Darren Munzone, Australian rugby player and pastor

Darren Munzone reacted to his wife’s newfound faith in Jesus and belief in the rapture by sneering: “Oh, you’re still here? The UFOs haven’t gotten you yet?”

He could tolerate the fact that she had gambled away their savings of $10,000. But he couldn’t stand the fact that afterwards she became a born-again Christian. “To me it was like she had become a nun or something. I was just not happy.”

He lashed out at her: “If I would have wanted to marry a Christian, I would have gone to church, But I met you in a pub. This is a rip off.”

Born to an Italian immigrant father, Darren always identified as an Aussie because of discrimination against immigrants, he says on a Virginia Beach Potter’s House podcast. He had basically no background in Christianity.

Admittedly, he was the bully of the classroom and got into scrapes frequently. When his mother divorced and remarried, he took out his frustrations by fighting with the neighborhood boys. His penchant for violence went right along with his dream to be a rugby player.

“I got into lots of trouble because of fights as a teenager,” he says. “I rebelled against my mom and my stepdad.” He didn’t talk much to his stepdad except two to three times a year.

For rugby league, he practiced very hard but wasn’t big enough and wasn’t gifted in the sport. Ultimately, a series of injuries sidelined him when was semi-professional, so instead, he turned to coaching, where he excelled.

“I’ve broken all my fingers,” he recounts. “I literally had my ear ripped off the side of my head and had to have it sewn back on. My AC joint in my shoulder – serious shoulder problems. I’ve had two knee reconstructions.

“I was far more successful as a semi-professional coach.”

The woman who became his wife was a nurse, and together they made enough money to qualify for a home loan. But when the broker informed them the term would be 30 years, Darren and Joanne looked at each other and walked out.

Instead of tying themselves down for 30 years, they decided to travel to England and Europe for two years for a work-cation. “I was running away from the broken dreams of becoming a professional sportsman,” Darren says. He played cricket in England.

After one year of living in England, Joanne had a miscarriage, and the subsequent sadness deprived her of all desire to keep vacationing. “She was devastated by that,” Darren says.

They returned to Australia, where Joanne’s depression deepened and widened even though they finally married.

“She blamed herself that we’d come back from our overseas trip a year earlier than expected,” Darren says. “She thought I was angry that we’d cut our holiday. To escape the depression, she started gambling.”

She played poker machines at the local bars. “This went on for some time until she had gambled all our money away,” Darren says.

The depleted savings was not just bad – she sought Jesus because of it after a co-worker invited her to church.

She broke the news about her secret gambling addiction and subsequent losses to Darren, who despite being hooked on money didn’t get too upset. “I was annoyed but I thought we’ll recover from that.” Read the rest: Darren Munzone rugby coach Australia now pastor

Ricardo Simms MTF then FTM transitioning

Ricardo Simms thought the answer to his same-sex attraction and female feelings was to go to gay parties, but the first time there he got raped.

“The heterosexual world wouldn’t accept me. I’m trying to blend in, but it’s just not working out,” says the man from Kingston, Jamaica, on his YouTube channel. “So, here’s a community that has everything for themselves. They have their own parties. They have their own days. They have everything. So, I said, maybe this is how life is supposed to be. But that’s how the devil works. The first day I go around a group of men, I was abused.”

It wasn’t the only time that he found that the world’s solutions just enlarged his problems. Ricardo transitioned to female but today is back to male and is declaring the love of Jesus around the world.

For Ricardo Simms, gender confusion started at an early age. In kindergarten, he didn’t like playing football and getting dirty with the boys. He liked playing with dolls. The teacher slapped his hand for playing with the wrong group. That’s when Ricardo realized something was wrong with him.

At a birthday party where a little boy and a little girl cut the cake, family members replaced him with another boy, causing him to question his identity for the first time.

Then an adult male friend of his mom’s approached him after school and rubbed himself against him in an inappropriate way. “A man who is supposed to be attracted to women was attracted to me,” Ricardo says on an Arianna Armour video.

He didn’t like his gender confusion and prayed to God to take it away.

In high school, Ricardo was terrified of bullies. He had a high-pitched feminine voice and feminine mannerisms that, try as he might, he couldn’t hide. “I didn’t know where this came from,” he says. He even wouldn’t ask the teacher questions in class to not trigger snickers about his voice.

Ricardo couldn’t talk sincerely with his parents about his struggles.

Then he met a gay youth who had “come out” and instead of hiding his same-sex attraction, flaunted it and proclaimed himself “proud.” The guy was vivacious and admired and introduced Ricardo to the LGBT subculture.

“I realized that there’s other people like me,” he says. “So, I went into this new world now of the LGBT lifestyle” of parties, clubs and get-togethers where he thought he would be accepted, appreciated and valued. Instead, he faced unwanted sexual advances.

