As Douglas Na’a grew up he developed a distaste for religion. By the age of 13 he was involved with drugs and alcohol, and was only living for the moment. In an effort to reform Douglas, his parents sent him to a Christian boarding school. It was there that he learned about Bible prophecy and the real adventure of his life began.

<p>As Douglas Na’a grew up he developed a distaste for religion. By the age of 13 he was involved with drugs and alcohol, and was only living for the moment. In an effort to reform Douglas, his parents sent him to a Christian boarding school. It was there that he learned about Bible prophecy and the real adventure of his life began.</p>

<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

Advent HOPE Sabbath School

Douglas Na'a

A Life-Changing Classroom

This evening I want to do something different from our Bible study, something that I was prompted to do just as I was shaking the hands of young people as they're walking out.

They asked me to share my personal testimony.

And Everybody ought to have at least a testimony.

If you do not understand certain things of scripture, that's okay.

But if you don't have any experience, folks, all is of no avail.

I'm not 1 that just shares my testimony everywhere I go, but when I'm burdened to do it, I like to do it.

And I hope and I pray that through this, through this, someone will, someone will forsake the things of this world and turn their hearts from God.

I believe with all my heart, folks, that if there's ever a time that we need to detach, detach, detach ourselves from the things of this world, it is now.

That's the kind of Christians that God is looking for, especially young people.

Young people who have forsaken the things of this world, and that they have been gripped by the presence of God, and they have been gripped by the truths of God.

And our experience is vital and imperative for this day and age.

Let us bow our heads for an opening word of prayer.

Father, forgive us, cleanse us, transform us, convert us.

I mentioned to you earlier on this morning for the 10 o'clock service that I didn't grow up as an Adventist.

As a matter of fact, I grew up a Methodist.

My dad is a Methodist minister, Methodist lay minister, even to this day and age.

And coming from a Polynesian culture, having big families is normal.

They take care of us, and then we'll take care of them.

And so 6 brothers and 3 sisters all the way from top to bottom.

I'm number 9, the youngest is, Dindy is the youngest, so I'm the second to last at the bottom.

So as I was growing up as a young lad, I grew up in a very strong, conservative, Methodist home.

I'll never forget the things that my parents ingrained into us as we were young kids.

Be good, always tell the truth, don't cheat, don't smoke, don't lie, and be honest to your parents and obey them at all times.

And so growing up as a young kid, I remember every morning and every evening we had to do our devotions, our family devotion.

And if there was 1 thing that I hated, if there was 1 thing that I despised, I hated going to church.

And I remember every morning and every evening when we would gather around as a family, we would pray.

My dad would share a little devotion from the Bible.

And I timed every single 1 of our family's prayer.

Now there are 10 of us, including my parents, that's 12.

So if they pray for at least 1 minute each, that's 12 minutes.

So 12 minutes, but of course it was more than 12 minutes because we actually started from the youngest, my younger brother, and we all had to pray.

And we all prayed for at least 30 seconds.

But when it came to my father, he prayed for at least 5 minutes.

I just wanted, as I was kneeling there, all I wanted to do was hurry up and finish off the prayer and just give me a football and I'm out of this door.

I'm going to play on the streets with my friends, just want to play football out on the streets.

So I hated the things that I grew up with, but I remember, I praise God that my parents embedded in me good Christian values.

Growing up as a young child at the age of 13, I started getting involved in things that I shouldn't be getting involved in.

I started getting involved in drugs and alcohol and certain gang activities in the local neighborhood at the age of 13.

And because I was always big for my size, I always got away with certain things.

Because I was always big for my size, I was able to get into nightclubs at a very young age.

And so this was my life beginning at the age of 13.

Being intoxicated with alcohol, abusing my mind with drugs.

And it came to a point where my parents, I was so wild, I was so out of hand, my parents no longer could control me.

This was in New Zealand, so my parents decided, listen, Douglas is just getting too much out of hand.

Now, when you go back to the islands, especially the Tongan culture, the Tongan culture is very strict and very conservative.

And so they decided to expose me to a little bit of hard discipline.

So they sent me back to the islands at a very at the age of 15 and they wanted to send me to the most strictest boarding school on the island.

I mean, they wanted to straighten me out.

They says, Doug, you're going to the strictest boarding school on the island.

So when I arrived on the islands, when I arrived there for the very first time, they enrolled me at the strictest boarding school on the island because the first thing in their priorities, they just wanted to straighten me out.

And it just so happens folks, it just so happened that that boarding school was a Seventh-day Adventist boarding school, amen?

Doesn't Ellen White say education redemption or what?

So they enrolled me at the strict boarding school, not because they accepted wild kids, but they had very high standards.

And they were very loving and they were very strict.

And so this was my first exposure to Adventism.

Prior to Adventism, if you asked me back then about a Seventh-day Adventist, the first thing that came to my mind, I actually thought, I actually thought in my mind that Adventists were weird people.

What's wrong with a little bit of bacon and shrimps?

There's no such thing as clean and unclean.

And that's the way I rationalize strange folks weird group of people so as I as I Entered into this Adventist boarding school My parents sent me away with an ultimatum.

They said, Douglas, we'll only bring you back to New Zealand if your report card is good.

And so the school didn't send me my report card, they actually posted it to New Zealand.

So I wanted to hurry up and get out of this place.

I was like this, I can't really stand it.

So I was willing to do all that I can to get straight A's on a report card.

And I remember back then that there was a class that was mandatory for everybody to take besides biology, history, geography.

It wasn't Greek, it wasn't Hebrew in the seminary.

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A Life-Changing Classroom

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