Urban Report

Lost and Found (Testimony)

Three Angels Broadcasting Network

Program transcript

Participants: Yvonne Lewis (Host), Michelle Mendoza

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Series Code: UBR

Program Code: UBR000157A


00:01 Stay tuned to meet a woman
00:02 whose life has been radically changed
00:04 by her relationship with Jesus.
00:05 My name is Yvonne Lewis
00:07 and you're watching Urban Report.
00:32 Hello and welcome to Urban Report.
00:35 My guest today is Michele Mendoza
00:37 a woman who knows what it's like to be lost and found.
00:40 Hi Michele, welcome to Urban Report.
00:43 Thank you for having me.
00:44 You know, I met you at the General Conference Session
00:47 and I heard a little bit about your testimony
00:49 and it was so compelling,
00:51 I felt that this would be really good
00:53 for our Viewers because our Urban Report Viewers
00:58 love to hear the journey of folks who have been
01:02 caught up in something
01:03 and yet God has delivered and redeemed them.
01:06 So, I thank you so much for being here
01:08 and being willing to share your journey.
01:10 Thank you for having me.
01:12 So, let's talk a bit about your upbringing,
01:14 where were you born and raised?
01:16 Santa Barbara, California,
01:17 Okay, okay... and were you born into an intact family,
01:22 with a mom and dad together in the family?
01:25 Yes, ma'am, I have a sister as well.
01:27 All right and so...
01:30 as you were growing up
01:33 when you were a child, let's start there,
01:36 what happened to you that changed your life?
01:39 Well,
01:43 I was sexually abused as a child from my cousin
01:49 who was a Satanist, who was in the Occult,
01:54 and that pretty much distorted my childhood,
01:58 but it didn't robbed me from my life.
02:01 Praise the Lord for that,
02:03 so, when you were a child
02:06 and you were about... how old. what grade were you in?
02:10 Must have been anywhere from like first... second...
02:15 I kind of blocked it out.
02:17 And how long did it go on?
02:19 It was just one time but there were other things of
02:24 trauma that was building up and leading up to that...
02:30 you know... those things,
02:31 but, praise God, it was only once, praise God...
02:34 Yes, oh yes, well, all it takes is once
02:37 to traumatize you.
02:39 I mean, yeah, that's so... it had to be horrific,
02:43 so, after that... well, let's go back a second...
02:47 was he living in the home?
02:49 At that time, he was staying with my grandparents,
02:54 his own family was being torn apart by divorce
02:59 and,
03:00 you know, when your foundation is crumbling
03:04 and you don't have anything
03:05 you're going to go for whatever
03:09 Satan gives you temptations of or lust of the world or whatever
03:14 and he didn't have
03:17 the parents that I had
03:20 for a strong foundation for Biblical parents
03:22 but he had parents who were very attentive
03:25 and cared for him and loved him, they were...
03:27 his father was just chasing after other things
03:30 and somehow the coke, drugs and
03:36 a promiscuous life came up for him
03:39 and it just spun him out of control.
03:42 And how did that episode in your life affect your life?
03:47 It changed me.
03:48 How?
03:50 My whole...
03:51 everything about my whole character
03:52 from my understanding from my family
03:54 I became more... just reclusive and everything
03:59 it just... it shattered me, you know,
04:04 and it was very hard for me
04:05 because I was a child, I was a kid,
04:07 and everything...
04:12 my father had said that I'd lost my confidence,
04:16 my sister and even one of my aunts
04:19 recently... I showed them a picture of myself
04:22 and my sister and my aunt had said the same exact thing
04:27 at different times, basically saying that,
04:29 seeing me now, is like seeing me
04:32 when I was earlier in life the smile came back
04:36 and so I heard my sister say that
04:39 and then hearing the confirmation of my aunt
04:41 a year later, just, within the last couple of months
04:44 wow, I...
04:47 I was shocked, you know.
04:49 You have your joy back now.
04:51 That's what they say.
