In 1996 I was accepted as a student at UNZA (University of Zambia), an opportunity that I hoped would enable me to resolve the fundamental problems of life, the nature of the universe, and everything.
I wasn't at university to be a highly educated and successful degree holder, with the prestige and material benefits that come with it. No, I was there to collect knowledge. I was searching for a certain foundation of knowledge that could not be doubted.
By the middle of my second year, I lived in a totally different realm than most everyone else--a world of abstractions, theories, conceptions, ideas, notions, and concoctions of notions. I became an eccentric, but I couldn't have cared less. I had a mission to accomplish. Hoping to find anything meaningful I could grasp on to, I began a personal study of the religions of the Orient. I delved into Buddhism, Hinduism, Krishna Consciousness, the science of reincarnation, Chinese philosophy on the Tao, etc.
I hung out with a Rastafarian society, and joined a group that called itself "BLACK DIFFICULT MADNESS"--and we were black, difficult, and mad. I would spend most of the semester high on booze and weed, and the nights smoking endless cigarettes.
I was desperate to drop out, but somehow there was a hold on me so strong that it hindered me from hastening my escape. I didn't know what to do next. I felt trapped and like I could go insane. I was on the brink and barely managing to contain myself. I needed to get away--fast, totally, utterly, radically, like breaking away from a world of time into a world of timelessness.
Toward the end of that year, on one particularly miserable day, a friend of mine showed me a religious tract. He was visibly excited, saying he had met two girls (Kathy and Anna, from the Family International) on campus. He was impressed by how they believed you didn't have to go to church to have a relationship with God, as you could worship Him wherever you were.
Interesting, I thought, as I began to read the tract. It talked about Jesus' love for us and how He knows our spirits intimately. What struck me the most was how the Lord knew me personally, and how if He knew me, then it was possible also for me to get to know Him.
There was an address on the back of the tract, so I wrote, pouring out my heart, and explaining my sickened state of mind. In reply, they invited me to visit them, which I did.
On the first visit, I met Kathy. She was very sweet and understanding. Then came a fiery-looking fellow named Jace. Jace led me in a prayer to receive Jesus, and I accepted the Lord into my life. I was overwhelmed with joy and a sense of relief.
I had heard about Jesus many times before, but it had taken me up to this point to realize that He was the absolute truth of the universe that I had been searching for all this time. I didn't just grasp this truth intellectually--I knew it.
I have been renewed in mind, body, and spirit and have overcome my old habits and my addiction to nicotine. (The Lord delivered me instantly.) I believe I am now a better person, transformed from the introverted individual that I was.
