Adventure, surfing, travel and freedom were what Mikaël had 'in this blood'. Read on to find why finding the house with the red surfboard on it bought Mikaël excitement and how the events that followed bought him true freedom …
My origins
I was born in 1963 in Lyon, France into a well-to-do family of westerners from North Africa, known in France as "Pieds-noirs", that is, 'black feet '. These origins had an abiding influence on my education and also gave me the feeling of being constantly uprooted, a feeling that has been impossible to erase to this day. At the age of 18 months, I was left in the care of my maternal grandparents until 1969. It was only then that my father was transferred to St Raphael, nearby in southern France.
Catching the adventure 'bug'
In the years that followed, rebellious feelings grew within me. I dreamt of nothing but travel and boats and islands. One day, after an intense father-son wrangling, I felt that I had been particularly unjustly treated. I resolved to leave, and hid aboard a cargo ship at Tahiti, where my father was posted at the time. I was 15. Six days later a plane from COTAM (an airline reserved for French military personnel) took me back to Tahiti to be with my parents. Although I was with my family for a while, I had nonetheless caught the 'virus' of the sea and liberty, and it was now in my blood forever. One year later, when we had come home to France, I left again, just two weeks before my seventeenth birthday. This time they didn't bring me back. I made a living through music and mime in the streets, and in cafes and restaurants.
Deserting the army
Then the army came for me; conscription was still a legal obligation in France! For me it was evident that this would be a waste of a year. And, anyway, as Boris Vain, a French poet, said, 'Mr President, I wasn't put on this earth to kill people'. On the other hand, I considered my father's orders to be unwarranted, too. An 'upstart from a higher rank' wasn't going to tell me what to do! It was decided: I would desert. I sold my car to buy a one-way ticket to New York and arrived with US$137 in my pocket. Not speaking a word of English, I began to tag along with a group of Haitians from Greenwich Village. A homosexual who had lived in France put me up. He taught me the rudiments of the American language.
Dangerous games … drug trafficking …
After some time in New York the cold of an early winter pushed me towards the south, and several weeks later I arrived in California. I had always been a bit of a "Troubadour", but was becoming more and more of a schemer. 'By chance', I was expelled from the states a year later, for not having a valid visa. I had begun to get involved in more dangerous games, like falsifying travellers cheques and drug trafficking. Consequently, I tasted the Californian prison system for a week. Today, I thank God for taking me out of all this without any lasting stain or being destroyed by drugs.
Police looking out for me
I crossed the South Pacific to Polynesia. I had promised myself I'd return to Polynesia after having lived there with my parents and leaving the islands to return to city life ... The only problem on returning to this, the country of my dreams, was that my father had tipped off the local police about my military call-up. He told them that they could find me on the island of Moorea. This was French territory, so I had a visit from the police in the following days.
Mikaël crossing the South Pacific on a sailing boat 1983
Leaving in secret
The prospect of my return to France with barracks at the end of the journey was out of the question for me. With the airport officials on the lookout, the police decided that I couldn't get out of the territory, so they didn't bother arresting me. Being a sailing instructor, I joined an American sailing ship that was looking for a team to cross the Pacific to New Zealand and left Moorea secretly.
A 'chance' meeting
Once again, my life was filled with music and schemes. However, it proved to be more difficult to get by relying on such things in New Zealand than it had been in California. Nevertheless, this was how the most extraordinary event in my life came about. In Auckland, I met a young guy from Quebec who was also travelling. He had been living with friends in a big white house on a surf beach. There was an old red surfboard nailed to the front of it ... a dream or what! The thing that surprised me the most was when he told me that, he had become a Christian a month before.
My real adventure begins
For my part, apart from eight years of catechism that I had been involved with in my childhood, my only other contacts with 'Christians' were these Jesus freaks (fanatics for Jesus) that had often encountered me in the USA. I had never completely understood them. This guy spoke to me with great simplicity, and at the same time with great faith in this Jesus. This Biblical character from my childhood was becoming more and more real. Towards midnight, I was worn out and went to bed. In the morning, when I got up, I discovered that he had gone. He had left a note with his address in New Zealand, and a request for mine; he had added: "Never forget Mikaël, Jesus loves you." It was because of this note that the most incredible episode of all my travels was about to unfold.
A burning desire
Three days after this meeting with Fred, my heart was boiling with one desire - to see him again before my return to France. I refused to admit to myself that I wanted to hear more on the subject of Jesus. The 'official reason' that I gave to my friends was 'the surf'.
Disappointment
So I took my bag and my guitar; and I left Auckland for the address that he had given me. After two or three hours of hitchhiking, I arrived in the village. I went to the address but a major disappointment awaited me: Fred didn't live there. It was only a postal address, and he had not been there for two or three weeks. No one knew where he could be found or where the white house on the surfing beach was. On top of this, this village was more than 100 km from the nearest beach!
Finding the red surfboard!
I decided to return to Auckland, but the first car that picked me up was going towards the east coast. Before I realised it, I was a long way from my return route. Never mind, I had the time. I wanted to go surfing and, above all, I was 'free'! During all my years of hitchhiking, things had never gone so well. A few hours later, we arrived at the fantastic beaches of the South Pacific. We arrived at a pub and I suggested to my 'driver' that we stop for a beer, but he was pressed for time, and so left me there. As I was about to cross the road I looked right and then left and then ahead … and there in front of me was a large white house, on the front of which an old Hawaiian surf board was stuck: a red surfboard!
Meeting Fred again
I was taken aback. I crossed the lawn slowly and knocked on the door. A big blond guy with an Australian accent answered the door. I hesitantly asked him, if a man named Fred, from Quebec, lived there. "I'll call him for you," he said. Two minutes later, I found myself face to face with him. "Hey! Mikaël!" said Fred; ''this is great, we've been praying for three days for you to come''. I desperately tried to make him understand that I was there for the surf, but I didn't know where I was. How was all of this possible? The days that followed were interspersed with surfing, music and discussions on all sorts of subjects and in particular about me. The guys who lived there seemed as if they were really interested in me personally. They also spoke of this Jesus as though they knew him personally.
Overcoming engrained misconceptions
The problem for me was that my family had made me practice this religion in a really intensive way since the age of eight. I had served at mass and I had been 'The Little Singer at the Wooden Cross'. I had also sung in front of the Pope in 1975 at Christmas. My idea of God was that of a tyrant who I already had enough of hearing about. Also I was troubled by another thing. The guys in the house had been telling me that all I had to do to become a Christian was to say 'yes' to Jesus, 'I am a sinner … I need you … I give you my life' and this seemed way too easy to me!
Nevertheless, one evening, this was all going to change.
The dark monster that was me
I had been asleep for half an hour when I sensed a horrible presence at my side. A sort of monster seemed to be hiding there, in the dark, ready to leap on me. Like a terrified child, I hid myself under the covers, but I knew that this presence was there in the bed with me and for a good reason. This horrible thing was me! I felt so nasty, so damaged, and so empty. I was so full of anguish that I cried out to God:
'Listen! I don't know if you exist, I don't know if you are really called, ''Jesus'; but if everything they say about you is true, do something for me straight away!''
Overcome with peace
I was overcome by a peace that I had never previously known! Every trace of anguish just disappeared; and the emptiness had been replaced by an enthusiasm for life. I got up immediately to go and see my host in his room to tell him what I had just experienced. This didn't seem to surprise him! He simply responded to the many questions that I asked him. I was baptised on the surfing beach that God had allowed me to discover just four days earlier.
Jesus says, "I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full" (John 10:10).
