I started taking life lessons from those who had no life, at least no life in the way we now know it through Christ. Jack had begun his demise by taking drugs and drinking. He ended up getting kicked out of his flat by his girlfriend. It was around this time that we started hanging out a lot more. He introduced me to a little white pill, a friend of his called “ecstasy.” While this friend was entertaining, it often led you to do things you would never normally consider doing. One day he took me along to meet one of his friends called Lorenzo. This guy was a real shark; he supplied all kinds of stuff to all kinds of people. We got into his empty, dirty, little flat and he said, “You have to try this stuff – it’s called crack.”
Let me give you some history on drugs, and their abusers. Most addicts start off through a friend or family member introducing them to a “harmless” drug, and I say that in inverted commas because most of the drugs are socially acceptable. Like smoking or drinking. But they too are highly addictive drugs, which are harmful for your health. Some people who drink or smoke can be pressured or tempted to try drugs in certain environments.
Generally, the first step is cannabis which is a plant that is dried out and people put them into various kinds of apparatus and smoke them, much like a cigarette. Of course, the effects are stronger and can be hallucinogenic. Most people feel “numb” and are prone to laughter and paranoia. (This drug is currently becoming or has already become legal in big parts of the world.)
And after that usually the more expensive designer drugs would be next on the “just give it a try” list. Generally “acid”, a piece of paper that has been dipped in chemically mind-altering drugs, which produces paranoia, and causes the person’s imagination to almost become real for a time, would be amongst the top tried. Let me just say many people stop or get stuck on one of these for years and never progress to other drugs.
If they are comfortable with the effects and are used to them, then in some way it makes them feel they are in control, which we know is a lie. If you have the personality that always wants more, the next drug of choice would be cocaine, which as has been widely portrayed in movies, and is an illegal, and yet strangely a socially accepted kind of drug, that users snort up their nostrils, as it comes in powder form. It’s expensive, which makes it appealing to those who want to behave like the rich or the rich wanting to behave badly. In most cases it’s the rich who get hooked and become poor, and the poor who get hooked and go to jail, or die. I have personally seen huge piles of this stuff go up the noses of all classes of people and seen where the road leads them. It’s no place that you ever want to visit, believe me.
Some users migrate to another form, “crack” cocaine. Basically, the powder is boiled in bicarbonate soda and becomes crystals. The crystals, or “rocks” as they call them on the street, are then smoked and inhaled into the lungs through a filter on a glass pipe. This gives the user an extreme high for around two to three minutes. This class of drug is extremely addictive as it causes the user to want to repeat the high again and again. Other drugs in this class are heroin and mandrax.
If a person ever gets to try any of these drugs, they will most likely will become regular users in a very short space of time, as was the case for me and my new-found friends. We had already used the drug ecstasy several times, even selling it on occasions to fund our own purchases. We had met many different people, rich and poor, who were all connected to one another instantly by drugging together.
I had already witnessed and been involved in the bizarre things that people do under the influence of these drugs. The reality of the drug world is that users are capable of doing some of the craziest, saddest, most regretful things.
It was strange being controlled by a high. You knew before you started what was going to play out, and if you wanted to stop, all you had to do was not take that first hit. I had lived around the minor drugs all my life and my mom and brother smoked cannabis on a regular if not daily basis, but this was something else. I could sense the danger and power that “crack” held. We lost days and nights hitting the pipe, hardly eating, just always on a mission to get more, we would sell or pawn (give to a handler something of worth or value as a deposit for cash) things like cell phones, motorbikes, guns, anything of value. Just so we could get another rock at two or three o’clock in the morning.
I will never forget bashing on the door of a Nigerian drug dealer at two o’clock in the morning in Point Road (then known to be one of the most crime invested roads in the Durban beachfront area and connected to Pickering Street). Seeing the sheer size of the man was terrifying, but we were willing to negotiate with him for another “rock” while still buzzing on the last batch. He was only too glad to take my cell phone, motorbike, and any cash we had for the sake of a little “rock”.
