The Beginning of my journey

I became a Born again Christian at the tender age of 10 in 1975. As a young boy I have always been aware of God, and had a heart tender towards Him. I loved the Bible stories of Jesus and how He helped people, healed and fed them.

I grew up in a Pentecostal church in my home town in South Africa and when I reached my 20's, I switched to the Charismatic church in the city of Durban - the Durban Christian Center. I loved the wonderful worship, and the teachings sounded great.

I moved to Johannesburg in 1986 and in 1990 I was married to a wonderful wife. Together we served as worship leaders in our church. I was the pianist and singer, and she was a singer. Where ever we had an opportunity to contribute our time we did so. We attended seminars, workshops and conferences and it was our desire to serve and know God. Whatever came from the pulpits, we gladly received. After all, we were taught to submit to authority - even if they are wrong. If we questioned our leadership, we would be regarded as rebellious.

We studied the Bible, learned about the Tabernacle of David, read the books by Kenneth Hagin, Kenneth Copeland, I knew Kim Clement, and studied every possible topic you find under the sun.

Deep within me I had another struggle which I secretly battled with. I was gay and knew that since I was 14. But homosexuality is regarded as a sin by mainstream Christianity. I was condemned to hell and God regards them as an abomination. The Sr Pastor at DCC once said, God made Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve, and everyone laughed in the congregation.

So I prayed and prayed and cried and believed for my deliverance to come from this abominable spirit of homosexuality. In 1999 my wife and I felt frustrated with our church. We felt we were working so hard and were so busy that we had no time to ourselves. And we resigned.

I felt spiritually I had exhausted all the available resources, and I also felt God was saying, that if I wanted to grow further spiritually, I needed to stop living a lie. I came out to my wife and we agreed to part peacefully. Within 6 months I was on my way to London. I had never intended to move to London, but God had a plan.