I'm always thrilled to hear how the Lord has changed other people's lives, and to see how He continues that work in a thrilling way. Pieter, a brother in Christ at my home church has asked me for my personal testimony, so I will take this opportunity to share it with my appreciated blog audience, to the glory of God.
The Lord blessed me with a Christian upbringing under a father who was (and still is) a missionary to the Zulu people in South Africa. From his early 20's, he would go out with another brother, walking long distances every year, going from village to village with self-printed materials for the Zulu people. They went from house to house, evangelizing men, women and children and starting new churches for the new believers. The Lord blessed that work richly and some of those early believers are still faithful church members today. This is how the Lord works, and we praise Him for that!
I was born in Ermelo, a small mining town in the (then) Eastern Transvaal (now) Mpumalanga to Clinton and Jill Lester. We lived there on the mission field until 1981 when I was 11 years old. In that year, we moved from the small town of Ermelo to the greater Johannesburg area and settled in Kempton Park (not far from Johannesburg International Airport).
From being in a small school of 250 pupils, that was more like an extended family, to starting in a school of over 1000 pupils, where everyone was a stranger, was quite an adjustment for me. I was obviously more of an adjustment for my older brother Wayne. Our whole world-view was turned upside down. Life was just so different! My brother, Wayne, began to dapple in drugs and eventually became enslaved. There were years of misery in our home as we watched him go down into that slavery and as we tried in vain to draw him out.
My school years were not pleasant. I was a quiet, withdrawn, scholar in a wild, unruly environment. I was normally the centre of the jeering and endured my share of assaults. I became very bitter and armed myself with aggression, spending a lot of time in the gym, building up physical strength. My high school years did not come to a close without blood. In this environment, I left school at the end of my second-last year and so did not matriculate. I attempted to do matric through correspondence, but lacked the discipline and failed.
After that failure, I went in search of a job, and finding one sales-rep job after another, I worked for a while, and then, not being able to afford working at my own cost, not selling anything, I was forced to leave. I was not a salesman.
In 1989 I was called up for military service and went into training. Although in the military I faced the greatest difficulties I had ever had to face up to that point in my life, it was simultaneously one of the most enjoyable times of my life. I was pushed to the limit (and beyond) and developed the ability to endure rather than becoming moody and aggressive. I grew immensely during that time in character.
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