Staying Alive: The Paratrooper's Story Book

"As I peered under the branch, I saw an enemy soldier lying on his back, with his weapon pointed at me and ready to fire. I took a step back and raised my rifle, but the range was too short and there was no room to aim. I fired..." At 19 John Delaney was a tough, highly-trained, finely-honed Parabat - a member of the elite South African Parachute Battalion. He had fought bush wars in Namibia and Angola. The impulse to fight, to demand respect - to kill - burned strong within him. He was a man without boundaries. The girls, the boozing, the drugs and brawling, back in civilian life failed to mask his emptiness. "I had not died as a soldier. I didn't know how to live...but I didn't want to die." Under the guidance of friends at Rhema Church he discovered Jesus. "I had come home. The fight was over at last," John recalls. "I had thought religion was shut up in churches. Now I was experiencing the power of God." John's qualities as leader and self-starter found fresh expression: running crusades in Angola and Zaire, followed by relief work in the refugee camps created by the Rwandan genocide. Today John divides his time between the UK and South Africa, working with AIDS victims, street children and the poor in both Bristol and Johannesburg.Read More