Shamanism, Drugs, Atheism, and Finding God in China - Nils

I woke up again, and it was like something that was sitting on my chest. And there was a huge pressure on my chest, and I couldn't breathe. Like there was a hand on my neck, and you know, and I thought I was choking.

Then I thought I need to cry out to the Lord, to Jesus Christ, and I did. It was very hard to say His name, but I still did, and I said, "Jesus."

Niels, this is kind of exciting because you've seen some of our podcasts in the past, you've been in contact with us at various points, and it's coming over to a conference here in Switzerland, to interview some people, meet some people, and so forth. And it turns out you're here at the same conference, and we got to meet in person, which is really, that was pretty neat, that was pretty providential. And hearing some of your story and what God has done in your life and the lessons you've learned, just felt it was the right thing to do to sit down and get those stories on camera and hear what you'd want to share with our audience.

So that's the backdrop for today's episode. So let's start at the beginning. Tell me about where you were born, where are you from, were you raised in a Christian home? Yeah, how does your story begin? I will start with my mother then.

My mother was born in a town, which is called a city in the Netherlands, but it's pretty small and it's very close to the German border. Roman Catholic area of the Netherlands. You know, the Netherlands was usually divided in two parts. You have the Protestant area and the Roman Catholic area. And so this city is located in the Catholic area. And so my mother was born there and raised.

Her parents, so my grandparents from my mother's side, they were devout Catholic. But my mother was, she was abused by an older man. And while she still was a child, like you know, around, I think, the age of 17. And she became pregnant from the man. And so because of the Roman Catholic traditions in the town, she became a shame for, I think, for the whole town. The church there decided to have the kid being taken away right after birth and to have it being adopted into another family.

And so I know that my mother saw, I think, a hymn very shortly and then never saw again. This is what drove my mother to have a hatred against the Roman Catholic Church. And this hate grew into a hate, I think, for everything that's religious.

I was born pretty, I say, not very long after that, I think, seven years after that happened, or eight, I'm not exactly sure.

And I also have an older brother. He was born two years earlier than I. But my mother, she went away from the home and she didn't want to have anything to do with the traditions of her parents, of my grandparents.

And my father arrived in the town as an artist and he was always traveling. And so my mother saw that as a way of escape. So finally she could escape. But at first she stayed a little and so there, my brother and I were born.

And then they decided to move to France. So I lived in France when I was very, very young. But in France, things didn't work out very well and they had a lack of money. And so eventually they had to move back to the Netherlands.

And then one year later, my parents divorced because the troubles were so high and at some point they didn't want to stay with each other. And so I was six years old and so my father said, "Well, I need to go.

Your mother doesn't want me anymore, so I will leave." My mother had to take care of us both and that was very hard for her, you know, because after you migrate to another country and you come back, then you have less money to spend. It was none. So her mother needed to take care also of things and her father, who was a car mechanic.

And so she had more contact again with her parents. And so I was more and more also having contact with my grandparents. And they would take me sometimes to church on Sunday if they could and if my mother allowed.

And I never thought, you know, the church was never attractive, was never an attractive place for me. I found it beautiful, but it didn't do much. But there was a brother of my mother, my uncle. At that time, he was heavily into drugs and new age stuff. And he also had some books about the occult. And he left those at my grandparents' place in the bookshelf.

And so it's very likely that my grandparents didn't understand one bit of what was in it. But I believe it was around the age of nine that I found those books. And I was very intrigued by those. And so I started reading them and asked my grandparents, "Can I have those?" And they said, "Yeah, please take those because we don't want them anyway."

And so I took them home and started absorbing them, you know, everything that was in it. It's all about, you know, magic in that sense. But it's not, I say, it's not superstition. It's also not superficial. It goes very deep.

Not long after, I started having dreams at night, a lot of nightmares.

And I really was afraid of going to sleep. So every night when it became dark, I started to have, you know, fears of the dark because it was like it would absorb me in some kind of way. And in my mind, I was trying to, I say, cope with it and started fantasizing a lot of things.

