I grew up attending the Presbyterian church in NZ until I left at age 13. Over the years, various Christians invited me to faith in Jesus, but I was never convinced. As a teen I discovered I was unable to form or maintain relationships.
Around age 15, I witnessed a gospel presentation by YWAM and I was genuinely moved by it. I began to think that perhaps, one day, I could become a Christian. At age 19 I was arrested, so I knew that something was seriously wrong..
By age 21, I had begun dealing marijuana. I was considering whether to expand that into a career. One day I ran into an old school friend. He invited me to his home.
The father, Sam, immediately began asking me questions about faith. I pushed back with my usual objections — but he calmly answered each one by showing me scriptures. He had read the bible forty times, cover to cover. I was taken aback.
"I love it," he said.
I was staggered. I had never met anyone with that depth of devotion to anything, and soon I had simply had enough — the power of conviction was overwhelming. I said, "All right. I'll believe”.
Sam asked me to kneel on the floor. I went through the sinner's prayer, line by line. Then we talked. Finally, we all knelt together and prayed. My life had changed direction forever. I would not become a drug dealer.
I went back each Saturday night. Sam would speak about the Christian life, always drawing on scripture. All six of their children were believers. The parents themselves seemed to inhabit a deeper Christian life: always consistent, always quietly joyful and pure. I had never encountered anyone like this.
They lent me biographies of great Christians to read. This deeper Christian life became the main subject of our conversations, and I began to seriously wonder whether this deeper walk with God could be for me — though it seemed far beyond my reach. I began reading the bible eagerly.
About 2 months after my conversion, they invited me to a Christian Easter camp. The final sermon is something I will never forget. The preacher began along fairly ordinary lines, then about ten minutes in he paused and changed course entirely. "I wasn't planning on speaking about this at all," he said — and then he began preaching on holiness, on the deeper Christian life, the very thing I had been learning about in Sam's home. To hear it at the Easter camp was a real surprise.
On the journey home I turned it all over in my mind. I made a quiet but firm resolution: I would pursue this life of holiness, however far beyond me it seemed. As someone who had always been rejected and troubled, there was something about belonging entirely to God that held a powerful appeal.
Over the following days I was thinking about how to fully consecrate my life to God. Then one afternoon, standing in the doorway of my room, it happened without warning: the pure love of God flooded my entire being.
Wave after wave of divine love and deep, clean joy surged into my heart and mind over the following hours as I read the Bible. I knew then, beyond any doubt: this was what the whole world needed. The words of Scripture burned alive on the page, as though they had been written just for me.
I went to see my friends, and their excitement for me was unmistakable. The love and unity we shared in that room was unlike anything I had ever experienced. A deep, strong joy stayed with me — whether I was at their home, at work, or alone in my room. I began witnessing to everyone: workmates, my boss, strangers, family, old friends from my drug days.
I continued visiting the family every Saturday night for the rest of that year. When I once asked Sam what we should pray for, he said simply: "Pray for revival." He gave me the book The Revival in Indonesia by Kurt Koch.
You didn't think it would be that simple, did you?
There is one big mistake I made with my Christian life
Prayer. Lack of prayer.
I had drastically underestimated the importance of prayer. It is the lifeline between us and God. It’s how we speak to Him — and how He whispers to us. It is how we survive as believers. It is how we are guided, moment by moment.
I fell into the trap of living off good feelings — occasional blessings, or the memory of past ones. I blame no one but myself. Without that daily connection to God, I was vulnerable.
I left my orchard job with the impulsive idea of going door to door to share the Gospel. It was a fanatical notion, and it didn't last. Before long I moved to the city to work in a factory. Rejection followed me there too. I applied to join the police — they turned me down. I tried several churches — more rejection. I had met a wonderful Christian woman, but I was in no spiritual condition to be a worthy partner for her. Then a workmate mentioned how he'd made money on the sharemarket, so I tried my hand at it — only to be caught in the crash of 1987. I lost everything: my money, job and my mental health.
My sister took me in. She cared for me patiently for two years while I gradually returned to work. I saw a psychologist for 6 months.
In 1990, I travelled to Northern Ireland, to check out the Christian life there. One of my special memories from that time is lying on a park bench late one night, praying and weeping under the open sky. I had travelled to the other side of the world hoping to find a closer experience of God. But now I realize I could have found that without ever leaving New Zealand.
I returned home directionless, lonely, and empty. I tried various things. I met a woman online — she thought I was a woman; I thought she was a man. We became close, and after about six months I proposed. I travelled to her country, got engaged, and brought her to NZ. What followed became the most painful chapter of my life.
We had two children. I knew the importance of faith in a family — I knew it — but I had no living faith to bring to them. I had nothing spiritual to offer. My wife supplied all the strength and steadiness. She found work while I was unemployed. She had her own Catholic faith to sustain her. She motivated and helped me gain a computer qualification and together we started a computer business while she worked full-time as an engineer. I kept causing serious, damaging problems for her and our daughter. I tried to return to my faith, but failed each time — always, at the root, because of prayerlessness.
