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Stories of Changed Lives |
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Bhupinder
 Like so many in Brampton, Bhupinder moved here from another country within the last decade. Working in the information technology industry, he had done pretty well for himself. And he was thankful to God for that. "I thought whatever I had," says Bhupinder, "was a blessing from my own religion, my own faith, my own scriptures."
Bhupinder was faithful to the Sikh religion. He prayed and read the Guru Granth Sahib daily. But that began to change. "One night, after praying and reading our scriptures, my wife had a dream. In this dream, the Lord Jesus himself came to her. At that point we had never gone to church or read the Bible.
"She immediately accepted the Lord. I was a bit reluctant. I thought, 'I have gotten everything from my own religion, so why do we need a different God?'"
 Bhupinder began to seek out the truth about his wife's new faith. He called a local church and spoke with a pastor. "I asked him, 'Do I have to change my religion or my dress code to come to your faith? He told me that Christianity is not a religion but a direct relationship with God and that whatever kind of clothes I wore were okay."
While Christians believe that there is one God who created everything, they also believe that this same God is accessible by anyone directly. God is supreme over everyone, and at the same time, personal to each individual.
 Bhupinder still had questions. "I wanted some proof that what the pastor told me was correct. So he gave me a Bible. After I started reading the New Testament, all my questions were answered in the first few hundred pages. I am a well-read man. I soon realized that all the books I've read before are derived from the Bible. Now I am reading the original book.
"For example, I've read the autobiography of a prominent leader in India. He says that the best way to defeat your enemy is to use non-violent means. In fact, he says that if someone hits you on one cheek, offer the second to him. When I read this in the first few pages of the Bible, I realized that this was not this man's original idea, but that he learned this wisdom from the Bible."
Reading the Bible is a great way to get to know who God is. It is one of the main ways he has revealed himself to the world. By reading it carefully and often, you can have a relationship with him.
 "My wife and I started studying the Bible seriously," Bhupinder says. "Soon we stopped reading and following other scriptures. We started doing everything according to the Bible. Our entire life has changed. We spend a lot of time reading the word of God. We meditate on it and use it in our day to day lives."
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Bev
 Some people, like Bhupinder, devote their lives to Jesus after many years without him. Others, like Bev, begin serving him at a young age. For Bev, spending her life working for Jesus has been a blessing-both for her and for the people around her. She credits her grandfather with helping her along this path.
Bev's grandfather, William, was a tailor in World War I. He would make adjustments and repairs to the uniforms of the officers in his battalion. "One day," Bev retells, "when he finished alterations to an officer's uniform, the officer handed my grandfather a book as a gesture of appreciation. My grandfather took the book and saw it was a Bible. But since he enjoyed reading he thought he would read it."
And he did read it. And reread it. By his third time through, William had realized this book was something special. The only problem was that there was no one for William to ask about this. He looked for the officer who gave him the Bible but never saw him again.
 The Bible tells the miraculous story of how God created the world, how human beings rebelled against God and how God set in motion a plan to bring his creation back from rebellion. Signs of the rebellion are all around us. Before William was introduced to the Bible, he experienced the rebellion from God and he was also a part of it. Through reading the Bible, William realized that God had acted to make the world right and was calling people to live that way. Reading the Bible changed William's life. And it can change yours too.
"After reading it for the third time, he felt his eyes being opened to the meaning of life and how to accept Christ as his Savior. My grandfather, in his own way, by the reading of God word, gave his heart to Jesus."
 After the war, William and his family moved to Canada to settle down. His wife was so impressed by his new faith that she decided to follow Jesus also. In fact, everyone in his family made that same decision.
"In the next 3 generations of his family. Before both my grandparents died, there were over 130 family members and every single one of them were serving the Lord and ministering for the Lord."
 William's impact is still being realized today. Bev works for Brampton Life Centre helping expecting mothers plan for the arrival of their children.
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