Journey in Hope | Interview 5 | Feat. The Viking

A life that had left a trail of devastation behind him to now a life that seeks to create a trail of Jesus followers. Introducing the Viking and his story...

Transcript

Mike, so good, and I mean so good, to have you here.

You took the trip up on the train, I'm led to believe.

Yes, first train journey, solo.

I absolutely hate leaving my home.

Honestly.

I walk and cycle everywhere, and if it's not in a five mile direction from where I need to be, I'll go.

Wow, so you've come up, look, told me on the phone earlier, you've come up from Dundonald.

Did you get the trip in Dundonald?

Yes, 64 mile away.

64 mile, and you ended up in Corrie?

I even googled it.

Because I thought one could have cycled it.

Cycled time three days, no.

That's right, that's right.

Actually, do you know what we should have thought?

Actually, we should have got you to stay up in the North Coast.

But you've got family, you're going to tell us a little bit about your own family in a moment or two, but tell us a wee bit about your background family, how you were brought up, where you were brought up, a wee bit of detail in relation to that.

Right, well, I'm originally from Tully, Cornock, just at the edge of East Belfast.

Born and pretty much raised there.

So it was.

Now, going on Tully, Cornock, I've spoke and done a lot of meetings in the Little Baptist Church.

Do you know the Little Baptist Church?

It's Glenn something it's called.

There's another word for it there, so I know exactly where you're at.

There's a wee football team in Tully, Cornock as well.

Tell us a wee bit about how growing up was for you.

Well, growing up for me in general was pretty chaotic, pretty nuts.

You know, I think even through primary school, I had this kind of ball of energy, ball, you know, just, you know, I couldn't focus on, even through school, I couldn't focus on what anybody was saying because I was constantly thinking about six other things at once, and whatever kind of would grasp my attention was what I did.

And it was usually something that wasn't good.

Yeah, yeah.

Take us in, because we were talking off camera there, take us in to a wee bit of the school, and you've touched on it.

So even through primary school, you're talking a class of 28 to 33 children.

Yeah.

And I was, I would say the problem child, the class clown, the tough kind of child to deal with in the class.

And I said, if you can think of anybody like that, that you've been to school with, times it by 20.

That was you?

That's what I was like through school.

That's incredible.

Through primary school.

And I was given pretty much anything that would have kept my attention.

Dots, corn ends, you know.

You wouldn't get away with stuff like that now.

Absolutely.

But on the other side of that coin, now I feel sorry for the teachers, because how could you have dealt with me?

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

So Mike, that was your sort of primary school.

Primary school.

Running about in Tully Carnet and et cetera.

How was all that for you out of primary school?

What sort of setting was that for you?

So then from primary school going into high school was where I would have experimented with a lot of drugs.

Yeah.

You know, and I go from, so it kind of shows you my kind of mindset.

Even through childhood, going through school, it was constantly like, what can I do next?

What can I do next?

What can I do next?

Who can I annoy?

Who'll chase me?

Who'll do this?

Who'll do that?

And it was almost this kind of like loss sort of feeling.

You know, I had a hundred friends, but didn't feel I had any friends.

You know, at the same time, you know, it would have been very popular, but internally felt didn't matter how many friends I had, didn't matter what I got up to, nothing satisfied or channeled that energy that I had.

Was there anything traumatic or anything that would have made you feel like that?

Was there anything that you can pinpoint?

I honestly, I don't know.

Mother and father, very, very loving.

Didn't smoke, didn't take drugs.

Every Sundays, we're all went on family trips.

So, mother, father wise, brothers, siblings, we were very sort of close-knit sort of family.

That's true.

So, I couldn't pinpoint anything that made me feel the way that I felt.

So then, that lead me into high school.

The teen years was probably very difficult, I would say, because you start smoking, you start drinking, you know.

I had a bad experience drinking 13, and it put me off drinking for a good few years.

But the thing was, I then didn't drink, but took a lot of drugs.

So, it was catch-22 there.

Absolutely, absolutely.

But the issue is, sorry, when you take a lot of drugs that are uppers, at a young age, you overproduce dopamine.