And using those books really helped me to, like, having the power, you know, to overcome that, right? So to have strength, to have, I say, physical strength to, you know, just to cope with it and to think, "Well, I'm strong, whatever happens, I'm in control of this."

While that developed, I was playing outside a lot. So in the city where I lived, there was a lot of green and parks. And so I would play with friends and there was one specific friend that I would play a lot with. And we ended up in a very small strip of forest. You couldn't call it a forest, it was just enough trees, you know. And in the middle of it, there was a very old tree that was cut down. And you could only see the trunk, but it was big. It was like one meter.

Around it grew younger trees, but it was in a perfect circle. And I saw that as some kind of altar. So I would go there with my friend very often and, you know, create huts with wood and sticks, you know, and, you know, leaves.

And while playing, we also had this kind of feeling of, you know, like having some kind of, you know, temple because it, you know. And in tradition, we have what it's called a witch ring. And it's pointing towards like when mushrooms grow in a circle from a mushroom that grew in the previous year, you know, and then it left its spores and then you get a perfect circle. And so these kinds of things, they put a heavy, I say, imprint on my mind. And I was thinking, "Okay, I'm here, the one who's like a priest, you know, with an altar and doing things."

And at some point, there was a thunderstorm and lightning struck very close by. And me and my friend were like knocked out. It was like the first thing that happened was like everything was black and then it's like nothing. And then we woke up, like, you know, just time passed and we just woke up from some kind of coma. It's hard to explain. And when I woke up, there was an imprint in the mud of some kind of animal. And I knew some things happened, but I could not explain.

And it felt so dark, like some kind of entity, you know, entered in my life. It was very often that I had dreams that were so vivid and extreme that sometimes it looked like I used drugs and I was gone away for such a long time and waking up, wow, it was only like one night of dreaming.

So I wondered how can I use all these occult things to master my own dreams.

And so I started on searching how to control myself and the dreams that I had. And I went to the local library and I would be found there as much as I could. Every time when I had some time left, I would go to the library, sit down and study, trying to find books about these things.

I grew up in a town that was called the Chicago of Europe. And that's in a sense that the drug trade in that town, city, was at its peak in that time. And it became the center of drug trade for whole Western Europe, I believe.

So there was a lot of influence there. And you have what it's called coffee shops. And coffee shops is not for serving coffee. This is for, I say, serving cannabis. So people would drink coffee or tea, but they would smoke cannabis within these places.

And the government of the Netherlands, they allowed, you know, these things to happen. But the drug trade became very heavy and also the what's called mafia, the mob, you know, from all kinds of areas, especially the Turkish one, they also came in. And so the town was really, I say, flooded with the idea of, you know, you have drugs, you can use drugs.

So it was very easy for me at a young age, before I became 18, to buy some weed in a coffee shop because I was very eager to know all these things. And I thought, well, if I can work with dreams, why not doing this step? And so I think it was around the age of 16, I started to smoke, but also to smoke cannabis as well.

And it started off very small, but then it was like almost every day, yeah, whenever I could, whenever I had the money or the possibility. So it's almost like we're seeing a convergence of the occult and trying to get control of the darkness and the bad dreams and things, but also drug use and like altering your state of consciousness almost. Like those were coming together. Yes. You know, it sounds like a very toxic mixture. Yeah. And then, yeah, studying into plants and things. They continue on that. Yes. So I started to study those plants that contain substances that alter your mind.

Because in that way, I saw you can gain full control over whatever you want to think, you want to know. I thought there could be great knowledge in that. It was like there's some hidden knowledge that I wanted to know. It's like a hunger for the hidden knowledge. And I kept on going since I did when I was a child.

And so these plants would help me to open my mind and to see more. And when you had a dream, you know, and you wake up, then it's, you know, it's almost gone. But with drugs, it, you know, it becomes more vivid and you remember it even more. So it seems to be more practical as well. And you gain more control.

