My name is Tom.

As a small boy I asked Jesus into my heart one evening. I had heard a speaker that day talk of eternal life. My parents were not followers of such an emotional religion, so I did not go forward but waited until I was home, knelt down beside my bed and asked Jesus into my heart. He came in and from that time I had a desire to know God more.

It was about a similar time when there was a lot of sex play between the boys and girls at school and I was rather frightened by it all and confused. When it was found out my mother told me not to touch a girl again.

I had already shared the secret sex play happenings with some boy cousins and although the games did not continue at school they continued with these cousins.

The play intensified when I was sent to live with these cousins for a couple of years.

All this happened before I entered puberty.

I did not as a young boy think about these games as anti-god. I knew they were naughty and were to be kept secret.

My relationship with my father as I was growing up was poor. He wanted me to follow in his footsteps. He was a great sportsman. I had no idea how to hold a cricket bat. I could not ride a horse, I was hopeless at team sports, I always had my head in a book. It probably didn’t help that there were only 9 children in the whole school when I was 11. Team sports were not really possible. My father drank quite heavily at times, he had had a bad heart and a heart attack when I was eleven. He told me then that he wanted me to take over the farm. I felt rejected by him and grew to despise him.

I could not wait to leave home and did so when I was seventeen. I immediately joined a church as I had this desire to follow God. However, I was very aware that I was attracted to boys. At college, I went out with girls now and then. I kept my secret desires to myself. At times I contemplated suicide. Some students discerned that I was a bit different and there were oblique suggestions but I denied their implications. I did well academically and went to Melbourne for a third year, where I really enjoyed my life, kept attending church and had several girlfriends. I found my faith was a good excuse for not having sex with anybody.

I kept on with my faith and over the years was involved in church, in Bible studies, youth groups etc. I truly wanted to serve God.

However, as I moved into my twenties in the 1960s there were changes going on around the world. Ideas of freedom and a revolutionary spirit was moving among youth. I began to find church boring and began to drift away from church and more into the hedonistic life of my friends.

I was tempted more but felt extremely guilty even though little happened.

I received a job offer to go and work in another country and I took it. Papua New Guinea was not yet self governing and I found myself with many responsibilities and away from any friends or restrictions. I thought of going to a church but didn’t. I was quite lonely over the first few months and then as the years went by and I had had some negative experiences with women I began to reach out to men for sex.

It was so easy. There were sexual partners every night. I spent some time travelling Europe and had sexual experience in many cities. I returned, believing that there was not a God. How could God have made me this way? I was hardened in my beliefs. I dabbled in the occult. I believed in the survival of the fittest. Sometimes I went out and picked up five different guys in a night to take home for sex. I became quite obsessed with sex. It filled my waking thoughts.

One day when I was in my office, the police visited and took me back to the lock up. Homosexuality was illegal, someone had said something about me and in my naïveté, I said things that confirmed their suspicions. I spent some hours in a cell before they charged me and released me. I felt numb with shock. Going home I climbed a hill behind my house and cries out to that God whom I had convinced myself did not exist. ‘Help God!” I called.

I could see my whole life disappearing. I would lose my job, I would be rejected by my friends. My sexuality had been a secret as it was illegal. I would be in gaol for years.

However, my two word prayer was enough to change things. Amazing things began to happen God began to put in place a plan he had been working on well before I cried out.

This is an amazing story, which I am willing to share with you, if you would like to hear it.

Let me tell you that now I have been a Pastor for nearly thirty years. I have been married for thirty-eight years and have three married children and so far, I have seven grandchildren. I am now in my mid-sixties, I am not a homosexual but I still have same sex attraction. God has continued to do amazing things in my life. He is my Lord and I continue to serve him..