by Clare Nonhebel First published in the Baptist Times 1 Oct 2009
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Wayne and Louise Wayne Halliburton returned from his church’s ‘Men Behaving Godly’ away-day in a state of shock. Fourteen men, each given a blank white T-shirt, were invited to write on each others’ the words that described them. ‘And on mine, along with words like “confident”, “strong” and so on, was “gentle.” Me – gentle? I was taken aback.’ His wife Louise agrees it’s not the first word that comes to mind, given Wayne’s history. What word would he choose, then? |
‘My cousin told someone recently, “Wayne used to be a thug.” And I would agree with that. I’ve never been the quiet type; I’m outspoken and like the limelight. Even now if I get up early and try to be quiet I find I’ve somehow woken up the whole house! In the past, the only time I was quiet was coming up behind someone in the street to mug them.’
Louise first met Wayne when she was 16 and he was 21. He had been living on the street since being expelled from school.
‘I left home and survived by committing petty crime,’ Wayne says. ‘My first experience of prison was at 16, for grabbing someone’s handbag. It was scary, and hard to lose my freedom, but the gang was like my family. The crimes became more serious: robbery, armed robbery, drug dealing, smuggling cocaine from the West Indies. I could have gone down for a very long time. As it was, I was arrested hundreds of times and in prison seven times, the last time two years ago.
‘I was a long way from God,’ he says soberly. ‘I smashed all the Commandments to pieces. But in prison I saw this picture of Jesus on the cross, with the word “Blessed” written across it, and I liked it - so much that I got a tattoo of it, which cost me three phone cards!’
Wayne’s initial relationship with Louise was ‘a fling’– but they met again later and the relationship became long-term, though stormy and ‘on and off like a light switch,’ Wayne says. Both were prone to rage and rebelled against society: ‘We were like Bonnie and Clyde.’ With hindsight they feel it was God, slow to anger and abounding in love, who was calling them and kept them together despite everything.
While neither justifies the violence, they see connections with their family environments: Wayne with a violent mother and responsibility for five younger siblings; Louise with an abusive stepfather and a mother who idolised him. Unlike his own father who was, in Wayne’s words, ‘as emotional as a traffic cone,’ Wayne could be loving with his children but was often absent: in prison, hiding out in Jamaica or missing from home for days on end. Even when at home, Wayne says, ‘I used to be in bed when Kane went to school and still be there at four o’clock when he came back. And we’d spend all the social security money on drugs and then steal a trolley-load of shopping.
‘Our two oldest boys – now 14 and 13 – saw us fighting all the time; we nearly killed each other once,’ Wayne says. ‘They’re doing well now but obviously it affected them.’
Change was coming but things got worse before they got better. As her children reached the age she had been when first abused, Louise was assailed by memories and emotions. For the first time, she told Wayne her history. ‘It was devastating,’ he says. ‘I was very shocked, reluctant to believe it at first, and Louise closed up.’
‘I had told my mum about my stepfather when I was 11,’ Louise recalls, ‘and she said she loved him and wasn’t leaving him. As a teenager I was drinking, smoking and staying out and my mum didn’t seem to care. When the memories came back, I smoked cannabis constantly for two years. I could only cope if I was in a haze. Anger ate every moment of my life. I thought of getting someone to kill my mother; Wayne knew people. I realised I needed help, and my doctor sent me to a psychotherapist.
‘Every time I’d got pregnant, I’d prayed, “Don’t be a girl!” because I was bringing these children into the world and thought girls didn’t have a hope of getting through unscathed. Then my brother told me he’d been abused as well.’
Feeling that she couldn’t keep even her boys safe, Louise decided to kill them and herself. ‘I saved all the sleeping pills from the doctor and was going to crush them into milkshakes, give them to the children, then we’d go somewhere pretty. But God spoke to me as I made my mind up. He said, “I’m your mother and your father and I love you.”
‘I knew it was God but I didn’t know how to get to him. I tried angel cards, tarot cards, crystals, horoscopes – you name it. Wayne didn’t want anything to do with that.’
‘I read the bible in prison,’ Wayne said, ‘and I’d pray – “Jesus, get me through this.” But when I came out, I’d forget. I’d hated church as a child. My mum used to send us to the Catholic church then to the black Pentecostal church every Sunday and she beat me seriously for not going – and for many other things; some of them I now see were quite trivial.
‘But even when I was committing crimes I always had my Psalms book in my back pocket. I liked the words - especially, “The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear?” That helped me when I was on the street.’
Louise says, ‘I had a friend who was a churchgoer but the character of Jesus wasn’t in her. But she introduced me to a girl with a cannabis addiction like me and we got together with a friend of hers who was becoming a Christian. She told me, “You only need Jesus and the bible, not tarot cards.” I went to church with them and stopped smoking cannabis, without giving it a thought.’
‘Louise came home glowing,’ Wayne recalls. ‘She kept on about Jesus and I kept saying, “Louise, shut up; I’m trying to watch the football!”
‘One day I put a preacher’s tape on in the car while Wayne was driving,’ Louise says, ‘and Wayne repeated the prayer asking Jesus to enter his life, and started crying.’
‘I went to church with Louise and criticised everything,’ Wayne says, ‘but I knew I was looking for excuses. Then later I found myself singing the songs and crying. It amazed me: I thought I was a hard man!”
He was amazed again when, after a Spiritual Growth course, they were both overcome by the Holy Spirit and found themselves praying in tongues. On getting baptised in 2006 they were warned that ‘entering the narrow gate’ was hard but Wayne says, ‘I wasn’t prepared for the bombardment! Satan wanted me back and every weak point was attacked – drugs, women, anger, deception ….’
‘Eight months of hell,’ Louise affirms. ‘I did my struggling before baptism but Wayne did his afterwards! Finally we told people at church and they helped.’
By this time, though, Wayne was in prison again: ‘For assaulting Louise. God had protected me from getting the sentences I deserved before, but now he wanted me there. For six weeks, he showed me himself, and that even in prison he would look after me.’
One struggle both Wayne and Louise wanted to win concerned relationships with their parents. ‘My mum and I have built our relationship back up,’ Louise says. ‘She’s still with my stepfather. My brother and I took him to court but I visited him in prison and asked him about his childhood: an innocent child who was terribly abused himself.
‘We don’t tell him where we live or allow him to see our children but Jesus changed my heart: I hate what he did but I don’t hate him. And both of them believe in God now because they can see how Wayne and I have changed.’
Wayne’s parents went through a bitter divorce two years ago. ‘My mum didn’t come to my wedding because my dad would be there,’ Wayne says. ‘I’ve tried my hardest but I still don’t have a relationship with her. And it’s only now, in his 60s, that my dad can tell me he loves me.’
In 2007 Wayne and Louise, now 40 and 36, married in church, with their five children sharing the celebration. Now, with Louise expecting their sixth child, Wayne is pursuing a degree in African culture and social anthropology, with a view to a career in teaching or NGO work, ‘or, if it’s not too far-fetched, the UN.’
He says, ‘We are blessed. My nickname at university is Mr Fabulous because every time someone asks how I’m doing, I say, “Fabulous!”’ But he adds, ‘It’s all down to Jesus. I tell all my old friends and all the young guys: my God is real!’