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Bikers discover transforming power of God
by Jennifer Jacoby-Smith
On August 23, 1984, Doug Stadnyk went for a motorcycle ride in the countryside around Saskatoon, wanting to pray and meditate. With his wedding just two days away, he thought, "What could go wrong on this beautiful day?"
At that moment, a car with two people inside wearing black ski masks, pulled up beside him. Five shots rang out. Stadnyk was hit three times in the stomach, once in the leg, and once in the arm.
Amazingly, despite his injuries, Stadnyk says, "I felt a peace like I'd never felt before." As he laid near death on the street, Stadnyk prayed not for himself but for his assassin. "God forgive him, he doesn't know what he's doing. Track him down and save him like You did me," Stadnyk says he recalls praying.
Stadnyk grew up in St. Catherines, Ontario, a victim of sexual abuse. At the age of five he was breaking into houses. "I didn't know how to talk about feelings, so I acted them out," Stadnyk explains.
At the age of eight a judge sent him to a Catholic reform school, hoping it would straighten out the wayward boy. Unfortunately, while there, Stadnyk says he endured both physical and mental abuse.
When he was 10 Stadnyk and a friend became altar boys to gain access to the communion wine. "I didn't like the smell of it; I didn't like the taste of it," says Stadnyk. But the young boy fell in love with the "warm feeling" it left in his belly. Stadnyk say he continued drinking in an attempt to bury his pain.
Hatred and anger, however, were growing inside.
"I blamed God, I blamed my parents," he says, "I blamed everyone but me."
Stadnyk ended up living on the street and using drugs at 16. One day, several members of a motorcycle gang told him, "Come join us and you can be free." The rough and tough life of a biker provided Stadnyk with an outlet for his pent-up rage.
One night after getting high, Stadnyk was nearly killed when a car slammed into his motorcycle. He lost his left leg below the knee and spent a year recovering in hospital.
"I started hating more and more because I lost my leg," he says. "I hated myself inside so much, I started to neglect my outside." Stadnyk went months without bathing and slicked his hair with engine oil. Neglect caused his weight to top 500 lb.
Deeply depressed, Stadnyk put a gun in his mouth, thinking the only way he could change his life was to pull the trigger. "But my finger wouldn't bend (around the trigger)," he says.
In August 1980, police arrested Stadnyk in Saskatoon. Eleven years of daily consumption of drugs and alcohol left him in severe withdrawal. Fortunately, a kindly prison guard named Al Ryan helped Stadnyk to get clean and sober.
Ryan also helped him to leave his biker lifestyle behind. At the age of 35, Stadnyk got his first job. He was attending 13 AA meetings a week at the time. Soon he began working as an addictions counsellor.
While going through the 12-Step program, Stadnyk went to a pastor to talk about the "Higher Power" focused on in Step Three. That Higher Power, the pastor told him, was a loving God who had sent His Son to die for Stadnyk's sins.
Recognizing his need for forgiveness, Stadnyk knelt in the pastor's office and gave "his life and will" over to Jesus. "I cried for two and a half hours," admits Stadnyk.
It was a year later that the former biker found himself laying in a pool of blood. At the hospital Stadnyk refused all pain relief, saying, "I'll just pray." The doctors were perplexed, but agreed. When he walked out just three days later, the hospital staff called it a miracle.
Meanwhile, Stadnyk's shooter - a man named Bill Peters - had raced from the scene, satisfied he had killed the enemy. Peters had spent the better part of a year tracking down the former rival bike gang leader. He'd heard that Stadnyk had "gone religious." But as he gunned him down early that morning, he thought, "What's this punk doing hiding behind God?" As Stadnyk lay bleeding on the pavement, Peters thought, "God can't help him."
Despite a good upbringing, Peters had been in and out of jail since the age of 17. Getting high and drunk seemed fun at first, but soon he found himself running from the law. At 25, when three of his closest friends joined the Hell's Angels, Peters signed up as well. "I wanted to belong to something big and powerful," says Peters.
