Day 16.

That following day, at the going down of the sun, I sat in the Awakino gorge beside the Awakino River reading a book on the life of Christ called, “The Desire Of Ages.” I still consider that book to be the best commentary of the life of Jesus you will ever read. As God would have it I was up to the chapter on the call of the disciples. The word “Immediately” fired from the pages and the sensation of the night before was revisited. I was not to delay. There was to be no obstacle. There was to be no turning back.

I returned to the farm where I had done my University practical and where I had spent hours looking over the hills wanting to go and search for the meaning of life. Now I was back. I had been over the hills and found a wondrous treasure. This little circle in my life had turned full. The rest of my life was just beginning. Money began turning up in my mailbox. “Heard you were going to college,” it would always say!

I was driving through a city called Hamilton (in the centre of the North Island of NZ) one day with just 2 weeks to go before I was off to Australia. “I’d better get this car sold” I thought. So I drove into a car yard, the first one I came to and of all the stupid things to say to a car dealer I said, “I’m leaving the country and need to sell my car, what will you give me for it?” He quizzed me on my reasons for leaving the country and I told him. We leapt in my hotted up little Anglia panel Van and roared around the block and then he offered me more than what it was worth. I was staggered until he told me he was a Christian and he would like to help me get to Australia and college. Was that a coincidence or a divine appointment? I didn’t think Christian car dealers existed!

Several Stories of survival like that happened over the next four years as I put myself through theological training without ever having a cent in the bank. I finally Graduated in 1979.