God is always there

Liesbeth took me to church for the first time on 4th September 2011. It was all new to me and so strange. I was raised without God or church. As the sermon started, someone put a handkerchief in my hands… tears were rolling down and I wondered, how could it be that everything that is being said is absolutely relevant for me… as if they knew everything about me! I’ve had that same feeling many times since!

Then things went very fast: every Sunday to the church service, then a basic bible study on 5 Fridays and the 6th November I was baptized.

My life wasn’t always a rose garden but looking back now I know God was always there and He often protected my life!

When I was still a small child my father beat me as if I were a criminal. For instance when being 5 minutes late for dinner the tone of his voice would warn me for what was coming. Before reaching the deck, he’d already grabbed me and started beating me all over. Of course I screamed for pain, so badly that the neighbors came outside. The boy next door I had been playing with called his dad and he intervened. He dragged my father away from me and yelled “are you out of your mind, you’re going to end up killing that child!’’ My father beat me regularly. Sometimes I was so badly bruised they kept me at home. I was ‘sick’ so to say. And sometimes I didn’t get any food for a whole day. Regularly friends took me to go playing. They knew my life was tough… but to me that was ‘normal’.

My friends and I played soccer, went bike racing (from 3 bicycles we made 1), build huts, climb trees and lots more but never in our home. If anything went wrong, my dad always blamed me, so I always got a beating. One time my father came on his bike to the woods I had to come home at once … at age 7 I ran home so fast my father on his bike couldn’t hold up with me. He was furious…I was still shaky 2 days after the beating I received then. And I stayed home from school for a week, but I’M STILL ALIVE!

In 1982 I got married to get away from home…. Anything would be better than staying there, I thought, but I was so wrong! Lying, stealing, cheating, it was rife. I thought it would get better, but it got worse. She even tried to poison me with food a couple of times…. But I’M STILL ALIVE!

In 1988 our son Davy died of sudden infant death. My wife accused me of murdering our son… supposedly I suffocated him by putting a pillow over his head. I went berserk but first I took care of the situation I took Davy from his crib, washed him, dressed him and then I brought him to the undertaker. A doctor confirmed the sudden infant death diagnosis. Two weeks after the funeral I totally collapsed. I took a gun and walked to the woods determined to put an end to my life. I told Davy I was coming to join him and put the gun against my temple… then I heard the loud calling “Vicky, come here!”… it was our neighbor’s dog that came running up to me…I took such a fright, I started running and I ran to the cemetery… six kilometers all the way to Davy’s grave. There they found me, hours later… but I’M STILL ALIVE!

In 1998 I was driving 120 km per hour (= authorized speed on Belgian highways) on the highway in my first pick-up, without seat belts (there were none) and the car went over heels. My job was maintenance man at a farmer’s who had 7000 beef cattle. One sunny day I was driving home when suddenly the rear of the car blocked: no more brakes and no more steering, the pick-up hit the guardrails and was catapulted into the air. The car turned 1 time around its axis and three times for its width axis, hit back on the road, landing on its wheels and rolled a few times around – just like in the movies. I smashed the windshield with my feet and started regulating the traffic until the police and the ambulance arrived. They asked me if I had seen the driver of the pick-up. . . I’M STILL ALIVE!

On 7th September 1999 I had an accident at work. Only the day before I told my (second) wife I needed to be careful as my job was a hazardous one. A concrete wall weighing 2500kg broke off and I ended up underneath. It took fifteen minutes before I was freed… and the whole time I was giving instructions as how to rescue me. Outwardly you couldn’t see much… I was taken to the hospital and X-rays revealed a triple pelvic fracture, a crack in the iliac crest and a 3cm tear in the urethra. I was in the hospital for 3 weeks, then 3 months in a wheelchair. I had a very long recovery. I was declared unfit for work… BUT NOT FOR GOD!

Now I found a Father who doesn’t punish but who loves me! I went to the Fatherheart school in 2012 and received a lot of healing there! I’m still growing every day and feel like a student going for free to the university…. the university of God and I enjoy it to the fullest!