Good morning, church family. My name is Yigao, generally referred as Holly. By God's grace, I'm grateful to stand here today to reflect on my walk with Christ and testify my faith through baptism. I grew up in a secular family with a secular education, secular friends in China. In 2014 in Beijing, when I was 17, I was invited to a family church by my best friend from school.

Seeing the genuine love and care people of my age had for one another, as well as from the Sunday school teachers, I felt at peace and felt truly at home than anywhere else. The next year, I publicly shared my testimony in front of the church family. I received sprinkling over my head as a professing believer.

Before my sprinkling ceremony, when I heard the choir singing, "Because he lives, I can face tomorrow," I cried because for the first time of my life, I had hope. At that time, I wasn't aware of the different modes of baptism and its biblical significance. My understanding of God began there, but with very little understanding of who he was and who I was called to be.

I struggled with sins and with securing my hope in Christ. From 2015, I went on a lengthy detour in my spiritual life. I went to Sweden to pursue my undergraduate studies. However, without much understanding from the Bible, my faith was not deeply rooted in the word. Therefore, I couldn't distinguish how a healthy Bible believing, Christ-following church should be like.

After two years at a secular church, God used different people and his own word to reveal my limited understanding of who he truly is. In 2017, I encountered a Chinese sister with a rather solid church background. In January 2018, we left the secular church and started fasting and praying together with intensive Bible studies and Bible reading.

To repent and flee from sins to the Lord, I was craving for and savoring the sweetness of his word, of all his grace and love, forgiveness and holiness. As a child, clinging with all her strength to a string of life, I started understanding the depth of my sins and my need for salvation through Christ.

In particular, the sermon series on the holiness of God from Paul Washer revealed God's holiness and justice in the Bible drastically different from my totally deprived nature. Therefore, I understood my desperate need for salvation and holiness because he is holy. The Spirit opened my eyes and heart to grasp and believe in good news presented in the Bible and revealed my self-centered sins that he hated.

I repented from my rebellion against God and believed that my sins are forgiven through my professing faith in Jesus Christ, confessing him as the Lord and Savior of my life with my mouth and heart. By God's grace, he saved me from dominion of sin, leading to the condemnation of hell on the judgment day.

Christ's precious blood shed on the cross as a ransom justified me so that I am saved from God's wrath and could stand blameless before God in the last time. My relationship with God has now been restored and I have received the promised Holy Spirit and eternal life in him.

According to his great mercy, he has caused me to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, crucifying my old self. I no longer seek to live in my own ways but to obey his will and be an imitator of Christ.

Therefore, I believe that I am saved and will not be put to shame because he is faithful. I now have the confidence in my salvation because my eternal relationship with God has been restored and secured through my faith alone in Christ alone by God's grace alone. Because Sweden has very few Bible-believing churches, I moved to a different city to join Bible-teaching church.

Along the way, God used Berean through the China mission team since our meeting in 2014 in China. Through fellowships, Bible studies, and online resources, God grew and led me until today. I am very grateful to be able to pursue my graduate studies here at USC and all the more to be here at Berean to serve and be served for the building of his church, the body of Christ.

But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God's own possession so that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who has called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. For you once were not a people, but now you are the people of God.

You have not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. First Peter 2.9. Since immersion expresses our death in the flesh and our new life in Christ's resurrection, I would like to be baptized today through immersion. Thank you. (applause)