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My Testimony
by Jack Vorster I have very clear memories of certain events in my life going back as far as when I was a toddler, still unable to walk. The very first such memory was when I was crawling around on the kitchen floor early one morning while my parents and my older sister, four years of age, were at the breakfast table. They were aware of me as I scooted across the floor. I moved towards the cupboard against the wall and noticed something on the floor just behind the cupboard against the skirting board. It was a bottle filled with cleaning spirits, but to me it appeared to be a drinking beverage of some sort and it was open. I grabbed it and quickly swigged a few gulps only to realise, too late, that it was something horrible that I had just swallowed. I became dizzy and suddenly things became dark. I became unconscious. I woke up on a hospitable bed. Apparently, I almost died. About a year later, then able to walk, I played around with a penny I had found somewhere in the house. A penny, back then, was bigger than a five Rand coin. I had it in my mouth and it got stuck in my throat. I became blue trying to breathe. Once again, I was rushed to hospitable. It was my mother's birthday and friends were invited around to celebrate the occasion. She received a beautiful, small wristwatch as a present from my father. Being a small child I was busy making a nuisance of myself amongst the adults. My mother put me to bed, covered me and gave me a slight tap on my shoulder probably as a good-night gesture and warning to stay in bed. Somehow, my mother's birthday gift, the watch, dislodged itself from underneath the glass casing. This meant that only the glass casing and strap holding it were still on my mother's arm, but the main part, the actual watch, was lying on the blanket covering my chest. Well, there was vengeance in my tiny heart for not being allowed to mix with the adults, so I played around with the watch by placing it on my forehead and letting it slide down towards my mouth. I did it several times until it actually slipped into my open mouth. I swallowed it. I yelled out to my mother. She arrived in the room asking what the problem was. I cried, "I swallowed your watch...I swallowed your watch." I'll never forget her double-take as she looked at her wrist. Once again, I was rushed to hospitable not to mention the birthday party I had ruined. I also remember the doctor quipping to my parents that I now had built-in time. Fortunately, the watch came out the natural way before the need for an operation. My uncle came to visit. His car was parked in the street just outside our house which was situated on a steep hill. I was five years old. I got into his car, sat behind the steering wheel and went through the motions of driving the car not forgetting to release the handbrake and playing around with the gear lever. The car obliged by moving forward and gaining speed. Had there not been a car parked about twenty meters ahead into which I slammed I probably would not have been alive to tell this story. Since then even before my first year at school - I had several more close calls, including being kidnapped and released. Only many years later did I realise that it had to have been the intervention of a Divine Hand that saved me. It was my first year at school. I had to take a bus to get home every day. That particular day I alighted from the bus and had to cross the road and walk several blocks to get home. I don't know where my mind was, but I stepped right in front of a passing car travelling at a considerable speed. Fortunately, the driver of the car happened to be a doctor and he rushed my unconscious body to the hospital. Miraculously, not a bone was broken in my body. A few years later a friend and I were playing in a veldt across from his home when I accidentally fell backwards and slammed my wrist onto the jagged base of a broken a milk bottle lying on the ground, resulting in a slashed main artery. Blood spurted high into the air from the wound. Were it not for my friend's mother I could have bled to death. Needless to say, I was hospitalised once again. Many years later, aged 18, I was riding my moped downhill in an unlit street. It was a cold, windy night and I was wearing a thick coat, gloves and hat for insulation from the freezing air. Suddenly, a gust of wind jerked the hat from my head. I tried to grab it and momentarily looked upwards. I did not see the truck parked in front of me. I smashed into the back of it and flew into the air, skimming the cab of the truck and slammed onto the tarmac in front of the truck. The thick coat and gloves protected me as I slid on my chest at speed on the tar and I finally came to a halt in the middle of the next intersection. My coat and gloves were shred to pieces, resembling torn rags hanging from my person. I stood up and examined myself. I had suffered only scratch marks on my chest and hands. The owner of the truck rushed out from his house along with others living in the street and he actually apologised to me for not having rear reflectors on his truck. He