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God brought me full circle
Steve Davies, 42, is State Director of the Bible Society in Australia in Queensland. Here he describes his troubled upbringing and youth and tells how a hotel cleaner brought God into his chaotic world AUSTRALIA — My earliest childhood memory was of my mum and dad fighting – it was usually over money. We were a relatively poor family and my dad was a gambler, which caused a lot of conflict at home. It wasn’t just the extra money that dad would spend – it was quite often our food money or our rent money. But when I was five years old he died. I really didn’t know how to cope with that and I became quite introverted. My mum was quite worried because I stopped talking, but my grandfather – Pop – was very close to me and he took me under his wing. More traumatic Probably more tragic than my dad dying was that about eight months later, Pop died, too. That was even more traumatic. We ended up moving away from where we were living in North Queensland to Melbourne to live with my dad’s mother. My Nana became the person that looked after me. That was always a drag – to be looked after by my Nana. A little bit later Mum remarried. Bob was a great guy and we couldn’t have wished for anyone better. He was a real outdoors sort and for the first couple of months things were just dandy. But Bob became extremely jealous of my mum’s affections towards me and my brother, and that jealousy revealed itself in violence and he started to beat us up. Basically, till I was 15 or 16, we would get a hiding two or three times a week. I was quite a rebellious kid, too, so by then I was a juvenile delinquent; the sort of kid you wouldn’t want to go to school with, a bit of a bully. Watershed We all have these moments in our lives which are watershed moments that affect us deeply and at 15 I had one. Mum pulled us aside and said, “Stephen, Brett: we need to have a chat.” We thought it was going to be a speech about “the birds and the bees,” but Mum said, “No, I need to talk to you about your real dad.” Mum sat us down and said, “Look guys, your dad didn’t die in a car accident; he committed suicide.” He had so many gambling debts that he didn’t know how to deal with it. It was like my heart was broken. I don’t think anybody has the wherewithal to deal with that sort of stuff, but at 15 I certainly didn’t. One part of my heart hated my dad, because if he hadn’t killed himself I wouldn’t have this step-dad beating me up. But then the other part of my heart wanted my dad around. So I was torn. Having no real answers, I did what a lot of young guys do: I tried to kill the pain. I’d been drinking pretty hard before but once this happened I started to experiment with drugs. No-one pushed them on me, it was simply part of what I did, and I started smoking dope because it was natural. To cut a long story short, by the time I was 17 I was using heroin and sticking needles into my arm. Anyway, my step-father and I had a big fight. It was half me, half him; we were both bad people in a way. I ran away from home up to North Queensland. I thought that when I got away from where I used to live, it would be a great change and I’d change my way of doing things. But it’s very hard to change. Gave me a job My uncle owned a hotel in Townville and he gave me a job as a bouncer in the hotel pub. But if anything, things went from bad to worse there. Because I had a drug habit to support, I was stealing from my uncle which made me feel terrible because he had taken me in, looked after me. And I started to deal drugs. The hotel cleaners there would sit and talk – all but one lady: she’d sit on the veranda and eat her sandwiches for lunch and read a book. I walked past her and I looked over her shoulder one day and the book she was reading was the Bible. I thought, “That’s very strange! Why would anyone want to read that?” Anyway, a week went by and she continued to read the Bible. A month went by, a couple of months went by, six months went by and she continued to read the Bible. I thought she was dyslexic because she never finished, she was the slowest reader I’d ever seen. I walked up to her one day – I think I was half-stoned – and said, “How long are you reading that book for?” She looked at me with a lovely smile and said, “God speaks to me from it, Steve.” I said, “Oh really? God speaks to you from [it]?” If she had said, “God speaks to me from heaven,” fair enough. But for God to speak to her from a book was a very, very strange concept. So I decided I’d avoid this religious lady and I did a pretty good job of it, until one morning she’d finished vacuuming and she was walking out of my room and she just threw this book at me. With my great footballer’s instincts I caught it! She said, “Steve, read the book. Don’t wait for the movie.” And she just left. I looked down and the book she’d thrown at me was the New Testament. She was a good Christian lady and in the New Testament was one of those bookmarks with the fluffy tassels that your grandma gives you. It was in the Gospel of Mark. Jesus was different Now I had never read the Bible; I was totally