Steve Prager

"God showed me that He is real. He showed me it wasn't a fairytale."

"Life wasn't turning out quite as I expected," says Steve Prager. Steve's father was the son of a German immigrant who settled in Australia in the early 1900s. Now living in Lindfield, Steve was brought up in a happy family. He had done well at school and had gone on to study at Agricultural College.

"Looking back life was pretty bad for me – it had become a misery. Apart from the usual struggles that we all go through I suffered from a condition called social phobia. I was afraid of people, social situations and the demands that I thought people might put on me."

"The result was I was suffering from depression a lot of the time. I wasn't able to attain to my abilities or progress in any sort of career. I felt I was banging my head against a brick wall!"

And that's just about the way it was for Steve. Life became a vicious circle of failed jobs and continual disappointments. His condition drove him away from people and away from success. He found some consolation in keeping company with his mates and other friends but this led to a continuous habit of nights out, drinking and a general downward spiral.

" I would go out drinking 1-2 nights, sometimes three nights, a week and often ended up binge drinking. I'd drink till I was plastered … sometimes as many as 15 drinks. I was trying to submerge myself, trying to escape."

"My mates and I would go out on the town – looking for fun. Really all I was doing was trying to cover up for my lack of self-confidence."

"And we'd try to pick up girls. This would sometimes lead to one night stands. I'm not proud of it now but we really were trying to find some sort of distraction. The only trouble was I'd wake up the next morning feeling really empty inside. Sleeping with strange women only made me feel worse about life."

Steve opted for a Jackaroo course to prepare him for life on the land. He learned to do basic farm work and at the end of the course was selected to go and work for a newly arrived Canadian family at Yarrawah, a property inland from Port Macquarie in Northern NSW.

Steve learned a lot on the property. He enjoyed the jackaroo life style, fencing, riding the trail and learning about life on the land. The property owner, Rob, a man in his late thirties, taught Steve a lot about hard work and discipline. And over the next two years Steve grew to respect Rob, his work ethic and his expertise were an inspiration.

Over time Rob told Steve about some mysterious out of body experiences he was having. They would occur particularly at night. Rob described times when he would somehow leave his body (this happened when he was asleep) and he would feel himself floating around the house. In the bedroom he would be able to see his own body and that of his wife on the bed as he stared down from somewhere near the ceiling.

"Rob said it scared him a bit. But he could bring on this experience just by lying down sometimes. It made me think, there must be more to life and human existence than I thought. Rob's talks opened up the possibility that another world existed – I wondered about it but all I could do was wonder at that stage," Steve said.

Eventually Steve left the property at Yarrawah. He had applied to join the police force and having been accepted he moved to Goulburn in Southern New South Wales. But, eight weeks into the course, Steve's social phobia re-emerged with anxiety attacks, outright fear and deep depression. He could not stand it, so after some advice from the cadet counsellor, Steve decided to leave. "It really broke me up. What could I look forward to now?" was Steve's constant thought as he left this career behind.

It seemed that the time was ripe for a quick visit back to Rob and his wife up country. To Steve's surprise he found that Rob's spiritual experiences had deepened. Steve says, "Rob went on a Bible study retreat at Port Macquarie. While he was there he had an amazing experience. He was struck by some sort of power and he fell to his knees during a meeting. Rob was so overcome b

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