04:52 But it took a long journey to get to this point.
04:59 Oh! by far...
05:00 So, that happened to you in the first or second grade
05:05 or something like that,
05:07 where did your life take you in your teen years,
05:10 what were you doing in your teen years?
05:12 I think I was holding on to so much, you know,
05:19 praise God it was only...
05:22 that's why I was saying, "Amen" earlier,
05:25 it was only once, the anger, the resentment,
05:28 he also had committed suicide,
05:31 and it was because of what he had done to me
05:37 when you are a kid... and he even had told me one time
05:41 "What do you think about me killing myself... dying?"
05:48 I was just a kid,
05:50 I remember my last words to him was,
05:51 "You are so stupid"
05:53 I remember saying to him,
05:56 "You are so stupid in regards to...
05:58 you're stupid to want to kill yourself"
05:59 and so, after that,
06:03 he disappeared and he committed suicide
06:06 and when you're young, you remember certain things
06:12 certain things we block out and certain things we remember
06:14 my whole life,
06:17 I felt I was responsible for his death.
06:22 Oh... so you felt not only were you feeling
06:26 that you were victimized by what he did,
06:30 but then, emotionally,
06:33 you were held captive by his death.
06:35 That was the most... not so much of what he did to me
06:38 I never really looked on myself as being like... "abused"
06:41 you know, so much more than
06:44 held like you said... "captive"
06:47 of my... like I was to blame for him
06:53 and the testimony that the Lord God gave me
06:56 to forgive him... was powerful,
06:59 just powerful to go back to where they found him
07:03 where he jumped off over a bridge in Santa Barbara County
07:08 to go back and just say, "I forgive you, I forgive you"
07:12 just... everything was just released
07:16 so for all my years of... teenage years,
07:20 anger, resentment, yeah, I'm sure my parents...
07:27 guilt by far... oh by far...
07:29 so even in high school and early college years,
07:33 suicide...
07:35 when some of my friends would want to commit suicide
07:37 man, I took it...
07:38 I took it
07:40 to A to Z and back again.
07:42 I know there were sometimes for myself
07:43 for I too then wanted to commit suicide
07:46 so a lot of my years of...
07:49 teenage years were
07:50 anger, bitter, resent... it was resentment
07:56 questioning God, hating God,
07:59 but yet still finding faith
08:03 to keep going on...
08:06 don't ask me how that happens when you hate Him.
08:08 A lot of contradictory...
08:11 Absolutely a lot, you know, and then I remember like...
08:14 getting into "gang life" and that being...
08:18 my friends being like a "second family" to you...
08:22 and you're still loving Amy Grant, Michael W. Smith,
08:26 when you still are also loving Snoop Dogg and
08:30 Dr. Dre and everybody else,
08:31 so, yeah, there was just a lot of anger, resentment
08:35 and that was just festered in me
08:38 where it was such a deep part of me
08:41 where I just acted out on my feelings or whatever it was,
08:45 it just... this rage was... you know, yeah.
08:49 You know, it's interesting Michelle because
08:51 one of the things that happens, I think, is...
08:55 when you're carrying all of this,
08:56 then you're reinforcing it with hip hop and stuff like that
09:02 music that kind of lends itself to anger,
09:06 Oh Absolutely. so then you...
09:08 you're reinforcing all of those feelings through the media
09:12 Oh, absolutely. Music and movies and all that.
09:16 Oh yeah, Scarface, Godfather, man... that was it,
09:20 and that's why I appreciate Pastor Ivor Myers...
09:23 his messages so much because he hits it, he hits it.
09:30 He does, he does, we have him on Dare to Dream too
09:32 on Battles of Faith, he and Atonte
09:34 but he played a very important role in your conversion
09:38 and we'll come back to that so you had this episode
09:44 in childhood and then your cousin committed suicide
09:47 which then left you with all of this guilt,
09:50 all of this anger, all this resentment,
09:52 all of this pain...
09:54 Yeah, I couldn't save him, I felt I couldn't save him.
