Paul 'Dayper' Hill: Sex, drugs & raving

Grew up with two sisters and mother on the Alton estate in Roehampton, at 13k people, it is one of the biggest in Europe. I'd had a very dysfunctional relationshipo with my father, and at 13 my grandmother died, so I went off into sex drugs and raving, cos rock n' roll weren't my thing. By the time I was 14 I wasn't at school anymore. I was hanging around with boys who were drug dealing and got wasted all the time. I enjoyed my sinful lifestyle, the women, the drugs, the reputation that I had on the estate, that people knew me.

At the age of 15 I got involved in a street fight in which a 40 year old man and three twenty year olds were in, I got stabbed pretty bad, and was close to dying. That's when I thought, "This is serious, I've nearly died this day...". But I was still trapped in my sinful life, it was at this time that I knew that what I was doing was wrong and I wanted to stop. My mum was very upset and kicked me out of the house. I went through a period of sleeping on the streets, in abandoned cars, in the blocks... My main thing was just getting wasted, at 18 I got into harder drugs like cocaine and MDMA, ecstacy.

It was at that point that all the things I was doing became worthless, and I wanted to die. I was wondering around South London walking for miles, but I was stuck, surrounded by drug dealers and this lifestyle.

Then one day I was sitting in my living room and saw the bible sitting there, and I wondered what God thinks of what I'm doing, so I read it, starting at Genesis, and I was really interested in it. It showed why we had a 7 day week; I'd always had a problem with 'why do we die?' and it answered that - Adam sinned. So I took my bible and my bottle of vodka round to my friends, and said, 'Hey guys, i'm reading my bible...', and they were like, 'Great...', and one guy was a Christian (but not living exactly like one), and he asked me if I wanted to come to his church. And I really did.

So while we were on the way up to a drug deal I went into this church, and though I didn't get much of it, a woman told me at the end that God loved me, and that really touched me, even though i was carrying drugs in my pocket, God loved me. I was blown away. I didn't know anything about Christianity, and I didn't go to church for a little while, but I felt guilty, and one Thursday knew that I just had to go to church. So I wound up in church with just the pastor, and he explained to me the whole gospel, our Adam nature, how we are due death, how Christ came to change that, how he died representing us on the cross so that we could live again. I just believed it, I didn't have any skepticism. It made sense. I could see that even the good people I knew were sinners, and as for me - he didn't have to convince me I was a sinner.

From that day I said, "Let me live my life how this asks me...". I read the bible daily, was praying, I rang round my circle of drug dealers and told em I wanted out and they could have my share, and they were my friends so they were fine with it (though they thought what's going on, he's a bit weird). It was around this time that everyone started to say nasty things, "Why you going church, why you going up there?"

I was on my own, I had no Christian friends, just this pastor who wasn't even from this area, so I was just following this path I didn't know much about with no support. And I said to God, not out loud but praying, Please would you send someone. Next day someone phoned me who works on my council estate, I was about to go to bed, but he phoned me again and said, "I'm 10 minutes away, meet me by the shop." (He lived near Brixton)

So I went down the shops, and all my kru was there, and he was already there preaching and sharing Jesus to them, and after about an hour we all prayed holding hands - and these are like hoods up intimidating badman on road. It was like from having no one and the next day praying in the street with 12 people. I said to my friends afterwards: "Don't that feel good?!?" And they were like, "Yeah, yeah, kinda...".

Then Efrem invited me along to a guys house in this really nice area. These Christian Americans who were strangers to us, embraced us with so much genuine love, not fake but real, and it really really touched me, they said make yourself at home and weren't even afraid - no one had ever treated us like that. I went home that night, this time I was actually praying out loud, confessing sins and thanking Jesus that he died for me, and something in me went, "YESSSSS!" And I felt free, the chains went, it was like blackness had just left me. And I was free and I was so happy, I'd never been so happy in my life. Why didn't the church tell me this was going to happen!? I was like, "Whoah, am I dreaming?!" I could watch paint dry I was so happy. I didn't sleep that night obiously.

Of course, after an experience like that obviously I had to tell everyone, so I'm on the streets,"Jesus is real!!" "...that Dayper's lost the plot..."

Since then I've been involved with Higher Vibe a gospel hip hop ministry and we run bible studies with that, and from that we've planted a church on that area called New Life London, we've been there about a year and a half now.

My point is I was an absolute mess and wreck till I met Jesus, so I just want to tell people about Jesus, I want to see the Kingdom grow, and tell people about Jesus.