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  Hi, my Name is Dillon David Leal. I am 25 years old. I am a believer and follower of Jesus Christ. The verse I chose for my engagement testimony is Genesis 1:18, “The Lord God said, ‘It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.’” 

  God has used this verse to help me to see Shanelle as my suitable helper, who helps me to carry out God’s world redemptive work. In my testimony I will share how God has led me to take this great step of faith, and how God has led me thus far. In other words, you will get to hear my life testimony!

Part I: My Junior Years!

  I was born on March 31st, 1991, right here in Belize City, to my mom and dad, Marconi and Michelle Leal. I grew up with my older brother Devane  and my younger brother Darren. We grew up with much love in our home. My mom and dad took our family to church each Sunday, so I grew up hearing a lot about the Bible and God. 

  As a young teen, I could feel the Holy Spirit convicting me of my wrong doing and I could also feel God’s presence in my heart. During my high school days, my identity was just as a cool kid who was friends with everyone. From a young age, I always considered myself a Christian and tried my best to stay morally clean (no cursing, no drinking, no smoking, and no girls). At that time, I had no interest in girls and was more focused on my school work and playing lots of sports. 

  My high school days were great, but I started to listen to worldly music. Overall, this time was fun and successful! I graduated from (Edward. P. Yorke) High School, and I passed the exam that I took, for 8 course units, according to the specifications of CXC (the Caribbean Examinations Council). Soon after, I was accepted to St. John’s College where I pursued an Associate’s Degree in Business Management. Life was good. There were no worries & no dark days! For this, I thank God for the sacrificial love of my parents. They took good care of our family!

Part 2: My Life as the Prodigal Son, also known as my years of Rebellion!

  It was during my college days that things got dark. For two years, while I was studying at St. John’s, I started dating a young girl who was still in high School. Being with this girl brought out my lustful desires, and the Spirit of God slowly started to leave my life. I started being rebellious towards my parents and towards God. Because of this, I became a terrible Christian example to my family and friends. 

  During these two years, my heart was like the pathway in the parable of the sower. As soon as the seed fell on the path, birds came and ate the seed. Similarly, I would go to church each Sunday, asking God to forgive me for what I had done with this girl during the week. But as soon as I left church, my repentant heart became lustful again. I lied to myself a million times, saying that I was in a Christian relationship but knowing full well that I was not obeying God. 

  Instead, I was honoring the devil. I was bearing bad fruit and I was unhappy. My life was dark. My relationship with God became very dim. I became like those Paul spoke of in Romans 1 verse 21, “For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened.” As a result of my relationship with this girl, my foolish heart was dark. Instead of being a light of God, I was the darkness of Satan.

PART 3 Finding the Grace of God!

   My life of rebellion continued throughout my first semester as a Bachelor’s student at the University of Belize. All I could see myself doing was slowly but surely bearing rotten fruit. In time, everyone began seeing me as a weak Christian. Then something amazing happened! On February 10th of the year 2010, I was studying in the library at school. 

  While I was studying, Missionary Sarah came in and invited me to study Genesis with her for one hour, one time every week, and I agreed. As we studied each week, I started to feel the presence of God in my heart again. I began reading the Bible often and I started praying a lot more than before. 

  Though I was still messing around with the girl, my one to one Bible studies made me fall in love with my Heavenly Father in a much deeper way than before. I fell in love with God’s word, as I studied the Bible weekly. I began to slowly understand God’s love and true purpose for my life. This was when I knew I had to make a change in my life and obey God who loves me. Many nights, I cried out to God to take my sinful life away, but please not to take away my pretty girlfriend. 

  In the same summer of 2010, God answered my prayer. For God’s word stirred up a desire in my heart that as I studied the Bible each week, I might refrain from seeing the girl as much as I had before. So in the summer of 2010, I found out she was not interested in my pure life and was seeing other guys. So God gave me the courage to end the relationship we had. “Now don’t get me wrong.” This was no walk in the park; it hurt. 

