From Third-Generation Criminal to follow of Jesus

My story is incredibly intense.

Growing up, my family background was filled with darkness. My great-grandfather was a murderer, my grandfather ran a brothel exploiting women in prostitution, and my father was a criminal. Because of this, the world I grew up witnessing was one dominated by an abundance of women, money, power, and material things.

At first, when I was very young, I genuinely thought that this was how everyone lived. To me, it just seemed completely normal. However, everything began to change as I got older and started going to school. I began to make friends, hang out with them, and visit them in their homes. It was through these friendships that my eyes were opened. I saw that they lived a totally different kind of life—one that was completely unlike anything I had ever seen or been used to in my own home.

My grandfather had a big house where the brothel also was, and everyone was living together there. There were maybe 20 women there. I brought some of my friends always to there. We had a big swimming pool in the garden, and there were lying topless women there. The boys were like, "Wow, what's going on?" But for me, it was actually like, "Yeah, what's going on? This is normal life."

Already in elementary school, I started to kick the rules, and I was always the guy who was in trouble and in problems. But I really liked it also. I got arrested for the first time because I drove a scooter without a license. Then I thought, "Oh no, I'm really in problems." And then my father picked me up, and when we came home, he got me a little cake and he said, "Yeah, you've been the first time to the police office. This is great!"

How I became a criminal by profession

I started working a little bit in a restaurant that my grandfather got, but I was not satisfied about it. I thought, "I'm not going to do this. I see only money around me, power around me. I want this." Then I had a conversation with my parents, with my mother and my father, at the table. They said, "Yeah, you're 18 now, and what do you think you are going to do? Are you going to work?" I said, "No, I'm not going to work. I'm going into the criminality because this is what I see, and that is what I want." It felt like they thought, "Okay, what are we going to do about this?" because I saw and I understand that they actually didn't want me there. But I was so confident about it that I said, "I'm going there." Then my father said, "Okay, come on then, I will take you with me."

This opened a door of possibilities. I came through the whole of the country, I came everywhere, and doors just opened for me. I could make a lot of money, and I came into a big network of people and criminality. I bought brand new cars and big jewelry. I thought, "Wow, this is what I want. This feels good."

I became a beast

This also fed the addiction part in me. In a very fast period, I was into parties and using drugs. Actually, I thought I was living life, but life started to live me. This was fun actually, but then in a short while, it was no fun no more. I saw that it was getting really like a hold on me, and that I was really bumping into things and getting stuck in life.

I did a therapy round. I was interned for a couple of weeks, and that was really great. But the moment I came out, it went back again, and most of the times it went like even more back again.

There came a moment that I thought, "Okay, this is really going wrong." My doctor was also here, and I was skinny, I was puking of the morphine. He said to me, "Listen, Bobby, if you are going on with this one month, you are going to die. You are intoxicating yourself." That shocked me, but I also didn't know how to stop it. So I said, "Okay, you know what I do? I just quit everything." I thought like, "Easy, I just quit everything, and I will go away for a while and come back."

So what I did was I booked a holiday in Turkey with my family, with my son and his mother. I flew there, didn't bring nothing with me, no medication, nothing. I thought, "When I'm just there in this nice setting, I will do this, and this is no problem." Yeah, that didn't work out like I thought it would work out. Actually, after two days when I was there, I got a psychosis. I hit my head against the wall, in the mirror, and I wanted to jump off of the balcony. My body was screaming. I drank a bottle of alcohol there, and I misbehaved myself in this resort. My family also was there, so I really felt blame, but I couldn't control it. I said, "You know what I do? I will go." So actually, me alone went to the airport, bought a ticket, and came back here. I took my medication and just intoxicated myself actually again, just to flatten everything, put everything inside that I could have just to stay calm. But I also saw then that this is really a problem. I felt terrible about it, just leaving my son with his mother there behind. I thought, "What's going on with me? What kind of beast am I become?"

