Born... again! Really.

Here is the sum of the 26 previous years:

I was born in 1953 in Paris. I never received a Christian education nor heard about Jesus Christ at home or at school.

Here are pictures between 3 and 5 years old.

We lived in Paris, an area called “St Germain des Prés”, a place of musicians, painters, and other artists.

During my childhood, my parents were both working in Paris, my father was a taxi driver, and my mother a secretary.

Very often we were with our grandparents. Grandfather was Russian and grandmother from Barcelona (Spain). They were very nice with us.

1961 My parents bought a house in the suburbs of Paris, I had good grades in school, I was a quiet and shy little boy.

We had relatives in the countryside (Normandy) who were making their own alcohol from apples, and so, very early I was given of it even though I was very young. That’s why also I began to take some when we, my sisters and I were alone: we had to climb on a chair to find the bottle “hidden” on the top shelf of the cupboard.

1965: my parents bought a restaurant with hotel and bar in Vernon, (The Normandy Hotel). 

This was not to help their health nor mine. I still had excellent grades in school, still quiet and shy. One meaningful event was the choice of having a race bicycle rather than a motorbike, it helped me in my health and to consider the value of physical efforts which were foreign to me. Wine and  alcohol were given me freely by my parents. They would not say they were alcoholic but they were.

1966: TV-god enters my parents’ home. Fateful day! Images of the whole world are flooding into my mind. Biafra war, Vietnam war, etc…

1967, My sister got pregnant then married when she was 17. She was rejected by our parents.

1968, The students of France are making a revolution in the streets of Paris. There is no TV, no newspaper, no radio, nothing. Everybody is on strike. Long lines of cars are at the few open gas stations. This is the hope of a new Revolution.

I still had excellent grades in high school. Because of this, my parents were very generous and gave me a weekly allowance that increased with the years.

1969. I went to high school, far from home the last year before graduation. It was the so-called student life with friends spending a lot of time in bars and theaters.

1971, In College: I was studying Mathematics in College.

“I am doing pretty well there, but for what? They say I will be an engineer. For what? To perpetuate this society of alienation, the establishment, this race for money and power? Thanks but no thanks. I want to break it, to destroy it.”

1972 That Summer I went for a three week hike with 2 friends in the French Alps. We had a tent, backpacks, cooking ware and walked through the Alps, North to South without taking a car or a bus. That’s where I began to love the nature. It was gorgeous.

1973: “College routine, that’s enough. I’ll break this cycle, this routine today. I am stopping college. I will go on the road, toward the South, the sunshine, maybe Turkey, India: we will see. I want to find the solution to the planet’s problems, nothing less. To find the truth… To find how to stop this exploitation of the planet with all these environmental problems that come with it.

I will stop first at this anarchist community in Monoblet, Cévennes (mountainous area in the South of France) that works with autistic children. I am a pacifist anarchist.”

So, I stopped to go to classes but I was still living at the College. I was partying, drinking, going to the movies and reading a lot as usual. I read about Mahatma Gandhi and decided to try fasting to see what fasting does to your body. I fasted 6 full days with drinking only water. I also prepared everything to be ready to leave my parents at any time.

I came back home (don’t forget my parents had  a very classy restaurant and they are French! Food was their god). I delayed to tell them about my fast as much as I could but I eventually had to break the news. They got upset, “Since when are you not eating?” I did not answer. They called the family doctor who examined me and signed a paper to admit me to the hospital. I ran as fast as I could in my 7^th day of fasting.

My plan was to go to my sister’s house for a few days and then go on the road. After two months with my sister and her family I made my backpack and left them. I was free or so I thought.

September 73. I found myself living under tent on the mountain with the keeping of one autistic child. A non speaking 8 year old child, even not understanding signs, doing strange gestures, strange sounds. I didn’t know what to do with or for him. This experience taught me humility: I was absolutely powerless, not knowing what to do with all my so-called knowledge and my mathematics!

1974, Cévennes: I am staying with this community. We are living on the mountain with a few goats and with the milk we make cheese which we sell on the market. We also have an organic garden, and are selling a few vegetables. We are taking care of 2 autistic children and go working in the farms around to make some cash. It was hard work but good healthy physical work. We live with very little. That’s when I become vegetarian. I read a lot of books about it which convinced me that our body’s anatomy is for vegetarian food not for meat at all.

“What we are doing is cool: helping these autistic children against all official ideas, all official programs, all psychiatric theories, and obtaining the best results in the whole world, much better than Bruno Bettelheim in the US. Fernand Deligny, the founder is very smart. He is a very good man, a pacifist anarchist.

“We stay away from drugs and alcohol because we have the motivation of helping these kids against the establishment. We don’t want to be arrested for secondary reasons like drugs and alcohol!”