My guess was that he cared very little for the drug or those that fall prey to its clutches and in my opinion he was unlikely to be a user himself. I, for one grew weary of the elusive high and wasn’t enjoying where it took me or what it urged me to do. I decided I would sit back and watch, so next time the offer came I said, “No thanks, you guys go ahead”, and go they did.
Jack ended up pushing his new girlfriend into prostitution, I have seen her and her three boys in the past few years; she still is a working girl. Of course, she got the raw end of the deal, whilst living with a crack addict she lost her front teeth to his fist, and still became the mother of his child. Those were tough times, tough to experience and tough to witness. He ended up serving two years in a local prison for house break-in. I still remember visiting him there, an image that will remain a sobering one forever. Another place no one would ever want to visit or call home.
By the time I broke ties with Jack and Lorenzo I was already tainted with the brush. I was around 19 years old and moving around quite a bit with some of the new friends I had made. I was at a local night club one Saturday night and a guy named Blade stepped up to me and asked me if I could dance. I said, “A little bit”, with a shrug, and right then and there he offered me a position in a dance crew he was setting up. A dance crew that was basically made up of male strippers.
Before I knew it, we were sharing a flat and hitting the gym every day. We would dance at the local clubs on ladies nights, entertaining the woman with our routines and moves. I became a male stripper and a model at the same time. I thoroughly enjoyed the freedom; we went surfing in the day, hit the gym, and then partied in the evenings. I wasn’t really earning a lot of money then, so I started working in the gym and doing other things such as bartending to earn extra cash.
Whilst Blade and I seemed like brothers and many people believed and said we were. One girl got between us and like most stories where a romance goes wrong between friends, it took a turn for the worse. I moved out of his life and back to Pickering Street and started rustling up some old friends for advice on what to do next. Amongst those old friends, was Jack.
I knew that when I turned 21, I would inherit money from my father’s pension fund, which was set up for us when he died. So being the streetwise kid that I was, I simply made a plan to get my inheritance before it was due. Better now than later in my opinion, I wish I knew then about the scripture: “An inheritance quickly gained in the beginning will not be blessed at the end” (Proverbs 20:21).
There was a Durban businessman, who was a schemer and manipulator. He saw young men like me as a sort of sport and used his savvy and intellectual prowess to mess with our lives. He saw an opportunity with my inheritance and moved in to take what was not rightfully his.
I was no different from other men from my background at that age – ambitious to make a go of life with no real means or education to get started. His type of deal seemed wise to me at that age, only it came with clauses. I entered a working relationship with this man for the next two years. I went to work for him as a newspaper advertising salesman. I had never been in sales before, but it seemed easy for me to convince people that what I was selling had value. The Silver Tongue in action! When I signed a contract to work for him I signed my whole inheritance over to him.
I found myself a little flat that I rented on North Beach and I asked my brother to move in with me. He was my only family in my eyes and I always had a soft spot for him, I wanted him to have every opportunity to succeed in life and hoped that he would never follow in my footsteps of plodding around the same mountain. He’d gone on to get his grade 12 and was studying drafting, I would drop him off every other day at the College. In my mind I could visualise him achieving big things. He was good looking, a real charmer with a killer smile, blue eyes and tanned skin – everyone who met him, loved him. He had also struggled through life but seemed to have a smile to show for it. He was totally unaware of the life I was leading at the time; I chose to keep things from him, so as not to let him follow in my footsteps.
At this point in my life I was off the hardcore drugs and into drinking whenever the occasion called for it, which was as often as I deemed appropriate. I would come home totally inebriated at least three times a week. I was always an organized, neat person, even from a young age; my brother was the untidy one. His room was a fiasco: clothes everywhere, books strewn about, shoes tossed, everything just thrown down. I couldn’t stand it because I loved order, which I guess is strange for a man with my chaotic background.