My grandmother

I have a grandmother. She is a believing person, and she always prays for me. She knows my life. In all this time, I always came there. She raised me a little bit. Also in my very difficult periods, I came there. I sat there crying. On the streets, I tried to be a big tough guy, but then I came there, I was so small, and I cried. I said, "Please, I need help, but I don't know how, and I really want to get out of this criminality and this using, but it got me so stuck."

Something cool happened. She was in her home, she was going to put the garbage outside, and she met up with some people: two women, two guys, and a little girl. They came walking to her, and they asked her, "Hello, can we talk with you? Do you have pain somewhere?" She said, "Why do you ask this, and who are you?" They said, "Yeah, we experienced something, and when we saw you..." They started talking, and she broke. She said, "Yes, I have pain. I have a lot of pain in my heart because I have a grandson who is stuck in criminality, who is stuck in addiction, and he really don't know what to do. He's been in therapy, out of therapy, now he came back, he's struggling at home again." One of the guys said, "Wow, this is actually really cool because I was in criminality, I was in addiction, I was in rehab. But what he needs is his faith. This is what he needs."

They prayed for my grandmother, and they spoke in tongues, and she thought, "What's going on?" It really touched her. They gave her a card. It was from the movie *The Last Reformation: The Beginning*. They said, "Give this to your grandson, let him check this out, and probably if he sees this, he will understand it."

So, I was on the road with a friend of mine, and then my grandmother called me. She was like: "I have the solution for you! You need to come here!" I said to this friend of mine, "I don't know why, but we need to go there."

When we arrived there, she began to speak and share what had happened. She told us, "Yes, these people were here, and they were talking about things I didn't fully understand. But as they spoke, I felt something enter my body, and now I feel completely different. This man knows exactly what is going on with you."

Hearing this, I was skeptical. I thought to myself, "What is this? Are these people fortune tellers or something?" I really did not understand what she was trying to say or what was happening.

But then she looked at me and said, "They truly understand your situation. You need to watch this movie, and it will give you the solution you are looking for."

I put on my computer. At the moment that I put this movie on and it started playing, it got my attention so much that I could not stop watching it.

I turned to my friend who was watching with me and said, "This is exactly what is going on with me. This is what I truly need. I feel this constant resistance inside my body. I find myself doing things that are not truly in my heart, yet I still go ahead and do them anyway. Afterward, I am left feeling so depressed about it. I end up hating my own life because of the heavy guilt I carry. In my heart, I think, 'Wow, this is really not good,' but I still do it, and then I am stuck sitting with that heavy feeling."

He looked at me and laughed a little bit, but then he said, "If this is what you need, then you need to do it. We will go there to him, and we will search for this guy." Even though he was a good friend, he didn't really understand it the way I did. Still, he supported me and said, "If you need it, just do it."

Changing everything

When I went the first time in therapy, this guy told to me, "If you really want to change, you just need to change one thing." I was really happy. I thought, "Wow, he will give me the solution." And then he said, "Everything."

At the moment that I saw this movie, I knew, "This is what I need, but if I make this choice, this will cost me everything."

Goodbye old life

I think now when I look back, God was molding me at that moment. But I still was in criminality. It was even getting worse and worse. It went from production of soft drugs, it went to production of hard drugs and chemicals. It was actually building up to a position that I was totally free of everything, making loads of money, and I was again on the point that I thought, "This is so much money, maybe I will just again for the money."

In the background, all these three years long, I was always checking these movies from Torben. I was following him on my iPad. I thought, "Wow, this is great, but how, but how?"

So I was at that point that the work and everything that we did was in the point that it should be, but the using also was back again, and it was also like on a high level again. It really shut me down from everything. I was sitting all alone in an apartment, had amounts of money, big cars, jewelry. I thought that I had everything, but I had nothing because it felt like total emptiness inside of me. I was using, using, using so much that I actually lost myself in it for a while again, and I got a second psychosis. This psychosis was so intense. I also was in a point that I didn't care anymore. "Then if I lose my life, okay. What I did, I don't care if I need to go into a gunfight, I don't care if I need to drink myself..." It had so hold of me that I didn't appreciate my life no more. I thought I had everything, I have nothing.

