In looking back and celebrating the work God has done through Harvest USA for the past 35 years, we thought it would be good to share a testimony from the early years. The following testimony from Steve DeVries appeared in the Fall 1989 issue of Harvest News, which was followed by John Freeman’s recollection, “In Memoriam,” in the Fall 1992 issue.

I was brought up in a typical middle-class home on Long Island, NY. It was at about age 13 that I had my first gay sexual experience. Although at that time it seemed an innocent and isolated occurrence, little did I know the devastating effect it would have on my life.

Those early experiences led to 15 years of guilt and confusion. A move to the West Coast to attend college brought new freedoms that were damaging. The move enabled me to seek out gay bars and begin involvement in the gay life. This was something the small farming community from which I had come had not afforded me.

Never willing to face the loneliness of my life for very long, I found temporary peace in new surroundings. Los Angeles, San Francisco, Las Vegas, South Florida, and a year in Europe only enabled me to keep running away. I thought that I could find happiness in a constant stream of new people, new places, and new things. Although I was getting more involved in the gay life, I was still conscious of enough confusion to seek out psychiatrists. I found out that the psychiatrists often needed psychiatrists.

During this time, I also tried to push myself into heterosexual relationships, at times getting serious enough to come through with promises and diamond rings. I never could go through with it. Those years were characterized by guilt and misery.

By the age of 28, I just gave in. I rationalized and made the necessary excuses. I said, “Well, this is the way God made me and wants me. I’m gay, and I’ll have to live with that for the rest of my life.” So I dove into that for the next 15 years. Along the way I learned that alcohol dulled the pain (and hidden guilt). Alcohol enabled me to not feel, and a continual stream of brief relationships that meant nothing gave temporary relief.

Still looking for that ultimate “pain killer” at age 40, I got into crack, one of the most deadly drugs on the market. I don’t know how, but I did find success in business and money. I had all the material trappings of a successful yuppie. I was making a ton of money.

Alcohol enabled me to not feel, and a continual stream of brief relationships that meant nothing gave temporary relief.

Then the bottom fell out. I was arrested for coke possession, spent one night in jail, and was released in the morning. Within a month I was arrested for possession of crack again. This time it hit the headlines of the newspaper in the small South Florida town in which I lived and worked. I was fired from my job and began a prison term.

I remember sitting in prison, contemplating and even planning my suicide. I began to pray for the first time in a long time. I prayed that God would do something. I had lost everything. I got involved in AA and various drug programs and became substance-free. But I knew that still was not enough.

As part of my parole, I landed a job in the Philadelphia area. I began to frequent gay bars again, but something wasn’t the same. I didn’t drink, but I would just sit there and look at all those lonely people. Only, somehow, I now couldn’t relate. Now I felt completely lost. I kept thinking, this is the only thing I’ve known. What am I going to do now? It was about this time that I read an ad in the newspaper for Harvest USA, which said there was help and hope for people like me!

Thank the Lord I found that ad. I called the number and went in and talked with John Freeman. He listened for a long time and then told me about Christ and how Jesus really cared about me and my problems. During that first appointment, I accepted Christ into my life.

It’s hard for me to understand and explain, but after that, my life changed dramatically. I began reading the Bible, praying, and developing a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. I had always known deep down that there must be some purpose to my life. Now I knew! Perhaps the biggest change has been that the loneliness and insecurity that plagued my life are gone. I’m a new man in Christ, and the Lord is my personal friend. It’s really unbelievable. No crack or cocaine can come near it.

Now I felt completely lost. I kept thinking, this is the only thing I’ve known. What am I going to do now? It was about this time that I read an ad in the newspaper for HARVEST USA, which said there was help and hope for people like me!

In January 1989, about six months after giving my life to Christ, I faced a new problem. That month I went to the dermatologist to check out a patch of skin on my face. It turned out to be Kaposi’s sarcoma. I have AIDS. I have since begun the AZT treatment and the whole medication thing.

The Lord may heal me or he may not. That’s not in my control. The important thing is that the Lord is enabling me to deal with this. Even my own family has been extremely supportive. On a recent trip back home, my parents, though not Christians, perhaps summed it up best when they told me, “Steve, it really doesn’t matter if the Lord heals you or not. The crucial thing is that you’re healed in your heart!”

In Memoriam

Steve DeVries, a brother in the Lord who left an impact on everyone he touched, died on September 2, 1992, with his family at his bedside. He was mourned by everyone at Harvest USA.

I first met Steve in October of 1987 when he responded to an ad Harvest USA had placed in the newspaper seeking to reach those who wanted out of the gay life. Steve saw the ad and came in for an initial interview. I remember especially how humble Steve was during that interview. He was particularly aware of how he had been trying to gain some sense of wholeness and meaning through gay encounters—only now it was not working anymore.

During that initial meeting, I sensed that the Lord had his hand on Steve in many ways—too many to go into in this short space. He began asking all the “right” questions about his need for something deeper and more foundational in his life. As I shared the gospel with Steve and explained what the life and death of Jesus Christ had to do with his problems, I could sense a light going on inside his head. Steve ended up asking the Lord to come into his life that very day!