“That terrified me. I’ve never dealt with that trauma,” he says. “I was abused and I couldn’t tell anyone about it,” he says. “I had to hold on to these secrets. I had to live with these people who had done me these cruel things because it was the only place I could be. I couldn’t go back to the straight world.”

Over and over, people in the gay community told him: “You look so pretty, you look like a girl.”

Soon he responded to the messaging. He started dressing as a female and acting out as a transgender.

But in Jamaica being trans was dangerous. “My close friend was murdered in my country because of who he was,” Ricardo says. “That terrified me. How he died was so heart-breaking to me.”

So, Ricardo moved to… Read the rest: MTF and FTM back again transition Ricardo Simms

Gay Marine’s journey to Jesus

Frank Wong insists: “I was not born gay.”

But he grew up with mostly female friends and got bullied by the guys his age, so he grew to hate his masculinity.

“I just took out my insecurities with lust towards men,” Frnak says on a Tucson Door Church video. “I medicated myself and pacified myself and drowned myself in homosexuality because I hated myself as a man. I didn’t feel like a man.”

But in 2015, somebody talked to him about God and gave him a little booklet to read.

“I read it because I wanted to see if God hated me,” Frnak says. “But I found out He didn’t. It said, all sins are bad; they’re all worthy of death, including homosexuality. But that same sin was covered by grace.”

So he gave his life to Christ.

At that a time, a pastor prompted him indirectly with a question: Did God ever say you were gay?

“It was a million-dollar question,” he says. “It took 21 years… Read the rest: Gay Marine in Jesus now

Ed Mylett, $400M entrepreneur, Christian

Ed Mylett lost the game for his eighth-grade basketball team. But first he lost his shorts.

He lost his shorts when the whole team pulled down their sweats for warmups. He ran through the layup line and only after missing the hoop realized he was also missing his shorts. In fact, all he had on was a jock strap (he was going to a baseball camp in the evening).

The entire auditorium erupted. His coach and team formed a circle around him and escorted Ed out to find some shorts. The shy kid who only played basketball because his dad forced him was so shaken that when he was fouled in the last seconds of the championship game, he missed two free throws that would’ve given his team the victory.

It was the worst day of his life, but surprisingly, it became the best day of his life.

In the evening at baseball camp, Eddie was slugging balls into middle field when none other than Rod Carew spotted Ed and offered to mentor him. The encounter with Carew instilled confidence that allowed Ed to eventually play college baseball.

While a freak accident kept him from MLB, Ed, became successful as a life strategist consulted by athletes and celebrities. He’s also a social media influencer.

Ed’s journey to Christ and outsized success began in Diamond Bar, CA, where he grew up in a small home with an alcoholic father, who he worried might turn violent at any time. Ed’s childhood mishaps are now the subject matter of his motivation speeches.

In addition to the missing shorts story, Ed tells of “Ray Ray,” the “punk” neighbor kid who got the whole school to taunt him with “Eddie, spaghetti, your meatballs are ready.”

Ray Ray was a bully and his next-door neighbor, he recounted at a World Financial Group convention.

One day after getting licked like always by Ray Ray, seven-year-old Eddie went home to cry to Mom, who hugged him and consoled him.

But when gruff Dad heard the crying and clomped out, he ordered Eddie to go over and beat up Ray Ray immediately. Failure to do so would result in going to bed without dinner.

Scared, Eddie knocked on the door of the tattooed, shirtless dad of Ray Ray.

“Big Ray, my daddy says I have to come over here and kick Ray Ray’s butt or I can’t come home for dinner,” he said, terrified. Maybe he hoped Big Ray would exercise parental wisdom and pan the fight, but that’s not the kind of dad Big Ray was.

“I like that kind of party,” Ray Ray’s dad said. “Let’s get it.”

He immediately called his son: “Ray Ray, little Eddie here wants another piece.”

So with Eddie quaking, the boys squared up. He had never beaten Ray Ray.

Ray Ray lunged at him.

“By some force of sheer blessing of God, I got this little dude in a headlock and I’m, giving him noogies,” Ed remembers. “I didn’t really know how to hit him, but I was noogying the hell out of this kid’s head.”

Finally Big Ray pulled them apart. “He got you,” he told his son and ordered both to shake.

Eddie went home to eat. What else? Spaghetti.

It was a story of facing your fears and overcoming difficult challenges.

But there’s one more detail to the story. Eddie was 7 while Ray Ray was 4.

His mom, he related, had heard him tell the anecdote once omitting the age difference and insisted he should be more forthcoming.

“Why is that even relevant?” Read the Rest: Ed Mylett Christian

Chuck Norris began running from bullies

With a huge, swarthy bully chasing him, the tow-headed third grader ran home after school as fast as he could.

This was little Carlos Ray’s misery everyday in Miami, Arizona – until a gas station attendant stopped him and taught him to stand up to the bigger boy.

Little Carlitos trembled with fear as he faced his bully. The two grappling in the dirt for minutes that seemed like an eternity, and Carlos was receiving a walloping. Suddently, he grabbed his adversary’s finger bent it backwards. The bully cried out in pain and surrendered, according to the autobiography, Against All Odds: My Story.