09:59 So, you also, were you... had you begun to experiment
10:04 with same-sex attraction, when did the behavior manifest?
10:10 I always knew that I was "gay" I guess you can say,
10:16 my mother remembers me at the age of five
10:19 saying, "I'm going to marry a woman"
10:22 and she'll always say,
10:25 "No, Michelle, little girls don't marry women,
10:29 they marry little boys"
10:30 and so, she remembers me saying that at the age of five,
10:35 five or six, and so as I grew up,
10:38 it was just something as the hurt, the anger...
10:44 as that was deeply embedded in me,
10:46 so was that, so was that...
10:50 and so, I remember having certain feelings
10:55 from a very, very, very early age on,
10:57 it was just second-handed in nature
10:59 as my left arm is... you have a right arm
11:01 and it was just... it was just always a part of me.
11:06 At what point did you realize
11:10 that it shouldn't be a part of you?
11:13 When the Lord convicted me February for Valentine's Day
11:21 in 2013 in the ARME Bible Camp, I was engaged,
11:26 ironically... Engaged to a woman?
11:29 yes ma'am, had a family, three children,
11:31 um... yeah... and
11:35 two ARME Bible Camps that I went to
11:39 one in December and then Valentine Day's weekend
11:42 ironically, those are the two times
11:44 the same days that the ARME Bible Camps were going on,
11:48 were the same dates that we were to be married.
11:52 You were steeped in this lifestyle,
11:55 we have some pictures of you from that time
11:58 that we should let our audience see just where you were.
12:04 Yeah, it's easy to see, the picture just paints a story
12:07 that is me actually
12:10 really when I began seeing all of the attraction
12:17 that the world's females were giving me,
12:20 I was just going through the motions there of life,
12:25 didn't even care there, you can see it in my changes
12:30 of my appearance... those even changed...
12:33 not so much that the age now that I got older
12:36 but I just got deeper and just wants that gang life
12:40 and the rage and...
12:42 And more looking like a guy
12:45 like from the first pictures to these,
12:50 you were deeper and deeper into the lifestyle.
12:54 And it's funny because I've always wanted to be more...
12:57 the latter pictures that you have seen,
12:59 that was what I was always chasing from very early on
13:03 it's kind of crazy how I never even had a sex-change
13:07 to be honest with you, it's kind of crazy
13:08 but was that on my agenda list, it probably was, yeah, yeah.
13:14 We're thankful that you didn't.
13:16 He saved me, He saved me.
13:17 Yes, yes, so, so, you went through all of that
13:20 and then you were at ARME Bible Camp
13:23 what did the Lord do,
13:26 how did he reach out to you
13:29 and what were the circumstances surrounding it?
13:30 I got broken up with Vera.
13:33 Was she at the camp as well?
13:35 No, no ma'am, she was at home with the kids,
13:37 and got broken up with her,
13:40 I thought the best day in my life was
13:43 when Amy Grant had told me, "You're good enough"
13:45 I asked her her opinion on my music
13:49 and years earlier on, and I said, "Am I good enough
13:54 to go to Nashville to chase after my dream?"
13:56 she goes, "Yeah, you're good enough"
13:58 I thought that was the best day of my life,
14:00 the best day of my life was Valentine's Day in 2013
14:05 where I had to sacrifice my relationship for God's will,
14:11 the best day in my life was when He spoke to me
14:14 and basically said,
14:17 "This is not... this is not my desire"
14:19 He didn't say it like that, but it was...
14:22 He wanted me to step aside
14:24 and so she basically had said something
14:27 in regards... "We need to break up,
14:30 we were supposed to be good friends... best friends,
14:33 but we're not to be together. "
14:35 Now was she having some kind of Christian experience as well
14:38 or... what led her to say, we should break up?
14:43 You know, it wouldn't surprise me
14:46 if there was a combination of things,
14:48 the children were
14:49 attending the little Seventh-day Adventist School,
14:52 they were coming to church, she was coming to church,
14:54 I think that had a part to play in it.
