My Living Testimony - Part 5

An Inaugural Truth

I finally caved to the repetitive questioning of when was I ever going to go along to church. I desperately wanted to go but never quite felt ready, ready for what! I didn't know I couldn't explain it. Maybe it was simply knowing I wouldn't be ready for what I was going to hear because it would totally contradict my current lifestyle. Maybe it would assassinate me and I knew that change was inevitable or maybe I knew deep down that the truth was going to hit me like a tonne of bricks, an inaugural truth or something. My life was about to radically change and I was a little frightened of the whole idea, of losing my ideals - life's a party, philosophy's - live for today cause tomorrow we die, influences - the drug culture, associates - thugs alike and now my whole existence would be subject to the truth and everything I had previously known and lived was about to be eradicated, exposed for what it really was, a life of contradictions, falsehoods and under achievements. Really I was quite raw and naive as a human being.

In 1988, May the 15th to be exact at around 6:00pm I attended a Pentecostal (Spirit filled, Born again) service in the outer western suburbs of Sydney. I went to church and I would never be the same ever again! It was different to how I remembered church as a child, with the highly polished hard wooden pews that creaked and wobbled, the hypnotic patterned carpet that I stared at imagining the spear heads and wheels off wagon trains, the small arched doors at either side of the raised pulpit where the pastor would enter the church from and then leave again from disappearing forever from the face of the earth and then miraculously reappearing from the same small wooden door the following Sunday. The choir rows filled with old pursed lipped ladies with bright lipstick, wearing hats and gloves their hymnal books trembling slightly and the robust men with enthusiastic grins as their veins protruded out of their necks singing and white shirts wrestling their stomachs coming untucked and buttons pulled tight threatening to pop open just above their belts. The Pastors wife would sit in the front row with her children all slicked down and handkerchiefs in hand, polished shoes with their heads slightly turned round to smirk at the rest of us children being shushed and threatened if we so even as much as squirm in our seats. I can recall Sunday School, children, cups of tea and the laughter as we all ran around after the services. It seemed to be a lot of fun at times with church picnics and making our own kites out of brown paper and string, having competitions for the best kite, swimming holes at Wattamolla and those elaborate picnic lunches with the checkered table cloths, sandwiches, cakes, scones and huge amounts of watermelon. I can still see those metallic colored cups scratched and worn around the rims, filled with icy cordial. They were good times, innocent times.
Church Camps at Bundeena, in the southern shire of Sydney across the bay from Cronulla were a regular part of church life which took place on creamy sands amongst the gums trees and Boys Brigade camps held annually for the short time that I lived and spent in the South Hurstville Baptist Children's home. I thank God for those years, this is where the seeds of the Lord were sown heavily into my life and took deep root in my heart. The seeds had been lying dormant in my heart over the years whilst all the time only requiring a drop of living water which would cause these to spring back to life in an instant, just like a typically dry Aussie lawn which is parched, dusty and brown with not so much as a blade of grass visible or a single root showing but as soon as a slight rain falls, it's revived seemingly and overnight greens up like a rich Frisian meadow.
I still have the bible I was presented with on my tenth birthday. It was a second, bought new from the bible store because it had a misprint. Really it was only missing part of a scripture which should have been in red letter from the chapter of Luke. Ironically the scripture missing was "Give them something to eat" This certainly has fed me all these years later. The hand writing is still present today from Dad of the children's home who filled in the missing scripture. We all received one that year! Mine was the first to be had as it was my birthday gift and was hand written in by both Mom and Dad. It read "Presented to Rinaldo on your 10th Birthday Love Mom and Dad" Later that year I left to go and live with my grandmother and sister who were in Newcastle.
My bible was my prize possession. It was a children's bible with pictures. The "Revised Standard Version" yep! the RSV, a translation taken and updated from the King James. Although I never understood it I treasured that bible and it followed me through all the years no matter where I lived or what I did, it was with me always. I never read it but I always had it stuffed down at the bottom of my belongings. The crisp white pages had a new leather smell to them, I would often put my nose deep into the book and breathe in the smell of those pages as if they had some magic to them, that somehow it would take me back in time to where I once lived in the children's home and everything that those days stood for and what I had missed about them, especially Mom and Dad. There was not a crease or mark in those thin pages, even though it was a second, it was perfect! God's message came through perfectly to me eventually. Some would say to me; you need to have this version of the bible in print or that one, but if God can speak through an ass, He can speak to me through this bible second. I have every bible in print today, but I just adore this one, it's my favorite and I have always cherished it. It's ratty and torn, the pages are falling out and held together with tape and such, written all through with notes and highlighted, not an inch of white sides are left in it nor the inserts of white blank pages remain, as they now hold deep mysteries which the Lord has revealed to me over the years since being saved. My bible is now going on to 37 years old and has traveled to several countries with me. It has journeyed along side of me throughout my life, it is my witness, perfect and treasured.

The night I arrived at church the strangest thing, the guys were dressed in top hats and tails, black and whites! it was a prank to remember the anniversary of one of the church leaders who was married a year earlier. What a strange place, what have I come to? They're weird yet? I don't know....
It was night, dark and an autumn chill in the air. We were in a factory unit in the industrial areas of Sydney's west. How bizarre! It was freshly painted with banners and slogans painted on the walls - "Born Again Born To Win" They had a band playing, drums and guitars, sax and bass, singers and people raising their hands singing, I thought this was sort of OK. I didn't speak much to anyone, I was stoned and drugged out but I had gone along with my mates mother who thought that this would be the place for me as the Pastor was cool!
He was certainly not what I was expecting. A tall wiry kiwi (New Zealander) in his late thirties with a perm. Blonde and well spoken he had a small gold filling in one of his front teeth. He jumped around that stage, told jokes and smiled the whole way through. I remember sitting their thinking when will this be over so I can go and have another hit and some smoko back where I am comfortable, but I remained and listened closely as he started to preach his message. Still and almost frozen to my chair he spoke right into the very core of my being. The words penetrated through the drugs, through my flesh, through the ugliness of my present life and through the shallow thoughts of my mind right into my heart. Something within me agreed to every word spoken and I was alert and upright in my seat. I had a tremendous awareness of the truth being preached and I wanted it, I needed it, I had come alive whilst I sat in that obscure little factory unit in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by fruit loops and nut jobs.