One day in 2000, Dave collapsed with acute stomach pains. After six weeks in hospital doctors still couldn't give him a proper diagnosis. But next year the unexpected test result arrived: Dave was HIV positive.

Dominated by a bad relationship with his dad, Dave Condon grew up lonely and self-rejecting. He was 13 when a gay relationship with a school-friend began, during a stop-over at his house. That night, in Leamington in 1960, was the start of an emotional roller-coaster for Dave that went on for forty years.

"I longed for friendship and for someone to be committed to me" says Dave "but after a while I stopped looking for a long-term relationship. They always broke up. Most of my relationships were either one night stands or I had to pay for them."

Meanwhile Dave's relationship with his dad went from bad to worse.

"My dad pulled me down a lot and told me often that I was no good. In 1963 I joined the Salvation Army. Dad said "you won't last long in there" - but I stayed with them for 22 years. I enjoyed church and found a real belief in God.

"At the same time I still felt so emotionally empty that I was going out meeting complete strangers for sex in public toilets. When I was arrested for 'cottaging' in Blackpool in 1977, I had a long talk to my Salvation Army officer. He told me "Don't give up, Dave, one day you're going to be free from all the loneliness - you're going to find God in a real way."

It took twenty-seven years before that prophecy came true - but when it did the effect on Dave was miraculous in more ways than one.

"After I got arrested a second time I did try to stop cottaging, but I couldn't. In 1984, I was picked up again by the police.

"I began to read my Bible and realised that what I was doing wasn't like Jesus. Soon after, I met Christians from the Jesus Army and began to spend time with them, learning at last to open up just a bit, starting to feel at home with people."

But Dave found keeping up his faith hard and began to see less and less of his friends in the Jesus Army. In 2000 he was diagnosed with HIV.

By 2001, Dave was so ill he struggled to walk - even with a stick.

"At that time I'd lost touch with my friends in the Jesus Army for over four years. I wanted so much to contact them again, but I wasn't quite sure how they'd respond when I told them my news.

"They accepted me back unconditionally as if I had never been away. I was amazed - I knew other people with HIV whose friends and families hadn't wanted to know after the diagnosis.

"Friends in church began to pray for me regularly and almost at once I felt a whole load was lifted from me, and with it lots of self-rejection. I'd been too big-headed to open up to God the Father."

But from that time on Dave felt free: "I began to feel healed - not just of the symptoms of HIV but of all the emotional stuff that goes with it.

"I'm now taking daily doses of anti-retroviral drugs. My 'viral load' is below the norm and my immune system improving dramatically. The progress I'm making medically is surprising my doctors. I've explained friends are praying for me. Having people round me now who understand me is making an amazing difference to me. I've started to help others through our local Jesus Centre. These days I feel too fulfilled to be lonely."

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