I am a 62 year old South African living in Kwa Zulu, Natal. Ever since I can remember I had a fascination for snakes, I started catching snakes at the age of eight and have become extremely knowledgeable about them and the environment as a whole. My young life was full of all sorts of activities such as sport fishing, hunting and of course snakes. With such a full life I never had time for God.. and although many people tried to get me to go to church I always had something else “more important” to do! Then one day (about 24 years ago) I went to remove a green mamba from a local residence. After the removal and a lesson for the old man and woman, the old lady turned and said to me “you don’t believe in God do you young man”? Before I could respond she continued, “God says that you have cheated death more than five times! You must go and fix your things with Him because you will not get another chance”!

At that time I had already planned a road trip with my twelve year old son to Namaqualand, some two thousand km from our home, and we were due to leave in three days to spend ten days in finding snakes and recording all the data we could gather. After ten days we started the long journey back home, this was now fourteen days since the “old lady incident”. No sooner had we left (in the dark after sunset) I spotted a snake crossing the road so I made a quick turn and jumped out to capture the snake. Another vehicle approached at high speed and collided with me and my vehicle. I was critically injured and by the time I got to the nearest hospital the prognosis was, I wouldn’t survive the night. My right lower leg was smashed and shattered. My right leg femur was badly broken, and the upper half of my femur smashed through my hip joint up into my abdominal cavity, and broke through my side breaking two ribs on the way out. My pelvis was also broken as was my lower back. After about an hour an ambulance arrived and took me to the Springbok hospital which was a small, ill equipped clinic that couldn’t deal with this sort of trauma. Cape Town was experiencing bad weather and they couldn’t send out a mercy flight! In the early morning hours the weather cleared sufficiently to get a flight through and I was flown to the Tygerberg hospital for emergency surgery. When I came out of surgery I was told that I would never walk again! In that first day after surgery through the mist of semi consciousness, The Lord stood at my bedside and asked if I could now lay still enough or long enough to listen? I responded “yes Lord”! He told me that He was sending someone to speak to me, and that I was to give my life to Him. Meanwhile, family friends knew a pastor in Cape Town and asked him to come and pray for me. Early the next day a man dressed in a tee shirt and shorts walked into the ward and looked around, his gaze settled on me and he walked over. As he walked over to me I told him that I knew who he was.. he didn’t seem surprised and simply said that God had sent him.. Just then my friend ‘s Pastor also walked in and the two prayed for me and led me to the Lord. I lost my leg but gained my soul! Now, I am a servant of the most High God, and still live a life of adventure! There is plenty of evidence of on the Ndlondlo Reptile Park on YouTube!