This experience with the autistic children was really amazing. These children come from psychiatric hospitals where they were filled up with medication to knock them down so the nurses can have some rest and peace more than trying to take care of them. Highly paid psychiatric doctors who are here just to drug some innocent children who are only asking to live. Still true today. When they were arriving to us these children were crawling on the floor, not using their legs nor their hands, you would have to wash them, to clothe them, to feed them, to do everything for them. We did not give them any medication, we were just trying to live with them, trying not to do anything directed toward them. Of course we did not speak to them nor tried to teach them to speak, in fact our philosophy was that by avoiding to make our actions depending of them, by trying to live as normal as possible, it would help them to heal. And it worked, after a few months these children were smiling, eating by themselves, washing themselves, walking, dressing themselves, even making bread, sewing, sowing, planting, harvesting, milking cows, and so on.

The first day a child came to my camp, he was staying about 50 feet from me watching every step, every action. The following day he was staying 15 feet from me still watching everything happening. The third day he was near me, putting his hands in the basin to wash the dishes, next day he was peeling the potatoes, I remember he was dropping the pieces of potatoes one by one in the frying pan! And many other things they were able to do, and this of course without me asking him anything.

I remember this little 6-year old girl, Leila, so sweet, she looked like all the other children when she arrived: doing nothing with her hands, not walking either. A few months after she was there I saw her she was alone, she took a water can (we did not have running water, so we had to go to the spring 100 yards from the house with 10 liters plastic cans to fetch it). She went by herself to the spring not knowing I was following her to see what she would do. Arrived at the spring I ran and helped her get the water for the can would have been too heavy for her. But the amazing is that it was her own initiative. And she was destined to be drugged unto and until death? By some very respected men? What a shame!

Another day Monique, the lady directing the place, was washing clothes at the river and Leila was with her playing with the water. Then she left, went alone to the house 100 yards away, she went to the kitchen where she climbed on a chair to take a coffee grinder on the top of the cupboard, took some wheat berries and began to ground them in flour. (We used to do this to make some unleavened bread in a frying pan) And that’s where Monique found her after she had realized that Leila was gone!

But that’s not all: They were even able to find underground spring waters!  We began to make a movie for the public of this experience. One day as I was helping the cameraman, we were walking backward holding the video camera and other material while filming the children that were coming 30 feet from us. Suddenly the cameraman hurt against a stone on which there was an object. Even before we could replace the object, one of the children actually jumped, reached the object and placed the object on the stone!  These results were so much in contradiction with what the medical authorities where teaching that they watched our movie 6 times to try to understand what we were doing!

1975: Army was mandatory in France in that time (not anymore now) but I refused to go and my request for the conscientious objector status for philosophical reasons was accepted.  I went to Paris waiting for the assignment given me in civil service (replacing armed service).  One day I received the visit of “Jehovah’s Witnesses”. They tried to speak about the creation and the Creator. But I defended evolution (I had studied this subject in many scientific books and was a very good defender of the religion of evolution). They could not answer my arguments and went out quickly!

1976: Second year of civil service. I live in Marseille with some “Christian” friends living together even though they were not married! They were no example to me. They were very chocked when I had a girl friend who had poliomyelitis. They did not understand why I did not take someone without default!

That year I began to do shoplifting regularly especially for food, justifying myself by saying the merchants were stealing the people by selling higher than needed. I hated this society of consumption, the establishment and these capitalists.

1978: “I could not find any pacifist solution to the planet’s problems. Remains to use violence.”

1979: I helped my girlfriend to have an abortion and I fought for abortion “rights” in France! I hated these “Christians” who denied liberty to women to have abortion.

1979 Cévennes: At least these “Red Brigades” people are not afraid to act against the capitalism and the American imperialism.  I will join the Red Brigades in September. I want to destroy the world and to die… I am full of hatred against this society, against this system, against my family, the school system, the work system, I hate everybody.”

1979.  I loved to read, I read a lot about Natural Remedies, Nutrition. This helped me many times as I applied them to myself and to others.

For one year I had a Macrobiotic diet which led me to read about eastern religions. But none of these religions attracted me; they worship idols or a man, like Christianity!

One day I have a question: Why are you against Christianity?

Me: Because Christians worship a man, Jesus. And they’re all a bunch of hypocrites.”

“But this is not Christianity. You pretend to be an intellectual and to have a scientific way of thinking. In this case, you should read the Bible to know what is wrong in it, and why you are against it.”

“OK, I’ll do that… when I have the opportunity.”

I moved in a small shepherd’s stone house in the mountain. There also lives a guy I know is a drug addict, G*.

A few days later, G*: “Michel, do you believe in God?”

Me: “Come on G*, there is no God!”

G*: “Listen Michel! Christ came on this earth to…”

Me: “Don’t bother me with that! I believe that Science will be able (sooner or later) to explain everything. Let’s go to bed.”

