"God wants to give you a gift of abundant and eternal life.  This gift is named Jesus Christ.  By repenting of your sins and believing in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior; from this point forward, you can have abundant and eternal life.  Abundant life, freedom from every place of fear and anxiety, joy and great peace fill one's life.  When we have eternal life through Jesus Christ, sins are forgiven; we are saved from eternal judgment; love, joy and peace are unending in life in heaven."

      My name is Ismail. I was born in Germany and moved to Turkey when I was three years old.  My home town was a small town of about five thousand people and no Christians. Where there is no one to preach the Gospel, God Himself does the job; this is what I experienced. When I was about five or six years old, I saw some visions and dreams. In my visions, I saw God and He was in human form, like a king. He talked to me and He called me friend. I was so excited to be a friend of God. I felt so valuable and special because of this relationship.  He gave me the sense that I was not home yet, and one day, I would be with Him and at home forever. So my spiritual journey started with a deep longing for the King who became my friend and the home of which I saw a small part... I did not share my visions and dreams with anyone, but I kept them in my heart for a long time and remained curious about God..  I was so hungry to know Him.

      When I was about seven or eight years old, I asked my parents questions about God. They thought there was something wrong with me because I kept asking questions about God. They decided to send me to a Muslim cleric. Every day I went to him and he taught me the Koran. I was about twelve years old when I became quite radical because I had a great hunger for God. I gave the call to a prayer in the mosque by the time I was thirteen. A few years later, I started questioning. I noticed that there was something wrong because of the joy and peace that I had seen in my visions were missing in my religious practice, so step by step I moved away from my Muslim faith. I was very unhappy and nothing was satisfying me in my teenage years because of the feeling inside me that I was away from home and there was no sign left for me to find the way back home...

      When I was twenty-five, I was studying Korean language and literature in university. One day, one of my Korean professors, who was a Christian, talked with me and asked me if I was interested in Christianity, or wanted to know more about it. So I went to his office, and he told me many things concerning the Bible and Jesus, but I did not understand what he was talking about. It was like nonsense to me. He stopped and said, "Ismail, if you believe in Jesus Christ, He will save you and you will get your answers from Him." Suddenly, the name Jesus Christ became very strong in my heart and something to hold on to. I felt it very deeply.

      I asked, "What am I supposed to do?" My professor said, "You need to repent and pray." I did not understand the meaning of repentance but I wanted to pray. I said, "I do not know how to pray, can you help me? So we prayed together, and when I stood up, I felt something different in me, but I did not know what it was; an unspeakable joy started to fill my heart.  In the weeks and months following, I met regularly with my professor to study the Bible. It took a few months, but I started to understand many things about Christianity and about why Christ came to the world.