My journey into immorality is not something I care to remember. My restoration was helped by one Christian writer brave enough to share his story. So, I will, in part, share mine.

I attended Sunday school from a young age. By the age of four I had already decided that people far away needed to hear the Bible stories. My mom was enthralled and my father amused.

After high school, Jesus’ call came back to my heart. Without any Bible school training, I went to live on a remote mission station. For three rich years I worked their fields, prayed three times a day, read the Bible, learned the local language, preached in the villages and basically lived the same as the local Christians. Later, I went for formal Bible training.

After a year I accepted an offer from a church to serve as their youth pastor and to help plant a church in a slum area among the same people group where I had lived previously. I continued my Bible studies via correspondence.

The pastor I worked under turned out to be a clandestine homosexual. My parents had separated when I was ten, so I already had an unhealthy criticism of men in leadership. The pastor’s example added more fuel to my subliminal angry f ire. In an emotional blur I resigned, stopped my studies and went to live with and minister to people living in the slums. It was a foolish decision. This group was radically different from the Christians I had lived among previously.

Initially, things went well. I started a vegetable growing program, a choir, and carried on developing the small church. After two years I began to lose steam. Life in the slums was heavy. I witnessed a gruesome murder and was constantly bombarded with endless stories of violence and broken relationships. In my loneliness, my fellowship was no longer with Christians but with people well entrenched in the ways of the world. My spiritual life declined. I’d stopped my Bible studies and devotions were sporadic. The small church I had been developing began to fade, and fellowship was almost non-existent.

I ended up following the advice of my new “friends”. I began living with a young woman from the community, justifying my actions by saying that I intended to marry her. I followed the traditional custom of informing her parents of my intentions, but in my heart and spirit I knew I had chosen sin. The relationship was selfish and destructive for all who were involved, and there was no peace. Eventually the girl and I agreed to part ways, and my family came to fetch me.

Despite the hurt caused both to myself and others, the path to restoration was one of the sweetest times of my life. I discovered many caring, loving people in the Body of Christ. Of significant help was an autobiography by Jamie Buckingham called Where Eagles Soar. Jamie wrote of his fall from grace as a minister. He clearly shows how, through restoration, God wishes us to come to a place where we learn the effortless flight of the eagle who soars on the wind of his Creator. His testimony taught me that this process takes time.

I became a teacher and worked with children in Christian schools for 14 years in my culture and cross-culturally. During this time, I married and had three children. My wife and I completed theological degrees via correspondence.

Thirteen years ago, a missions organization invited us to join them. Since then my family and I have been full-time missionaries to an unreached people group. We work within a team, and we are accountable to a network of loving Christian friends.

I encourage you to seek restoration from sin, asking God how he can use you. He can use your story and your restoration for his work and mission.

PRAY FOR

• For missionaries to seek accountability from godly partners.
• For strength from temptation for missionaries serving in difficult situations.

Photo credit: Derek Keats from Johannesburg, South Africa, CC BY 2.0 , via Wikimedia Commons