I was a wild young man – always drinking and fighting. My father left when I was young so I didn’t have a father figure. One day, when I was in my teens, my sister received the Holy Spirit and I heard her speak in tongues…

I made fun of it and I completely rejected everyone in the fellowship. I was rude to the pastor when he came to see me, and I would start smoking dope to make my sister leave the room.But I could tell the people were happy and committed to God.

Then my sister left a Bible on my bed and after eight months I was totally convinced. I felt like a kid before Christmas waiting to get to the Sunday meeting. There the power of God fell on me and I spoke in tongues, and the light was switched on. I got baptised by full immersion and have been walking with the Lord for the last forty years.

However when I was seventeen I had been injured in a car accident and cut a nerve in my forehead. When I was thirty-two the pain came back. I started getting extreme headaches for more than twenty years.

I couldn’t do my job as a bricklayer. The pain got worse, my family left and I was on my own. I lost everything except the Lord. One night I took all my heavy medications. I woke up in hospital three days later after being in a coma. I said to the Lord, “if you don’t stop this pain, as soon as I get out of here I will finish it”. The next day the pain left me.

I have been retrained since then and now have a management job at Coles. I have a new car at last, my kids came back and they love me again. God was always with me in my darkest moments. We all have our ups and downs but God called me to this fellowship and faith lifted me up.