So, and that grew very much into, I say, I wanted to study chemistry as well and to become a toxicologist. So I did. And so because I had that focus that I wanted to do that, I did. In the meantime, my mother met another man when I was young. And this man was very successful in his business. And so he did earn quite a lot of money comparing to what my mother had seen in the previous years because things were tough, right? Yeah.

She would sew clothing in the night just to make a little bit of money to have some food on the table. She saw this as a, you know, as a great way to have a better life. And so eventually we lived in a home that I call in my stepfather that my stepfather bought. And so things were good for her.

And, but because I was doing all these things, also the trouble came, right? And I became very rebellious. And I didn't want to listen to her. And I did listen to some of the things that my stepfather said because I thought, well, maybe there's some profit in there.

But I wanted to have full control over my own life. And so whenever they tried to have control over me, I refused. And so when I was 17, and that's even before the legal age in the Netherlands, I moved away. And there was found a little room for me in the same town where I could live. So I would go there. While I was there, I was doing also the study.

And, but being alone, things got even worse. So at some point, I would be stoned every day. My mother and my stepfather, especially my stepfather, they really drank a lot of alcohol in the home. So the alcohol was always there. I wouldn't say they were alcoholics in a sense that they, I say, they brought devastation or these things or a lack of money or none like that. But, you know, whenever they had the opportunity, there was always alcohol and in an abundance.

And so when I was very young, I thought, well, this is normal. So I also started to drink a lot of alcohol since then.

I also started to learn more about the new age. But one thing that really intrigued me was a series of books that was about an American who went to Mexico to find what is called a shaman. You know what a shaman is? There's some kind of a wizard who used drugs to gain control over the spiritual world.

And I started to absorb those books.

And I believed every word that the writer had put down on this because he had these meetings with the shaman. And the shaman taught him how to use certain plants. And those were very strong hallucinogenics.

So he would, if I can say that, he would trip and write down these trips. And I wanted to do the same. And this shamanism is really like a religion. So it's a very old, I say, culture, religion that has a lot of rules and myths. And the aim was to gain eternal life. So when the time has come to pass away from this world, that your spirit becomes free and that you would live forever as a free spirit in the spiritual world. And this is what I believed was true. So I started to also experiment with those same plants.

And that wasn't very hard in the Netherlands, being a drug country. And so I found those and started to take them. And right after that, it was like entities appeared during the night before I went to sleep and also during my sleep. And it's like there were always presence. There was always a presence of some, and I couldn't point it out, but it's some kind of presence.

And while I was smoking weed, I started to have hallucinations by the weed, which normally would not happen, but it would. And while being with friends, those hallucinations also became like group hallucinations.

When you see the same thing within a group that's not there, that doesn't exist, and this continued for quite some time. Like, was this a particular form of the occult or new age that you were aligning yourself with, or was this just you out there experimenting and this is just happening to you?

Yeah, those shamanic, let's call it shamanic practices, there were some that did the same thing, but it was in the Netherlands, it wasn't common, not at all. Would this be like part of the new age movement and religion, or is this something, this would be different than that, I guess? It's different. Yeah, it's different.

New age is something that it's more like, like it's playful, right? And it has some beauty and it's like aesthetics and it's like, oh, I learned something, you know, and then you have some satisfaction. But these things don't have that. It's not, yeah, they don't give you satisfaction really at all. It's, this is bleak, you know, what you're describing. It's like really, yeah, really bleak, almost like nihilistic or something. Yeah.

So I started also to become very, I say, negative about religion.

I already was, right? My mother gave that to me. So I grew up in a home where everything that was, for example, Christian, we would say, no, right? So when something was on the television, you turn it off, right? Right away, you have this aversion to it, right? Even just a tiny thing was already enough to trigger us and then to move that away. And that transitioned into very strong, now I can say that blasphemous thoughts, but also thoughts that I would speak out among friends that were so opposed.

But it was more like a hate, a very deep hatred, which I, at that time, I didn't understand where it came from, but it was there.

