It's been in the news this week that an Australian youth evangelist who announced 2 years ago that he had terminal cancer is infact a fraud and made the whole thing up.

This is extremely upsetting and disappointing for so many people. I'm not going to mention his name. But this guy was seen to be an awesome young man of God with such and incredible passion to see young people saved. About 4 years ago we were very excited as this big well known evangelist was going to be the guest speaker at our youth camp. I have been to about 7 youth camps and 2004 camp was by far the most memorable. This guy just led so many people to burn with the same passion. He gave his testimony of how he was radically saved when he was 12 and that he went on a quest to get all the kids at his high school saved. He went to 2 highs schools and got each kid at that school saved. He also spoke of how God had healed him of a brain tumor. It felt like his messages were so annointed and he touched so many people's lives.

He had tens of thousands of young christians all over Australia looking up to him and he had the fastest growing youth group in Australia. Two years ago he announced that he had terminal cancer and had been given 1 month to live. All the people who looked up to him we so shocked and upset by this news. Churches Australia wide were praying for him. That 1 month turned into 3 and then into 8 and everyone thought it was such a miracle he was still alive. At the 8 month mark he started ministering in churches and sharing what he was going through. My old church was the first one he picked. He turned up wheel chair bound and he'd lost so much weight. He looked so sick. He stood infront of hundreds of people and spoke of what he was going through. People were weeping in the service at this man's pain. The man we all felt we knew and loved. He even wrote a song called Healer. This song touched so many lives and gave hope to so many people. He first sang it at a PlanetShakers conference in Melbourne infront of 5 thousand people.

My brother in particular looked up to him. *name* was the kind of young passionate christian that my brother wanted to aspire to be like. Even myself had him listed on myspace as 1 of my heros.

Then just the other day it he came out and admitted to making the whole thing up. Aparantly he opened up to his father (a very well known senior pastor in adelaide) and admitted to making the whole thing up. He's lied to his wife, his parents and everyone who knew him. I don't want to go into all the details but he's got serious pshcotic problems.

When I first heard about it I had a mixture of feelings. At first it was sadness, then anger etc. I still feel angry about this at times, but mostly I am just sad. So many people looked up to him and were praying for him. He made a mockery of those that actually are genuinely sick. It also makes me doubt the other things he told us. Like the brain tumor and the schools getting saved.

I think the big learning experience is that we shouldn't put people up on pedistals no matter how great we think they are. We're all humans and capable of falling. Just like David in the bible. Even though he sinned, he was still somebody that God used for Great things. It's really easy to get angry and bitter. But at the end of the day we're only hurting ourselves if we let these feelings get the better of us. All we can to is pray for *name* and his family and that he is able to get help for his pshycological condition. The only person we can really count on who is 100% real is Jesus.