Absolutely, yeah, absolutely, yeah.

So, at 14 was my first experience of drugs.

And even at 14, I remembered vividly smoking dope.

It was the first thing I ever tried, smoking dope.

And I was sitting in a room full of my mates, and nobody said a word.

Everybody was sitting like this, monged out, and in my head, they're all talking about you.

They're all laughing at you.

They're all.

So even my first experience taking drugs, that was how it made me feel.

That developed that paranoia thing instantly at that moment.

And I was about 14, Mike.

That's incredible.

Obviously, where you're sitting today in Hope2Families, we have a lot of people that come in here that still take drugs, and we work with them.

So how were you feeling during that period?

14, did you just intensify the whole taking of drugs?

Yeah.

Tell us a wee bit more about that.

So from 14 led to 15, that's when I took my first ecstasy tablet.

And again, all these feelings were otherworldly, and it completely distracted you from how you really felt.

But the thing was, when it distracts you at the time from how you really felt, and you're running around like an idiot off your face on ease, do you know what I mean?

So at no point did you get up the next day and go, well, that was a great night, because then the next day or three days later, depending on how long the party lasts for, your head was even worse.

So then, so you're talking 15, 16, 17, 18, around 18, 19.

So you're talking heavy drug use of ecstasy for that length of time.

I mean, I remember at one point, I was taking tennies at once.

You know, tennies at once.

Goodness, Mike.

During that period of time from 14 up to 19, that week period, was there any God influence in your life?

Nothing at all.

Nothing whatsoever.

So was God even thought of in your own life?

Fear of dying?

Nothing like that?

Nothing.

I was, nothing feared me.

Nothing made me fear anything.

If somebody went, climb up back to your back, flip off and I would have done it.

So you were just literally crazy.

Yeah, literally.

Literally crazy.

Literally the word crazy is the only way I could sum it up.

And even then, that's an understatement.

That is an understatement.

That's incredible, Mike.

So Mike, nothing of God, nothing of the influence of God in your life.

Nothing at all.

My parents weren't religious, so there was never a Bible in the house.

There was never any talk of religion or anything like that at all.

That's incredible.

So just on the drug front, because I want to really just speak about it in a minute.

How was all the feelings?

You mentioned paranoia.

Was there anything else in relation to the mental health?

I would like to sort of talk about that for a moment.

So what happened there was the problem in the air, what goes up, what comes down.

So what is called when you're coming off the back of taking drugs is a calm down.

So me and my friends, and the thing was with Tully Cornet then, if there was a drug dealer in one block and a party in the next block, drug dealer in that block, party in the next block, down the hill, same again.

Same again.

So you literally take your ease, partied, take your ease, partied.

And before you knew it was Thursday, and you started on Friday.

That is incredible.

That is incredible.

So how were you feeling mentally during all that period of time when you did come down?

Absolutely wrecked.

Wrecked?

Yeah, that was when the, that was really when the self-harm has started.

Okay.

You know, on the calm down, you know.

So again, when you're feeling like this on the inside, when you're on a calm down of drugs, it's magnified by a hundred, you know.

So on the drugs, you run around like an idiot, you're off your face.

Off the drugs, the feelings were intensified by a million.

So the thing was with this kind of ball presser, we'll call it, the only way to release it was through peon.

The only thing that made us subside was to self-harm.

Self-harm.

Or go back on the drugs, and then you fell back into the same cycle off.

When the drugs were off, you ran out of money, the party went on.

Self-harm.

Self-harm.

Crazy.

Just in that, because, you know, self-harm is obviously a big thing in a lot of people's lives right now in our society.

How bad did things get?

Did you ever have any suicidal tendencies, anything like that?

Yeah, well, the thing was, if you were drunk and did it, it was with a Stanley knife.

So it was.

I'm literally, I'm honestly tattooed from the top of my head, down to my toes, and a lot of them are covering scars.

That's incredible.

We're gonna come to that in a minute, because one of the statements we said before we started the interview, I wanna come to that and focus on it at the very end.

So fill us in just from that point.

What happened in your life?

How did God come in?

What took place?

God's a long, long way away.

Down that?

Yeah, a long way down the road.