One day when I came home I noticed that the house was clean. We had a domestic worker who cleaned our flat, but she hadn’t been in that day, so I was puzzled. When I looked in my brother’s room it was spotless. When he arrived home, he gave me a big hug and said, “I got saved!” I said, “You what?” He explained to me that he had repented and given his life to Jesus! Besides sometimes going to a Methodist church across the road as young kids, we didn’t grow up with much religious connection. Personally, I didn’t believe in God. I honestly thought my brother had been abducted by aliens. He looked the same, but his eyes shone bright and everything about him changed. I was amazed at the transformation that took place in his life and was very proud that he had made such a decision.
He started preaching to me daily, trying to exhort and encourage me to follow him and give my life to Jesus. He was unaware of the life I was involved in, so I just said, “When I am ready I will consider it.” On Tuesday nights as I was preparing to hit the local Bourbon Street Night club, a small group of young Christians would pile into my flat at North Beach to have their weekly Bible study. On the coffee table where I would snort cocaine on occasion, The Word of God was being opened every week.
I later found out that Ryan Matthews, and Johnny Pretorius and a few others from Glenridge Church would go into my room and pray that God would save me. I never knew that at the time, but yet I would always come home from the night clubs or parties I went to, then get on my knees before getting into bed and ask God to forgive me and to help me get out of the life I was in. I thought I had to first get clean and then come to God; only later did I learn that you first come to God then He makes you clean. If the light that is within is darkness, how then can anyone claim to have or to be self-enlightened? Only God is light.
Well, my brother having the childhood we had was scarred with lots of issues which I imagine he wasn’t willing to allow God into just yet. He began drinking again after giving it up, and before long he was doing drugs and even started dealing. I was upset and angered about it even though I was in no place to proclaim righteousness. Soon he moved out – probably got tired of me hassling him about his new choices.
By now my mom had moved around a lot and was staying with a boyfriend in Richards Bay, about two and a half hours drive from where we were. I once took Eric to visit her. He was so drunk he slept all the way there and all the way back and never got out of the car to see her. For me this reflected their relationship, which was full of resentment on his side – he probably never fully forgave her for giving up on his dad.
After her current relationship fell to pieces, I allowed my mom to stay with us for a short while, which didn’t work out. Soon she left us and was out on the road again.
She used to spend six to eight months in a place before moving on, never really making any deep connections or putting down roots.
My brother also moved out and rented a room near my new flat in Glenwood. I was worried because the men he sold drugs for were not the type you ever wanted to owe money to, and as the saying goes, “You live by the sword you die by the sword.” Some of them have since passed away.
By this stage he was selling bigger volumes of drugs than ever before and had met a girl who he was serious with. I really liked her and could see she really loved him. She fell pregnant and when I got word I went over to see him as soon as I could. He said they had decided to have an abortion. I was dumbstruck and tried everything that I could to convince him to let me have the child instead. I had many failings, and sadly so did my sibling, one of which was pride. He refused to allow anyone to bring up his child but him, and so they did what they had intended to do. I sometimes wonder how a different decision could have changed all of our lives?
One day walking in Musgrave mall, I met a girl whom I had seen around and knew had been an exotic dancer all around the world. I invited her to a show and we started dating. I was an aloof, over-confident guy, who was popular around town, and seemed to be full of life, even though I was highly insecure. I fell in love with her in no time. Up until then I had only had casual encounters with women, never anything serious. After a short relationship of approximately 6 months, I asked her to marry me and she gladly agreed.
Whilst spending easter Sunday together that year I got a call from a friend of my brother’s saying he had been in an accident. I dropped the phone and couldn’t stand up; my fiancé and I rushed to the hospital, only to get the news that my brother was dead. Eric had never had proper driving lessons and was still learning his way around the roads. What he didn’t have in knowledge he made up for in confidence, which is something never lacking in youngsters.
