Testimonies

Drawing from her deep personal encounter with God at the Conversion Experience Retreat, Alicia holds fast to the assurance of God’s steadfast love when she later faces a dark and uncertain phase in her life, and testifies that God never fails us.

Through the intercession of many friends, Linda underwent a smooth operation and a quick recovery. She believes that it was the power of prayer that she is well again.

I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my dear Lord for transforming me into a new person. I am now certain that I can lead my life in peace, joy and love for other people. I will always trust, love and fear my dear Lord.

I testify because I was once an unbeliever, rationalizing everything that God tried to show or tell me. I had doubts about God, the Bible, and even the scared Host…Now, I believe because I know He has a hand in everything in my life. Praise the Lord!

Through the four days, I slowly began to see God’s love for us in each and every activity that we went through…Over the last few days, all I could think of was to spread the love of the Lord to all my family and friends. I was humming and singing songs of praise and I go to bed listening to them. This Retreat has truly transformed me and I am working hard to not go back to my old ways. The best part is, I am finally home.

When we reconcile with God, we also reconcile with the people in our lives. Through God’s compassionate and unconditional love, Lucia was healed of her brokenness and rediscovered peace, joy and forgiveness in her heart.

I now know that Jesus has never forsaken me. It was I who did the forsaking four years ago. But He will always love me.

I now know that to love is to forgive, the way our Lord forgives us, the way my loved ones do too. When you forgive someone, you’re giving that person your love. I also realised that peace comes from helping others. When you offer your service to help others you feel happy, and you are thankful too for being able to do so—which by itself is ‘healing’ for you. And this also makes you joyous.
The understanding I got from the Retreat is: Love + Peace = Joy. If you don’t experience joy, it’s because you don’t feel love and peace.

The four-day CER was a precious ‘mountain-top’ experience which I wouldn’t want to leave if I had a choice. But life has to be led in the plains, the valleys. The challenge, as Fr William said, is to live out our conversion experience when we get back to the grind of daily living.

Post CER – living out my renewed life: I seek to strengthen my bond with Him daily…I seek to discern His will for me. I am no longer shy to praise God.

I do not use swear words anymore…I pray with my children every morning on the way to school. I have also gone back to serve at my parish and give my time to serve others at the CSC too.

I am no longer bogged down by material needs and the rat race. After CER, I have learned that I must trust in God and that He will provide.

I came into CER without much knowledge or expectations, except that it was a retreat and so I would have time with God and that God would speak to me. What I did not anticipate was that during CER, I would feel God in such an intense and “in your face” manner! God became alive, touching me through different ways

The love of God was so overwhelming that I found myself crying as usual. I was prepared to suffer the consequence of having a pool of water swelling in my ears. However, that night, when I was sharing my PER experience …I realized that I was talking normally, without the echoes and popping sounds in my head! God had performed a miracle on me! I had not been experiencing talking without being disturbed by my ears for such a long, long time! In my heart, I knew God had healed me.

I did my eye check last year and the doctor confirmed that I had lost 80% of my vision…I took the news quite well as I had accepted this condition and knew that He was there for me. I feel that through my struggles and trials, He is teaching me to let go and surrender to Him. God is using my disability to draw me to Him, and I thank God for not giving up on me and for planting the desire in my heart to seek Him during my struggles. I can’t imagine what I will be if I had not accepted His invitation.

In March 2004, I was diagnosed with third stage cancer of the rectum. I was a non-Christian but God reached out to me through my eldest brother and sister-in-law, who are Catholics. Through my illness, I had come to know God. I realised that He not only wants to heal me physically, He wants to touch me spiritually as well. I attended CER 3 and was very moved by the love of God through the brothers and sisters serving at CSC. I felt truly blessed as God had surrounded me with His great love through people around me. I was finally baptised in Dec 2005. And by God’s grace, my husband was also baptised in 2008.

Once Anthony realised that God wishes only his total surrender to His care, he was able to bask in the intimacy of this wondrous relationship, and the truth of a conversion that set him free.

Compelled by a recognition of the need for inner healing, Monica joins the Conversion Experience Retreat seeking answers to many questions she was burdened with. She receives healing and many more graces, including a deep conviction that God is always with her.

Sometimes we erroneously think that only the wounded and the sinful need conversion and healing. But Sylvester discovers at the Conversion Experience Retreat that God calls each one of us personally, and receives a renewed love for a more intimate relationship with Jesus, bringing him great joy and peace.

Societal norms can cause one to feel that we are justified in our actions. And yet Terri discovers at the Conversion Experience Retreat that this comparison is flawed as Jesus calls us to be like Him, not the ways of the world, and that the desire for greater holiness must be primarily drawn from a personal relationship with God.

Trixi realises at the Conversion Experience Retreat that God’s healing takes place in His time, and that spiritual healing far surpasses the physical healing we usually beg God for.