So from the back end of taking drugs came the mental health problems.

Self-harming, suicide attempts, sectioned and knocked back in for three months, four months.

Oh, that's before I'm 21.

That's incredible.

You know, the self-harming and then the suicide.

I classified it as I killed myself because when I hung myself, I stepped off the bed.

I stepped off a stool.

That was a black darkness and was resuscitated and woke up in the rural hospital.

So from that moment to being resuscitated and woke up in the rural hospital, I think at some point I had died there.

My God, that's big stuff.

You know, big stuff.

And again, all this before you're 21.

Before you're 21 years of age.

Possibly 22 with drugs, drink and everything else going on.

The timing could be a little...

Yeah, yeah, but it's so real and it's so incredible.

What would you say to folk that still are involved in drugs?

Obviously your heart's for them.

Very, very, very simple.

Don't do drugs.

Just ask the masses, isn't it?

It's literally that simple.

When you think about it, and anybody else that takes drugs, think about it.

When have you ever took drugs?

And the next day when?

That was a great night.

You don't.

That's right.

Because your head's in your top pocket.

That's right, my god, that is right.

That's the truth, like, you know?

That is right.

And not only that, if you're taking, now it's cocaine, I don't know anybody that takes these anymore, but they all take cocaine.

It's 90 pound a bag.

So not only is your head in the top pocket, you're probably 300 quid down.

That's right, that's right.

And at no point do you go, that night was worth 400 or 500 pound, and you probably only went to your local bar.

It's crazy stuff, like, it's crazy stuff.

So Mike, fill us in a wee bit more just on that journey through that whole thing.

I know you were knuckbraking for a few months sectioned.

Obviously, the mental health takes a real hit during all of this, doesn't it?

Well, again, what goes up must come down.

Must come down.

So anything in relation to relationships or anything happened during this period of time that was...

Even from knuckbraking, you know, even, so from leaving knuckbraking, 21, 22, there was an endless stream of relationships because no matter what relationship that I was in, I was never satisfied.

Always going, what's next?

What's next?

What's next?

What's next?

That never ended, Peter.

So plenty of long-term relationships ended, you know, loads and loads and loads of stuff.

And again, this leads me to my partner, Dionne Nigh, who I've been with for nine years.

This has been the ninth year.

Hi, she has stuck me for the previous eight years before Christ came into my life, is absolutely baffling to me.

How was life for her, really?

Give us a wee insight.

Well, imagine living with somebody that's nuts, that can't set a pace, you know, that's constantly getting tattooed, you know, that's constantly, it is the gym first, the gym first before everything.

Not only was the gym first, I drank every night.

I drank two or three, four beers every night.

Not only that, I drank every Thursday night, and I drank every Saturday night.

And the weekend was a box of beer and a bottle of rum.

And that was the life?

That was my life with Dionne, you know?

But Dionne obviously...

So Dionne would be, Dionne, like I've jumped ahead of your 10 years, but that 10 year sort of period was a lot of long-term relationships over and done with, you know, my daughter Sophie, she's 13 now, you know, with another long-term relationship there.

Well, when I say long-term, it was like four or five years, I'm away, you know?

Four or five, I'm away, I'm away.

And did you have enough?

Cause that feeling was, you need something else, something else, something else.

Yeah, I just had to go, I had to go, I had to go.

Even the slightest argument, I'm away, you know?

Not even let's sit and talk about it, I'm gone.

No, see you later.

Could you not go to the gym today?

What?

See you later, never speak to me again.

That's incredible, that's incredible.

So what had happened was, so coming out of Knott Bracken, it was actually my father, he said, come to the gym with me, because it was self-harm and stuff like that.

So he said, come to the gym with me.

And I says, no, I wouldn't know what to do.

That's that and the other.

And he was like, right here with me, so I'll come one day a week, you know?

So I didn't intentionally go one day a week, I went, right, I'll go.

So we were training one day a week, we were drinking and partying the other half of the week, and then that turned into two days a week, drinking and partying, meant to have problems between all that, three days a week.

Lads, I can't drink tonight, I'm going to the gym tomorrow.

