​Power of a Testimony

My introduction to the Adventist Church came through a seventh-grade girl named Adelina in Mozambique.

By Miguel Manuel Mafugula, as told to Andrew McChesney, adventistmission.org

I was born into a Sunday-keeping family in Milange, a town located just 2 miles (3 kilometers) from Mozambique’s border with Malawi.

My introduction to the Seventh-day Adventist Church came through a girl named Adelina. She was 16 and in the seventh grade, and she asked me for help with her homework. I was 21 and in the 10^th grade.

After I helped her, she started talking about the Adventist Church. She told me about the Sabbath and explained that God set aside Saturday, not Sunday, as the day of worship.

Later, Adelina presented me with a Bible. She had underlined the fourth commandment in Exodus 20:8 as well as Ezekiel 20:20, which says, “Hallow my Sabbaths, and they will be a sign between Me and you” (NKJV). On one page of the Bible, she wrote, “Go read Mark 2:27-28.”

I turned to Mark and read Jesus’ words, “The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath. Therefore the Son of Man is also Lord of the Sabbath.”

When I read this, I realized that I had been observing the wrong day of the week.

I decided to go to church with Adelina to learn more, and soon I was worshipping on Saturday.

This caused problems at my Sunday church, where I had been serving as youth director. The church’s pastor went to my father, and my father ordered me to return. When I refused, my father declared, “If you can’t obey your parents, then you can’t live with them.” He kicked me out of the house.

I told Adelina’s parents what had happened, and they gave me a place to live until I finished high school. I was baptized two years later.

God helped me to graduate from high school and college and to get hired as a chemistry teacher at the public high school in Milange. Later I married Adelina, the girl who introduced me to the Sabbath.

God has been able to use my personal testimony in amazing ways. I’ve shared it with the young people from my former Sunday church, and two have become Adventists. I also told my parents, and they were baptized.

I tell everyone: Trust in the Lord daily. Nothing is impossible for Him.

Part of the first quarter 2019 Thirteenth Sabbath Offering will help open the first Seventh-day Adventist elementary school in Miguel’s hometown of Milange. Thank you for your mission offerings.