And I saw that it was my own idea, my own construct, but I saw that God was a human construct. As when you have a lot of people that believe in the same thing, at some point, it becomes like, you know, something tangible, you know, something that is, you have this energy being created because a lot of people are, you know, like focusing on the same thing.

And that's similar, of course, to what the new age also thinks that if you are with a large group and you pray for something that will manifest at some point, I thought, well, God is like that. So you were essentially an atheist then.

Yeah, well, an atheist doesn't believe in God, but in a part suitable. But in the other way, I believed in some some God, but it's not a person. It's a human construct. It's a human production, right? Yeah, it's a human creation instead of the other way around. Wow, that in a weird way kind of makes sense, but yet it's so alien to what God actually is. Yes, you know, but it's basically saying we can, we, the humans, create God essentially, right? Yes, yes, exactly. Wow, bizarre. Exactly. So we have also full control over what is not who, but what God is. Yeah, so God is not a who. Then God becomes a what. Totally impersonal then.

Yes, there's no personal God at all. The personality that identification is made by the people who are, you know, practicing these things. I started also to implement other things like Eastern mysticism into my life. And I think it was from the age of maybe 21, I started to use an oracle.

It's a Chinese oracle. You use it for divination.

It's some kind of future prediction, but it's more for gaining wisdom, what to do, how to gain wisdom, what to do with your life, right? And this comes from Chinese religions called Taoism. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, and they still do that nowadays as you go to the temple and it's a huge religious system. Yes, massive. Yes. Yeah, and I started to master this because I would do this all day, every day. Whenever I had to make decisions, I would, I say, consult this oracle.

But yeah, it always gave a very precise answer that was accommodating the question. So I knew that it's almost impossible. You can have some randomness, but it's the the question of the answers were very specific, so so specific that it's it's it's supernatural to to have an answer like that.

Yeah, that's scary. Yes. And I I did implement this into my life. Mm-hmm. And I started off with a book and coins. And I thought, well, this is this is hard, you know, every time to, you know, to throw coins and make things easier. So then I would use a website that did the same thing, right? So it would throw the coins for you and you have your answer. But you meditate first and then do this and then you have your answers.

And I also started to, uh, do, I say, uh, do this for for other people as well, to consult others. So you're doing this for other people. You've, you know, you got some, it seems like an odd mixture of the occult, different types of drugs, but also Eastern mysticism, Taoism getting mixed in there. So you kind of got this amalgamation of things, yes, emerged into your life. Yes, it became normal for me. Yeah, I was going to say it's just, that was just your life. Like that's just what you did. It wasn't like you probably woke up and just thought, this is really weird and strange, but it gives you do it every day. Yes, you would get used to it.

Yes, right. I thought I could not do without. Hmm, I thought, no, right? So every time there was a situation or, you know, something that bothered me or I needed to resolve something, I would go there, that direction. And often that that worked pretty well. Sometimes I thought, well, you know, that's odd, you know, but then like a day later, it it still matched, right?

So it, yeah. So if there's a result and you think, well, let's continue with that, it's very practical in that sense. Did you stop to think of what could possibly be the forces behind why this works? That's like, I also saw that as how how I viewed God, like it's some kind of, okay, field where you where you draw something from, but not nothing personal, right? No, no specific entity in that sense. No, no, it's not like, you know. This is the force behind it specifically. It wasn't like that for you. Yeah, it's more like what Jung thought, you know, about, you know, the spiritual.

It's that when because everyone is on this, it's called plane. Then, you know, it's, you know, the spiritual plane is because it's all people together to go forward. My my studies, they, you know, at some point, you know, doing drugs and all these things that that that didn't work, right? So because chemistry, you know, that needs devotion. And I really liked it, but, you know, I was doing all kinds of things and doing alcohol, drugs, and the combination with study is, is, uh, that doesn't work. Yeah, yeah. So at some point, I I just needed to do working, finding jobs to, you know, to, uh, to provide for myself and to to have a living.

