Highlights of my life:

The following are questions and answers I posted on a dating site in 2003 (edited and updated)

What is your personal testimony? How did you come to Christ?

Jesus began wooing me from childhood. My mum is a Christian and I saw her faith, although she taught me more about my Hindu background (from my dad's side) than my Christian heritage. Jesus kept intervening, saving me from death repeatedly (I was a very adventurous child), but I wasn't to recognise his hand until much later.

During high school I had a Newtonian model of the universe (ie reality was what you could measure and if you knew enough about initial conditions you could have predicted the entire history of the universe), however my interest in physics led me to discover the universe is fundamentally weird through particle physics and relativity.

This in turn led to my being open to some of the 'New Age' stuff floating around before the phrase had come into vogue.

At this time I had come to recognise that there was a definite intelligence running the universe that had my well being at heart. I began to notice that my Christian friends (ironically some of the same people whose interest in the occult had sparked my own interest years earlier) were rejected by my other friends to a very strong degree. I could talk about some strange new age stuff and my best friend could talk about Buddhism, but woe betide anyone mentioning Jesus. I decided to spend more time with them and eventually moved in to a share household in Leichhardt. I noticed there was a genuine love for one another that transcended fatigue, arguments and the day to day grind of life (we used to joke that one of my friends was living the lives of three ordinary people he was doing so much). Having seen how people can be hyped into a powerful emotionally supportive state given the right circumstances, this genuine love at times when everything was not going well really impressed me. After a while I decided the Christian friends telling me it was Jesus probably knew more about where it came from than my non- Christian friends who didn't have the same thing who were saying it was their ki energy.

I had begun reading the bible some time before this (initially in a quest to read all the major religious texts of the different religions, something I am ironically now doing to some degree now that I believe Jesus is the way, the truth and the light, and the only name given to people by which we can be saved). One day I was reading it and realised Jesus really was THE LORD (this was quite a while after I believed he had risen from the dead). A few moments later it dawned on me I'd better do something about this and gave my life to Christ. This was somewhere around the 10th of January 1989.

For the first few years Jesus was gently putting me back together after all the damage I had done to myself in the occult and through my previous non-Christian lifestyle. In 1992 I had begun studying a Diploma of Ministry at Tabor College in Miranda, NSW. Since then I have completed it. I'm now studying Mechanical Engineering at Sydney University.

Do you have favourite verses, Bible passages or biblical characters? What impact have they made on you?

John (the apostle). Described as the disciple whom Jesus loved, I would love to have such an appellation. John wrote profound theology of great depth in simple Greek that translates into simple language whenever it is translated, making it easily accessible. I would love to write and teach in such a way. Deborah is another one of my favourite characters, raised up by God as a leader over Israel (preceded by Mirriam in leadership as a female).

Priscilla, who taught and ran a church, is another, and is my personal favourite candidate for the author of the letter to the Hebrews.

What is your personality like? What are your character traits? (ie funny, serious, laid back, orderly, etc)

I'm pretty easy going. One of my friends says I get on with everyone, and considering I still have friends from when I was one and I have well over 300 friends in my address book, it seems a pretty reasonable thing to say.

I like being organised but don't always manage to be, but my CD collection is arranged alphabetically by genre.

What forms of entertainment do you enjoy? What are your favourite movies, actors, music, TV shows, etc?

Good friends, good food, good wine and a maybe sing along to guitar are my idea of heaven.

'70s rock is my favourite music. 'Offerings' by Third Day is my all time favourite album. 'Goodbye Yellow Brick Road' is another one of my favourite albums.

I also love R&B and some Jazz. I can get into any style of music if I'm in the right mood and company (eg I like watching operas on SBS with my mum, but it's not a genre I'm generally into).

I love SF - books, movies, videos, TV shows, short stories and computer games.

What are your interests, hobbies and activities? Are you involved in any clubs or organizations?

Music is my lifeblood. Trumpet was my first instrument, guitar or bass are my main ones, and I can play keyboards, drums, didgeridoo and a couple of other things to a small degree (ok, very small in the case of didgeridoo and violin).

I was a member of Club Mac (even though my main computer is a Windows machine) and ran their help desk for a while. I make a habit of helping my friends with computer related stuff, eg a while ago I helped set up the ADSL broadband internet connection for a friend's business. I did a short course in Pascal programming apart from the computer programming component of my engineering degree.

I also like downhill snow skiing, and I love to travel (something I have done a fair bit of). I love to dance as well (usually fairly energetically).

Describe how life was growing up. Where did you live? How was your family life? What schools/colleges did you attend?

I have a Diploma of Ministry from Tabor College, Miranda, NSW.

I have done a Jazz Outreach advanced guitar course at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music.

Currently I am at Sydney University studying Mechanical Engineering. I have also spent a lot of time at Crescent Head.

Anything else you would like to add? Any last words?

Turn ons - compassion. Turn offs - lack of compassion. I have a lot of respect for people who are able to empathise with the sufferings of others.

I used to think I was pretty uncultured until I went to Paris, spent 3 hours at Euro-Disney, saw everything I wanted to and left; then spent 5 hours in the Louvre, got kicked out when they closed and would love to go back because there's so much more there I would like to see.

Blessings,
Joe :-)


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