So then that addictive, impulsive personality, then I now know it started to shift, you know?

And the gym life, so I swapped self-harming for training, tattoos, because the way I viewed my scars was, what I noticed when I self-harmed was I wouldn't self-harm over my tattoos, because they were a representation of scar tissue.

So that area was already damaged.

Yes.

You know, so I never, so then, look at me, I had a great idea, I gotta get more tattoos, but that turns into an addiction.

So then what I realized was over a very, very long, I now realize I was addicted to pain.

I was addicted to torture, you know, whether it was self-torture, you know, or physically cutting myself, getting tattoos, training.

You know, I was addicted to pain.

And torment.

I noticed in your story, you had said sometimes, you made a quote in relation to looking in the mirror.

Do you remember that quote, this in your testimony?

Hate what you see in the mirror.

Yeah, I love that quote.

You know, so I would have walked around the gym looking absolutely miserable, because I was looking at myself going, I nearly, I was going to swear to the Lord or not, but I was looking in the mirror going, I'm going to flip and ruin you, you know?

And I, whatever I was trained, I was looking in the mirror going, I'm going to show you who's boss, you know, you know?

And I would have done reps until I was crawling out of that gym.

I, and then, but that was, that satisfied, that self-harm tendency that I had developed, you know, because I was physically always in pain.

So I was pushing you to do that pain barrier thing that you were so addicted to, just that pain thing.

So although training was very good supplementation for a while, it then wasn't enough.

So steroids come into the picture.

Steroids come into the picture, okay?

Steroids come into the picture.

So do you want to develop that just a little bit?

So again, steroids and anybody that has taken steroids knows exactly what they do.

They amplify whatever you are by five.

Goodness me.

It's that simple.

So if you're prone to talking inside your head.

Yeah, that intensifies.

Yeah, intensifies by five.

You know, if you're an aggressive person, that intensifies by five.

So that took you into the building.

I was never physically aggressive, but I was internally aggressive towards myself.

So it's really self-loathing here in your life story.

Isn't it pretty much this constant thing?

And also very, very, very, very, very selfish.

Yeah.

Very selfish.

I was number one.

And what you want that you had to get?

I was number one.

And not what I want that I had to get.

I did whatever I wanted.

That simple.

And no one would tell me otherwise.

That's incredible, mate.

No one.

That's incredible.

So fill us in from the stories.

Just you take the story through.

So I think I, well, I'm training 18 years.

I'm now 40.

So 22, 23 was when I started training, dabbling with training.

I then get into it properly.

Well, I say properly from about 25 to 27.

25, 26, 27, and around that age.

And I was like, I mean, I was running everywhere.

I was training.

I was like, and again, on the outside, he looks great, you know, very, very fit man.

On the inside, the opposite, the opposite.

So again, everything that I did, even internally in those battles in my head, I wanted to be good, but all my accents were polar opposite, the complete opposite.

So if you're at war within your head, you know, so even, you know, it's very strange, you know, when you're, you know, when you're trying to be positive in here, but you're in the gym destroying yourself.

So yes, you're destroying yourself, but the product of destroying yourself in the gym on the outside looks amazing.

But on the inside, all those, all that's still there.

So obviously we're going to come to it so that we know it's an internal problem.

And we know that with the gospel message that it's a problem that needs to be dealt with internally.

So I met the Awn, so that's what led me up there.

I think I met the Awn with 31, well, we're nine years.

Nine years together, so we're nine years together.

So if you're good at math, go back nine years, and that's what it was.

I don't know how she stuck me.

I really, really don't.

I have no idea how she put up with me.

I don't, I don't like, you know, you got this aggressive man, you know, taking steroids, that, you know, like, the only one who spoke, you know, about a problem, and I would have rolled my eyes, you know, as if like, let's talk about me, you know, do you know what I mean?

I would have, you know, like, or I have bigger issues, I have to go and train arms, we're really going to the gym, it's nothing to part the life dramas, like, do you know what I mean?

But going to the gym was my answer to everything.

She's annoyed me, I'm going to the gym.

There's no milk, I'm going to the gym.

You know, honestly, it was my answer to everything.

