Reverend Darryl Foster says God delivered him from a life of homosexuality.

by MELISSA WICKHAM

"I WAS EXCLUSIVELY HOMOSEXUAL; I had never been with a woman."

That's part of the riveting testimony of the Reverend Darryl Foster, a board member of Exodus Global Alliance – a Christian organisation made up largely of former-homosexuals who promote the message that "change is possible through the power of Jesus Christ".

The Texas, United States, native was one of the featured speakers at the just concluded three-day conference: Sex, Sexuality and Homosexuality: Engaging The Truth hosted by Project PROBE Ministries, at the Sherbourne Conference Centre.

Foster, 45, is now a heterosexual who confesses that the first and only woman he has ever been with sexually is his wife of 13 years.

They have five children together but prior to that he was a practising homosexual for 11 years and declares he has been "free" of that lifestyle for the past 16 years.

"I was extreme in terms of my feelings for men. I got to the point where I literally hated women; I had no uses for them.

"But I'm a miracle of God that He can take something so messed up and turn it around. That's the power of God!" he told the SUNDAY SUN.

He grew up in the small town of Marlin, Texas, in a deeply religious household of "hard-core Pentecostals".

There was no father figure around and, as a boy, he was molested by a male in his church. The molestation started when he was 13 years old and continued until he was 17.

But from the time Foster was 11 years of age, he was attracted to other boys. He didn't have a name for the strange feelings he was experiencing, but he knew he was different from other boys.

He kept these feelings to himself, fearing he would be ostracised. So, like a good Christian, he went on attending church, "shouting, dancing and speaking in tongues".

However, his feelings toward members of the same sex grew stronger. At that time, and sadly still, homosexuality wasn't widely discussed in the church.

"The one thing I find is that they [Pentecostals] and I can only talk about Pentecostals, don't address it. Nobody told me, this is how you deal with these feelings. All I was told was if you feel that way or if you are that way you are going to hell.

"I knew I didn't want to go to hell but I didn't know how to stop or get rid of what was going on inside of me. I was having thoughts that didn't go away after I prayed," explained the reverend.

It wasn't until college that Foster fully explored his feelings.

College life was filled with others who were actively involved in homosexuality. And soon enough, he too embraced that lifestyle.

It wasn't until many years later, when he had pursued all the sexual partners he wanted to pursue, that he felt an overwhelming dissatisfaction with his life.

It reached the point where he actually started to plan his suicide during the Easter of 1990. He felt alienated from the church, God and his family and didn't think his life was worth living.

"It was during that time of utter despair that the Lord came to me via a movie about the passion of Jesus Christ. I saw this scene with Him struggling with the cross, being battered by men, suffering and humiliated.

"In my own suffering, I became engrossed in His suffering. It was at that time I heard Christ say: 'I did this for you'. Something broke inside of me; something supernatural happened that made me say: 'God how could you love me when you know all I've done?'

"And He said to me, 'But I do love you". It was at that time I asked God to forgive me for all the years that I was rebellious against Him.

"That day, He forgave me, He saved me, He filled me with His spirit and I became a new creature in Christ – all at once. I walked away that day, and I've been walking further and further away every day since then," said an excited Foster.

The transformation from homosexual to heterosexual didn't happen overnight, however. It took time to resolve all the anger and emotions and the relationship issues he was carrying on the inside.

God, he explained, began to change him until he got a picture of who he was "not just as Darryl Foster but of who I was as God's son".

"When my spiritual identity started to come in place then I could see my path as a man much more clearly – not a broken man, not a man who was sexually attracted to other men, but a man who had a destiny with God and I began to follow that destiny," he said adding:

"A lot of things you do in the gay lifestyle are habitual. I had to literally 'unlearn' it. God re-oriented me. You have sexual orientation, sexual disorientation, and sexual re-orientation where God says this is the way you should go. That's the path I follow."

The reverend, who wrote a book on his life-changing experience entitled: Touching A Dead Man, doesn't subscribe to the belief that homosexuals are genetically programmed that way.

He believes it is a choice one makes and just as drug addicts and alcoholics can overcome their addictions, so can homosexuals, with the help of God.

In 1996 he co-founded with his wife an outreach ministry called 'WITNESS' particularly geared towards helping men and women of colour who find themselves in "unwanted" homosexuality.

It is not for the homosexual who wants to remain a homosexual, but it is for those who have decided: "God, I need help. I don't want to be this way".

He says he has seen the lives of hundreds of people – most of whom have grown up in the church" transformed through this ministry.

And whereas the church had an excuse in the past for not dealing with the issue of homosexuality, Foster said it didn't have one anymore.

"There is a lot more openness now. I don't blame the church for my choices. But now God has given them more revelation, I don't think the church has an excuse to say: 'We don't know'.

"We (Exodus Global Alliance) are here to say to people: 'Here is what God wants you to know about all of these people who are in your churches serving, sometimes in high positions, but who are torn up. What we are doing here is planting a seed and, hopefully, there will be someone to water it," he said.