There, in the bedroom on a bookshelf I browsed through the books and I saw a Bible. I remembered my decision to read it, and I began reading. After one hour of reading I clearly heard a voice saying,

“This book is the truth, all the truth, only the truth. It’s not what men say, it’s not what churches say is the truth, but it is this book that is the Truth.”  As I said previously, I was looking for truth. I accepted the conviction given by the voice, decided to put all my past behind me and to take the Bible for the guide in my life.  Every morning we were going to a little brook that was close by, to spend the day there, reading, swimming, tanning under the sun…

That next day my friend G* had a hard time believing his eyes when he saw me coming with the Bible in my hands and reading it all day long! I read it from cover to cover in one month!  One day during a discussion my friend mentioned the creation, I replied: “No, there is evolution, there was no creation!” He answered: “Maybe you should read again Genesis”. I reread and was convinced. I throw away all my books on evolution! Later I read some excellent Christian books on scientific creationism. It took me one second to forget these foolishness I had learned and taught for years!

After 2 weeks of this reading, my friend said to me: “Would you like to come to church.  “Sure, why not?”  We hitchhiked to the city. Since it was summer I slept in the public garden and the following morning I went to the Church address.  But when I arrived there I physically couldn’t enter! There was like an invisible barrier at the entrance. Only when my friend saw me from inside and made a sign to tell me to enter was I able to do so. During the service, when people were singing hymns I had goose bumps and could not bear the singing! And during the sermon two voices were fighting in my mind. One was saying, “What are you doing here, Michel? This is not your world. You are a hippie, an anarchist, and you want to be a terrorist, Come out of this place”. And the other voice was saying, “Stay Michel, stay”. I stayed!

The Pastor was G*’s uncle and so, after being presented, the pastor invited me for lunch. I appreciated very much that they were vegetarians, like me. Then after sundown he invited me to help him and his family move to the countryside the next day. We did so. There he invited me to stay in the farm they had just bought, and suggested I work in the garden and study the Bible.

“That’s exactly what I want! But there is a book called “New Testament” in the Bible, I don’t know what it is, I’ll go home to read it and when I am done I will come back to be with you.”

Two weeks later I was back.  I had finished the New testament!

One month later, P*, a young man came to the farm. We were roommates and we spend the evenings studying the Bible. One day in taking the book of Romans he explained to me salvation by faith. It was a rainy afternoon. I went outside in the fields. In my mind I saw like Satan showing me some sins of the past. Then I saw Christ taking them upon Himself on the Cross. Then again Satan showed me other sins, and Christ was taking them on the Cross. It was like this many times. I was crying for joy, laughing, dancing under the rain, running in the fields. It was a wonderful experience. I was born again! I was especially so happy to learn that salvation does not depend on someone’s riches, knowledge, works or intelligence, it does not depend on our social rank, on our social class, I was so happy to learn that we are all equal before God and we have equal chances to be saved. God is just, God is not like men.  That’s how I became a Christian 29 years ago (Sept. 1979).

That’s the time I had said I would join the Red Brigades! And I was with Jesus instead! I was baptized in a river in June 1980.

Of course I stopped shoplifting since it is written “Thou shalt not steal”, even though I was told by some so-called Christians that this text was done away with at the cross. What a shame. Jesus had to die because this text is immutable.  I met a store owner I had robbed, my heart beat when I went to tell him, but I did, I could not hold it. I paid him back. I had to correct many wrongs I had done and I did.  I am so happy I found a church of born again Christians where people are not ashamed to wash each other’s feet before the Lord’s supper as Jesus asked us to do. Pride must die in the water of baptism.  I fasted many times along with prayer and it made me thinking that we regard too lightly the 40-day fast of Jesus in the wilderness to prepare Himself to fight the enemy. Certainly there is a lesson for us who live in the time of the end:  “And take heed to yourselves, lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting, and drunkenness, and cares of this life, and [so] that day come upon you unawares.”  (Luke 21:34)

One day I decided to visit some Christian friends who were living in the countryside nearby. They had some vineyards and were making their own wine, very low in degrees and natural. I hesitated since I already had stopped drinking alcohol but I assured myself it was not bad and I drunk just one third of a small glass. During the following night I had a very bad health problem. I understood the lesson and stopped drinking completely.

The most difficult temptation to overcome (for me) was lust. It took me many years, I fell many times but I finally, through the power of the blood of Jesus, had victory.

As I began to study the Bible I was amazed at the exact fulfillment of the Messianic Prophecies in the person of Jesus. So many prophecies about His birth, His ministry, His death, His betrayal, His burial, resurrection and ascension as Our High Priest at the right hand of the Father.  I continued to study the Bible with the prophecies of Daniel and Revelation, and was amazed by so many prophecies about the Second Coming of Christ and its rejection by the mainstream Christians.  My reasoning was simple: if so many prophecies about the first coming of Jesus were fulfilled, all the prophecies about His Second Coming will also be fulfilled and He will come to take home all the saved!  “I will come again, and receive you unto Myself; that where I am, there ye may be also. (John 14:3)

After I had read the Bible in one month, I read "The Great Controversy" in one month, which convinced me of the inspiration of Ellen G. White. I was baptized in a river in June 1980. In my walk with the Lord I can notice the biggest step was to decide spending one hour minimum every morning with Jesus. To be changed in His image. To God be the Glory.