So I was using, using, using, and then I went off of this world. I had a near-death experience, and there I met God. It was really clear that I needed to repent. That was what He told to me, and also that He had a plan with me.

When I came back out of this, it was like everything was prepared. I was sitting in this apartment, and I had here like two bags with clothes in it. I had here some money. I just took the bags, I stood up, I walked out of the apartment, started the car, and I left.

After a week there, I really felt guilt feeling against my friend and the people that I left here. So I thought, "Okay, I'm sure that I saw the light, that I'm really going to change my life, but I need to go back." So I called a good friend of mine, not the one that I lived with but another friend. I said, "Can I meet up with you?"

I met up with him. I said to him, "Listen, this and this and this happened. I saw the light." He looked at me, and he was laughing. He was like, "What's going on with this guy?" He could not believe me. He thought that this guy is going crazy. He said, "No, just take it easy, and just leave everything the way it is." I said, "No, I'm done. I'm really done. I'm really done. I will quit everything, stop everything what I'm doing. What you guys are doing, okay, that is your thing. I'm out. But I just wanted to see you guys, that you know that everything is fine. I will be away for a while, and maybe even longer." So they accepted it actually. It was okay. So I did some things that I needed to do, we talked about things, okay, and I got free. I was loose of it. I thought, "Wow, great."

I went back, we came back into this area, and after two weeks, I came into conversation with some people of The Last Reformation, and they connected me with a girl here from Maastricht. The question came like, "Okay, what do you think that you need?" I said, "I need somebody where I can come, and I need to be baptized."

She brought me to Belgium. We went together to Belgium, and there I met Rebecca and Leo. That was really cool. When I came there, I don't even know these people. It was like two elderly people. This guy, Leo, he shared the Gospel with me, and it touched me right in my heart. I really understood that, okay, this... I felt like this is the truth, this will set me free. It was so clear for me, and I didn't even have knowledge or nothing, but I came from straight out of darkness into the light there in this moment. I thought, "Wow, this is true."

Actually, when he was talking this, at the end, he looked at me, and I was crying, and you could see that it was pure. That's what he told to me also afterwards. He said, "Do you want to be baptized?" There was no doubt in me. I said, "Yes, I want."

So, I took on my swimming shorts, and they baptized me. It was great. They baptized me, then they prayed for deliverance. I got set free. It was so... it so relieved me, and it was so intense. What I felt, what was going on, that was not normal. They prayed for me for receiving the Holy Spirit, and I received the Holy Spirit.

I didn't even know this Leo guy, but he said to me, "Okay, now it's good. Come here." And he hugged me, and he held me like this, and it flooded. It flooded. It was like there came like 30 years long pain, all these emotions that were stuck inside of me, I felt it like they were flowing away in these tears. It was not normal. I was like, "Phew, ah," like really relief, relief, relief. It touched me so hard.

Actually, after that, it was like, yeah, I was like a pillow. You could just drop me like this because I was standing there, he was really holding me, I had a feeling my legs were going like this. It was like all this tension was away. But then I felt like what it actually did with my body, how it had a hold of me.

Actually, afterwards, I went home, and I slept that night. It was the best night of my life. I woke up the morning after, and it was really like, I really believed, and I felt like, "Okay, I have new life now. I have new chance. God forgive me. Okay, Lord, what are we going to do?"

I started to read some Bible and stuff. I started to hook up and connect with some people here in Belgium around.

Building for the Kingdom

The really cool thing what I saw in my life, the fruit of the Holy Spirit that came, that was like my conscience getting cleared. So it was like God really started to speak to me then every day about two, three people maybe in a day that I really need to go to, what was really confronting for me because I had like a bad experience with them, and I need to ask forgiveness and stuff. But I really understood that I need to do that to become free.

In this moment, I went to Voorthuizen to do a Bible school, like a school of getting raised in discipleship, where people really learn to know the basics about, "Okay, what are we doing? How we go on the streets? How we praise God?" and stuff like get a good foundation. That was really also what I needed at that moment. It was a great three weeks. It was like they flew over, and then it came to an end, and it was difficult for me. So I thought, "Okay, I was like on a cloud there, just Jesus, just Kingdom stuff, and going out. How am I going to do this back home?" because here, everything was still the same.

