Michael Williams’s story

Anonymous’s story

I want to start off with thanking you guys for what you guys do in the Kingdom of God. Thanks you for the Conquer Series. I have been privileged to be one of the 1000+ men of Southland Church in Steinbach to have taken part int the Conquer Series and the Seven Pillars course. Amazing stuff!! Thank you for providing such amazing material to show us God's amazing love to us. At first when I saw the invitation to attend the Conquer Series at church I was stoked. I told my wife I needed to attend and she agreed. At the time I struggled with porn and masturbation, but thought everything was under control and this would teach me something new. But, I had no clue what I was getting myself into ad the journey God was going to take me on. After the first session of the Conquer Series I knew why the Holy Spirit had nudged me to attend. I was in much deeper than I thought. This became very evident early on. I learned very early on what Dr. Ted Robertson said was serious. Every word of his sentence "You will have to put on your big boy pants, because this will be the most difficult thing you have ever done in your life" was meant and was absolutely true. At first the battle started in we through ourselves in wholeheartedly, then the battle got tuff, and we struggled. The road was long and winding. The battle became fierce, but thanks to the Lord who is strong in our weakness. He and only He, the Great I AM came to the rescue. My wife was very patient, loving and very graceful. She took the Betrayed and Beyond coarse at the same time. She never interfered with Holy Spirit in our journey. Every time she struggled with wanting to check me out or something like that, she just retreated to a quiet space and shared her heart with the Lord. I discovered this in one of our conversations, and this only upped the fear of the Lord in me as I knew she had a close relationship with the Lord and she wanted our relationship to be awesome again. And in all f this she never once yelled at me or accused me of anything. That is how the wind was taken out of my sails and so my boat sank. I had to ask the Lord to rescue me, and He did. The journey is winding, but so awesome. I have found true freedom in the Lord. Today I mentor my 17 year old son. I now get to teach him the same principals and truths that I have learned. Our marriage is wonderful again, and that was not because my wife had to change. I had to change, and I invited the Lord to change my heart and he has. I love meeting with the Lord every day. This takes my eyes off the world and my issues and fills my heart with joy and peace. The Lord gives me perspective and lavishes me with His love every time. Just last week as I was reading in 1 Corinthians for my devotions, the Lord showed me something new again and that put some real wind in my sails again. 1 Corinthians 6:14 says ; By His power God Raised the Lord from the dead, and he will raise us also. This verse stuck out to me instantly so I asked the Lord for the meaning in my situation. The Lord told me this, "I have adopted you as my son. So if God raised one of his sons from the dead, how would he not raise ALL of His sons from their dead. He has no favorites. His love will raise you from your grave of sin and put you back on the road of freedom". And during this message I saw how he had been looking for me and he grabbed me by the hand and pulled me out of the dirt and set me on a path before him. I discovered a new meaning of Gods Love to me and All the people in the world. I was so prejudice and so fearful, and just with a few words the Lord restored me! He raised me out of my dirt to another level closer to him with a greater understanding of His great love to us. I was in tears as the Lords love poured over me. God is great, his love endures forever!! I was reading one of your blogs I subscribe to and got into a conversation with Agent K. this agent encouraged me to share my testimony and have it blogged. I don't know how to blog, so feel free to share this testimony as an encouragement to others if it suits. It will most likely need editing before it gets shared, and feel free to do so. Once again, I would like to thank you for your ongoing efforts and the amazing work you guys do to help us get closer to God, our creator.

Darin Keeter’s story

Short story is that I spent two tears in a military brig after being found guilty at a courts martial of attempted sexual assault. I continue to fight the charges and hope appeals go in my favor but let me state unequivocally that the behaviors I was engaged in were wrong regardless of legality. It was not what I should have been doing as a Christian man, father, grand-father or Naval Officer. The last 2+ years has given me an opportunity to explore how I got to where I ended up, how to keep from getting back there and hopefully how to help others avoid the same mistakes. During the is time I have been able to explore how I ended up here, discovered I was not alone in my struggles or my shame and am in a much better place now than I was before this all happened. I have a deeper and richer understanding of God, of my own sexuality and how science confirms over and over the truth of the Bible. Books like the Body Keeps the Score, Everyman’s Battle, The War Within and Wire for Intimacy have helped me understand how my past impacted my actions, how my lack of understanding and teaching about sexuality allowed me to abuse myself and how the lies of our culture (specifically in the military) are destroying lives and relationships. I went through the Conquer Series as well, though on my own and found it to be a breath of fresh air and welcome perspective that doesn’t shun science (I’m a Meteorologist and Oceanographer) nor neglects God. I was unfortunately unable to get it to others around me as you will read in the attached letter. I am going to mail off my DVD’s and workbooks to Pastor Nick in Okinawa where I know he can use them and will be joining Bob Reehm’s Military Officer fellowship which is going through Every Man a Warrior series, in Monterey CA where I now live. It is my desire to help bring the message of responsible use of our sexuality to other service members. To teach them the dangers of abusing this most wonderful gift from God and keep them from reprogramming themselves the way I did. Please pass on my thanks to Dr. Roberts and the rest of the staff that were responsible for the Conquer series. I know that there is not a group in my area but I’d like to change that and I would like to share my story with others. I have done so in groups in the Military Brig in San Diego (even though we were not allowed to have CS), have spoken about it at Toast Masters and talk about it in my very secular required Sex Offender meetings but I want to become more informed and better equipped to help others. Please feel free to pass on my info, this email and the attached letter. I have noting to hide, hiding things was killing me and I don’t plan on letting it have a second shot. I hope to hear back and look forward to finding a way to bring this message to my fellow service members.

Ryan Adrian Odendaal’s story

I really feel like I want to share my testimony with you, I’ll keep it short. I am writing from Port Elizabeth (now Gqeberha), South Africa, I am part of a church called Harvest Christian Church. Two years ago one of my buddies decided to host a Conquer group, it was around August 2020, 5/6 months into our Pandemic lockdown and I think his heart was, ‘how can guys be okay, with all the isolation at the moment,’ because this will naturally cause a man to get up to nonsense. He was so right, but my pornography and lust addiction was on and off since the end of 2009 :-( so I think the pandemic lockdown just made it ‘easier’ to isolate, be secluded and get up to no good. Our group got off to a weird start, there was a city-wide power outage and so we actually postponed the launch night until one of the guys offered up his place, that had power, but it was about 30min to go to get there and we all, 10 of us guys, lived on different sides of the city, but you know what, I think all but 2 of the guys made it that night and we launched and we hit the ground running, for 10-weeks straight. At times it was at a major personal cost, but the benefit that I have received from this has been life changing. I remember that time and time again, Dr Roberts when speaking about re-programming the brain (neural pathways), that I would get very despondent thinking I don’t have up to two years to wait for this process to happen, I wanted a quick fix, but I guess God knew all along what his plan would be. We completed the 10 weeks towards the end of 2020 and I was free, pornography and masturbation dealt with, not in a prideful way, and I was set. I did suffer a setback in about July 2021, but very quickly asked myself the question, ‘is it worth it to go down this path again,’ and so got on with pursuing purity yet again. I started dating a wonderful woman in September 2021, been engaged since April 2022 and getting married now on the 8th October 2022, very soon from now, and all I can say is, it’s almost been 2 years, hallelujah!! How crazy how that actually worked out. Conquer doesn’t work like it’s some sort of plaster that you apply to a wound, it works because as a man I learnt to take up my sword and fight. I really want to thank you guys personally and on my fiancé’s behalf that I get to go into my marriage having openly told my fiancé about my past struggles and that it is in my past. Sincere thanks, Ryan