I ended up in a in a multinational where I worked as a, it's called a documentalist. And I was working with documents all day because I was good with with computers. And at the same time, I, uh, I went on the internet. And, um, there was a colleague who said, well, I have this, um, dating website. And, uh, I found, uh, I found a new friend with this dating website.

And, uh, but so I'm not using it anymore. So you can have the account. I said, well, here are the credentials. And you log in because you're single and, you know, try to find someone. I thought, well, that's okay. Let's do that.

So I did. I I I made a, I changed the profile, of course. And then, uh, now I posted something. Hmm. And then a few days after, I I received a message. I said, okay, that's nice, right? And, um, it was a person. I knew that she was Chinese and, but she wanted to meet. And I thought, well, no, I don't have the time. But, uh, after New Year, she she still wrote. Hmm. Again, I thought, okay, that that's cool. Let's meet.

I went to the other side of Holland. It was, it was, I live on the most eastern side of Holland, Hmm, near the German border. And she was in The Hague. That's really, yeah. Yeah. And we met. And, uh, that was, that was really good. So we had a lot of, uh, I say, uh, I call it click. You have a click. You sense like, oh, we we really appreciate each other.

So we starting to meet more often. And, um, she was studying at a university. And so she had to go back to China. And so at some point, uh, we thought, well, if you have to go now, then we have to break off the relationship. So then I thought it would be good to, to, to get married. And I proposed. And she said, yes.

So the time of meeting and getting married was a very short time. Mm-hmm. Because we got married, she would have the Dutch nationality at some point. And so she could stay in the Netherlands. After a few years, my wife said, I I want to go to China because she wanted to be closer to, uh, to her parents. And she found a job at the Dutch consulate in Shanghai in China.

And it wasn't, that wasn't close to where her parents lived. But yeah, yeah, it was an opportunity for her to to go back. And that was a very hard decision because I, I grew up in a what's called a city, but in fact was a town. Hmm. I thought, wow, that's, that's, that's, uh, that's something, right? Because Shanghai had 20 million people living there while Netherlands was roughly 18 million at that time. Whoa. So only one city was even, I say, bigger in that sense than, than, than my, than the country that I grew up in. So I thought, well, okay, let's, let's do this. I I just said yes.

And, um, so we migrated there in 2009. So we created a half office office in our apartment where we live. And we lived on the 25th floor of a high-rise building in the middle of Shanghai. And our view was, you know, you see the skylines, you know, that's, that's how Shanghai is. And there's a lot of concrete there and glass. But in, in front of the apartment building, there was a, um, they call a club, a nightclub.

Mm-hmm. Yeah, every night things were happening there. There was male prostitution. There was all kinds of things going, going on there. And so while I was working still, there was one day that I, I just looked up outside the window. And there was a, a hawk flying towards the window. Exactly in a straight path towards the window. And at the very last moment, made a 90-degree angle. And then it landed on the balcony of the apartment. And I went out of my office and I wanted to go to the balcony. And then it flew away, right? So I thought, this is, this is, this is great, right? But how is that possible that, you know, the bird did that, you know?

I was very intrigued by that. One week later, I was again working. And there was this typical Shanghainese rainstorm. They call that a typhoon. Typhoon is where the word typhoon comes from. But you, you have that there pretty often, right? So, and it was a code yellow storm for the Dutch people. That would be like a scary thing. But it's, yeah, for the Chinese, it was normal. And I got used to that. But they're pretty, pretty heavy, right? And when I looked outside, there was a, a butterfly flying outside before the window of my office.

And I went to the window and I was looking at the butterfly. I said, this is, this, this is impossible. And I saw myself as a man of science, you know. I really like, you know, chemistry and physics. And, and despite all the spiritual things, you know, that I did, I really saw myself as a, as a scientific person. And that broke me, right? This, this is impossible. The forces that are on this butterfly that it should, you know, just fly away. It shouldn't be there. And not, not on the 25th floor. That's, that's impossible. And it was a yellow butterfly. And that really broke me. And I, I couldn't explain, but it's, it's, you know, but I explained it away as I did so many times before.