So it was, so again, with Dion, like, do you imagine her being with somebody so selfish, so self-centered, but on the inside, I was going, I love her so much, I want to do everything for her, till she asks me to do something.

You know, literally, till she asks me to do something.

You know, and that might have been Hoover or Paulice, or, you know, does this look nice to me?

And I go, I told you five times, it looks nice, do you know what I mean?

Or well, it would have been twice.

No, my patience is better, now it's five times.

My patience is better, so it has.

Yeah, so go ahead, share with us Dion's now in your life.

So to Dion, we were together nine years with two children together, Amber and Ezra.

Amber's just turned seven.

Lovely.

And Ezra's four, maybe five in May, 25th of May.

They're tattooed on me somewhere.

I usually have to look.

So they, so, I'll keep you all here.

Yeah, so we'll fast forward a few more years.

So even before Amber was born, me and Dion were together a couple of years.

And even as a father, you know, I, like, my kids are my life.

There's no, I would have done anything for them.

You know, I now realize that the man that I was to them was a quarter of what I should have been, or even half of what I should have been.

It really, really was.

You know, I always had them at the park, but I wasn't there.

I may have been physically there, but I wasn't there because I was either on a come down, juice to the rafters, because I would have took drugs every eight weeks, every nine weeks, every once, every four weeks, something like that.

There was no selected date to it.

But I drank every day.

I drank a couple of beers every day, and I got drunk twice a week.

So even now, see, I'm not drinking.

I even have two beers, and the next day, and I went, I used to drink 18 beers a night, and I battled wrong.

Crazy.

And you had a cheek to call yourself a good parent.

You're no role model, like.

It's incredible.

You know?

But then in your head, you're going, I want to be the best man I can be, the best father that I can be to my children.

But your actions were polar opposite.

It's madness, isn't it?

Because role models don't go out and take care of you.

That's right.

Role models don't give blets and neck bottles of rum.

And that was your life.

That was my life.

That was your life.

I don't even know how I'm still alive.

Well, I know now, I'm still alive.

I know God's got a plan for you, but we're going to come to that.

You know, so even then, so I mean, you're even then, you're coming up in the 38th.

Yeah.

No, so you're talking 38 years of just absolute, I always feel I've just a trail of devastation behind me.

The 39 years.

Yeah.

Of your life.

Of devastation.

Because I now know the difference.

It's incredible.

Is there anything else you want to highlight in that 39 years?

Well, yes, so we'll get on to how I ended up in church.

Yeah, because I'm really excited about this.

My daughter Amber, at five, she's now seven, begged me to take her to church.

Like begged me.

Amber never went to church or anything herself.

She went to GB, but Amber begged me to take her to church on a Sunday.

And I went, I am not taking you to church.

Your mom will take you to church.

No, daddy, I want you to take me to church.

Amber, I am not taking you to church, darling.

Your granny Paddle will take you to church.

No, no, dad, I want you to take me to church.

What about this person take you to church?

No, I want you to take me to church.

So God knows, he knows that I would do anything for my children.

So we went to church.

And I was like, I am going to catch fire walking through the doors here.

I am just going to burn.

Amber, I love you.

Do you ever see me again?

I am just going to burst into dust.

So Amber got me to take her to church.

And St.

Mary's in Balibane is my home church.

And I absolutely love St.

Mary's.

It's such a family, family, family, family orientated church.

As soon as I walked in, I looked at everyone and went, everyone is glowing.

What's going on here?

I probably have this dark cloud hovering over me.

So I sat there and initially the first month, six, eight weeks was like watching paint dry.

I was literally like, what is going on here?

Amber, what have you done to me?

I'm losing these hours.

I'm never getting these back.

And then Jim said something one time and I went, what did he say?

And then I started listening.

And then I went, you know what?

I don't need to drink beer every night.

So I stopped drinking beer every night.

You know, I still get drunk twice a week, but I stopped drinking it every night.

Then I went, well, do I really need to drink?

So minus the couple of beers a night, do I really need to drink 38 beers a week in a bottle of rum?

I don't think I do.

So that was reduced, you know.

Then smoke, do I need to smoke?

