As I drove, I worked up the courage to speak it aloud. The love of God fell over me. I began to weep and laugh as I continued to speak that word. That single word bled into more, and soon I was speaking a heavenly language that lifted my soul and drew me close to my Heavenly Father. It healed every lie I had ever believed about the Holy Spirit. 

At 49 years of age, entrepreneurship was unfamiliar territory. I did not have substantial capital, but with what little we had saved, we applied for a trade license and established Freeman and Company LLC – FZ. What began as an act of obedience soon became a testimony of God’s grace.

God had taken me from heartbreak and extreme homesickness to purpose and belonging. Without the City Lights community, I honestly don’t know how I would have survived my first year in Dubai.

I searched everywhere - Buddhism, energy healing, New Age meditation - trying to find peace. But no matter where I looked, something was still missing.

In my final year of university, a hunger for truth awakened in me—a longing that would not be silenced. I searched for healing and meaning through Hinduism, Buddhism, the New Age, and indigenous traditions, traveling the world and studying under teachers and healers.

And in the middle of that pain, I prayed one of the most honest prayers of my life. I told God that even if we lost everything, even if the business completely failed—if my husband could just see the truth, it would all be worth it.

As this church celebrates its 15th birthday, I am deeply grateful to God for His faithfulness and for a church that opens its doors to people like me: lost, searching, and yet lovingly found.

We discovered that surgery and IVF were required if we were ever going to conceive. This was very difficult news to hear, and we weren’t sure we could “feel where God was” at the time.

At that moment, I had a very clear picture in my mind. God showed me a massive wave, and I could see Sophia, James, and myself surfing on this wave. I had the strongest sense that God was showing me this huge wave was City Lights Church, and that He was moving there in a powerful way. He told me to turn the car around on Umm Suqeim Street and head to the warehouse.

Walking into City Lights on their fourth birthday back in 2015 was a life-changing moment. At the time, I was searching for a more personal, intimate connection with my faith beyond the Catholic traditions I grew up with.

I share my testimony because my hope and trust is that the Lord will use it to encourage others going through something that feels unbearably painful, that there is beauty that can come from the most broken of places.

During one of the services, he began to prophesy healing for food allergies and Hashimoto’s disease. I was standing at the time and immediately felt God’s presence fall on me, and I fell back onto my chair as if someone had pushed me back.

I felt alone and isolated. I thought avoiding youth was the best thing to do, but I was wrong.

I could not understand how grieving can turn into joy. My heart was still too broken to understand. The joy of life was taken away. I just existed.

We were advised on flights, timelines, termination, all the things that can go wrong by having a family member with Down Syndrome or any chromosome abnormality. Fear crept in. We knew nothing about Down syndrome. Why us?