Growing up in New Haven, Connecticut, as a child I was taught piano for years by music majors at Yale University's Sprague Hall; but when mom died of cancer in 1970, my Dad moved to a small apartment with paper thin walls where a piano was not allowed:  so I learned to play his old Martin 6-string.  Attending Boston University's School of Engineering in the fall of 1970, a breakdown from grief over my mother's death prevented me from properly devoting myself to college studies:  I needed far more urgent and relevant answers to life and the emptiness in my heart than school could provide.

Leaving the University, I returned home and, for weeks, spent endless hours at the Public Library in New Haven studying great philosophers, and found plenty of interesting ideas; but none could satisfy the desperate needs of my heart and mind.  In fact, none lasted even through the half-hour ride home.  Each day I was left once again sinking in shifting mental and spiritual quicksand:  it was a helpless, hopelessly depressing time for me.

Then came a miraculous event.  One crisp Connecticut morning in December, I awoke from an overwhelmingly vivid dream, which continues to  burn in my memory to this day over thirty years later (see my album cover).   In the dream, dark purple clouds gather menacingly under a stormy sky.   Suddenly a bolt of lightning pours down from the clouds in the shape of a cross, brilliantly lighting up the night and the faces of a few onlookers, including me.  As I awoke and the cross of lightning gradually faded from my mind's eye, it was as though the dream had been a striking Reality, and my bedroom and this present world seemed unreal by comparison!   I knew then that, somehow, the answer I sought in my life had something to do with Jesus Christ;  but still had no idea how to make it my own.  This was in spite of having been an altar boy, Sunday School teacher, and choir member at my mainstream church for years!  Somehow, I had never 'heard' or fully understood the simple truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and how  Christ had paid the full price at Calvary for all my sins;  nor that His Spirit was waiting and yearning at this moment to enter my life and bring into it all the love and power of God.  I had no idea that He could set me free forever from the confusion, hopelessness and despair in my life!   So near, yet so far. 

But God was faithful:  a day or two after that very powerful dream, I met an old high school friend on the street.   He invited me to his house to listen to some music, mostly records by secular artists like James Taylor and others who mention Christ in their songs.  Through this music he wisely, compassionately, prayerfully introduced me over several days to the possibility of knowing Jesus personally.  

One evening he and a few other friends invited me to a church service during which a former heroin addict gave powerful testimony of Christ delivering him; and after a moving challenge from the pastor I and several others tearfully and thankfully came forward and received Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour.

At that moment it was as though all the love that had gone out of my life, and much more,  came flooding back all at once to fill every part of my being!  And the verses from the Bible that were shared with me only made that divine love clearer and clearer as I read through tears of joy.  Praise God, He alone truly is the Answer and the wonderful End to all our searching and hoping!  And His love is eternal, unfailing, neverending, everlasting. 

And so it began, on February 1^st, 1971. Since then, I've been blessed to serve the Lord in over 30 countries, and I've seen many souls come to Christ, the Lord often using music to provide the first step into many hearts.   I also have been jailed and deported many times for preaching the gospel in countries where it was banned; and have on occasion been beaten and had my life threatened. In one country where the Gospel is banned, the authorities found out about us and a mob chased a number of our missionaries down the street into the embassy. I was assigned the task of destroying over ten thousand Christian pamphlets in the local language that were being stored at a convert's house, but we couldn't burn them fast enough in the small fireplace, so we loaded them in a car, drove downtown and sold them to a paper bag maker, dirt cheap. Apparently many lost souls in that city for months afterwards received a Gospel message in their own language on their bag of peanuts! Thankfully, the Lord arranged for me to slip away undetected. But persecution only makes you stronger (2Timothy 3:12). By far the worst, and most effective, attack by Satan on our life came in the form of false so-called "Christian" teachers and leaders, in our own 'missionary' group. Without naming the group or it's activities, "for it is a shame even to speak of those things which are done of them in secret" (Ephesians 5:12), I will only say that what began as a powerful, righteous, obedient movement for the Lord, with rigorous Bible study and memorization of Scripture, at some point evolved into a misguided, disobedient, sinful travesty, and a mockery of true Christianity. It was only when my wife and I determined that we would set ourselves to OBEY ONLY THE LORD AND HIS WORD from that time on, that He delivered us from that bondage. And so we began a life on our own, as independent missionaries earning our own living on the foreign field while raising our small family, with no Christian fellowship at first. After several years the Lord thankfully led us to meet other missionaries on the field! Soon we were attending meetings and church services, and began studying the works of great Christian writers, like Charles Spurgeon, A.W. Tozer, Andrew Murray, Roy Hession, Jessie Penn-Lewis, Oswald Chambers, A.B. Simpson, D.L. Moody, F.J. Huegel, Charles Finney, John Wesley, John Newton and many others. The result was a new revelation of faith in the reality of Jesus Christ, His Spirit, and of what Christianity really is. Over the years, I've been wonderfully blessed with traveling the world, seeing exotic lands, learning several languages, and meeting fascinating people, including 2 Prime Ministers, many Ambassadors, a King, Queen, Princes and Princesses, and been able to be a witness to all!  I've also gained thousands of brothers and sisters all over the world.