Apparently, he was on his way to see a friend and while driving along, he mysteriously hit a driveway wall and was concussed. The doctors said he had internal bleeding and they couldn’t operate on him. This happened on Easter Friday; I got the call on the Sunday. It was so traumatic losing him, his birthday was a month away, which would have been his 21st.
Eric was fully aware that on his 21st birthday he would inherit a sum of money, not much today, but back then I reckon it would have been dangerous to him in his irresponsible state. Unfortunately, upon his passing away I received it and spent it setting up my own newspaper business.
I always wished it could have been me that died and that he could have succeeded in life. I tried to shelter him from the bad things in life, but I couldn’t, no one could. I was shattered. My mom insisted on seeing his body. Having been through this before, I refused to go into the room and see him lying there. I had a vivid picture of this small, damp room. Being in a public, under-funded hospital (King Edward Hospital) with a huge catchment area, and on a holiday weekend, there were bodies piled up on the floor, waiting for the mortuary to collect them. His was one of them.
I arranged his funeral and was surprised at how many people arrived to say farewell to a 20-year-old. He brought all sorts there that day and Ryan Matthews stood and preached the Word of God to them all. It was a great service.
I saw my mom suffer a terrible loss that day, something no parent should ever have to do: lay their child to rest. I had resented her for some time for making the decisions she had made in her life and the position that it put us in. But we all make our choices, and all pay the price of our own decisions. But I still felt that my love for her had to be tougher, and that she needed to start accepting responsibility for her life and actions. I felt it was wrong for her never to have worked for her money like the rest of society. I said she was no longer going to receive income from me as a handout as she had in the past and that she needed to find a job. Since I had left school at 16 years old and started earning money I had put the money on her table, providing for her through my work.
Well, she listened, and for two years she stood at the shopping malls as a car guard. I used to go and visit and encourage her. It was so hard seeing her stand out there knowing I could stop it at any time. But it gave her a sense of dignity and an understanding of the value of money and how hard it is to come by. I was extremely proud of her for getting up each day, come rain or shine, and doing her bit. She loved her job and was delighted to obtain her first work certificate. She made lots of friends, and long after stopping work, went to visit and kept in touch with her customers. I was proud of her and she was too.
My brother’s death made me question life and what our purpose on earth is, and why our lives are so vulnerable. I wanted the big empty hole in my heart that my brother’s death had left behind, to go away. I wanted all my questions about life answered. My fiancé and I decided to enroll in the Alpha course down the road at the local Methodist church. That course answered my questions, I knew what I was made for, I was made for God. I gave my life to Jesus, and the exhilarating rollercoaster ride began.
My fiancé had grown up in a Methodist family, so she knew all about God already, but for me it was a new lease on life. You would think I would be completely joyful, but, on the contrary, I was hit by the truth, the truth of what I had become, the truth that I needed to set me free, free from the lifestyle of sin I had so foolishly embraced. The Bible says, in Psalm 139:13: “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.” I was created for the purposes of God but had been shaped by the world into something otherwise.
I always had a picture based on this scripture, Psalm 139:6: “All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.” I pictured the accuser, referred to as the devil, coming into God’s presence, with a copy of a book with my name written on it, and saying to God, “Have you read this rubbish? You don’t want this guy! Look what a mess his life will be.” And God, with His confident, joyful, loving gaze replying, “Yes I do. I want him, give me that book.” Knowing that He would wash all the pages with His son’s blood and the book would be filled with His Glory.
I was radically changed, I gave up drinking, drugs, swearing, going out and left all my friends. I had to start over in life. I wasn’t sure who I was: What made me laugh? What made me cry? Who is Gary Steyn? I had lost my identity, and was also struggling to keep my newspaper going that I had started six months earlier with my brothers inheritance. It was called “The Millennium Today”, and was a free newspaper. I made money off the advertising. Although I had two salesmen, we were just breaking even. After the first prayer meeting that I attended, I had a vision where Jesus came and took me from the newspaper to a company called Hirt and Carter.
