My Christian walk begins in Israel where my relatively new-Christian parents met and became a couple. They moved to Sweden, married and eventually had me.

I grew up with a belief in Jesus, but we did not go very often to the church. When I was 11 years old my parents asked if I wanted to be baptized and because my simple and uncomplicated faith was that if you believe in Jesus you should be baptized, so I was baptized in Philadelphia in Linköping.

During my teenage years I lived like any other Swedish teenager. That I was a Christian was probably nothing that my friends noticed that much. If someone asked me if I believed in God I ofcourse answered yes, but I never talked about my faith more than that.

However, everything changed when I was 18 and my older sister Jessica came home from one year in Israel.Jessica had been through a conversion in Israel and now wanted me to follow her to church. My very sincere but ill-conceived response was: "I'm not going to church, I'm already a Christian!" Jessica continued to nag at me and finally I gave with me. But more than that she wanted me to go with her to Church, she also wanted me to become "baptized in the Holy Spirit ". My answer was: " No, I do not want to be like those Pentecostals who only talk about Jesus all the time! "

In two weeks I struggled with this issue. I knew it was God who called on me, but I was not sure if I would answer yes to his call. I felt it as if God took me by the collar and dragged me to church and really insisted that I would go there. I knew almost immediately that God would win this battle, but I did the best I could to pull out of it.

After these 2 weeks I accompanied my sister to Chrurch of John in Linköping. After the sermon I went up for prayer and said I wanted to be baptized in the Holy Spirit. Actually I did not know what this wasbut I realized that God wanted this. The experience I got is very difficult to describe with words, but I'll give it a try:

It began when he who prayed for me put his hand on my shoulder and began to pray. I, who usually never cries, had suddenly a very hard time to hold back tears while my body started shaking and I became quite warm. After a moment of prayer it was as if something inside me opened like a tulip that blooms out. Within me, I saw all the colors of heaven and I was very happy!

After this spiritual experience, I knew with all certainty that I was baptized in the Holy Spirit! Slowly but surely my life also started to change. I did not want to live like a normal teenager anymore; I stopped partying and instead started talking about Jesus with all my friends and started going to church. As I matured in my faith in Jesus I also experienced how God shaped me. God let me see things in my life that was wrong and challenged me to stop that and instead make new things that God wanted.

A few months after my spiritual baptism I went with some friends to Bosnia on a mission trip. On that trip, I had an incredibly strong urge to be working full time for God with the result that I eventually went to Bjärka-Saby Bible School, worked as a youth pastor in a Pentecostal church and now I am reading theology at Örebro Theological Seminary.

God changed my life in a humorous way: I, who did not want to go to church, eventually became employed by the church! I, who did not want to be a Pentecostalist, eventually became a Pentecostal pastor!

The walk with Christ continues through my life and I look forward to many new and exciting years in His service!