Page 36 of True Stories of the Members of the
Seed Of Abraham Motorcycle Club
Updated 3/15/05, lots more to come!

Testimony of

Binyamin

In the Beginning... 

If you are reading this page, maybe it's because you are interested in who I am. Well, I would like to introduce myself: my name is Peterpan. I was born in France in 1969, but now I live in Israel. I am 35 years old, and I was raised in a Mishpachah Rilony (non-religious family.) Because of adultery and alcoholism, my parents got divorced when I was 8 years old. For 1 year I stayed with my father. Then I went to live with my mother. My mom sent me to school until I was 11. When I was 12 years old, I was sent to a "school" for problematic kids (because I was a very hyperactive kid). A year later, my mom had put me into an orphanage, because she could not bear me any longer at home. I stayed there for 8 months.

At the age of 14, I left the orphanage, following an advice of a friend. He told me to go to Paris, and gave me an address of people who would be able to help me. I reached Paris at 1 o'clock in the morning only to discover that this address was nonexistent. For the first time in my life I slept in the streets. The next morning, I said to myself "you don't have money, and money will not just come to you. You have to go to where it is." So, I took the first train to the French Riviera, to Cannes, which became my headquarter for the next six years. I began shoplifting to get something to eat, begging for handouts in the street, and traveling from city to city looking for money. I covered over ten thousand kilometers (6500 miles)in my travels. I have seen all of France at least three times.

To protect myself from trouble, I needed to change my name. The only way to do this was to get hold of counterfeit documents. So I went to the police and they helped me. I walked into a police station and asked for help and I told them that I had lost all of my papers. They politely gave me a form to fill out, which I filled it out with a false name, a false address, a false everything. This form, once stamped as official by the police, becomes a valid form of identification for a period of two months. Every two months I went and "lost my documents."

I went back to Cannes and someone suggested to sell illegal drugs. The profit there was very interesting. I sold for him for about one year, and then worked on my own independently. To cover my business, I worked in the streets selling postcards, pictures and paintings.

 One day, while selling my postcards, I met a young woman who worked in the world's oldest profession. I normally didn't associate with people who were as young as she was, since they never had money. I don't know why I spoke with her, but she bought a card and paid generously for it. The next day she returned and took me out to eat, and explained how bad she felt about seeing young people like me living in the streets. She invited me to live with her in a hotel, and I moved in. Then for the first time she explained to me her 'profession'. She said that she was afraid because men would come to her and try to force her to work for them. After hearing that, I decided to replace my knife with a gun to protect her. With time passing by, our relationship severely deteriorated, and after some more time the situation became completely impossible to bear. After working in that kind of a world for as long as I had, I began to have problems with my entire surroundings.

A few weeks before I got saved, I planned to go to Belgium with two friends of mine, with whom I had planned to rob a bank. I had big problems with my girlfriend and so I started playing with the thought of suicide. I thought that the best way to deal with my problems was to put an end to my life once and for all.

In one night in February 1989, I went to the seashore, with the desire in my heart to kill myself, and to make an end to all of my problems. There I screamed to God and told him. "If you don't come to help me I am dead". At that point God answered me and He told me "You only pray to Me, when you need Me" Then I started to cry and I realized that yes, this was the voice of God.

Immediately after that He told me "That's not what I have planned for you." Two or three days later, God sent a friend to me who gave me an invitation. He told me "Ben, if you want to know God and you want to do His will, come with me".

This friend invited me to a church. In that church nobody gave a big sermon, or tried to brainwash me. They just gave me a Bible and said, "Read." I started to read the Bible from the Gospel of Matthew until I came to the second letter of Paul to the Corinthians, chapter 2 verses 15. It says, "If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away behold, all things have become new."

At that point, I had a look on my life and realized that all my desires, my plans, everything was changed. I had no desire for drugs anymore, to steal, no immorality, etc... God had started His work in me. He gave me His peace, His joy, and He filled out the emptiness that was in my heart.

Before this experience with God, I did not have much interest in who God was. but now I know how I can serve 'The God of my Fathers', The God of " Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob." I know what is pleasing to Him, because the Bible tells me what God wants from me as a believer.

Don't start to think that I am a SUPERMAN now. I still have problems, but now I know where I have to go when things are too heavy upon me. I know where to go with my problems, and it is Y'shua (Jesus). God is still at work in my life, He is still working in me. He is in the process of forming me into the man He wants me to be (because that is the best way for me).

If the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob has restored me, He can do the same for you too. If you want to live a life that pleases God, and you have questions about this and if you want to know more about my experience, please contact me. I would like to help you.

"May The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, (and Peterpan)
Bless you and Keep you."
Because now He is My God too...
 

If you have a testimony on how God has touched you,

please share it with others as God has instructed us to do.

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