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I have lived a HOPE filled life since 11.00 PM on
Friday 10th April 1959. That was the night my
life was changed for good, forever, after several
years of traumatic experiences, including the
sudden death of
my wonderful father whilst I was still only 12 years
of age. Added to this grief, was the loss I experienced
following the sale of the farm. Everything I had loved
was suddenly taken away, and it was hard for me as young
boy of 12 to understand why my donkey and cart and even
my pet dog had to be parted with.
Five years later, at the age of 17, I was still
grieving and so very unhappy at home in Ballygawley,
Co Tyrone, Northern Ireland that I ran away, not only to
try and escape all the things that made me so unhappy,
but to try and begin a new life in England.
This new life was to take me into the Army
and the Royal Engineer's Regiment
at Aldershot in Hampshire. Soon this new life was to
rob me once again of someone I had come to love so much.
I discovered
that the girl to whom I was engaged to be married, no
longer loved me, and our engagement was broken off. This
stirred up all the previous grief that I had struggled
with in the past following the loss of my father.
I was so devastated by what had happened, and it hurt so
much to be alone, that I came to believe that there
really was no reason for my continuing to live, so I
attempted to end my life by swallowing a handful of
tablets with the help of alcohol.
I have read that "We can live for 40 days without
food, 8 days without water, 4-6 minutes without air, but
ONLY SECONDS without HOPE."
I was introduced to hope
by John, a member of the Parachute Regiment, he
contacted me in the Bar of the NAAFI just a few days
after my suicide attempt. After a brief discussion, John
and I prayed together in Holy Trinity Church, in
Victoria Road Aldershot - This was my prayer - "Oh
God if you can heal my broken heart and dry my tears and
give me hope, I'll go to the Nations of the world to
tell them of the hope you have given to me."
I got up from my knees that night, a changed
man, as I began my personal relationship with Jesus, I
had been born again and from that moment on, I would
have the life of Christ inside of me.
It's now over 50 years since I began my hope filled
journey, a journey that has not always been easy, simply
because I came to faith in Jesus, but I can honestly say that
The Lord has helped me to keep going when things became
rough.
I have proved many times, that God's GRACE is
sufficient. He has helped me through the most severe of
trials, including the
death of my wife with cancer in November 1983 after 23 years of
marriage. Christine was only 45 years of age and our
daughter Marella was only 14 at the time.
The Lord has also brought me through two painful
episodes of clots in my lung, and two major heart
attacks.
The second almost fatal heart attack was
in 1994 whilst I was a
Missionary in Uganda, East Africa, with
my wife Ruth.
We served the Lord there for six years, and He enabled
us to pioneer a new Mission which we called "Uganda
Mission Of Hope." The Lord added 100 Churches to the
Mission and He also enabled us to build a Village Health
Clinic, and launch a School Of Ministry And Theology.
To God be ALL the Glory for anything we achieved.
In April 1995, the Lord helped me through a major heart
operation - a triple by-pass.
After returning from Uganda to the UK, I took up
Pastoral Ministry in North London and was appointed as the Pastor
of the Elim Pentecostal Church in East Finchley on
31st August 1996. I first attended an Elim Church in
Aldershot in 1959, just after I was born again, John who
led me to Christ also introduced me to his Church which
was then in The Grove at Aldershot, and there I met
Christine, who was the Church Pianist.
Four
years after becoming a member of the Church, I was appointed to my first Pastorate in
September 1963.
I served with Elim for two years beyond the stipulated
retirement age, but had to leave in October 2007 when it
was decided by both the National and the Local
Leadership Team of Elim, that the Church in Finchley
needed a "Younger Minister to take it on to the next stage".
Their decision was painful for me to accept and it caused me a lot of grief as I found it
very hard to leave the people that I had been Pastor of
for 11 years and I had never anticipated being forced to
retire
from Pastoral Ministry, because of a preference for
"A Younger Minister."
Fortunately, since June 2001, the Lord has been blessing me
and using me as a
Gospel Singer, and I have travelled to over 200
different locations all across the UK, to sing "Songs
from The Heart."
God has also opened many opportunities
for me to serve Him on local radio over the past 37
years.
I have presented programmes on several
Radio Stations and these have included - LBC in London and BBC
Radio Medway, now known as Radio Kent. At the moment I present
"Music With A Message" on Radio Star every Tuesday afternoon at 5:30pm and
the 30 minute programme reaches people all across Ireland and even
beyond the shores of Ireland. - To God be ALL the glory.
Thanks sincerely for reading my story of what God has
done and is still doing for me.
On Friday 10th April 2009, I celebrated the 50th
Anniversary of my personal encounter with Christ and of
my becoming a Christian.
As I look back to the night Friday 10th of April
1959 and as I remember the awful condition that
I was in when I was introduced to Jesus - I think about
the words of a song:
Something beautiful, something good
All my confusion, He understood
All I had to offer Him was brokenness and strife
But He made something beautiful of my life
Jesus said - I am come that you might
have life and that you might have life in all its
fullness
I can honestly say that Jesus completely transformed my
life for good and forever. Now because of my faith in
Him, I no longer have a past, I only have a future. A
future filled with hope because as the Bible says -
Christ in you - Christ in me is - "The HOPE of GLORY." -
Please read - Colossians 1:27 and Jeremiah 29:11
If as yet you have not found real life -
real peace - real joy and real happiness, then I pray
that right now, you will have a personal encounter with
Jesus, and I invite you to trust
Him.
Jesus said - "I am The WAY
- The TRUTH and the LIFE no man can come to the Father
except through Me." That's found in John chapter 14
and verse 6.
God bless you
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