We sought counselling several times over the years. Every counsellor told my wife she should leave me. I also sought psychological help — seven different psychologists, a psychotherapist, and approximately six counsellors in all. Most Christians will know: God is the greatest psychologist, the Mighty Counsellor, the only One who truly knows the human heart and how to fix it. But I was out of touch with Him.
My wife fought desperately to hold things together even as the children wanted me gone. Navigating a crisis of that depth was entirely beyond me.
Now I am alone. My children want no contact with me, and I do not blame them at all.
But this has been the wake-up call I needed.
I began seeking God earnestly, bearing the full weight of all the harm I had done to my wife and children. Keeping them from knowing the life and love of God is the most damaging thing I have ever done. I cried out to God in desperation and guilt one day in November, wanting relief from the decades of sin and darkness I had created — and to my astonishment, He heard me. He began to lift the darkness.
I had thought a real Christian life was impossible. I was merely hoping for relief from the crushing conviction of sin.
It has now been 7 months since God recovered me — and the only way through has been to keep believing, prevailing prayer every single day, and hard work dealing with myself.
To rediscover joy, faith, hope, and love has been a deeply moving experience, far beyond anything I anticipated. I feel extremely unworthy.
God is healing me — in the most delicate, expert, loving, and personally understanding way imaginable.
He has not given me back the experience I had forty years ago. What He has given me instead is vastly deeper, more stable, and more intimately knowing. I shed tears most days now — something that was notably absent from my early Christian years. The tears come as I pour out my heart to Him: in intercession for others, in devotion, in gratitude, in praise.
Processing the pain of what my family has been through — pain that I caused — has been exquisitely difficult. Most of the time God mercifully shields me from the full weight of it, because it would be unbearable to carry all at once. But now and then He allows me to process a little more, so that I can continue to heal and become useful to others.
I yearn deeply for my family to be saved. For myself, I am deepening and extending my daily prayer life.
What I have had to discover for myself is humility and brokenness, a living relationship with God — one that I can sustain, walk in, and live by; a God who can bring a person back from the very brink.
A closing note: Losing my family has been a profoundly humbling experience, and I have had to keep choosing humility as God continues to reveal things in my life that still need correcting. The weight of the wasted years is at times almost overwhelming — acutely convicting. But God gently leads me not to dwell there too long. That conviction serves its purpose: it keeps me humble and keeps my feet on the narrow way that Jesus spoke of.
Around age 15, I witnessed a gospel presentation by YWAM and I was genuinely moved by it. I began to think that perhaps, one day, I could become a Christian. At age 19 I was arrested, so I knew that something was seriously wrong..
By age 21, I had begun dealing marijuana. I was considering whether to expand that into a career. One day I ran into an old school friend. He invited me to his home.
The father, Sam, immediately began asking me questions about faith. I pushed back with my usual objections — but he calmly answered each one by showing me scriptures. He had read the bible forty times, cover to cover. I was taken aback.
"I love it," he said.
I was staggered. I had never met anyone with that depth of devotion to anything, and soon I had simply had enough — the power of conviction was overwhelming. I said, "All right. I'll believe”.
Sam asked me to kneel on the floor. I went through the sinner's prayer, line by line. Then we talked. Finally, we all knelt together and prayed. My life had changed direction forever. I would not become a drug dealer.
I went back each Saturday night. Sam would speak about the Christian life, always drawing on scripture. All six of their children were believers. The parents themselves seemed to inhabit a deeper Christian life: always consistent, always quietly joyful and pure. I had never encountered anyone like this.
They lent me biographies of great Christians to read. This deeper Christian life became the main subject of our conversations, and I began to seriously wonder whether this deeper walk with God could be for me — though it seemed far beyond my reach. I began reading the bible eagerly.
About 2 months after my conversion, they invited me to a Christian Easter camp. The final sermon is something I will never forget. The preacher began along fairly ordinary lines, then about ten minutes in he paused and changed course entirely. "I wasn't planning on speaking about this at all," he said — and then he began preaching on holiness, on the deeper Christian life, the very thing I had been learning about in Sam's home. To hear it at the Easter camp was a real surprise.
On the journey home I turned it all over in my mind. I made a quiet but firm resolution: I would pursue this life of holiness, however far beyond me it seemed. As someone who had always been rejected and troubled, there was something about belonging entirely to God that held a powerful appeal.
Over the following days I was thinking about how to fully consecrate my life to God. Then one afternoon, standing in the doorway of my room, it happened without warning: the pure love of God flooded my entire being.
Wave after wave of divine love and deep, clean joy surged into my heart and mind over the following hours as I read the Bible. I knew then, beyond any doubt: this was what the whole world needed. The words of Scripture burned alive on the page, as though they had been written just for me.
I went to see my friends, and their excitement for me was unmistakable. The love and unity we shared in that room was unlike anything I had ever experienced. A deep, strong joy stayed with me — whether I was at their home, at work, or alone in my room. I began witnessing to everyone: workmates, my boss, strangers, family, old friends from my drug days.