The next two years for Steve were filled with growth and fellowship. He had attached himself to a local church and was involved in the life of the church. Yes, he still struggled, but he was intent on walking a life of obedience; he had given the Lord the position of “boss” in his life. For all intents and purposes, he had chosen to get his needs met through the Lord and his relationships with other believers, not through living a gay life.

I remember the day, almost two years after our first meeting, that Steve dropped into the office for a surprise visit. Within a few minutes of sitting down with another staff member and me, Steve burst into tears. You would have to have known him to know that this was not like Steve. A successful businessman at the age of 42, he had a confidence and sense of security about himself combined with an inner sense of control that didn’t leave much room for displays of emotions. A warm and sensitive man, yet outwardly always quite controlled, this outburst signaled that something was drastically wrong.

Steve went on to tell us that, having not felt well for several weeks, he had been to a clinic to get a test to see if he might be carrying the HIV virus. The test was positive. The three of us wept. Yet even then, Steve managed to vocalize his awareness that God was with him in this and would not abandon him. God had brought him this far and would not let him go.

As the men in the group observed his tenacity in handling his disease process in a way that both maintained his dignity and yet was rooted in his relationship with Christ, they slowly warmed to him.

As time passed and Steve became more symptomatic, he turned to a local ministry that assisted AIDS patients. He began to face the realities of this deadly disease. In a mature and methodical way, he began to tie up the loose ends of his life in the Philadelphia area and prepared to move back to his parents’ home in upstate New York. With a sense of sadness that he would no longer be in the area, we said goodbye, knowing that Steve had come to occupy a special place in our hearts.

Back in his hometown and still in relatively good health, he made the necessary medical contacts that would increasingly become a part of his life. He told me about an initial visit with a physician. Sensing the need to talk about Christ with this doctor, Steve explained to him just how he had come to know the Lord and how Christ had given him the power to break from his gay life. The doctor was taken aback by Steve’s testimony and expressed his own sorrow that now that Steve had AIDS, Steve was now feeling guilty and seeking change. The doctor implied that Steve’s faith was a reaction to getting AIDS and had little to do with him leaving the gay life. Steve corrected the doctor by explaining that his encounter with the Lord and his changed life had happened several years prior to the HIV diagnosis.

Steve also wasted no time in getting involved in a local AIDS support group with the idea of not just getting support for himself, but with a focus on how the  Lord might use him to touch others with the same grace he now knew personally. Within a few minutes of the first meeting, Steve saw that most of the people in the group were gay men with HIV. During the sharing time, as men went around and shared how they were coping with the disease, Steve shared how he was coping, where he had come from, and what God was doing in his own life.

The results were predictable. Hostility, anger, and contempt were immediate reactions. Several men told Steve not to come back to the group and that they did not need his kind of “preaching.” But Steve did go back, withstanding the mistrust and unpopularity his initial introduction to the group had caused. He just kept going back again and again.

As the men in the group observed his tenacity in handling his disease process in a way that both maintained his dignity and yet was rooted in his relationship with Christ, they slowly warmed to him. On one occasion, Steve phoned me from his home on a Sunday afternoon to ask me to pray. He was in the middle of a cookout, and 20 men from his support group were there! Although still resistant as a group to their need for redemption and grace, one by one, many of the men had sought Steve out privately to spend time with him. During these times, he tried not only to be a friend but to minister the gospel in word and deed.

Just because he was a Christian did not mean that Steve escaped the pain and suffering associated with HIV and AIDS. He simply had a supernatural way to deal with it. One entry in his diary contained the following solace which came to comfort his soul on many occasions: “When I feel pain, I think about the Lord, and the pain goes away. When I’m frightened, I think about the Lord, and I’m not scared anymore. When I am lonely, I think about the Lord, and the loneliness goes away.”

Just because he was a Christian did not mean that Steve escaped the pain and suffering associated with HIV and AIDS. He simply had a supernatural way to deal with it.

During the last two years of his life, some of our staff had continued contact with Steve. He wrote and called us regularly. He gave his testimony in 1990 to a room of 250 people. He joked about my having told him to keep his talk to 10 minutes, but since he had driven seven hours to get there, surely I would not mind if he took longer! That was Steve! He was always hard to contain when it came to his talking about the Lord.

I also recall spending time with Steve at a lodge two summers prior to his death. With particular fondness, I recall sitting out in the darkness around the campfire. The cool night air and total darkness around us stood in stark contrast to the millions of bright stars upon which our eyes were fixed. Steve spoke of his own growing intimacy with the Lord and how the Lord had taken care of his every need. It was there that I realized I was a bit envious of his constant recognition of God’s faithfulness and grace. His own dying process and coming to terms with the end of his life only seemed to expand his reflection on and appreciation of the sovereignty and grace of God. My own day-to-day awareness of these truths seemed dull in comparison.

It is my hope that you will remember Steve and think about his trust in the love and compassion of Christ. I hope you will be challenged to tell others about your own walk with the Lord and speak about his mighty deeds everywhere you go. Most of all, I hope you see the “what if” possibilities in the people around you who do not know Christ. Envision what that person could be if he or she knew the love and grace of the Savior, like Steve.

This article also appeared in the Spring 2019 issue of harvestusa magazine. You can read the entire issue in digital form here.

John Freeman shares additional insight in the accompanying video: Remembering Steve DeVries. These short videos can be used as discussion starters in small group settings, mentoring relationships, men’s and women’s groups, etc.