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A billionaire in London is trading his lavish 1.5 million dollar sixteenth century armhouse for a mud hut in Africa. And he's not doing this just for the short term.Â
He is selling the farmhouse, its land, his furniture and his telecommunications company to raise money to start a children's charity named Uganda Vision.
Jon Pedley, who almost died in a car crash eight years ago, will use the charity to send troubled British children to Uganda where they will help locals orphaned by AIDS and poverty.
The self-made tycoon has a troubled past that includes a criminal record, alcoholism and affairs. He says a serious car crash in 2002 in which he almost died led him to find God.
"I've lived an incredibly selfish existence," Pedley, of Finchingfield, Essex, was quoted as saying in the Daily Mail.
"I've been convicted of crime, slept rough, been an alcoholic, had affairs, and damaged people's lives including my own. I've always put the pursuit of money in front of everything else."
In college, Pedley said, he began smoking and drinking and stealing from shops and his parents. After leaving school, he received a suspended jail sentence for fraud and theft after scams including selling the furniture at a rented flat, the Daily Mail reported.
Pedley married, continued to drink heavily, cheated on and later divorced his wife.
In 2002, he had been drinking when he fell asleep at the wheel and crashed into a van. He was in a coma for six weeks.
After making a full recovery he said he found religion and gave up alcohol.
'I'm now teetotaler and I try to live my life in a way that pleases God,' he told the Daily Mail.
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https://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35804710/ns/us_news-giving/?gt1=43001
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