Mm-hmm. And then one week later, I went to bed and just, just a normal night as, as every night. Mm-hmm. I hadn't been drinking heavily or anything like that. So it's just, uh, just a normal night. And during that night, I had a dream.

There was a, there was a bird in the dream. It was, uh, I think it was a raven, some kind of raven.

That raven had that specific butterfly in its beak.

And it, it wasn't eating it or anything. It was just like it was presenting it. Mm-hmm. And I heard all kinds of voices, but I, I, I didn't understand Mm-hmm what, what they were saying.

And when I woke up, I, I believed in God. I, I believed in a creator who created me. And I felt that, that he was watching me in the morning when I woke up. And I felt that, felt being watched.

And it was the feeling of like being like a, like an ant inside of a, I call it terrarium, like a crane, you know, like there's a space where you're being held in, in you there. I, I didn't know what to do with that kind of knowledge, right? So it's like something was happening also inside of me. It was not only mentally, but there was a huge change. And I thought I need to know, I need to understand what is going on. Mm-hmm. So as I did so many times before, I went, you know, researching these things. And, uh, I ended up in a, on a YouTube channel. And there was a sermon being broadcasted.

And the sermon was preached by a South African preacher. He was, uh, formerly Jewish. And he was preaching the gospel as best and as, I say, as conclusive as he could. While he was preaching, and he started off by, by pointing out sin. And then I starting to see all the sins in my life, all the things that I, that I had done.

And, but it was not only that, that I felt remorse like for myself, but I felt like I have sinned towards the God that I, that I believe in now. And I was being crushed by, by that whole idea.

It was like a mountain was, was being put up, up on, on my head. And it's, it was crushing me completely. And I was so devastated that I did not, I did not know what to do. There was no, for me, there was no longer any answer, nothing that I could think or do. But the sermon went on and the, the preacher, the pastor, sorry, not the preacher, the pastor, he preached the gospel of Jesus Christ as the, the mean of salvation. And while he did that, that's, I said, that's it.

That is the thing that I believe that's my way out.

And at that moment, I, I got on my knees and I confessed to the God that I just got to know. And I, I confessed every sin that I, that I came up with that I still knew, right? And, and I started to cry for, for hours and hours.

And as a grown, as a, as an adult man of that age, I, it's, it's hard to explain, you know, what I felt then, but it's, it was such a relief. The whole weight that was being crushing me just was gone in an instant.

Then things started to happen inside the apartment where I live. We live in the area that is very close to a temple. And it's a, it's a Buddhist temple. It's called a Jay Buddha temple. And it is more like a Buddha in the sense of like Mammon, right? So it's, it's all about money.

We shared the floor of the apartment building because the apartment buildings, they had floors, but there were only two apartments with each floor. Quite big. And so we shared the floor with a family that was heavily involved in the, in that temple.

And quite often there were Buddhist monks, you know, coming towards the apartment. And, and what they do, they have this big, uh, metal vessel that were put in the hallway, the shared hallway, Mm - hmm where the elevators are.

And there they would start burning, you know, it's like, it's like a fake money. Um, it's like burning money for the, for the, for those family members that are already deceased, right? So to send money towards heaven. And for me, from that moment on, it felt really felt demonic.

I immediately had also the, the name for it, that it was demonic, that I just knew it was demonic. It's like you'd been blinded up to that point. Yes. And now you could actually see these things you had been a part of. Yes. For what they were. Yes. Because for a long time in my life, I had these moments where I, it's not like hearing voices, but it's different. It's like you would say you would hear a voice, but it's more like a picture. And you have this on your vision.

And in these pictures, you do horrible things to the people around you. But you do also horrible things to yourself.

And I knew for a long time, for years, that it was outside of me. I just knew that it wasn't that, that these weren't my own thoughts. It was like something was being imprinted on my, on my thoughts that just came out from the outside. And I immediately realized that it was like some kind of demonic, you know, like impressions, like being. And you would think that it would stop right after that moment of, of conversion, but, uh, it kept on, it kept on going. But I knew it was from the outside. It was more like an oppression.