14:57 So she was really convicted about the relationship.
15:00 I think so in some regards but then also to
15:02 looking at things now,
15:05 we both had a very passionate relationship
15:07 then we also had a very deep, toxic one as well.
15:12 We've both cheated on each other,
15:13 maybe she could have been cheating on me at the time
15:17 just to get over this relationship
15:19 to move to where she's at today,
15:21 I don't know, but praise the Lord,
15:23 the Lord keeps giving me things of...
15:25 "All things work together for good"
15:27 Yes, so she initiated it
15:30 and then the Lord spoke to your heart and told you
15:34 to step aside.
15:36 He told me, "Step aside, I come quickly,
15:38 I bring my reward with me, you cannot serve two masters"
15:42 then He said it again, "I come quickly, step aside,
15:46 it's for your salvation. "
15:47 I was so angry with Him.
15:49 He said, "It's for your salvation?"
15:50 No, sorry, for her salvation, it was for her salvation.
15:53 Yes, and a lot of the times,
15:56 the things He was sharing was about her,
15:57 Him and her, and I could see now
16:02 why He did that.
16:04 Tell us why you think He did it for her.
16:06 I think it's because I loved her so much
16:08 more than any other woman, I had many other girlfriends
16:11 many of them,
16:13 but nothing quite like this last one.
16:15 I loved her... like a god...
16:22 Hmmm...
16:24 I loved her more than I loved myself
16:26 and so if He had to meet me where I was at
16:32 and that's the beauty of Christ, He meets us where we're at,
16:34 Yes.
16:36 and He had to do what He had to do
16:38 and so I just kept getting these visual pictures
16:43 and I remember seeing... it was kind of like Abraham
16:48 sacrificing... about to sacrifice Isaac
16:51 and I knew I had to sacrifice this relationship
16:54 because He said, "It was for her salvation"
16:57 and I remember... then again... I was a gangster,
17:01 I could care less about life,
17:03 I could care less about your life or anyone else's life,
17:05 I didn't care about anything, and it was just about vengeance
17:10 that... MPR... money, power, respect
17:12 that's all it was, and when He spoke,
17:15 I remember getting up and just getting angry with Him
17:19 and punching the air with my fist,
17:21 and saying, "I love her, I love her more,"
17:24 and He said very clearly, "You know, I love her,
17:29 I love her more, she is my daughter,"
17:32 and when He said, "more" I remember just "more"
17:36 and "mine," He's a jealous God,
17:39 it's His, all that is... is His, everything in the world is His
17:44 He knows it, it's His,
17:46 but there is a surrender that we have to have
17:49 I look at it now,
17:51 He got me where He got me because
17:54 I was willing to be made willing,
17:57 I didn't know where it was going to lead,
17:59 I knew that I had a purpose in life
18:03 I just didn't know what, never in a million years
18:06 would I ever think it's regarding the Bible,
18:09 would I ever think of a conversion like this,
18:11 never, ever.
18:13 Isn't it interesting, Michele, how God spoke to you about
18:17 her salvation because He knew where you placed her,
18:21 Yes, that was it.
18:23 you placed her above "you"
18:25 so he was showing you "she is mine"
18:28 and then I'm sure later He revealed... you are His,
18:32 but He came... God is so... He is so awesome
18:36 the way He does things, the way He handles things,
18:40 the way... He is just beyond description
18:44 And what He said is so true by far,
18:46 powerful, almighty, sovereign, everlasting,
18:50 He did say to me,
18:52 "There are ways that I can love you in ways that she cannot
18:56 and there are ways that I can love her
19:00 in ways that you cannot"
19:02 He had to get me where I was at
19:04 to teach me... where I am at today
19:07 but speak to me
19:09 where I needed to get it at. That's right.
