When I was a little boy, around 4 years-old, my dad was reading to me a book about a woman who died and went to Heaven but then came back to life to tell about it.  She told about what a beautiful place Heaven is. Everyone there is so happy, without any sadness or suffering.  You can run without getting tired and swim without getting wet.  Even the grass looks more like flower pedals, and the streets are paved with gold.  As you can imagine, hearing this story made a big impact on my little 4-year-old mind.

Every night, I began to pray, “God, I know I’m a sinner.  Please forgive all of my sins.  I want You to be in my life, and I want to be friends with You.  When I die, I don’t want to go to Hell, but I want to live with my family forever in Heaven.”  For months, I would stay awake in my bed until late at night praying these things, but I felt no peace.  Finally, I got up the courage and went out to tell my mother that I had decided that I wanted to live for Jesus.  Of course, she was very happy to hear about my decision, and she prayed together with me.  When I went to bed that night, I had a peace that all my sins were forgiven and that I would live forever with Jesus in Heaven.  It’s a peace that has never left me. 

At 14 years-old, problems with anger started to arise in my life.  My grandfather was an abusive alcoholic, often beating my grandmother or my father so that they would have to call the police.  During my childhood years, my father also had problems with anger, although he was never abusive (now, he is free).  So, when I became a teenager, I discovered that I would also become enraged very easily, snapping at my mother or sisters for no apparent reason.  I felt like I couldn’t control myself, for I had a problem I had done nothing to deserve—I had inherited it.

            One day, God spoke to me, “David, if you’ll be baptized in water, I will break this curse of anger off of your life.”  That Sunday, they were having a baptism at my church, so I decided to write my name down on the list to be baptized.  During the baptism, I felt like something broke inside of me; a new person came out of the water that day!

A few months later, my mother told me, “I’m so proud of you for overcoming the problem that you had with anger.”  But inside, I knew that I had done nothing except to obey the Lord by being baptized in water.

A major turning point in my life happened when I was around 19 years-old and felt a great desperation in my heart.  Finishing a few months’ stay in Romania, I was preparing to go to live in Russia, not feeling like I had much to offer as far as ministry.  At the same time, I was reading a book about Smith Wigglesworth and the book of Acts—a dangerous combination!  One day, I felt like I prayed my guts out in the apartment of one of my friends from Cluj, “God, why did Smith Wigglesworth and Paul experience such miracles, and I don’t?  What’s wrong with me?”  At the time of my prayer, I felt absolutely nothing but had an expectation that something great was about to happen.

That night, I went with my wife (who at the time was just my friend) and 4 of our other friends to the top of a hill overlooking the city to pray together (we would later have our marriage ceremony on that same hill).  The Holy Spirit came down in such a way that I had never experienced before.  When my friends laid hands on me, I was slain in the Spirit, in plain sight of many Non-Christians who were walking around us.  I began to weep, laugh, and shake uncontrollably, feeling the whole time a sensation like intense electricity in my hands and face.  After a while, while still lying on the ground, I began to prophecy to each of my friends who were there, and they also began to weep.  An hour and a half later, a couple of them helped me walk down the hill, all of us feeling extremely drunk in the Spirit.  As we looked around us, the world looked like a different place.

The change in my life was immediate and dramatic.  Even though I had received the baptism in the Holy Spirit when I was a young boy when my dad, a pastor, and his wife laid their hands on me, the experience on the hill that night truly was “an enduement of power from on high.”  When I went to Russia, in the meetings where I would minister, almost every one would be slain in the Spirit, powerful deliverances would take place, and healings began to happen more and more.  I’ve never been the same!