When he was known as Carlos Ray

That’s how America’s toughest tough guy got his start. The shy and intimidated little kid later learned martial arts in Korea, while he was in the Air Force. It was in Korea that Carlos Ray Norris adopted his nickname “Chuck.”

The martial arts instructor and actor, now 78, was born into a dysfunctional family with an alcoholic father. He was part Cherokee, but that didn’t help him when his mother moved to Arizona and enrolled him in a school of mostly Native Americans, where the blue-eyed blond kid seemed easy prey for schoolyard tormentors. He was introverted, non-athletic and not very academic.

After high school, he enlisted in the Air Force as an Air Policeman in 1958 and excelled at martial arts, earning more than one black belt. He eventually founded his own school with his own brand of martial arts called Chun Kuk Do.

He was discharged from the military in 1962, taught in karate schools, and excelled in competitions. He won the Professional World Full-Contact Middleweight Karate Champion title in 1968, which he retained until he retired in 1974.

His karate teaching brought him to the likes of Priscilla Presley, the Osmonds and the Hollywood tough guy Steve McQueen. McQueen encouraged Norris to try his hand at acting. He had already performed bit parts in The Wrecking Crew in 1969.

He met Bruce Lee and played the part of Lee’s nemesis in Way of the Dragon in 1972 and Return of the Dragon the following year. His acting career took off, with his biggest role being the thriller, Good Guys Wear Black. The film made $18 million in 1978. Read how Chuck Norris became Christian.

25 years later, I’m still teaching at Lighthouse

I oppose being promoted, even though kids I taught are now colleagues.

Actually, I was principal and owner of a school in Guatemala. But I kept getting out of office work and into the classroom. That’s where the real action is. That’s where people are. That’s where souls are won to Christ. You can have the administration, if you want.

Kids still need love. Where in other schools there’s bullying, we offer a safe place of vibrant acceptance. Where in other schools there’s ONLY college prep, we offer also Heaven prep. Where in other schools there’s ONLY keys to college entrance exams, we offer keys to interpersonal skills and successful marriages and families. We are a family. Where in other schools, a teacher works for his salary, we work for little or no salary. We have a much higher motivation.

It is my lifelong joy to see kids turn from sin to God, choose the path of success, flout the headlong rush of the world towards false happiness and select the enduring joy and peace of wisdom in Jesus.

And when these kids see you 25 years later, they thank you because you helped them at a critical juncture in life, the life-deciding moments of the teenage years. This, I feel, is more gratifying than a fat paycheck.

I’m going to go even further — at risk of dipping into narcissism. When you see kids 20 years later, you see a little bit of you in them. Because you helped their formation. And hopefully that little bit of you is a good thing.

And then you know that you didn’t make a lot of money. You didn’t buy a house. You weren’t the most beautiful or famous or adored.

You made a difference in this world. And so you can continue making a difference until you get your reward in Heaven.

And that is the reason why, after 25 years, I’m still teaching in a small Christian school in Santa Monica that is making a difference one life at a time.

Picture: left 1992, grades 7-11; right Sept. 14, 2016, just the sophomore class, my world lit students.

I’m finally going home

The founder of the Door Bilingual School (that’s me) with a student of the new generation.

After more than a month in Guatemala, I’m going home Tuesday. There was a lot of paperwork to do. I have enjoyed getting to know a new generation of kids at the Door Bilingual School that my wife and I started 20 years ago. To be sure, there are plenty of things to fix, but to see all the kids enjoying an environment free of bullying, free of drugs, just thrilled me.

Because I couldn’t go back on the ticket date, there has been a $266 surcharge on my return flight. Obviously, I’m not getting any love offering here. To the contrary, I’m giving everything I can to them because of the acute poverty they live in. So if you would like to help me meet this payment, you can click here gofund.me/MikeToGuatemala Thank you!

Ostracism and bullying

The whole town turned against Hester Prynne. She got caught — by the out-of-wedlock pregnancy.

The Puritans forced her to wear a scarlet A on her dress always as a continual stigma of shame. She was violently flung from human friendship and affection. The hardened ladies looked at her with eyes of condemnation. Preachers wanting to exhort congregations or crowds about the dangers of sins pointed out Hester. Newcomers to the town gazed curiously at the letter, wondering what it meant. Kids, unaware of the concept of sin, treated her as an outcast following behind at a distance and making fun of her.

No one should be subjected to ostracism and bullying — no matter what the cause.

Such mistreatment can make a person turn into a sociopath.

Holding up under psychological pressure for years and years, Hester doesn’t become a monster. The hero of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter becomes a saint, giving to the poor and helping the sick. But she is the exception.

Maybe, just maybe, one of the reasons we see so many massacres, so much mental illness, is because of the way we reject people. And the absolute last place where rejection should be pervasive is Christ’s church.