19:12 And then it progressed,
19:14 ARME... powerful, powerful Bible Camp,
19:20 everything that they say,
19:22 how the Presenters are preaching and teaching the Bible,
19:24 it's Biblical, it's Scriptural,
19:28 it's factual,
19:30 everything that they've ever taught any of us
19:34 who have ever attended, it's in here and then...
19:38 Do they teach you how to study, how to study the Bible?
19:41 Oh yes! oh yes! Ivor does a great job of it
19:43 bringing things out and kind of getting your mind
19:45 to look at this, look at that,
19:47 getting outside of the box, I guess, if you can say,
19:49 to looking into the box, and then from there
19:54 them helping me, the Lord leading me,
19:57 the Lord specifically telling me to call Amazing Facts,
20:02 to go to AFCO, one, it was just,
20:06 He used ARME, then He used Amazing Facts
20:08 and He used Secrets Unsealed, and He used GC from me with you,
20:13 and other people, it's just...
20:16 He had to get me from where I was at
20:19 to grow me to where I am today
20:21 I don't really know much, I learn more and more everyday
20:25 but what I read and the testimonies
20:29 that come out of where He leads me to,
20:32 I know He loves me so much more greater
20:35 than I can love myself
20:36 far greater than you can love yourself,
20:38 I think of you with your son,
20:40 you would think you would love your son,
20:45 or people out there in the world,
20:47 no one loves my child more than me,
20:51 Him... That's right, that's right.
20:53 And I love it when you had said, earlier you had said about
20:59 the Lord... "dad" you call Him "dad"
21:02 Yes. I love that because
21:05 you're making it a personal relationship
21:08 and... And it is personal.
21:12 Oh! by far... and that's what's going to get us to heaven.
21:14 Absolutely.
21:15 It's not just Daniel and Revelation
21:17 it's not just saying,
21:19 "Oh, I'm a Seventh-day Adventist"
21:20 it's not like, "I'm... I believe in the Sabbath"
21:22 it's your faith and your walk with Jesus Christ.
21:24 Absolutely, the demons know the Bible.
21:27 Yes. It's not about knowing
21:29 about Jesus, it's knowing Jesus.
21:32 Amen, it changes everything.
21:33 And Him knowing you because you know when
21:37 after the judgment when He says,
21:40 "Depart from me, I never knew you"
21:43 so there was not that relationship
21:46 and that's what you're talking about,
21:48 you entered into...
21:49 He had to break that other relationship
21:53 to then have a relationship with you.
21:57 Absolutely, by far, by far,
21:59 and there were things where
22:01 I'd always say this,
22:05 "I was just growing along the process,
22:09 I was testing God,"
22:10 telling the Lord, "Father, if my life was so wrong
22:17 you got to prove to me, keep showing me
22:21 this is your way," it was not easy,
22:24 you look at homosexuality, it's quite different than...
22:32 it's the same... sin is sin is sin,
22:33 it's the same as smoking, doing drugs,
22:35 even the Bible says about gossiping,
22:37 how many times now
22:39 do we not even call off the gossiper,
22:41 maybe not calling them out directly but
22:43 that's not even going to get you into heaven, you know,
22:47 and you see a lot of people basically saying like...
22:50 "Well, homosexuality, it's like a worse sin"
22:53 and what not, you know,
22:54 we don't even look at the gossiping as much
22:57 but I guess, my point being is
22:58 you're going to kill me, I just lost my point.
23:02 No, that's okay, well, let me just say
23:03 while you're getting your point back,
23:05 that sin is sin is sin, and we set a hierarchy of sins,
23:10 that we don't need to,
23:12 if you are involved in fornication,
23:14 and heterosexual fornication, that's sin,
23:18 if you are involved in homosexuality,
23:21 that's sin, so it's like, sin is sin is sin,
23:25 God came to save us from our sins,
23:31 but we first have to acknowledge that it is sin
23:34 and then from there,
23:36 the behavior is what's in question
23:39 and I believe that God... that God will deliver us
23:46 from the behaviors that are sinful.