  But I knew that it was God who was urging me to let her go. After all, she was the main cause of the poisoning of my spiritual growth in God. Because of my deep hurt, I could clearly see what rebellion and sin led to…they only led to great disappointment and severe pain. I could clearly see that Satan had lied to me and I decided that he could no longer be my master. Immediately I knew that if I didn’t want to feel heartbroken again, I had to marry a woman of God. 

 Because of my heart ache, I became a more devoted Bible student during the remainder of my school days. I continued studying the Bible faithfully at UBF and growing as a servant of God. Through Bible study, God healed my heart and made me into a new creation. The word of God became 100 times more alive in my life than it had ever been before. I finished my studies and obtained my Bachelor’s degree in 2012 free of girl problems and full of joy!

Part 4 Love is patient! 

  Throughout 2012, I made a decision to leave the Baptist Church in Sandhill to serve Belize UBF, based on Genesis 12 1-2, which says: “The Lord had said to Abram, “Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you.” This was such a difficult decision to make. It meant I had to leave all the people I knew and since I was a young leader at the time, it also meant they would miss me. 

  However, I left praying that God would keep them. I was also filled with hope to go to UBF and grow as a Bible teacher and servant of God’s word. As I studied the Bible and started to obey God, I could see Him working in me and I could feel His presence in my heart. As a result, many others began to respect me as a servant of God. I could see God bearing good fruit in my life. 

   As soon as I graduated from the University of Belize in November of 2012, I was given the opportunity to work at the BTL (Belize Telemedia Limited) Company. I was so thankful to God for granting me a job just one week after the completion of my classes. At the start of 2013, I began receiving message training at UBF with missionary Moses, and since then I have started writing and sharing Sunday message once a month. 

  At this time our church was very small (Maybe 5 to 8 people attended worship service each Sunday), and the young boy Lindy became my UBF traveling buddy. Throughout 2013, I spent a lot of time at work, in Bible studies as well as preparing and delivering Sunday worship service messages once a month. I enjoyed learning new wisdom from God’s word; each week I grew stronger in the Lord. In short, God enabled me to spend three years fully devoted to God. It was as if I was on a spiritual high.

  However, I want to confess my struggles. It began when I met a girl in 2011 while studying my bachelor course. Her name was Shanelle Sosa. She was a close friend of Ms. Jessica Mucoluc, one of my close friends. We met each other and right away became school buddies. Because we were both lonely, sometimes we would meet and talk with each other on the campus. I saw that she was beautiful, but also that she did not go to church. Therefore, we just remained school buddies. In May of 2014, I decided to invite Shanelle to come to UBF to begin a Bible study. She agreed and began one to one Bible study.

  After I introduced her to study the Bible with Missionary Sarah, we didn’t talk for some weeks. I left her to test her to see if she would be faithful. To be honest, I thought she wouldn’t like the Bible study. But after a few weeks, I heard Missionary Sarah saying that Shanelle was studying each week and that she even asked to study twice a week. I was so shocked to hear this! I never heard about a student begging to have Bible studies twice a week. This was the first thing that made me realize there was something special about her.       

Then a few months later, I heard she left her old boyfriend. She began attending fellowship group meetings and she was faithful to writing Bible testimonies each week. I was blown away. Before this, I wasn’t moved by any girl but Shanelle’s faithfulness captured my attention. We continued  fellowship with each other as friends until April 2015, when we attended the UBF Latin America Conference in Guatemala. I was the opening messenger and Shanelle was one of the life testimony speakers. To see her stand up and share her life struggles before about 300 of God’s people was really a big step for her. I was so proud of her. After the conference was over, we went on a tour and we walked all day together. 

   As soon as we came back to Belize, we had a meeting where we were asked by our elders if we liked each other. We both said yes. Then they asked if we were ready to get engaged, and we both said no. Since we were not ready to get engaged, we were encouraged to wait on God’s timing. We were also encouraged not to date each other and instead to date God. This advice was so hard for Shanelle and me. We were confused. Everyone we knew encouraged us to date outside of UBF. But according to our elders, if there is no commitment of faith through an engagement, then there should be no dating. God is a God of commitment. 