was not even concerned about the damage to his truck. One year later I was riding down a busy main road on a new motorcycle that I had acquired after the accident. The traffic lights at an intersection ahead were green for me and I continued without slowing down. However, a car crossed from the right against the red light and hit the rear wheel of my motorcycle just behind my right leg. I was flung high into the air and to my amazement I actually did a somersault in that superman flight and landed firmly on my two feet on a grassed island to the left of the intersection. I had no injuries whatsoever. That's when I decided I would never own a motorcycle again. A few years later I was involved in a high-speed car chase. Three thugs were chasing me with murderous intent. For some reason they wanted me dead. I managed to outwit them during the chase and made it to a police station just when they were about to ram me from behind. After giving a description to the police they told me that my pursuers were recently released from jail, having served time for serious crime. I excelled at school, in the workplace and had a successful sporting career. At age 27 I moved to America on a green card. I lived and worked there for two years before I returned. My parents were divorced when I was six years old. My father, whom I had not seen for a great many years, was living in Durban. A few years later I was on assignment to Durban and decided to look up my father. I eventually discovered that he was in hospital and not expected to live much longer. He was overjoyed to see me and had many questions about my life. His very last words to me were, "Jack, don't forget your Jesus." As was the tradition in South Africa for children to attend Sunday school and church until confirmed, I did not miss a Sunday while I grew up. However, for me it was a place where Old Testament stories were told and I was glad it was finally over the moment I was "confirmed". A month after I had visited my father a friend of mine came to visit from Johannesburg. He was on a business trip. We actually grew up together in the same street. He related to me how his wife was miraculously healed of a terminal illness through prayer at their church. He suggested that we attend a Christian evangelist meeting that evening, but I was reluctant. However, for some reason, I felt compelled to do so. In emotional fashion, the evangelist gave his own testimony. For the first time, I heard the Gospel as it should be preached. He then moved to the story in Mark 5:25-29 about the woman with an issue of blood. "And a certain woman, which had an issue of blood twelve years, And had suffered many things of many physicians, and had spent all that she had, and was nothing bettered, but rather grew worse, When she had heard of Jesus, came in the press behind, and touched his garment. For she said, If I may touch but his clothes, I shall be whole. And straightway the fountain of her blood was dried up; and she felt in her body that she was healed of that plague." Suddenly, as that woman pressed forward through the crowd, I became that woman. I desperately wanted to touch His garment. When she finally touched the garment of Jesus, I did the same. Something came over me. It was as if I was right there facing Jesus. I felt engulfed by His presence. I broke down and wept. Finally, when the evangelist made the alter call, I did not walk to the front, I ran - I ran through the chairs in that hall and not around them. I gave my life to Christ. I was born again. My own father's last words to me, "Don't forget your Jesus" became a reality to me. I would never forget. From that day forward I started devouring the Bible and every Christian book I could lay my hands on. I became saturated with the Word of God. I was interested in nothing else. Although I was most successful in my secular career, it became but a nonsensical pastime and it was no more than a nuisance value in my life. The Truth had set me free. I had entered the Kingdom of God and it is from there that I have been operating from to this day. I have made many mistakes and the devil managed to have his way with me along the way, but I have become wise to his onslaughts. I also realised that all those mishaps and accidents throughout my younger years were perhaps the devil's attempts to "dispose" of me. Perhaps he knew something. After all, it states in Jeremiah 1:5 that "Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations." God is Spirit and the devil is a spirit too. Could he (the devil) have known that I would play a future role in reaching (through the internet) many thousands throughout the world with the Gospel of Jesus Christ? I am certainly not blowing my own trumpet, for I am nothing and can do nothing without Him. All the glory belongs to Him and no-one else. Now retired, Jack Vorster has a background in marketing in the field of newspaper advertising. As a result of a life-changing experience he turned his attention to the study of the human make-up and the realities connected to human behaviour based on the Word of God. Article Source: http://www.faithwriters.com |