I Was Baptized! ✝️✨ A Little About My Faith Journey

Today I have a post that is slightly different from my usual content.

Despite one of my biggest goals for this blog being to share about my creative journey in the sports world, I do want to share about my life as well. The truth is that behind my creativity, I believe that there's something - or someone - that affects it more than anything else: the Creator Himself. My journey with God restarted this year, despite me growing up in a Christian home to missionary parents. For many years I knew the theoretical part behind faith, although I had seen it in practice through multiple situations in our ministry that could only be described as miracles.

This year, after much pain and heartbreak (I made a post dedicated to it if you'd like to check it out), I had nowhere else left to run. After talking to my parents, they encouraged me to hit the reset button in my life and start over. I had tried everything else in life except putting into practice all the theories I had about faith. January 13, 2024 was the day that I made the decision to run back into Jesus' arms and start a faith journey that literally changed my life.

The changes started through small things like a prayer board, slowly sharing about my faith in my stories, unfollowing certain social media pages and influencers, and even changing my wardrobe to more modest clothes. For many years I had placed my value on my own body, but I have been learning that I am worth way more than anything my body could do or show.

After the personal changes, I also started serving at my local church. ICC Atlanta has been a huge platform for me to put into practice all the beautiful, creative gifts that God has given me over the years. I was able to start serving as a translator for our Portuguese services and have been helping our youth leadership team as well.

After all these changes began happening, of course I still experience temptations and hardship, but this time there's hope.

"And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us." (Romans 5:2b-5)

With this hope, I felt like the next step was very obvious. I had already been baptized as a child, despite my father disagreeing due to me being too young. I spoke with our pastor and explained this reality, also saying that I was finally ready to make a real change in my life and to fully embark in this journey.

We believe that baptism is a testimony. A means of showing publicly our love for Jesus and declaring that we belong to Him.

On August 17, 2024 I was baptized in Acworth, GA. It was on a beautiful lake, on a beautiful day, surrounded by so many people that I love and who have been incredibly supportive throughout this journey.