23:49 Absolutely, yes, I mean yeah, and what came to my mind
23:53 which was my point was smoking,
23:56 you have Smoking Clinics,
23:59 drugs, you have Narcotics Anonymous
24:03 alcohol, you have AA,
24:06 Homosexuality,
24:07 you do have some places you could go and what not,
24:12 but you know... nah...
24:14 I've heard some very negative things
24:16 about a lot of those programs.
24:17 That's why I never want to go, yeah, no, exactly
24:19 and some of those are just horror stories,
24:21 just horror stories,
24:23 and I felt like I couldn't go through anything like that,
24:26 and I remember my pastor telling me one time,
24:28 the one who had baptized me,
24:31 I said, "Pastor, am I wrong, am I going to die
24:38 because, you know... "
24:41 Now, this was before your conversion?
24:44 Yes, yeah, absolutely,
24:46 and I'll never forget his wording to me, telling me,
24:50 and this is one thing that I do share,
24:52 he had said, "You pray about it,
24:57 you keep praying,
24:58 you keep giving it to the Lord, He'll lead you. "
25:01 I said, "But I'm in a relationship already... "
25:04 he said, "You keep praying,"
25:05 that is what changes everything, prayer...
25:09 and that's another thing with ARME that I love so much
25:11 is the power of prayer,
25:13 the all-night prayer that we have, that they have,
25:16 the Prayer Room that they have,
25:18 powerful,
25:20 prayer is such a powerful thing
25:24 that even Ellen G. White,
25:25 I think, shares it the angels even say that,
25:27 I'm surprised that we don't even do it as much
25:31 that... I am a firm believer... my testimony
25:34 I got where I'm at today was because of those...
25:38 my family always praying for me, the connection with ARME,
25:43 always, even when ARME was... the week was over,
25:46 they were there still calling me calling me all the time,
25:48 "Let me pray for you, let me pray for you,
25:50 let me pray with you," you know,
25:52 and yeah... and that was powerful
25:55 because when you go to ARME Bible Camp,
25:56 I love the way Atonte shares it, "There is no judgment here,
26:01 there is no judgment, we love to love,"
26:05 and when you go to ARME Bible Camp,
26:08 you will see them being a type of Christ
26:12 as to the way the church ought to be
26:16 loving thy neighbor as thyself,
26:18 and meeting you from where you're at today
26:21 and that is the beauty of Christ,
26:22 he doesn't look at us where we're at today,
26:25 He looks at where we're going to be.
26:26 That's right. It changes everything.
26:28 That's right, praise the Lord, yes it does
26:30 and we have the picture of you having gotten baptized,
26:33 let's put that picture up, who baptized you?
26:37 Pastor Pete Haley and ironically
26:39 the Lord even impressed me that it was him to baptize me
26:43 he was leaving the church, that was his last day
26:46 and so, yeah, God was just amazing
26:51 and that was the pastor that was telling me,
26:52 "You pray, you pray"
26:56 and it's kind of hard
26:58 it's kind of hard saying what I'm about to share with you
27:04 is that you have so many people at church
27:07 who just look...
27:09 and we were talking about this earlier
27:11 looking at that one sin, everywhere I go,
27:13 there are people, you know, that... will make... you know...
27:17 shhh... don't even mention it,
27:19 you do see the changing of the behavior
27:22 because they look at that one sin.
27:25 Yeah, and you don't want to be defined by that.
27:27 No, not at all, my life is my life but it's
27:30 my history which is "His Story"
27:32 and He does it differently, like I was talking to your son,
27:35 and, yeah he was telling me about his life
27:37 and how... where he's at today, it's amazing.
27:41 Michele, you have just blessed us so much,
27:44 thank you so much for being with us,
27:46 and for sharing this story with us.
27:48 Thank you so much for having me.
27:50 May God continue to bless you on this journey,
27:53 and may God continue to bless you too,
27:55 thank you so much for joining us.
27:57 Join us next time because you know what?
28:00 It just wouldn't be the same, without you.


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Revised 2016-01-14