So when I came back, I was fully in resistance because there was still some alcoholic problems going on and stuff what really triggered me, and I was not so strong to be in like an environment of darkness in the change that I made. So actually, after two days being here, I was feeling so many feelings again of what I felt from before, that I connected some people who I did the school with, and I said, "Hey, listen, what's going on, this and this." And they just said, "You know what? Come over here, stay with us for a while." So they opened their house for me.

I then came into people's house and lived together with them for a while, and they were living with Jesus, with their family, and they know my past, but they were not judging on me. They see me the way I am now, and they just like, "This is my house, here is the fridge, here you have a bed. Do your thing. Take your time with God." They raised me into Bible study and stuff like that. And I was like, "Wow, great." I stayed there for like a month, and I came here to see my son and go back.

And then God start speaking to me again about this, and He said... it was about this house, because this house where we are here now, I already lived myself like 12 years before that. I lived here with my parents and stuff, so this is really the area also where I come from. I was selling this house at that moment, but there was resistance constantly by selling it. I just thought like, "Okay, I will sell it, and this money that I will have, maybe I will buy a camper or something like this, and I will travel. I don't know where I want to go, but I want to live this life."

And then God spoke to me like, "I want you to go back to that house."

And I was like, "Yeah, phew, I don't know about that." It's like, "Okay, go back here in this area," really confronting for me also and stuff. "Am I strong enough?" But He spoke to me, "You are strong enough. I'm with you. Trust Me."

So yeah, then I said to God, "Okay, this is really nice plan, but then also give a plan with it because I'm not just going there on my own back in this house, 'Hello, here I am' and stuff. Then I also really want to know like, what is the purpose, and what are we going to do there?"

And God start speaking to me about building for the Kingdom here, maybe build a ministry and stuff. And He spoke about one of my friends, Nick. So I spoke to him. I said, "Yeah, listen, God is speaking to me. I want to go back to the house, and this is the plan, but He speaks to me also that you are going to be in it."

He said like, "Yeah, okay, wow, what a plan." He said, "It's quite a plan actually." He was moving also to here to Limburg, and all of his family is living over there and stuff. But he said, "It actually attracts me." He said, "I'm feeling that God is speaking to me that it's getting time for a next step, for getting out of my comfort zone and getting movement because I'm like a little bit stuck in what I'm doing now."

Yeah, so actually, that lead to 1st of October this year that we came back into this area, that we are fully committed to God here, and that we are building His Kingdom. And it's really working out nice, and the neighborhood also is really working out nice. We are flying, we are talking with people to Jesus. This last two months, we baptized six people here. We are discipling them, we are building fellowship. We started off here last year actually with fellowship from Limburg, it was six people. I think it's now between 20, 25 people if everybody should be in together. So we are separating groups already, and yeah, you just see like it's like a drop of oil that is spreading here.

I feel like this is a dream come true. It gives me so much satisfaction that I didn't got out of my old life because I know I'm doing things in the right way now. I'm doing things with the right foundation. My relationships around me are in a good way. What is gone is gone, it was not healthy. What is healthy came back, it restored. People coming here over the floor, also people who are not living with Christ, but they see like, "What are you guys doing?" People stop here for the window checking out what we are doing. I walk here to the center with the guys, and we always meet up with people, and we just share with them. We open the house really because this is what we have on our heart.

We are living quite small here actually now. We want really to take people in house. We did it already. We had some people lying on the couch here, some guys who came straight out of the criminality. We baptized them, they got set free. After one week, they were lying here with a Bible on the couch, and we sent them out again. But this is what we have on our heart. We want to help people. We have plans to spread food, spread clothes, and this is really what we are focusing on here, and all by the guidance of God. All by the grace of God, we are happy to be here, and we are really seeing that He is working awesome things because we are not really pushing from own will, but we just praying for it, it comes on our part, and we handle on it. So we take, "Okay, this is what we prayed for, this comes, we act on it." So yeah, this is how we are walking now. Yeah.