The remarkable true life story of Peter Newman (Part 14)

I told him they were all out blackberrying so he said he would go and join them. He picked up a saucer, of all things, and headed outside. I saw him make for his hedge. He searched and searched and eventually headed back to the farm, with two blackberries in his saucer.

"Where did you say the others were, Peter?" he asked. I told him they were in the fields at the back of the farm. He didn't bother trying to join them but later that night, when we'd finished our evening meal, he slid up to me and whispered confidentially: "Peter, we've got a thief in the house."

"Oh," I said, "why, George, what have you had stolen?"

"Oh, nothing, Peter, but there's definitely a thief in the house," he replied.

"Well, you aren't telling me anything I don't already know," I told him. "After all, George, all of us have stolen at some time or other and we're all capable of doing it. So what have you had stolen?"

He wouldn't say, but I'll never forget the look on his face when I called the gang into the kitchen the following morning. Whenever I found drink on the premises I used to publicly pour it all down the sink. George's two bottles of cider ended up in the Cornish drainage system too; but at least he knew who the thief was!

The lads also tried to make a still in one of the barns. I had great fun watching them trying to keep it a secret. They used to go into unholy huddles and there was a great feeling of conspiracy in the place. At night I'd go into the barn to inspect their handiwork. I could see that their contraption would never yield a drop of whisky.

I took a multitude of jobs to keep the farm going. Christians round about viewed us with suspicion and I admit that I still harboured bitterness against my fellow believers. The scars of South Africa and our home-coming were still there.

While we didn't have a hundred per cent success rate with our guests, we enjoyed a reasonable degree of success. During these six years I became quite an authority on rehabilitation and was asked to speak about our work on radio and television. We were visited by social workers and probation officers, and I was often in court speaking on behalf of the guests. Some courts even sent boys to us, and I enjoyed being popular for once in my life. During those years my spiritual life was quietly dying: prayer was becoming a thing of the past and that close fellowship which I had once enjoyed with the Lord was crowded out by a busy diary.

I believe that God had led us into that particular work but Peter Newman, as usual, had tried to take it over. I had once had a vision of Jesus, yet there I was, hardly able to pray, cut off from God. Unsaved people thought I was marvellous. I was invited to sherry parties and official receptions. I stood by and listened to dirty jokes without batting an eyelid. I even heard the name of God blasphemed and didn't once open my mouth in His defence. Outwardly I was a success, yet inwardly I was experiencing a spiritual desert.
Sometimes I would think back to the days when I moved in God and felt so close to Him. Nothing, not even seeing drug addicts going straight, could match that feeling. Every now and again I would feel the presence of God, but then it would go, leaving me cold and empty.

In my spiritual bewilderment, I went into business with another man. I invested nearly £4,000 in plant to hire out. For the first couple of years it went well. Then people couldn't pay their bills on time, and as we had to pay large amounts of hire purchase to the firms which had made the machines we ended up in a big financial mess. But in the midst of all this turmoil God started to get hold of me again. I knew that I was like Jonah running away from God's call. I also knew that, like Jonah, I was very bad company for those around me, so I told my partner that I was pulling out. I told him that it was for his sake, but he didn't understand. I signed all the machinery over to him and I accepted responsibility for all the debts, because I felt it was my fault that we had them in the first place. Money, at that time, didn't matter to me. God was again speaking and moving in my life.

Quite simply, He was telling me that He had called me to be an evangelist, not a social worker.