I continued visiting the family every Saturday night for the rest of that year. When I once asked Sam what we should pray for, he said simply: "Pray for revival." He gave me the book The Revival in Indonesia by Kurt Koch.
You didn't think it would be that simple, did you?
There is one big mistake I made with my Christian life
Prayer. Lack of prayer.
I had drastically underestimated the importance of prayer. It is the lifeline between us and God. It’s how we speak to Him — and how He whispers to us. It is how we survive as believers. It is how we are guided, moment by moment.
I fell into the trap of living off good feelings — occasional blessings, or the memory of past ones. I blame no one but myself. Without that daily connection to God, I was vulnerable.
I left my orchard job with the impulsive idea of going door to door to share the Gospel. It was a fanatical notion, and it didn't last. Before long I moved to the city to work in a factory. Rejection followed me there too. I applied to join the police — they turned me down. I tried several churches — more rejection. I had met a wonderful Christian woman, but I was in no spiritual condition to be a worthy partner for her. Then a workmate mentioned how he'd made money on the sharemarket, so I tried my hand at it — only to be caught in the crash of 1987. I lost everything: my money, job and my mental health.
My sister took me in. She cared for me patiently for two years while I gradually returned to work. I saw a psychologist for 6 months.
In 1990, I travelled to Northern Ireland, to check out the Christian life there. One of my special memories from that time is lying on a park bench late one night, praying and weeping under the open sky. I had travelled to the other side of the world hoping to find a closer experience of God. But now I realize I could have found that without ever leaving New Zealand.
I returned home directionless, lonely, and empty. I tried various things. I met a woman online — she thought I was a woman; I thought she was a man. We became close, and after about six months I proposed. I travelled to her country, got engaged, and brought her to NZ. What followed became the most painful chapter of my life.
We had two children. I knew the importance of faith in a family — I knew it — but I had no living faith to bring to them. I had nothing spiritual to offer. My wife supplied all the strength and steadiness. She found work while I was unemployed. She had her own Catholic faith to sustain her. She motivated and helped me gain a computer qualification and together we started a computer business while she worked full-time as an engineer. I kept causing serious, damaging problems for her and our daughter. I tried to return to my faith, but failed each time — always, at the root, because of prayerlessness.
We sought counselling several times over the years. Every counsellor told my wife she should leave me. I also sought psychological help — seven different psychologists, a psychotherapist, and approximately six counsellors in all. Most Christians will know: God is the greatest psychologist, the Mighty Counsellor, the only One who truly knows the human heart and how to fix it. But I was out of touch with Him.
The Reckoning
Eighteen months ago, my sister died. This hit me hard, and from that point I could see our marriage and family heading toward collapse. In late 2025, sensing disaster, I began seeking God again — but it was too late. I hold myself entirely responsible. I had left God behind years before and tried to raise a family without Him.My wife fought desperately to hold things together even as the children wanted me gone. Navigating a crisis of that depth was entirely beyond me.
Now I am alone. My children want no contact with me, and I do not blame them at all.
But this has been the wake-up call I needed.
I began seeking God earnestly, bearing the full weight of all the harm I had done to my wife and children. Keeping them from knowing the life and love of God is the most damaging thing I have ever done. I cried out to God in desperation and guilt one day in November, wanting relief from the decades of sin and darkness I had created — and to my astonishment, He heard me. He began to lift the darkness.
I had thought a real Christian life was impossible. I was merely hoping for relief from the crushing conviction of sin.
It has now been 7 months since God recovered me — and the only way through has been to keep believing, prevailing prayer every single day, and hard work dealing with myself.
To rediscover joy, faith, hope, and love has been a deeply moving experience, far beyond anything I anticipated. I feel extremely unworthy.
God is healing me — in the most delicate, expert, loving, and personally understanding way imaginable.
He has not given me back the experience I had forty years ago. What He has given me instead is vastly deeper, more stable, and more intimately knowing. I shed tears most days now — something that was notably absent from my early Christian years. The tears come as I pour out my heart to Him: in intercession for others, in devotion, in gratitude, in praise.
Processing the pain of what my family has been through — pain that I caused — has been exquisitely difficult. Most of the time God mercifully shields me from the full weight of it, because it would be unbearable to carry all at once. But now and then He allows me to process a little more, so that I can continue to heal and become useful to others.
I yearn deeply for my family to be saved. For myself, I am deepening and extending my daily prayer life.
What I have had to discover for myself is humility and brokenness, a living relationship with God — one that I can sustain, walk in, and live by; a God who can bring a person back from the very brink.
A closing note: Losing my family has been a profoundly humbling experience, and I have had to keep choosing humility as God continues to reveal things in my life that still need correcting. The weight of the wasted years is at times almost overwhelming — acutely convicting. But God gently leads me not to dwell there too long. That conviction serves its purpose: it keeps me humble and keeps my feet on the narrow way that Jesus spoke of.
I believe all things are possible through Christ Jesus. It's a high price that we must pay for the best. I hope to encourage you and others here 