Hi,
I was raised in a Jewish family outside New Haven, Connecticut. I went to a fancy college, and was being groomed for Jewish political leadership roles. From 17 until I was 24, I was a counselor at Jewish summer camps all over the United States. I found that music was one of my strongest callings, and I became a song leader and leader of worship music.
After college, I went to New York City to work on my secular music career - I have written some top notch songs - but there was always something missing from my life - I had not allowed God completely into my life. I also lived a sinful life, and could not see that what I was doing was not right by God. When I was about 29, I felt God literally call to me in thought. God said that God was taking me back. I spent the next several months cleaning up my life, apologizing to people about issues left unresolved, and I took to the road as a mendicant.
My parents were furious: Why did I seem to be throwing my life away after I had such a promising future. I carefully explained to my parents that God was calling to me. They said, "You hear a voice?" I said, no, that God was leading me to a different life than what I had planned and what they had expected of me. My friends from college could not understand my mood: Why was I so different? I was so different, because the Holy Spirit was leading me to Jesus Christ. After years of being indoctrinated in the Jewish faith, one day I was at a homeless shelter in NYC, and I heard some Christians singing music with guitars downstairs and feeding the homeless men in the street. I was so moved, that I went downstairs to see what they were all about. It was then that I started moving very quickly towards Jesus Christ.
Then, one day, God said to me, "Accept Jesus Christ as your savior and redeemer." And I did, giving up Judaism and all the religious teachings I had been exposed to growing up. I accepted Jesus in my heart. Then, I told my parents, and they soon told me that they would never talk with me again. They also told all my Jewish relatives and my hometown that there was something wrong with me for becoming a Christian.
So, I began my journey in Christ without my parents and my family. I spent about 2 years administering to the poor: I traveled all over the United States, living in homeless shelters: I attended AA meetings as part of some shelters' requirements; I worked at food banks; I investigated social service agencies who claimed to be helping the poor; I lived with prostitutes, drug addicts, fornicators, thieves and ex-convicts. God gave me quite an education about the human soul, one which I will never forget.
Then, I wound up in 2002 in Idaho, and God told me that I would meet my wife. I had to wait until Fall 2003, when a Christian at a local college finally blessed me with a caretaker position on a college campus - I had a place to stay, and I needed a job, so I went to a local sorority house and hired on as a server. That's where I met my wife. We got married shortly afterward, and started our life journey together.
I have to tell you that I am a Christian on fire for the Lord. I am also a prophet, like Jacques. But more than before, I feel that people need my encouragement, my music and my love more than they need my fire. And so, as a Christian, I have changed, because I feel that people are more broken than ever, that we are in the End Times, and that the wrath of God is present in secular society.
God has given me a wonderful gift of music. I have many secular songs which I wrote before becoming a Christian, and I sing those, because I am a survivor of incest, and God wants me to use the songs which I wrote before becoming a Christian as a testimony of Christ to others. But Christ has healed me of all my wounds, and I am alive today because Jesus Christ saved me body and soul, there is no doubt about it.
Kerry and I currently have no affiliated church, but we are fond of home churches and Christians praying and rejoicing together. The big change coming through me right now is in my music: God is having me sit and play the piano for an hour or so at a time, and it is always different - all instrumental, all improvised. It is powerful and meditative and prayerful and righteous.
I became very interested in Ontario, because for four months (June-October) this year I worked for a Toronto company as an internet researcher. I love the owners of that company very much in Christ. And I became more knowledgeable about Canada and its people. I also have touched base with Paul Henderson and his ministry and what he is doing in the Toronto area to increase the number of Christian leaders in government. I pray every day for Canada and everyone there.
And that's my story and testimony. When Kerry gets the opportunity, I'll ask her to view your website - we have both seen the depths of what humans can be, and we both know that only Christ can set it right.
Thank you.
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