So smoking slowly, what did I do?

And all this was before I came a Christian.

So I'm just working away, and you're talking a couple of months now of just these small changes, and then a few of the lads from the church were all training together.

And then I noticed, I'm a swerve.

I'm in the middle of a set going, come on, you're coming over.

And they're going, oh, flip, that was tough.

I've never heard anyone speak like that, you know.

Because the gym is a real testosterone refueling fire, where men are grunting.

And then I went, I flip, I swerve an awful lot, you know.

And then that slowly went.

And then I was invited, sorry, they did an alpha course.

So I went, I was invited to it.

I was like, I'm going to go.

I know what I'm going to do.

I'm going to annoy everyone the first night.

I'm going to write down all these questions and hit them with the questions.

Mic drop, we'll see you later.

Literally, the intro to alpha, the video, the initial intro video to alpha, and if anybody hasn't seen it, watch it.

Yeah, absolutely.

Watch it, the intro to alpha.

My jaw hit the floor and I went, they're talking about me.

You know, they're talking about me.

They're talking about never being satisfied, never being truly fulfilled, never seeking everything else away from God's love.

And I went, they're talking about me.

So then the ears perked up, you know.

And then in alpha, the fourth week, fourth or fifth week, I sit in my kitchen table and I just, I put my hands out and I went, I can feel the spirit now, you know.

I put my hands out and I went, Jesus, I need you.

Jesus, I need you in my life.

And in an instant, he showed me a picture of, I have always been there.

Now, for me, feeling that, I didn't realize it was a picture at the time.

I didn't know what it was.

For me, it was goosebumps, it was your stomach turned inside out, it was the sweats, it was everything but words, you know.

And then, I know that he showed me a picture of I have always been there.

And he instantly took me to passing and qualifying my level 2 fitness instructor and level 3 personal training.

So, I'm not too sure if it said, but I got through to school.

I've already spoken about my school life and how it was.

When I got through to school, the tail end of third year started fourth year.

That's when I got through to school.

So, it shows you the level of education that I had.

So, on paper, I shouldn't have been able to pass any exams.

None, not at all.

You know?

Incredible.

So, take us back to that moment, just that amazing encounter with Christoph Fink, go for Amber, by the way.

That's incredible.

And what I was then showing that it was...

I was saying to people at the time that I'm taking Amber to church, I'm taking Amber to church with the little roll of the eyes and all, and then God showed me in a picture that it was Amber that took me to church.

So Amber took my hand, led me through the doors of St.

Mary's, because what she associated was...

Amber's very sensitive, okay?

She was always asking me, are you okay, daddy?

Are you okay, daddy?

And on the surface, I probably was, but I wasn't in here.

I was hurting.

I was constantly in pain.

That's how I know she was always asking that.

So what Amber associated was GB, God's love and happiness.

And she put those three together and begged me to go to church.

You've got to emphasize them three again, because they are incredible.

Emphasize them three things again.

Amber associated GB with God's love, contentment and fulfillment.

You know?

Because I was broken.

Physically I wasn't.

Physically I was strong like bull.

But on the inside, I was a broken man.

I was a fraction of the man I should have been, or could have been, sorry.

Because everything I did was the opposite way.

Was the opposite way from Jesus.

Everything I did, every single thing I did, took me further and further and further and further and further away from him.

And it shows you, no matter what you do, or how sinful your life is, or you think it is, he's there for you in an instant.

All you need to do, please help.

That's right, that is right, Mick.

But to get to that moment in life where you realise your need of something outside to come and actually do something inside of you, I understand that.

So from that moment, Mick, how has things been?

Because I know when you walked in here, and I know when Luke met you, it's been incredible just to hear something about my ghosting.

My life has completely changed.

I mean completely changed.

I am now ten times the man I ever was.

A hundred times the man I ever was.

A hundred times the man I ever was.

And none of it's my doing, it's all through Christ.

Every single bit of it.

Because the 39 year car crash, the 39 year trailer devastation behind me was my doing, away from Christ.

It's amazing.

And now my walk this year with Christ has been the best year of my life.

Fulfillment, contentment, guidance, direction, all that through Christ.

