Pasteur Daniel

STATEMENT FROM THE PASTOR RENE DELATTRE

I am looking for a man!!!

Everything started on the day I found a present in my plate…

I was 17 and I was preparing for my Bac exams. My brother had had the good idea to get engaged to a French teacher; I understood straight away how interesting this could be for me: she could help me!!!As I was preparing for that vital exam, I found myself in front of a plate containing a present; It was a book entitled “New Testament”.

At the time, I did not know there was a new testament, as I did not know there was an old one!

It must be said that we did not talk about these things at home. We said they were stories. I grew up in an adoptive family, a working class family from Northern France. There were strong values in that family: honesty, righteousness and generosity all had their place in their communist ideal. Love also had its place, but not God.

However, I had questions I wanted answered.

Since age 14, I discussed these things with my friends. Bit by bit, in my thirst to accede to the irrational, the spiritual, the supernatural, I tried out certain meditation techniques, and also certain products…

One day I found a book by the journalist Michel Lancelot entitled “ I want to look at God in the face”. It was a true revelation, as well as a revolution. I discovered the youth movement that advocated love and freedom, everything I was looking for. The book talked about a religion  “Blessed Be God” (“Loue  Soit Dieu” in French)…Its initials came from a substance based on a disease of rye; LSD.

The pilgrimage

I was sure I had acquired a superior level of consciousness, I was at one with the universe. After explaining this to my brother who was a christian, he told me ( after he’d listened to me patiently and without judging me) that I should not do it again. What was striking was that his words  (said with strength and softness at the same time) were in my head all the time…

But now that I was initiated, I had to follow my pilgrimage. We wanted to meet up with a apostle of non violence, a disciple of mahatma Gandhi who had founded a commune in the south of France, near Bedarieux.

So we left from Dunkerk, four youths in search of truth and absolute. I had no idea what was waiting for me.

The train dropped us in Valence. In a bank, I came upon a magazine called “Free youth”. As I was feeling both young and free, I started to read it:it talked about Jesus, the gospel and things like that… I said to myself it was just like the stuff at my brother’s house, and put the magazine down…( years later, having become a pastor in Valence, I learned that the bank manager was a christian).

We continued our journey hitch hiking, but on that year there was a train strike ( April 1976) and we managed to travel for free thanks to that!

We got into a compartment and started to relax by singing and playing music. A young Dutch man then came into our compartment and started to sing with us,  taking out of his bag small musical instruments.

I thought life was beautiful, I felt so free, discovering the world of the hippies.

His name was Yann and he had travelled through France on horseback to finally settle in the Larzac ( which was a chosen area for hippies at that time). We spent a few days at his house..

I noticed that Yann used to isolate himself in the evening to go and meditate on a book. I asked him about it and he said he was a disciple of Confucius. One day, he offered to make us discover a marvellous place called “ the end of the world”. This involved 3 days in the middle of nature, one of my favourite things…

I did not know that Yann had doses of LSD in reserve in order to “ help communion with nature”

God speaks to me

As they started to take the drug, something strange happened; as I was bringing it to my lips, I heard a voice saying to me “do not do the same as them: they already have had their reward”…A voice nobody else could hear, but very strong and clear to me…

Several times I threw away the drug. My friends stayed several hours under its influence while I felt a strange sensation of peace within me. That is when I went to get the new Testament, the gift I always put at the bottom of my back pack without ever reading it.

I started the gospel according to Matthew. The more I read, the more I wanted to read!

We left Yann to join l’Arche, the commune founded by Lanza del Vasto. These people had left everything behind to live together: they  joined meditation with yoga and the Bible as well as other things…

We then wanted to go to Beziers. On the way there, a man got out of his house to offer us a drink: he was a hermit who had chosen that way of life to feel closer to God!

In Beziers, we hitch hiked to Toulouse. The driver who gave us a lift was a instructor for transcendental meditation…I was started to wonder whether I was being followed!

But when I thought about Yann, about the people in the commune, about the hermit, about the meditation instructor, I was wondering that if there was a God, why did He make such strange people of us…

I then  came to a decision: all these “ believers” I had met during my journey, that experience in the mountains, and that gospel I was devouring( or that was devouring me) were taking me back to my brother so I could learn some more…

They were talking about Jesus…

In Toulouse, in a crowded train, there were 2 girls sat opposite me. The train had just started when they asked me if I knew Jesus…

On Sunday the 11^th of April 1976, I found myself sat in an evangelical church for the very first time in my life. There were a lot of people and they all seemed happy. I felt confused as even men in suits and ties seemed happy, which was weird for someone like me who rejected the establishment, and had just come back from such a journey.

I needed to find out something: I had a Bible in my hand. I folded a page over randomly, telling myself that it this was truly God’s words, that page would talk about me, Rene Delattre.

The pastor stood up and invited the audience to open their Bibles at Ezechiel 22: I was the first one to find the passage, as it was the very page I had folded over. I realized God was very near, that I did not have to go far to find Him and that He could hear me.

The passage said “ I am looking for a man”…. and I was bowled over..

I then decided to give my life to Him: my past, my present and my future. At that particular moment, an extraordinary feeling of peace and joy flooded through me and my entire being was transformed.

The day after that, I talked about my experience to the woman I was living with. She absolutely did not believe in God, but could see that something inside me had changed: the very next day, she came with me to a church in Lille, and underwent the same transformation, the one that Jesus calls the new birth.

We spent the next few days reading and rereading the new Testament. We had discovered that marvellous spiritual family that is the Church.

We put a lot of things in order, and each time we got rid of something, we gradually felt a bit more free.

This was  over 30 years ago, and I have never regretted giving my life to Christ.

My entire life was destined for failure: my mother must have abandoned me shortly after I was born and I have never known my biological family, but my Heavenly father knew me even before I was born.

He was looking for a man……Me!

Pastor Rene Delattre.