For the next 10 years Peters racked up charges ranging from assault to drug trafficking. After skipping bail in California, Peters headed to British Columbia to find Stadnyk. He fled to the States after thinking his assignment was complete.
On the run, Peters recalled an ex-Hells Angel, Tommy Doyle, who had been living in Northern California, growing marijuana. Peters, who hadn't seen Doyle for seven years, says, "I decided to look him up to hide out from the FBI and make some money."
When Peters found Doyle he discovered he was now a Christian working in prison ministry. "[Doyle] began to explain how I was guilty before God for living my life without Him," says Peters, "but God loves us so much that He sent His Son Jesus Christ to die on the cross for us and take our punishment."
In 1986, Peters asked God to forgive his sins and accepted Jesus as his Saviour. "Being forgiven was something new for me," Peters notes. "I had never asked for forgiveness of anyone, nor expected it. To be forgiven by God is an indescribable feeling, something like a thousand pounds of weight coming off of me - a load I didn't realize I was carrying." He adds, "I felt new and restored."
After being baptized, all desire for drugs and alcohol left him. "I also began going back to those I had hurt or stole from and asked their forgiveness," Peters says.
One of those people was Stadnyk. From jail, Peters sent him a card asking for his forgiveness. Stadnyk was out of town when his wife called to tell him about it. "Are you standing or sitting?" she asked him.
"Standing," he replied. "Well, you better sit down," she said, proceeding to read the card from Peters. Stadnyk readily forgave Peters, remembering the forgiveness that he had received from God.
Several years later the two met. Peters was nervous - even wondering if Stadnyk planned to turn him over to the police, since he had never been charged for the crime. Instead, the two men travelled together to schools, prisons, and churches, sharing the love and forgiveness of Christ.
Now retired at 59, Stadnyk spent many years helping others in substance abuse recovery and also ran Impact House, a successful rescue home for prostitutes in Saskatoon.
Peters, 53, travels full-time with his wife Carmen, a former club dancer who also came to know Christ, telling others about the transforming power of Christ.
Years of trying to fill the emptiness in their lives has brought the two former bikers to the same conclusion: only Jesus can bring true fulfilment. "Drugs, alcohol, food, sex - they ain't gonna fill that spot," declares Stadnyk.
Both men pray that others will find the love and forgiveness Jesus offers to all those who seek Him.
"It doesn't matter your past," explains Peters. "God will forgive anybody simply by asking Him."
Finally Free
by Jennifer Jacoby-Smith
One might wonder how a church kid could end up a Hells Angel.
Growing up, Barry Mayson dutifully attended Sunday School and church with his mom and step-father. But when he was 16, his step-dad - a pilot for the Navy - died after contracting malaria. His death hit the young teen hard. "I became very angry at God. I blamed him for it," says Mayson.
Mayson's pain and anger expressed itself through drinking and fighting. One night, when he was 23, Mayson took in three biker movies at a drive-in theatre. They made an impact on him. "The one that impressed me the most was Hells Angels on Wheels," explains Mayson. "When I saw that flick, I thought, 'That's got to be the life - jamming down the highway with the wind in your face, being free and doing what you want.' "
Soon after, Mayson joined a motorcycle club in South Carolina. "We supported our rough, vagabond life-style through gambling, drug dealing and other vices. We protected it with violence." Eventually, the Hells Angels brought Mayson's group into their network.
Although Mayson was becoming increasingly involved in organized crime, his mother continued to visit him regularly. "She would come down to the night clubs that I ran and operated," explains Mayson. "[She'd] walk in there and hug everybody, tell us all how much she loved us and cared for us. She didn't put nobody down. She encouraged us to try and get our lives changed."
She also reminded Mayson of his Sunday School lessons, especially how much Jesus loved him. Mayson admits if anyone else would have tried to speak about the love of God he wouldn't have listened.
A battle began inside Mayson. "I always believed in God," he says. "But my beliefs were that He was way up yonder in the wild blue and I was down here on earth." He adds, "I just didn't believe He could ever love a guy like me anyway."
At a Hell's Angels officers' meeting in California, a leader gave Mayson a list of rivals he wanted dead. "I had bloodied men in fights," says Mayson. "But murder a man?"
