From Death to Life, Dora Vaquero

I was born in Mexico. My parents divorced when I was three years old. My mother migrated to the United States with my brothers. I was raised in Laredo, Texas. During my childhood, I would always look for the Lord (God). In adolescence, I read the New Testament in the Bible but I would fall asleep because I did not understand much. In my last school year, there was a question in my head. What is life?...Why am I here?...Why was I created?...

After graduating high school, I lost my job. It was then that I read the Old Testament in the Bible. When I read in the book of Genesis how the brothers of Joseph sold him and God would bless Joseph, I enjoyed all the details from such stories in the Bible. I marveled in God's sovereignty in the book of Esther: how God took an orphan and made her a queen. Even though the Bible seemed to be full of romance, adventure, drama and suspense, I started to see that the purpose of the Bible is really to impart life in each line.

In the summer of 1982, I became very ill. My mother was quite desperate since my health went from bad to worse. She called her brother, my uncle who took me to the local church in Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas, a city in Mexico that borders with Laredo, Texas. It was there that God restored my health. But also, the Lord cleared up and took away many veils that would not let me see His plan for my life. From meeting to meeting of the church, the answer to my question, “What is life?” was cleared up through His Word, which washed and healed me inwardly (Ephesians 5:26). What I saw and felt in the meetings cannot be explained with words. It was deep and wonderful. I discovered that I not only have a body and soul but also a human spirit to contact God (1 Thessalonians 5:23). Through the books of Witness Lee I began to understand the New Testament. I can read it now without becoming sleepy. In the local church, God has not only been my personal Savior but also my life experientially. God has come to be everything for me. Every day I depend more on Him. Day by day I “die” a little more and He lives in me a little more (Galatians 2:20). My experience in Christ in the local church has been one that has taken me from death to life.