Not only that, I am now the man my missus deserves, and has always deserved.

I am now the father my children deserve.

So just on that, because I want to come to conclude at the very end about something that you and I were talking about off camera.

Tell us about just the family experience.

You were sharing something that you do.

You're called the Unicorn.

We're called the Unicorn Family on Instagram.

Once a year, we dress up as unicorns and go to Belfast.

And what actually happened was people were calling us the Unicorn Family.

The kids were going, Look, Mum, we're the Unicorn Family.

So, that's why we're called the Unicorn Family.

So Mike, you and I, we were talking just, as you know, I was in Bush Mills this morning, and when you came in, we were just talking about how to look at, Mike, you walk into a church in Northern Ireland with me on Sunday, okay, they immediately, in our church culture in Northern Ireland, we think, oh, there's an outsider, or there's a sinner coming in, we need to start praying for this guy.

So we've got this thing where we look at the outside to define the person, whether they're a Christian or not.

So you're coming up on the train today with your little ponytail beard, your earrings and all, to look at the outside, the majority of people think polar opposite.

Polar opposite.

And what I was saying in Bush Mills this morning to some of the families is, how can we, as the Church of Jesus Christ, what do we need to do, what shift needs to happen in order to let people see the love of Christ instead of rules, regulations and this, that and the other.

So talk me through a wee bit of how you feel, how you feel God's directing you.

Well, God's directing me to bridge the gap.

Yeah.

It's very, very simple.

Like I am not an educated man, you know, and I'm not, I do read my Bible, but I couldn't, I couldn't quote scripture to anybody.

But I know that God is calling me to make Christ real and relevant.

Very good.

And bridge the gap in the community.

Between everyday life and Christ.

That's incredible, Mike.

Everyday life and Christ, and I'm in the middle, so here's how it comes together.

All this, this is how it comes together.

That's incredible, that's incredible.

And here's how easy it is to come together.

Please.

Absolutely.

Please come into my life, Lord.

Yeah, absolutely.

You were saying to me earlier as well, you've got a few engagements coming up, because God's now opening doors.

Revelation 3, it says He opens doors.

Through a year of argument with him, of saying, there's bound to be someone better than me.

There's bound to be someone else.

There has to be someone else.

I don't know anything, you know.

But in that year, I went to Cornhill.

I've done the summer school where I met Luke.

I've done study days.

So my knowledge is, I feel like I've scratched, put a scratch on the scratch of the Bible.

But I know enough now where I can tell people about Christ.

Lovely.

That is lovely.

And that's your heart when you...

And not only that, I'm six, eight months into my two and a half year of evangelism course.

That's incredible.

You still in the same church in Ballybean?

Yes.

Yeah, it's the church you love.

You were saying it's a real family-oriented church.

St.

Mary's, Ballybean.

That's incredible.

That's incredible.

Is there anything else you want to share with the folk that we message just to ensure before we conclude?

I would honestly say if any part of what I've said strikes a chord, if you feel lost, broken, empty, unsatisfied, unfulfilled, and you might have everything you've sort of wanted in front of you, or you have a lot of money, there is nothing that is going to fulfill you more than the love of God.

Absolutely nothing.

There is nothing at all.

Incredible, Mike.

Mike, it has been so good to have you come up today.

And I genuinely mean that.

I know that this is the start of something amazing for you, your family.

Dion, Ezra, Amber, isn't that the kids?

And I got them right there.

And Sophie.

And Sophie, of course.

Sophie, of course.

I remember Sophie at the start.

Of course I do.

So, listen folks, it has been so good to be with this man today.

As you know, our little place here, Hope2Families, people, in fact, one man yesterday called in and he says, I don't know why you do what you do or how you do what you do.

Jesus Christ, this is what he did.

He came to bridge gaps and reach into broken lives.

That's why we do what we do in Hope2Families.

So, I hope this story has blessed you.

I hope if you're watching and listening to this, that you will understand that the devil wants to kill the stilling to destroy you.

Jesus said, I've come to give you life.

And here's the clue, life to the fool.

So God bless you, from Make An Eye, and Jesus near.

See ya.