David's Story  
 

First the boring statistics:

Name: David Sherman

Age: 17

Date of birth: 28-06-1986

School: In exam year now of middle school, want to do school of journalism after this.

Work: I stack shelves in a grocery store two nights in the week at the moment as a part time job.

Now comes the interesting part ;-)

Biography:                                                   My metamorphasis over the past 2 years

My life story, well, this isn’t going to be easy, I honestly don’t know where to start. I could start at the beginning but then you’d get a lot of small boring details I’d like to spare you. So the first 16 years of my life I will tell shortly and concentrate more on this last year which has been a very important one in my life.

I was born in Zwolle, a town in Holland about half an hour away from Heidebeek. I grew up, and have lived my entire life at the Herdershof, which is a kilometer from the main Heidebeek base, and is part of Heidebeek, and is used to house staff en students.

At home my parents taught me English, and when I went to elementary school I learned Dutch. I grew up with two families who had kids, and we played and had adventures in the woods surrounding the Herdershof (Stopping cars with toy guns in our hands and demanding something before they could go on ;-))

So I finished the elementary school and went on to middle school. I had quite a few friends from school and from Heidebeek.

Around that time I was into more rock and hard rock like Linkin Park, POD etc. and most of my friends as well. I first did what in Holland is called MAVO, which is the second lowest form of middle school in Holland. After the MAVO I went on to the HAVO, a level higher, and I’m doing exams in that at this very moment.

This past year has been an important year in my life. I lost my childhood dream of becoming a pilot and am now working towards joining the school of journalism in a college in Zwolle. Last year somewhere in April, about a year back now, I had my first girlfriend, and we were together for 11 months when she without any warning broke up with me (Not that long ago) which was very hard on me, and I still have trouble accepting it at times, so that’s a good prayer point at the moment.

Musically my taste has also changed drastically, and along with it my appearance. I slowly grew from hard rock into the lighter forms of metal, and it shifted slowly from almost completely to metal, first more heavy/thrash, now almost exclusively (Christian) black metal. I have a few band shirts, mostly dress in black and am growing my hair long. I often post on non Christian metal forums and am known as the local Christian on the forum and most people respect me there. I often chat with them, lots of time just for fun but also about serious matters and I hope I can have a good influence on them.

I have been involved in the Youth Alpha for more than a year now, and I will explain what the Youth Alpha is. Youth Alpha is a course consisting of 10 Sunday evenings and one weekend in which the very basic principles of the Christian faith are explained, in a way that even someone who knows nothing about Christianity at the end of the course will know all the basics. I first followed the course once early 2003, that’s where I met my ex girlfriend. After that I was asked to help lead the Youth Alpha, near the end of last years I helped lead one, which was very good. The leadership group all have very strong friendship bonds, so we get along great together (some of them were already among my best friends, and all I consider now good friends of mine). We’re doing another Youth Alpha right now at this moment, which is going very good. There aren’t as many people as we were expecting, but we can really get to know those few good this way. Between the first and second Youth Alpha I’ve led we as leaders did the advanced Youth Alpha course (the follow-up) together, which really helped us grow as a group and grow as individuals.

One of my largest interests at the moment is writing, and I hope that one day I’ll be able to do it professionally. I write poems, songs, and am busy on two books at the moment. I really enjoy it.  I’m in a band together with a good friend (I play guitar now, picked it up a few months ago) and I write the texts for it, which I take great pride and pleasure in. Here’s a little poem I wrote, just after my gf broke up with me:

When it’s all over, when it’s all said and done

The memory still echoes eternally

Through the ever ongoing waves of time

Till the very end of this world, and the next

For more songs and stuff you can visit my two websites, with some of my latest and some interesting small facts about me: www.cu2.nl/antestor.   If you want to see some of my older works, which I don’t like as much but are ok, you can visit www.tribulation.tk   A website I made and dedicated to the songs I write, the logo there is designed and made by me.

This summer I’m planning on going on outreach to Kenya, which costs 1365 euros, which I need to raise in one and a half months from now. It’s done through the Go Teams and this one is specifically for Youth Alpha leaders, so a few from our group are going as well, including my best friend.

I need help in raising the money that I need, and will also shortly be sending out a support/prayer letter. I know that with God I will be able to go.

God’s blessing,

David.