And so I started to resist that. At one night, I, I, I was just sleeping again. And then I heard, I heard my, my name, my name being called. And I, I woke up and I thought, well, this, I, I, you know, this, that's great. That's great. But I, I didn't understand what it was. Yeah. It could be of God, but I, I, I did not know it. Probably not, right? It's, and then the next night, um, I, I woke up again and it was like something that was sitting on my chest. Hmm. And there was a huge pressure on my chest and I, I couldn't breathe. And it was also as if I was being strangled.

Like there was a hand on my, on my neck and, you know, um, and I thought I was choking.

Then I thought I, I need to, I need to cry out to, to the Lord, to Jesus Christ. And I did.

And it was very hard to, to say his name, but I still did. And I said, Jesus. And then there was this black, um, it's really hard to describe. It's not a shadow. It's like, like a black mist standing next to, to the bed. I don't know if standing is the right word, but I cannot use any other. And then it imploded.

And then it went out of the bedroom towards the bathroom. And the bathroom door was open, but it slammed with a very loud, like a bang, it slammed. And I, I was so scared.

And then I knew that I, you know, there was this really demonic influence in my life for such a long time.

That I came to the realization that, that demons really exist. And even though I had been involving myself with these things all the time, I somehow I thought, well, I treat it as if we're new age, right? It's still, you know, it's good to have fun in that sense, but yeah, nothing, you know.

So then I, I knew I needed to go to a church. And the Holy Spirit that I knew from that moment, also from that moment on, when I was converted, was guiding me towards the right, I say, teachings online, on YouTube and everywhere I could find to, to understand what was the faith all about, more than just alone the gospel in itself. And I wanted to know who Jesus Christ really is.

Because I, I did accept the offer, but it was like I, I, I really don't know who he is, right? So I, I thought if I want to have him ruling my heart, I want to, I want to know him. I want to know him well because inviting a person, you know, to your private space, you, you, you need to know that person. You don't, you don't invite someone you don't know, right? A stranger you don't know.

And so I started to dive into the word of God. And in China, it's pretty hard to get a Bible, right? So I did have one online, of course, that, that, that's, that's not a, but I, I want to have something more tangible to, to, to have with me.

And so I went down to the copy shop that was located in the same building where we lived on, on the, on the, on the ground level floor. I, I handed over the USB, USB stick, you know, uh, with the King James 1611 version because that was the only one I could download.

Everything else was copyrighted. I thought, oh, that's, you know, that's, that's odd. Why every you should, you know, it's like, shouldn't be that freely available, but that's a, okay, so let's have this printed. And I, I asked them to print, you know, only the New Testament at first, I thought.

And, um, so they really make a, a nice A4 copy. Mm - hmm Yeah, of the new King James Bible. This is pretty radical transformation in a very short period of time for your life. And it's like you're realizing how deeply in some things you shouldn't have been in, you know, and how you need support, you need a church, um, the scriptures in your life. Yes. Tell me about your church journey. Like, were you able to find a place and get input from others? And yeah, basically what happened next in your story? Yes, I wanted to go to a church. And, um, but as a foreigner, if you want to go to a church in China, Mm - hmm you can only go to a church that is, um, controlled in a way that is like a, a church for foreigners.

So only foreigners are allowed to go to, to that specific church. And often it's like a, like a hall within a hotel or something, a conference hall. Yeah, it's, um, and it, it varies. So I stand, I, I started to look online where, where can I go, right? And, um, so the first church that I, I thought I'd go to is the one that it's, you know, it seems more most approachable, right? They had quite a lot of information. I thought, okay, let's, let's, let's try this, right? And, uh, I went there. It was in a hotel and, uh, it was in a part of the city where I used to live. I thought, that's, that's great.

