Gonzo missionary ‘freaked’ the Dalai Lama when he said ‘Jesus loves you’ in Tibetan
By Mark Ellis
Senior Correspondent, ASSIST News Service
HEIDELBERG, GERMANY (ANS) -- An insatiable desire for extreme sports and dangerous living finally led Mike Macy to an encounter with the living God. The mind-bending journey continued with Jesus, and an unforgettable meeting with the Dalai Lama.
“I was so tired!” says Macy, founder of “because Jesus loves Tibetans,” a ministry devoted to reaching Tibetan refugees in Europe. “Twenty-five years of running from God will leave you exhausted!”
Mike Macy with his family
Macy was raised in the church, but had little understanding of God's Word. “It wasn't surprising that I found myself quickly mired in sin,” he observes. “I wallowed there; using drugs rapidly led to selling drugs.”
“I soon began a pride-fueled quest for the applause of man to replace the love of my Heavenly Father,” he says. His journey to the dark side involved guns, bikers, dope-growers, extreme-sports, and exotic travel.
Macy tried anything that would feed his own glory, anything that would dull the ache of God's absence. “As the years crawled by, the memory of God dimmed,” he recalls. “I became heavily involved in white-water kayaking, crazy runs down scary canyons and waterfalls by day and hallucinogenics by night.”
“I told myself lies about "finding-God-in-the wilderness'...but something inside was screaming: "EMPTY-EMPTY-EMPTY!!!" he recalls. “I was thirty-six years old...my soul felt like Three hundred. My heart terribly soiled, my soul mangled, the final 'spiral' begun...and I could almost smell the damp grave reserved for me.”
At this deep trough in Macy’s life, his younger sister Mindy came to visit him. He was aware she had become a Christian, and he prepared himself to reject any of her religious overtures.
“I picked up Mindy at the airport, braced against the things my newly 'Saved' sister might impart,” he says. What Macy didn't realize, was that her whole church was praying and fasting for him. He had no way of knowing that God had a plan and a future for him.
"So Min...Mom tells me you've become a religious-fanatic!" Macy sneered at his younger sibling as they rode in the car.
"Oh no Mike!!" Mindy said, "I'm not a religious-fanatic...I'm a fundamentalist, bible-thumping-Jesus-freak,” she replied coolly. “Mike, God bought you with His blood...isn't it time you gave yourself to Him?"
Macy recalls he could hear the Holy Spirit clearly in this exchange, like a bartender at closing time saying softly: "Last call Mike."
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Mark Ellis is a senior correspondent for ASSIST News Service and the founder of
www.Godreports.com. He is available to speak to groups about the plight of the church in restricted countries, to share stories and testimonies from the mission field, and to preach the gospel.
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