This is my story.
I was born in Christchurch, New Zealand on the 2nd
of June 1985. My mother was 17 when I was born and felt that I would have a
better life if I was adopted out. So I was adopted at birth into an amazing,
loving Christian family who had already adopted 2 other children. Matthew (boy)
who was 2 and Jodi (girl) who was 8. We left Christchurch and moved to
Newcastle, Australia when I was 2 where we lived until I was 10.Then we moved back to New Zealand but this time we lived in
Auckland. Those first 10 years I lived a pretty sheltered life attending church
every Sunday and going to a Christian school. My teenage years on the other
hand are another story entirely…
When I was about 11 I started skateboarding and playing
guitar. Both of these became a major part of my life, with skating dominating
my teenage years and guitar taking over in my 20’s. I met up with my birth
parents when I was 17 which was just like meeting up with old friends. They are
amazing people and I am blessed to have such a healthy relationship with them
(below is a picture of me with both adopted and birth parents at my 21st
birthday).
But the skate scene led me into smoking cigarettes and
marijuana in my mid to late teens. Of course my parents were unaware of this
because at home and at church I was the nice Christian boy. I was living two
lives, both kind of half way. I did everything I had to to keep my parents and
church friends happy, but also everything to keep my non-Christian friends
happy also. This resulted in me feeling like I didn’t really fit in at either
place, so I withdrew into computer games. By the age of 18 I was drinking a lot
and sleeping around and really mistreating women. I also started working as a
builder which I love but I buried myself into my work also.
I knew about God but I had never had a personal relationship
with him and I didn’t want to even try because in my mind church was boring and
for people who were weak. I wasn’t aware of it at the time but what I was doing
all this time was trying to fill the holes in my life with other things to find
pleasure and satisfaction. Even though I had a good and healthy adoption and
upbringing, there is still that sense of rejection that comes in. I didn’t know
who I was or what I was doing with my life. Every day was the same boring life
repeated over and over and over. But God was still there and he started to give
me a few nudges.
After a long weekend road trip, while driving home I fell
asleep driving at 110km/h. The car drifted into the steel wire median barrier
which caught the front wheel and ripped it and the suspension completely out.
Logically this should have spun the car around and maybe rolled it, but it
didn’t. The car just continued grinding straight down the road on three wheels
and moved off to the other side of the road and stopped (I shouldn’t even have
been able to turn that way if at all). Over the next two months I broke up with my girlfriend of
four years, got made redundant from my job and wrenched my shoulder causing me
to be off work for six months and have a desk job for a further two years after
that. Now of course the only desk job available that I could do was one at the
same company as my dad as a video editor for a Christian television channel.
It’s funny how God kept the Christian influence in my life by making me watch
sermons and other Christian TV shows all day 5 days a week. But of course I
ignored this and started up a heavy metal band where I was the rhythm
guitarist/vocalist playing very angry music. Along with this came the rock star
lifestyle of heavy amounts of alcohol, LSD, and speed/cocaine and more girls. After 2-3 years of living a mess of a life the 2010
Christchurch earthquake happened. It was time for me to get back into building
and with the huge need for carpenters in Christchurch and with my birth dad
living there (who was also a carpenter) I decided to move there. 4-5 months
later was one of biggest most life changing days of my life, February 22nd
2011.
At 12:51pm a magnitude 6.3 earthquake (only 1km underground)
hit Christchurch city killing 185 people and injuring roughly 2,000 others. I
had just got off a four story scaffold only minutes earlier and was crossing
Manchester St in town walking to another job when it hit. Normally earthquakes
build up (I had experienced many aftershocks prior to this one) but this one
was like a bomb going off and lasted for more than 10 seconds. With all the previous
earthquakes in the area a lot of buildings had been damaged and weakened and
just crumbled under the force of this quake. I later found out that the
scaffold I had just got off collapsed onto the tram lines (electrifying it) and
was then crushed by the façade of the building falling onto it which would have
surely killed me. I was knocked off my feet and a truck that was parked on the
side of the road almost rolled onto me. A lot of bricks and other debris fell
off surrounding buildings and narrowly missed me but somehow nothing did. I
watched as a building collapsed onto people on the footpath and cars stopped at
the traffic lights. When the quake finally stopped I grabbed the guys I was
working with and we ran into a huge cloud of dust towards the collapsed
building where we spent several hours digging people out. We got about 24
people out alive but seriously injured and 4 people that had died. Below are
some before and after pictures of the building where we were (the 2nd
one was taken on the day).
I didn’t stop and think all day I just kicked into gear and did what had to be done. When I finally got home at about 6pm, I sat down on the couch and that’s where I stayed for the next three days in shock. I didn’t hardly talk, sleep or eat. I didn’t really talk to anyone about the details of the day and just went on with work and ignored the miraculous reasons of how I didn’t die that day. I knew that God was trying to get my attention but I didn’t want to admit it and kept pushing him away and decided to start a sleeve tattoo.
The earthquake made me look at life differently so I tried
to fix my life by stopping smoking, drugs and cutting alcohol right back to
only special occasions. A few months later I got back together with my ex-girlfriend
who I had broken up with about 3 years earlier. She moved down to Christchurch
and we were together for about 2 ½ years before we got engaged. Everything was
going great, I had a great job as a project manager getting paid very well, we
had a nice place and all the toys and we were planning our wedding. We were set
to have a good future, but we both weren’t happy. Things got worse as time went
on and we decided to call off the wedding and go our separate ways. This was my
final low point, I was nearly 30, single, living alone and bored out of my
brain because I had lost all my friends. So I started drinking again.
My birth nana had a word from God to go down to Christchurch
and pray for the grandchildren. After watching a movie with her (God’s Not
Dead), she asked if she could pray for me. I was hung over from the night
before and just wanted to leave to go drink again and knew that I would be able
to leave faster if I let her pray. So I reluctantly let her pray for me and God
showed up big time. Within seconds I was on the floor having visions, speaking
in tongues and pulling scripture references that I didn’t even know that spoke
into my life. I also had words of knowledge for others that were there about
things I didn’t even know about them. This whole encounter with God lasted
about 2 hours and completely changed my life. I had very clear direction from
God on what I was to do with my life. Within three weeks I had sold everything
and started my DTS (Discipleship Training School) to learn how to better know
God and make him known to the world as a missionary.
I know I am called to work with Muslims in Muslim state
countries in the future but right now I am concentrating on what God has put in
front of me right now. Getting to know Him and his word and learning how to disciple
others to do the same.
Jeremiah 29:11
For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD,
plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.