So let's go there. And I sat down. And so they started off with, uh, yeah, with worship music. And I thought, oh, it's, I'm, I'm really not used to this, right? Because during, during my, my youth, the time that I grew up was like I had this version of everything that, that was Christian. So that was pretty hard, but I thought I'm going to stay because this is, this is the right thing to do to, you know, to, to find that fellowship, you know, with people. Mm - hmm And, uh, so I stayed and, uh, I started to listen to the, the preaching of the, the pastor.

And he was telling a lot of things about, you know, about money and about, um, having mates in the home. And if you don't, if they didn't do enough, then you, you, you, you should handle them well. And in these sense, and then everything was really focused towards a, like a good life. Hmm.

And I thought, yeah, this, that this is not it. I thought this is, this is not what I want to hear. And, but you're so brand new to Christianity. That's kind of incredible. You had a level of discernment. So now this is kind of watering it down. Yeah. I, I, wow, I started to have this kind of, like, like, like, like an urge, like, I need to go out. I, I need to go away from here. This, this is not right. And I, I couldn't put the finger on it. I couldn't point out like, this is, this is not good.

I did wait until the break. And so during the break, I thought, okay, let's, let's try to sneak out. But while doing so, um, the pastor of, of that church stopped me. And he asked me, well, you, where are you going? And I said, well, I, uh, I need to do some things. I had some excuse. I wasn't lying in, in a way, but I tried to avoid, you know, giving a real answer.

I said, okay, well, so I said, I need to think about it. I said, okay, okay, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't hurry. And I asked him, could I be baptized? And he said, well, it's, uh, uh, depends on, right? And it takes time. We only baptize like once a year. And if you want to be baptized, then yeah, we could do something. I said, when is that? I said, yeah, yeah, that's in, uh, during Easter.

I said, okay, okay. It was October that year. I thought, well, that's, that's a long time, right? So I went back home and my wife, um, she, she knew I, I went there. And, uh, she asked me, how did it go? It's, it's, it's okay.

But at the same time, she, not on the same day, but around the same time, um, she, she said to me, like, you know, who are you? I said, what, what, what do you mean? She said, you're not the man that I marry.

She said, you're, you're a different person. She was having troubles with that.

And because she knew me for a long time, she said, you're, you're, you're a different person. So we were talking about it. Uh, it's more like she was talking about it, but it's, um, it was also that I didn't do those things that I, that I should have done all those years, right? So it's, so in a sense, she was right that I, I didn't live faithfully for her. And I guess she, she, yeah, she must have noticed that, that I, I knew there was something that was changed inside of me. So the only thoughts that I did have, I, I want to do, I want to do good. I want to do better. Mm - hmm Um, but we didn't break up.

We, we, we stayed. And so I thought, let's, you know, we, we said, okay, let's, let's work this out, right? Mm - hmm I got a phone call, uh, from, uh, my mother. And my mother told me that, uh, she had cancer.

She wasn't going to survive that. Mm - hmm And so I said to her, well, can I, can I come to the Netherlands, you know? And she said, no, that, that's no, no need, no need.

But after several weeks, my stepfather called and he said, well, you, you need to come. You need to come down because, uh, we cannot handle this. And we, we really need your, your help here. Mm - hmm And I said, okay, that's, I will, I will go. So while I was in the process of finding a church, Mm - hmm uh, I had to go to the Netherlands. Mm - hmm And so I went back to, to my hometown. And, um, so I would stay with, uh, with my mother and, uh, my, uh, stepfather. And I also have a, a younger brother. He's a half brother. Mm - hmm He's the son of, of my stepfather.

And so we were both taking care. My mother, she had requested euthanasia. How do you call it? Sorry. I don't know the exact name. It's, uh, boy, I can't remember how to pronounce it right now. Um, so she, she asked to have her life ended, Mm - hmm by medical means. And in the Netherlands, that's, that's allowed under certain circumstances. And so, um, she requested it and they granted that. So the, the family doctor, uh, had this whole process and they said, okay, let's do this. And so, um, it was already December. That was the 21st of December that my mother, uh, had been given, uh, uh, it was some kind of injection that she would fall asleep.