Soon after having this vision I printed my last issue and closed the paper. I took my resume to Hirt and Carter three times before they called me in for a sales position. I worked there for six months before opening a coffee shop in Windermere Road. These were the days when all I did between serving customers was read the Bible cover to cover.
One day, while sitting reading the Word, I felt to get up and head towards our cash box, so I did, only to find two men holding it in their hands. I yelled at them with all the authority I could muster, “Get out!”
They ran off and I chased them down the road until they abandoned the box and disappeared into the busy traffic. I was so glad, I felt that God had lead me to get up just at the right time.
All my past came flooding over me in waves that were almost more than I could bear; the light had come and made everything clear. From being a popular, outgoing guy, I became quiet and introverted. I had been playing touch rugby for a few years and was playing at a college near my house. There was a guy who played there, Richard Smith. He was a strong, larger-than-life character, and he commanded the game without rival. I struck up a friendship with him and he told me he was a Christian and led a Bible study group every week. I soon joined up at his house with my fiancé.
Soon we were going to Glenridge Church every Sunday and Bible study every week. Richard and his wife Gayle were great leaders. They were fun, free and full of life, giants in the faith. They moved to London and we were placed into the hands of Nick and Clare Chadwick, also champions of the faith. During this time my fiancé and I got married, but it was very short lived.
God engineered each part of my walk perfectly. Not long after joining them, my wife left me, saying she loved me as a brother but not a husband. She didn't really know the new Gary, she knew the old aloof, confident popular Gary.
Telling her the truth of how I now felt about God and life was like dropping an atom bomb in her lap. It was a hard pill for me to swallow when she left. I really loved her and pictured our lives together forever. My bible study group, especially the leaders, prayed and fasted for me. I began learning the disciplines of Christianity the hard way, by force. I was only 23 and newly saved, and I had already suffered divorce, death, murder, rejection, depression, debt, and the loss of two businesses.
The elders of our church encouraged me to pray and fast for her return. I never gave up hope that if it was God’s will, her heart would change towards me. After a few months I received a summons to appear in court for the divorce hearing, I chatted with the elders and I said I wasn’t married in the sight of courts, but in the sight of God, so what business did a man like me have, arguing with a judge?
I didn’t go to the court hearing, and so the divorce went through without a hitch and she served me with a copy. Her family and community had supported her in her decision to divorce me because they felt she was not happy. We all agreed that I shouldn’t be swayed, and that God could still bring us together should He so desire, and that I should wait to see what happened. I did so with all I had, until after many months she remarried.
I knew that the fight was over and that it was God’s will for my life, since I wasn’t saved when we had got together, and she had left the church after we split up.
During this tough time God brought great men into my life, friends who would shape my life forever. Richard Thompson took me in after the divorce to share his home with me which was a great help in my restoration. Matthew and Nicholas became my closest friends. We spent most days taking life as it came and having fun. Since we were all single and recovering from relationships, we organized many fun gatherings and helped each other overcome the hurts and pain of love and drug abuse.
After some time had passed, I decided I should start looking for a wife. Something inside of me drove me forward, a deep burning desire in my heart to be married, to be a husband and to have a family, the family I never had. Instead of seeking the Lord and expressing my deep longing for a wife, I went out with a survivor mentality and began pursuing any single Christian girl that caught my eye.
Thankfully, my friends and the church kept me on a short leash, which averted any major catastrophes. Being accountable to my friends and the family of Glenridge, I learnt what it meant to experience true friendship and to truly love others and feel loved by them. I am so grateful for the friends that God gave me especially at that time. They were supportive, caring and always willing to guide me and assist me in every area of my life.
So, after walking through a few hurdles and trying to conquer the world of singleness, I slowly started releasing the reigns of my life to our King, something I should have done much, much earlier in life.