  A few days after our meeting, Pastor Abraham T. Kim came to Belize to visit. He and I sat for breakfast one morning and he encouraged me to live by faith. I can still remember what he told me. He said that dating should occur after engagement. Engagement should be an act of faith before God. He shared with me the example of Rebecca and Isaac who married by faith. They didn’t date. 

  He said that there are three reasons why UBF does not encourage dating before engagement. He said that first, dating takes up a lot of our time. We spend so much time building a relationship with a girl instead of spending tine to build a close relationship with God. Second, money management. At a young age, learning to manage your money and using it wisely is very important. Dating a girl will take up a lot of our money which could be used more wisely. 

  Third, at such a young age, building a strong foundation on God’s word is most important. He told me that instead of dating Shanelle, I should first grow as a faithful shepherd which meant becoming a faithful one to one Bible teacher. He explained to me that chosen men of God must become shepherds first. Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, David and even Jesus were all shepherds of God. 

  When I heard all this, it was hard to accept. I was already 23. I felt that I was ready to have a girlfriend. My own selfish desires were to have Shanelle as my girlfriend. However, I could feel God speaking to my heart, telling me that the obedient thing to do was to wait and be patient. I knew that growing as a Bible teacher would bring far more glory to God than dating a girl. So I humbly accepted his words after weeks of prayer and Shanelle and I remained just friends.

Part 5 Life of Mission!

  Through the remainder of 2015, we both decided to just be friends and independently build ourselves up in Jesus. Many people thought that waiting was illogical and crazy. Many people told us that we should get to know each other personally through dating. But to Shanelle and me, waiting was an act of true love to God our Father. We learned deeply that love should be patient through 1 Corinthians 13:4. So throughout 2015, God enabled me to become a more faithful Bible teacher to Lindy and Tyler, and I continued delivering Sunday messages once a month and also leading Saturday night Bible fellowship. 

  When it was my turn to deliver a Sunday message, Shanelle would lead Saturday night Bible studies. It was so exciting to see both of us working hard for God’s kingdom. At the start of 2016, God moved our hearts to go to St John’s College to invite students to study the Bible. I invited Stephen Smith to study Genesis during lunch with me! To my surprise, Shanelle also visited St John’s campus and started studying faithfully with one student. It was heartwarming to see us both growing as shepherds. God was using us as Bible teachers. 

  In March of 2016, Shanelle went to Washington UBF and received marriage training. She came back as a marriage Bible teacher. Her devoted life to God each week really moved my heart to see Shanelle as my suitable helper. I am a man of mission and she is a woman of mission. So in October of 2016, I asked the missionaries if I could have Shanelle as my wife. So they asked her privately if she would agree to marry me and thankfully she agreed to marry me. The date was set and we began praying and preparing. 

  In closing, I thank God for his great grace and favor upon me to be engaged to the most suitable and most beautiful woman of God in my eyes, the lovely Shanelle Janeen Sosa. By His guiding, I will be engaged to a well-trained woman of God, which makes me so happy. She remained faithful to Bible studies from the beginning and she also remained faithful to Sunday worship service and teaching the Bible. And when God told us to be patient, she dug a well of God’s word deeply and found new strength in God and was patient.      

Thank God for working in us both and growing us as His servants. Most of all, thank God for helping us to patiently wait for His time. May God bless our engagement(Jan 15) and grow us as a fruitful house church for the glory of God. I would like to give a warm thank you to all of you who have made this engagement possible, including our family members, Missionaries Moses and Sarah Chang, Pastor Abraham and Sarah Kim, and all of our church members here who have been praying for us.

Genesis 1:18, “The Lord God said, ‘It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.’”

One Word: Be patient, God gives a suitable helper!