Mayson refused. "I'm a Hell's Angel, but I'm no murderer," he told them.
His rebellion landed him on a Hell's Angel death list. Mayson fled to San Francisco and hid in a cheap hotel. He phoned his mother and asked her to wire him money for a plane ticket home. The next morning, as he made his way to the Western Union office, he spotted two large gang members following him. He ducked into a cafeteria.
"There was only one way out of the Hells Angels and that was six feet under," says Mayson. He made his way to a row of payphones to say what he thought would be his final good-bye to his mother and wife.
His mother assured him there was still hope. With the two bikers eyeing him from behind, Mayson objected, "Mother, there are two guys here who are about to kill me. What kind of hope could there be?"
"Son," she replied, "Your hope is in Jesus Christ."
His mother lead him in a short salvation prayer. Mayson recalls praying, "Lord Jesus, I know I'm a sinner. I just ask that You forgive me of my sins, come into my heart, and help me live for You."
As he said the words, Mayson began to cry. "I felt a rush of love," he says. "Through the drugs, drinking and depravity, I had been struggling for some kind of acceptance. Now I'd found it. For the first time in my life I felt free."
The would-be assassins were mystified - bikers don't cry.
At that moment, a pastor who'd been contacted by Mayson's mother arrived. Believing the husky man in a suit was an undercover cop, the Hells Angels pair retreated. "To me it was a miracle of the Lord," says Mayson.
A few hours later Mayson was on a flight to South Carolina. That was October 27, 1976, a date Mayson tattooed on his right arm.
Now 59, Mayson and Fran, his wife of 27 years, travel across North America sharing how Jesus changed his life. Like the vagabond life he once sought as a Hells Angel, Mayson lives in an RV, sharing the forgiveness of Christ at bike rallies, churches, prisons, and high schools.
"I cry every time," says Mayson. "That [Jesus] loved me enough to forgive me. I thought the only way to talk to Him was to go to church and kneel a certain way. I thought you had to talk to Him in the King James version."
He adds, "Of course, I've learned it's not how we talk to Him, it's where we're coming from in our heart."
Mayson is convinced that if Jesus can set him free, He can do it for anyone. He quotes John 3:16, "God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son ...
"That means everybody's got hope."
Born to Be Mild
by Jennifer Jacoby-Smith
A biker rally may seem like an odd place to find a letter carrier and father of three. But Carlos Hajen, 41, is right at home amidst the leather jackets and roar of motorcycles.
As President of the Edmonton chapter of the Christian Motorcyclists Association, Hajen has put "many miles" on his Honda Gold Wing attending bike rallies across the country.
Sporting a patch that identifies them as "Riding for the Son," CMA members attend biker gatherings to hand out free "Biker Bibles," water bottles, beverages, first aid or simply to lend a listening ear. The CMA also sets up an activity tent for children of bikers.
"We see ourselves as ambassadors for Christ," says Hajen.
The CMA started in the U.S. in the mid-1970's by Herbie Shreve, Sr. Desperate to connect with his son, Shreve Sr. decided to buy a pair of motorcycles so they could ride together. The plan worked as father and son toured the countryside.
After attending a bike rally in Arkansas, the Shreves were distressed by the hopelessness of drug and alcohol use. Shreve Sr. prayed that God would send someone to touch the lives of bikers with the love of Christ. Soon he realized that he was the one God was sending.
Over two decades later, the CMA operates in eight different countries, including the U.S., Canada, Australia, and the U.K. In Canada, there are over 1,000 members from every province in the country.
"There are nine ministry arms," says Ralph Olson, regional coordinator for Southern B.C. and Alberta. These consist of Women, Hospitality, Children, Mechanical, First Aid, Prison visitation, Prayer, Music, and Servant.
"I do it to reach people who are hurting, and need to hear about God's love - from the seat of a motorcycle," says Edmonton chapter member Brian Dyksley.
"A biker will not go to church, so we take the church to them," explains Hajen, who visits young offenders every Tuesday. "We need to reach everybody regardless of what they do."
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