ignorant of Scripture. But I had nothing better to do so I decided I’d read this story. And as I opened the pages and started to connect with it, what blew me away was that Jesus was different to what I’d imagined. Some of the stuff that Jesus said is just out there with the pixies! Even now, as a Christian, I find these sayings hard. But from reading the Scriptures I knew that God had a plan for my life. I didn’t become a Christian there and then; it took about a year of continuing to read the Bible. What happened through this was that I got a “God-consciousness”. Before that, God just wasn’t there – he wasn’t part of my world. But after reading the Gospels, I used to ask Jesus to help me with my drug deals! He never did – but he entered my world and as I continued to read the Bible I started to get a better understanding of who he was. About a year after this original encounter with the cleaner, Helen, I was on all sorts of crazy drugs and in a very confused state but I knew that I was at a crossroads in my life. Broken heart On a Tuesday night at the front of a little Brethren Hall in Brisbane, I actually got down on my knees and said, “Jesus, if you’re real, just come and help me.” And it was as though two hands reaching at my chest got my broken heart and put it back together. I can honestly say in that moment I actually experienced love. This experience was so real that the first thing that I did was ring up my step-dad and apologise for all the terrible things I had done. He just didn’t know how to respond to that. But I knew something had changed in me because I hated the guy and overnight I just knew I loved him. That was the turning point in my life. Ran away My brother and I were both doing drugs together and when he heard that I’d become a Christian he thought I was ‘up to something’. He said, “Steve’s pretending to be a Christian so he can grow dope and drive a combi around and put a Jesus sticker on the back and smuggle.” He ran away from me because I was one of those “psycho” Christians – the ones who, when they first become Christians, are quite “rabid”. But my mum saw the change in my life and she became a Christian – on my 21st birthday. For a year and a half my brother just ran away from me because I was too scary for him. But he became a Christian, too. And three or four years ago my step-dad apologised to me and we’ve been reconciled. He and I are great mates now and God has been wonderful. When I got the opportunity to be interviewed for the position of Field Ministries Representative (in effect, a youth worker) with the Bible Society in Australia in Queensland, the first question the boss asked me was, “What do you know about the Bible Society?” I said, “Not a thing,” which wasn’t a great start. But he went on to say what they were about. And I was amazed. And I said, “Well, this is a great mission!” And I got the job! Skinny drug addict About three years into working for the Bible Society, I was in Townsville and decided I’d track down the little old lady who gave me the Bible. I rang her up and said, “You probably don’t remember me. My name’s Steve Davies…” And she said, “I do remember: you were the skinny drug addict.” When I said that I was in Townsville she said, “Come around! Here’s my address. I’ll put some scones in the oven!” So I went around there and when the door opened there was this little old lady and she just looked at me and said, “Look at you!” She gave me this big hug and she was crying… Started crying Now she didn’t know I worked for the Bible Society and at that point I started crying. God had brought me full circle: an organisation that I didn’t even know existed had a part to play in my salvation; I get teary even thinking about it now! God has put me in a place now enabling me to encourage Church people to share their faith and one of my real passions is getting involved with advocacy and handing the Bible out and using the Bible as part of our strategy. Because the Church so often – and I so often – misrepresent Jesus, but the great thing about the Word of God is that it reveals Jesus in his purest form and shows who he truly is. So I’m really passionate about getting that into people’s lives. (WR 408/15 - 01/02.07) [1 photo] The full interview with Steve Davies is available as a transcript (in English only) and as film footage. Please contact comms@ubs-wsc.org |
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She
had always led us to believe that he had died in a car accident and
because we had such a messed up step-father we used to make up all these
wonderful stories about our real dad. We wanted to make him into someone
special because that made us feel special.
Threw
this book
I
asked her why she gave me a Bible and she said, “To be honest with
you, Steve, I was scared of you. I just knew you were
a bad guy! But you were so lost.” And she said, “I didn’t
have the words for you but I knew that the Book had the words for you.
That’s why I gave you a New Testament.” And as I was leaving
I said, as an off-the cuff remark, “By the way, where did you get
the New Testament from?” She said, “Oh I got it from the Bible
Society.”