Best Christmas present ever for Norfolk actor

As musician, actor and Norfolk businessman, Louis Serghe celebrates the festive season this year he will be mindful of when he received his best Christmas present more than 35 years ago. Sandie Shirley reports.

 
After a broken marriage, the heartache of separation from his children and his unswerving quest to know the truth, Louis found the revelation that had touched his life since he was a child.
 
“It was as if I was given the biggest Christmas present I could ever have. As I came into the presence of the living God all the questions fitted together like a jig-saw puzzle and I had a new beginning and a new start with Jesus as I came into the light for the first time,” he said.
 
Even as a boy of eight, growing up in Glasgow, he was aware of good and evil and wondered what his purpose was in life.
 
“I had a fear of dying and I knew my need of a protector and wanted to know who God was,” he recalls.
 
As young as he was, he reasoned that knowing God through a man who walked on earth would make it easier to understand. While living in London, nearly two decades later, he was approached by various religious cults during the 1970s but he remained unconvinced by the philosophies behind The Children of God and Hari Krishna movements as well as the Mormon’s and Jehovah’s Witnesses. 
 
Finally, he got down on his knees and cried out: “God, whoever you are please speak to me and lead me to the right person because I am so confused.”
 
Immediately a strong voice in his mind told him to visit the park he frequented to meet someone who would help. Louis obeyed that inner prompting and met a man about the same age, who was also a musician and actor like himself.
 
As he talked to the stranger about Jesus, Louis soon understood the declarations about the Saviour of the World and made them his own as he listened to the former Muslim who had converted to Christianity.
 
Since then, Louis has walked the narrow path of joy and victory. It’s led him to Speaker’s Corner at London’s Hyde Park and through the doors of thousands of customers’ homes with his carpet cleaning business to share his empowering faith message. Now he is also a busy musician using his guitar to compile a future gospel album to help share his story.
 
Louis also tells of the reality of seeing his miracle-working God transform the lives of the sick and dying when he has prayed. On one occasion an elderly man was hit by a car while crossing the busy North Circular Road in London. “Blood was pouring from a hole in his head and as I prayed that Jesus would bring healing I felt a great heat of his presence.”
 
Prayer continued the following Sunday with the church congregation and that afternoon the injured man sat up in his hospital bed with just a small plaster on his head.  
 
There were other occasions when a man was healed from muscular dystrophy and Louis believes he saw his dying, unbelieving neighbour snatched from the jaws of hell after being in a coma for three days.
 
Initially the man was not interested in Louis’ faith but as he began to waste away after his cancer diagnosis he accepted the offer of prayer. While Louis prayed in the hospital waiting room for the right words to pray, prior to seeing him, he believes there was a dramatic angel encounter. 
 
“I looked up and saw what appeared to be an Asian doctor who just bowed her head.” At his neighbour’s bedside, he placed his hands on his head asking God to reveal himself so he could feel his love and know he was not forgotten.
 
“In a moment he opened his eyes and, as if looking past me, tears fell from his eyes and then the Lord took him home (to heaven) having honoured his little bit of faith,” says Louis.
 
“These were very special occasions where the Lord let me see his power and his glory. If people have never taken steps to see if Jesus is real, I would encourage them to do so.   There is only one way to find true love and that is finding Jesus - I have tried all the other ways.”
 
Pictured above is musician Louis Serghe.