Contact Pastor Andrew at Somali Christian Ministries

If you would like to know more about Jesus Christ, and the Bible, please contact us in either English or Somali, and we will be glad to respond to you.

Somali Christian Ministries will never give out personal information to anyone. Your information is private and confidential and will not be shared with anyone.

You can also reach us by telephone at 416-821-1661, or by email at scmforchrist@gmail.com.

Our mailing address is:

Somali Christian Ministries
PO Box 30239
123 Rexdale Blvd
Etobicoke, Ontario
Canada M9W 0B1

Pastor Andrew’s testimony

I was born and raised in a Lutheran home where my parents did not believe that you had to be born again by the Spirit of God in order to be saved and to see the Kingdom of God. In fact the minister once said that he would never say that someone had to be born again in order to be saved; or at least that’s what I understood.

However, Jesus says something much different. Our Lord says:

“Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” Nicodemus said to him, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?” Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” ¬ (John chapter 3).

Jesus said it, “you must be born again.”

I spent many years taking drugs, drinking, living an immoral lifestyle until at the age of 18; until I could take it no more and called a Christian prayer line and was prayed for. I repeated the prayer the counsellor told me to pray: God, I pray in the name of Jesus that you would take away my fear, lust and doubt,” three of the biggest things I was struggling with. Immediately I heard and felt a ripping noise, like something was being torn out of my body and I felt so clean and wonderful.

However, no one disciple me, I didn’t receive any teaching, didn’t go to church, didn’t read the Bible, so I very quickly fell back into my old ways of drinking and starting to take drugs again. Now, you should understand that I don’t really recall a lot of details of my life between the ages of 12 and 24 – I was high, drunk, or hung over most of the time.

Then at 24 years of age I heard a preacher on TV (no internet back then) quote this verse: “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.” (1 Corinthians 5:17).

Wow! That’s what I wanted. I wanted to become a new person, a new man, a new creation. My soul was yearning and craving for these things. So a few weeks later while taking a shower I had a vision, I cried out to God, and was saved – and have been for over 25 years.

Here is what happened:

I was standing in the shower with the water running down over the top of my head; then I was lost in a vision. I stopped feeling the water or knowing where I was – I was in the vision. Everything was white. The ground was just this large, flat, white material that was hard but not like concrete. And there was a hole, just one hole, and I had one foot on one side of the hole, and the other on the other side (kind of like a bugs bunny hole). I thought ‘this is weird’. Then the hole starting to get bigger ever so slowly: I thought nothing of it at the moment but then the hole started to get even bigger and my legs were spreading wider and wider. Then I sensed that there was something eerie and evil below me – it was hell.

“This is scary, hell is below me. My legs are getting wider and I can’t lift one up to run otherwise I will fall right into the hole and into the burning fires of hell below me. O God,” I cried, “save me now or I am going to die.”

Which is interesting because in my vision I associated going to hell with dying, and that’s what hell is, it’s the second death.

Jesus our Lord said it Himself: “Don’t be afraid of those who want to kill your body; they cannot touch your soul. Fear only God, who can destroy both soul and body in hell.” (Matthew 10:28).

The Bible says: “Then death and the grave were thrown into the lake of fire. This lake of fire is the second death.” (Revelation 20:14)

I cried out to God and then collapsed on the shower floor, curled up in the fetal position because the shower stall was only about 3 ft x 3 ft. I lay there as the water washed down upon me. Thinking back I kind of realize that the Lord Himself baptized me because I was so alone, and He had a special purpose for my life.

It wasn’t over yet. After the shower I thought to myself “That was weird.” I dried myself off and carried on with my life. And the about 8 months later I realized that something had really changed in my life: I was no longer drinking alcohol nor did I want to; I wasn’t smoking pot or anything else; I did not want to go to bars and hang out with loose women; I wanted to live a godly life and follow God.

I pinched myself – literally, on both my arms to see if I was real and if I had really changed. I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what had happened.

And then as if someone turned on the light bulb inside of my brain I remembered – I cried out to God in the shower to save me – He must have done something.

This time, unlike the time I had the demons cast out of me, I knew a real change had happened in my spirit. I learned that you can have demons cast out of you – but you need the Holy Spirit to come inside of you to be a changed person – it is true what Jesus said: “You must be born again.”

Through ups and downs I have been enjoying God my Father’s care over me for all these years; and for the last 20 or so have been “chasing Somalis” as one of my friends likes to put it. I’ll tell anyone about the saving power of the Lord Jesus Christ – anyone – I am not ashamed of the Gospel:

“For I am not ashamed of this Good News about Christ. It is the power of God at work, saving everyone who believes–the Jew first and also the Gentile.” – Romans 1:16