2 minute read
TESTIFY!
Lieutenant Eleni Daucakacaka shared her testimony at Fiji Commissioning in December 2020.
Praise the Lord! It is a privilege to be given this opportunity to testify my journey with God.
Proverbs 3:5–6 was a memory verse that I had learnt in my very young age and it seemed like a usual verse to recite as I grew up, and the depth of this verse worked miracles in my life. To trust God with all my heart, leaning not on my own understanding, submitting and surrendering my all to him, knowing and believing that God will direct my path.
I grew up in The Salvation Army. My dad died when I was 16 years old and Mum brought us up with my six siblings, myself being the eldest. Life wasn’t easy back then. Mum had to try her best to meet every need of the day. There was laughter, there was sorrow and I never saw or heard her giving up on us. She trusted in God. She taught me to be independent, but dependent on God.
I attended Sunday school, was a junior soldier, corps cadet and attended youth fellowship, which all added to my knowledge of God. And as time went by, I began to drift away from God within my human knowledge and teachings from home, but I thank God that he directed me on to the right path.
I met my husband in the youth fellowship, and after eight years settled, our journey together began. It was not a bed of roses. There were moments of joy, laughter and sorrow. Being a young working mother of three children, as my husband wasn’t working for the first four years we were together, was not easy.
I thank God that he had already instilled in me to trust in him. And it seems so hard at times to trust him, because I look with my physical eyes and as I see waves of challenge building and building, I often forget that Jesus is right here with me. All I must do is to give him my all— my everything. I have surrendered my all to Christ, ‘...it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me…’ [Galatians 2:20, NKJV].
Two years in training college saw more of myself offloading burdens that I was still carrying, identifying weaknesses that needed strengthening, acknowledging God-given strengths that I already had and surrendering my life daily to Christ—knowing and believing that the God who called is faithful and he will accomplish his will in my life.
I stand here today looking back at my journey, I thank and praise the Lord that he was with me all along. And today as I continue on another adventure with him, I believe that he has already gone ahead of my family. I can’t make it, my family cannot make it, but with Christ in us, he gives us the power to hold onto him and never let go.
I am a messenger of grace and so are you. His grace has brought us this far and it is by his grace that he will continue to shine his light in and through me.
I give God the honour and the glory to be his and his alone. Amen.
