, and I volunteered for that.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_00: And I felt such I just felt such at peace serving God, and I asked God for guidance.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_00: And um He has blessed me in my career.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_00: So later on that year, I prayed to God to put me somewhere that I could still serve Him.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_00: I wanted to be a business owner to prioritize God because if I needed to serve, I was gonna serve.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I didn't want to depend on anybody to tell me if I could or not.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_00: So growing up, I always wanted to be in the beauty industry, and I asked God for guidance, and sure enough, there was an event um at FBC, and it was Facials with Brooke or something like along the lines.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_00: So I took that as my confirmation.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_00: I was driving to Manhattan being a full-time wife, a full-time mom to five children, mid-winter, and I graduated on time.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't know if you asked me, but I couldn't have done that by myself.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um he made it happen.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_00: So then I graduated the beginning of this year, 2023, and me and Eddie both just prayed to be both um business owners.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_00: We wanted to have faith-based businesses.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_00: So I opened Four Seasons Wellness and Beauty Spa, and I play worship music during my services.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_00: Because no matter how broken or how lost you are, and if you come see me, you're leaving with the peace of Jesus.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_00: God provided and he made it happen.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_00: Eddie was also successful at opening his business.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_00: And um it's a concrete construction company.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_00: And our very first client, she was a believer.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_00: And we had just uh put decals on an orange truck.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if you've seen it outside, um, but we had a Bible verse on there, and so she pulled over and we were walking into my mom's house.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_00: And um, you know, she rolled down her window, screaming at my husband, say, Hey, hey, um, do you do uh construction?
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_00: And Eddie's like, yeah, I do construction.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just uh starting my own business.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_00: And she said, Okay, she said, Well, I don't even live in Topeka.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I'm actually from Kansas City, and the house that I am trying to um fix is over by Washburn.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_00: She said, But God led me through this road, and He told me to ask you if you um I something along the lines, but she was felt led to ask Eddie to work for her.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_00: So, fast forward a couple weeks, Eddie starts um working for her, and before they started the construction, they prayed over the house.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_00: So Eddie started tearing out the house, and it was our very first job in the construction industry, and we started tearing out the ceiling.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_00: Mind you, Eddie always prayed for guidance.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_00: He didn't know how to run a business, his family doesn't own any businesses.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so we just never knew where to start.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_00: And as we're tearing out this house on 2303 Southwest High Avenue by Washburn, um, we tore out the ceiling, and two books fell out of the ceiling.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_00: And here's one because I couldn't find the other.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_00: And this book is called Business Management.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_00: It's called Training and Service for Executive Work.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: I also had a customer, her name was Michelle, and she came to see me for a facial, and we were listening to worship music together, and she would just start crying.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, me being the aesthetician, I was kind of confused and asked her if everything was fine.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_00: And she explained to me that she was just so mad at God and that she was so angry because she lived a very traumatic life.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_00: Come to know that she lived a very likely childhood like mine.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_00: And I felt like God sent her to me to comfort her at the time.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_00: I invited her to church and she gave it a chance.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_00: But she didn't feel like she belonged because she didn't heal what was keeping her from church.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_00: But then she texted me a couple weeks ago and she said she's been listening to Christian music and she was playing it over and over so she can sing along to it.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_00: She messaged me for help to connect her with a mentor here at TBC.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_00: And it's still a work in progress.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_00: We also started having um Bible study at our house.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um I posted a job posting on our construction business page, and a gentleman reached out to us.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_00: And he was searching for Jesus all his life.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_00: And when he contacted my husband, um, my husband hired him because he had the experience.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um but then he told my husband that he reached out to him because he needed a job and he always wanted to look for Jesus, and he felt like Eddie was his way.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_00: And he's still with us to this day, and him and his wife and his family go to our house and we host a Bible study on Mondays.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_00: And when Connie reached out to me on August 28th, they were there.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_00: And she asked me if I would share my story.
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_00: And of course I said yes, but then a couple days passed, and I was like, I don't know if I was ready.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_00: And so I talked to my husband and I said, I think I'm actually gonna call her back and tell her no.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_00: And um he was asking me why, and I said, Because God was still working in my life.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_00: But then he told me that he never stops.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_00: So I pulled through.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_00: So one of the biggest lies someone can tell you is that that person can't change.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_00: That's the enemy speaking, and I know this because I'm living a testimony of change and growth.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_00: My husband and I were on the verge of getting divorced, and I thought that there was no coming back.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_00: It was a very dark place, and a very bad place for my husband.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um a very bad place that my husband took us to, and I thought my family was broken, but my husband kept fighting for our family, and he gave himself to God.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_00: One, the most important thing, he gave himself to God, and God can do the impossible, and I've seen this man go from never coming to church and listening to hip-hop demonic music to always listening to worship.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_00: We're literally watching sermons as we go to the gym and listening to the Bible.
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_00: Even when he's in the shower, he'll play music and he'll just jam out to worship.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_00: He's part of chore core and he's constantly just hungry for the word of God.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_00: He also um joined a Saturday Bible study with a group of men, and I would have never imagined this ever.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_00: If you knew my husband two to three years ago, you wanna you would have never believed that was my husband.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_00: We were so disconnected and we were we were never hand in hand, um, but now we're always next to each other.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes I can't even believe this myself that my husband is a new man, and that the person that I have to thank is God, that he answered my prayers.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_00: I prayed for a husband, for my husband to come back come back to me, and I kept praying and praying.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_00: And we got to such a traumatic, dark, horrible place, but it took for my husband to give himself to God, and I gotta find grace in that.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_00: And I and when I say that that's the enemy talking, when they say the person will never change, trust me, the person can change.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_00: God can do the impossible, just keep praying for that person.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_00: And as far as um the Bible verses that are that I love the most, I can't just choose one.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_00: So I'll share my first five.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_00: Romans 8 18, the pain you are feeling can't compare to the joy that's coming.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_00: John 14 8.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_00: If God is all you have, you have all you need.
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_00: Psalm 23, you're gonna make it.
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_00: Trust me.
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_00: Matthew 21, 22, pray, believe, and receive.
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_00: And Psalm 46, 5, God is within her, she will not fall.
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_00: And there's just no going back.
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_00: I don't ever want to go back, and it's been the biggest blessing of my life.
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_00: And when you catch the Holy Spirit, you want to tell everybody because truly, in the deep depths of my heart, I wish every single person in the world could feel this because it it just feels so good.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_00: And if you don't know where to start, I didn't either.
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_00: Pray about it, Google it, get a Bible, read the word, and find community because it's always so easy to run to the wrong people.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_00: I think the word of the the word of God is what sparked so much in me.
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_00: And if there is anything that I want you to take from my testimony, is that you are never too lost to be found, and that you have a purpose.
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_00: And when I got with Connie to share my testimony, before I shared it here, I had nothing for her.
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_00: So I kind of gave her um an idea, but she didn't even know what I would be sharing today.
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but I do have a couple pictures behind this happy marriage is also a young couple who got through the abusive, narcissistic, manipulative stage, toxic stage, who were alcoholics and drug addicts.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_00: But now we serve God together and love God together, all by the grace of God, and he did not fail us.