“I LEARNED pain early on,” Gary recalls. “At school, they tried to kill me.”

Yet Gary’s life is no sob story. At 26 years old, he’s studying at University and he’s filled with vision for God. But learning to stand again after being knocked down so many times has been a fundamental lesson.

“They jumped out on me and pushed me into the road in front of a moving car! I span round, clipped the wing mirror and ended up on the kerb. They ran off; I just continued walking to school.

“Another time they tried to push me off a bridge. They picked on my twin brother, too, because he had Cerebral Palsy and I had to defend him. I found it hard to bond with people – it didn’t help having Asperger’s Syndrome, but I suppose, when you’re damaged, people pick on that.”

Asperger’s Syndrome is a form of autism which means it is difficult to work out precisely what other people are communicating. For Gary it could have meant a life of trying, and often failing, to be accepted by others.

Family life wasn’t any easier. Gary’s parents divorced early and, when his mum remarried, his new stepfather couldn’t handle Gary and his brother’s disabilities. “I got quite a few beatings from his hand and, when I was 14, I ran away,” he recalls.

At this time Gary also rebelled against his parents’ faith. A normal teenage activity perhaps – but his family religion was pagan. His mum was a clairvoyant and, though his father had reservations, his grandfather was heavily involved in the occult.

“I saw things that would make your hair curl,” he says. “As a child I was involved in initiation rites and practiced witchcraft, communing with spirits, predicting the future, healing people, walking invisibly.

“But I was looking for something that my old faith didn’t have, something more than all the old hurts I’d known. I started to rebel against everything and decided to become a Christian.”

Having ended up living with his Dad’s family, Gary joined a Christian group. “I liked it at first but then, when I read the Bible, what I saw didn’t tally up,” he recalls. “There were cliques within the group and power struggles. It seemed so unchristian. And there was no power behind it – not like I’d experienced before.”

Gary did begin to gain a circle of friends, but rather than Christians they were the kind related to drink and drugs: “You couldn’t really call them friends – they took advantage of me, but they were the only friends I’d known. We’d get together to do dope or speed or pills. I got into dealing a bit.”

But a “friend’s” suicide stopped Gary in his tracks. Three grams of cocaine led his colleague to walk out onto a dual carriageway. Gary found it hard to deal with and began to hate Christianity.

Leaving home Gary went to Northampton to find himself some work. He got a room to himself but the isolation meant he was developing a phobia of people. He didn’t go out and spent a lot of time alone surfing the internet.

“I felt a lot of hate. I was bitter and twisted and took a perverse pleasure in going into Christian chat rooms and ripping Christians to shreds. It’s one of my biggest regrets. I probably turned one or two people away from God.”

One day Gary received a chat room message which said, “You look like someone who needs a friend.” But Gary saw it as another opportunity to hurt a believer. “Every piece of information I got about this man I used against him – I insulted everything about him. But for all I tried, it didn’t matter, he just kept at it. Eventually he asked, ‘Are you prepared to be my friend now?’ I didn't know what else to say, so I said, ‘okay’. He started showing me how my pagan faith was wrong – the real truths behind the deceptions I’d learnt. And he showed me what real Christianity was about.

“It’s amazing how you can read the Bible or go to churches and yet completely miss the point of what Christianity is all about. This man, Bob, phoned me up for about an hour and a half, and we talked about love, and I decided I wanted to give my life to Christ.”

As they began to pray, Gary had to stop. “I got this buzzing in my head, like a swarm of bees. I couldn’t concentrate. I didn’t know what was happening.” Gary describes how his friend suddenly became authoritative and rebuked the demon affecting Gary down the phone. It was Gary’s first experience of the power of God. “It started to leave me, and as soon as it did, the buzzing went from my head, and I was able to finish praying.”

Bob told Gary that he needed to find a church. But, tragically, it just felt like Gary’s previous attempt at Christianity. “I went to one church and sat at the back, but no one talked to me, no one shook my hand. I just left. I went back a few weeks later all dressed up and everyone wanted to know me. I felt sick.”

Gary had almost given up on his search for real Christianity when he saw a Christian drama group performing on the streets. A man asked him if he knew Jesus and Gary had to admit that he really didn’t but that he wanted to. And so the man invited him back to his home – a houseful of Christians living together.

This was an entirely different experience to Gary’s other attempts at church; life was centred on loving relationships and Gary found a spiritual family. It gave him the perfect opportunity to get to know Jesus for himself.

The Christian community offered a crucial lesson in acceptance for Gary. What he discovered was that no one is perfect and that we all make mistakes. “We’re all human, it’s in our nature to fail, but as long as we’re trying... Sometimes the old fears and hurts get in the way. But Jesus is always there, irrespective of how I’m feeling, I know that He loves me and I know I love Him.”

Gary became part of a team who, twice a week, would sacrificially travel from the house in Northampton to Bristol to help form a church with Christians there. It costs him a lot: as a person with Asperger’s it’s not easy to get used to change.

“We’ve been through hard times together, we’ve gained people, we’ve lost people, but we’re a family, and that’s very much what I want it to be,” he says. “I’ve spent most of my life being on the outside and now I’m a part of things. I want it to be a place where everyone’s welcome. Everyone who has a desire to reach God should have a place.”

Gary still finds that he has to maintain a good heart and quickly forgive when he is rebuffed by other Christians. But he’s determined not to give up: “I might have Asperger’s, but it’s okay to be me. I want to be someone who understands, who cares. University isn’t important. I want my life's work to be to reach people, to befriend them, to help them be the people they can be.”