‘I Was a Slave to Darkness’: During Touching Baptism, Ex-Drug Addict Says She’d ‘Be Dead’ if Church Didn’t Defy COVID Closure By Billy Hallowell for Faith Wire
A Canadian church has a message for Christians and houses of worship alike amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic: “Refuse to close your doors.”
Trinity Bible Chapel in Waterloo, Ontario, published a video Tuesday of a woman named Jennifer Scott. The clip featured Scott’s incredibly touching baptism and her heartwarming testimony.
Scott shared her journey with the congregation before publicly pronouncing her faith through immersion.
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“I was a slave to darkness,” she said. “I grew up going to church, but I wasn’t saved.”
Scott’s journey led her into chaos and drug use. She eventually found herself “smoking and shooting 7 grams of cocaine a day,” but life started to change after she agreed to attend a prayer meeting at her son’s request.
“None of these things would have happened if Trinity closed it’s doors and was solely online…I’d be dead right now if God had not used this church in my life.”
There are people like Jennifer in your community. Refuse to turn them away.#OpenYourChurch pic.twitter.com/OEzFVIW5bM
— Trinity Bible Chapel (@TBCWR) January 11, 2022
“My son asked me to come to a prayer meeting at Trinity,” she said. “In my small ground, I asked for prayer to help me stop.”
And after Scott posted a comment on a church YouTube video, the pastor reached out and started encouraging her. Eventually, the church helped her secure a bed at a sober-living house — and her life was suddenly transformed.
“I have been clean and sober now for over seven months,” she said. “The body of Christ here at Trinity has helped me with furniture and other things.”
Scott also said something deeply powerful for the Church to heed, specifically in an era dominated by closures and government mandates.
“None of these things would have happened if Trinity closed it doors and was solely online,” she said. “I know for a fact I’d be dead right now if God had not used this church in my life.”
Scott became emotional, at one point adding, “I am not crippled by fear anymore. … Jesus never stopped His pursuit of me.”
