Karl Foreman: Champion for Christ

29 May 2009

Karl and his adoptive family were involved in The Salvation Army church all his life, but as far as Karl could see, church life meant little more than going through the motions of religious obligation, devoid of any love, grace or forgiveness. 

‘It seemed to me that church was all about performance, works, looking good, looking tidy, behaving; you know, stuff for salvation,’ he says. ‘It was the doing rather than the being.

The Search for an Identity

After his marriage to Christine, Karl began working at the freezing works where he also began dabbling in drugs and alcohol. Shortly thereafter he moved into forestry and logging where he found what he had been searching for.

‘Being a bushman I really got the sense of, wow, this is where I can really find belonging and acceptance; this is what I was looking for; this is my family,’ Karl says.

This identity as a bushman, and also his dependence on drugs and alcohol, continued to steer the direction of his life. His marriage began to suffer, and his few visits to the local church were blurred by hangovers and the overriding belief that Christians were too caught up in religion to care.

‘There was this one guy in the church, Ron Cairns, who would eyeball me after church and tell me he was praying for me,’ Karl said. ‘One day he took me out for a drive and told me that God was going to use me to work with the young fellas one day, and it sounded good, but it felt like he was from another planet because I just couldn’t see how God would ever follow through in the relationship.

‘This fella was a good friend who spoke visions into my life, but Ron died on Christmas Day 1998, and when he died it was like, wow, I’m alone,’ Karl remembers.

Frail Beginnings

Two days later Karl and his workmates enjoyed a joint before beginning work on a pine tree. ‘I cut the tree down, and as it was falling I realised that I had forgotten to cut an escape route, so I couldn’t get out,’ he says. ‘The log went up over a brow and then started to come back down towards me. As it did, I felt this weird sensation as the name “Jesus” forced its way out of my mouth. The log came down and missed me by millimetres.

‘That very same day another mate died because he was hit by a log,’ he continues. ‘And I was thinking, “God, was that meant for me?”

That moment didn’t change Karl’s life, but it did give him the sense that he was walking on thin ice. Karl’s marriage grew even frailer, with Karl’s anger problems resulting in verbal abuse against his family. They finally decided to move out of the city as a way to curb Karl’s drinking, but this only served to heighten his identity.

‘I had everything I really wanted: living on a farm, shooting deer, growing dope and finding a sense of who I was as a bushman,’ he says. ‘I was living my dream.’

A Champion

When Karl’s wife was pregnant with their third child she went on a family camp organised by The Salvation Army corps (church) in Napier, under the direction of Majors Ivan and Glenda Bezzant. On his way to pick Christine up and under the influence of alcohol, Karl drove his car into a ditch, which unexpectedly led to him attending one of the camp meetings.

‘At the meeting this lady got up and says, “I just had a word from the Lord, and there is a guy here that God wants to tell that he loves him and wants him to come back.” And, you know, you look around the meeting looking for the poor guy,’ says Karl. ‘Then she says, “Well, God is telling me I’ve got to say his name. And his name is Karl Foreman!”

‘When she said my name something just broke in my heart. I started crying and I felt really stink. Ivan came up to me and said, “I see a champion in you and I want to call you to it.”’

Though God spoke to Karl through this woman, it was Ivan’s challenge to call him to go beyond religion that broke through the surface.

‘I realised that salvation was a gift of grace, that we don’t deserve to be saved (Ephesians 2:8). It was like running around with a check for a million dollars; it just changed my life.’

But things didn’t instantly change for Karl. The next three months saw more tension and pain in his marriage, with his wife contemplating moving out, countless near misses on the job and a deterioration of hope. Karl began to feel the heat of the call and the need for him to make a decision, something that was finally realised one night after speaking with Ivan.

‘I put the phone down and suddenly I thought, “What is this all about?” I was always thinking about what’s best for me and my mates, because my identity at that stage had been my mates and what they thought I was,’ he says.

‘A light bulb just came on and I made a wholehearted commitment to God and said, “God, I don’t care what it costs, I’m sick of it and I’ll give you everything. I’ll go to work tomorrow and tell the guys that I’m going back to church and getting off the drugs and alcohol.”

‘So I went to work and called all of these big ugly bushmen around me and told them that I was going back to church and that I gave my heart back to God, and they all came around and were hugging me, patting me on the back and saying, “Good on ya, mate!”'

‘I love the bush. Cutting down trees is my dream job, but the passion changed,’ he says. ‘I love that, but I wanted to share the good news and hope with others. The ultimate gratification that we can feel is when we lay our life down for other people and serve them and teach them how to love.

Today, Karl is a highly influential figure in youth and men’s ministry in Napier. He has incredible vision for the future and is a man dedicated to the mission of building the Kingdom.

By Cara Wood (from War Cry magazine)