“There were four of us girls and six boys … and we were a lot to feed, so mum let the boys go to live with family members, and then they came for us girls. They took us to a place in Bomaderry.

“They said it was run by four different churches, but it was more or less run by the government. As kids, you can’t discern which is which. Back then, I thought that if this is Christianity, I don’t want anything to do with it. A lot of hard things happened there, to a lot of people.

“But a year later, my mum came and got us. She followed the Protection Board and she found us … and we did a runner over the border to Victoria, which is where my mum comes from. It’s her country. And we stopped at a little place called Club Terrace. It’s in the bush. It has four or five saw mills and one shop. It used to be a gold field, so we used to play in the mine holes.

“Not long after that, some Christians came to our community, showing Christian movies. We were out in the paddock, watching a film on a big screen. It was called Left Behind. I gave my heart to Jesus, on the spot. I didn’t want to be left behind!

“We stayed there in Club Terrace for a couple of years and then we moved back to NSW and we started at a big school. There was a lot of racism and bullying. But God allowed us to be there. He knows what happened. He has a plan in everything … and it might not go our way, but he’s still God. And he’s always with us.

“We also started going to a church there, run by my uncle. For me personally, the things I saw as a young adult, in the name of Christianity, weren’t always good. But it made me think. Jesus said that we can seek him. We can ask, seek and knock … and he will always be found by us (Luke 11:9).

“When I left high school, I couldn’t read or write – only three-letter words. But then, God told me to read the Bible. We had a King James Version and I thought, ‘I can’t read that!’ But I read it. I started in the New Testament and every time I came to a word I didn’t understand, I looked it up in the dictionary and I figured it out. God taught me to read. He gave me confidence … because he is my confidence!

“One day, when I was in my early 30’s, we had a young fella staying with us. He was from China and he couldn’t speak English, so I opened up the King James Bible and I told him about John 3:16 – ‘For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.’ I used my hands to illustrate it. Then the young fella read it in his own language and he started crying. I asked him if he wanted to accept Jesus into his heart and he said, ‘Yes, yes, yes!’

“I’ve come to see that God wants me to share the love of Jesus. Jesus has changed my life and he’s healed me. He’s still healing me! And now he brings other people into my life who need healing. It started after my brother committed suicide. I covered a surfboard in shells and I gave it to the local business that helped us. I called it ‘Broken lives matter.’ And nowadays, I run workshops under that name – usually three a year, for people who need healing. The house is always full. And all the time I want to share about Jesus. I want people to know Jesus. It’s not about me, it’s about Jesus in me.

“If I’m being his light, he’ll draw people to himself. And he does! God just blows me away. And if he wasn’t in my life, I wouldn’t be here! So I’m blessed to be able to share his love!”

May’s story is part of Eternity’s Faith Stories series, compiled by Naomi Reed. Click here for more Faith Stories.