A series of near death experiences forced Rod to re-evaluate his life and the path that he was on. Today he chooses to walk in his fathers footsteps.

Transcript
I’m a single dad. I have two beautiful daughters living with me. I also have a third daughter who lives away. I grew up in a good Christian home. But we had a lot of issues. As some families do. My father’s first marriage broke apart and he married another woman. We moved to Darwin and she was actually violently abusive. I moved away from home at the age of fifteen. Got involved with the wrong crowd I guess you could say. Involved with bikies, prostitution and escort services, as I was working security. My life was going downhill pretty quickly. It was broken, very broken. I was married to another woman which was very short and was the wrong reasons for marrying someone. Then not long after that I met my second wife Samantha who I now have two beautiful daughters to. And then approximately eight or nine years ago we moved to Melbourne where things just took a turn for the worse through life experiences. There’s been times in my life where I shouldn’t be here today. When I was about ten years of age in Alice Springs, I nearly drowned in a dry river. Another prominent time I guess would be the plane crash my father and I were in. We shouldn’t have survived. We were missing for some time. Another time would be the bike accident I was in where I came off at 160kms an hour and ended up with not a scratch on me. To the most recent being with cancer. They decided at the beginning of this year to put me into hospital and do some surgery. They cut out the bottom of my esophagus and pulled it into my stomach to see if they could get rid of the tumor and the cancer. Around 11:30 at night, all the monitors in my room started to go beeping really loud and setting off alarms. And they came in and saw me and worked out something wasn’t right. The next thing was that I started to crash. I know now but I didn’t know then that my lungs had collapsed. Essentially I died at that point and they revived me. And then only an hour later it happened again. I needed prayer and support of people when I was going to go through this treatment. Cause I don’t honestly believe I’d be here today if it wasn’t for the help of people from life and also family. But through that, I’m here today. And I’m now going to bible college. I’m walking a totally different path than what I’m used to. I still love my bikes and I guess at the end of the day I wanna bring the message to other people like myself that wanna fill that emptiness in their life. Not with possessions, not with drugs, not with alcohol or just materialistic things. I want them to know that really the only way they can fill that emptiness is through the Lord in their heart. Everyone has the ability to love and learn from each of us. Community’s a wonderful thing. Culture’s a different thing. But at the end of the day, the Lord loves us for who we are. And just learning to accept that love and work with other people and share that love, it’s a great thing. People say that you walk in your father’s footsteps. It is so true. Looking back, you know I would’ve said there’s no way I would’ve walked in my father’s footsteps but today I can so honestly that I am proud to be able to walk in my father’s footsteps. So yeah.