ABOUT ME

I am a bus driver in Ipswich and have been married since 1989.  I have 2 sons currently older teenagers.  I enjoy my job, although it can be very tiring at times and I thoroughly look forward to my 4 day long weekends every four weeks on my rota.

A potted history:

Born: 1968 Lived in Seven Kings, Ilford until I was 7.

1976: Moved to Basildon

1980-1985: Woodlands Secondary School, didn't enjoy that very much!

1985-1986: Junior Leaders Regiment Royal Engineers, lived in Dover for a year.

1987-1995: Served with RE's as a driver and re-capbadged to Adjutant General Corps as a Military Clerk. Served in Tidworth near Salisbury Plain, Berlin and Gutersloh(West Germany).  Loved Berlin lived there 4 years (1990-1994).

Married in 1989 on a glorious Late May Bank Holiday at All Saints, Woodford Green.

1995 to date: Bus driver, lorry driver, EDF Energy as a call agent, Hospital Cleaner, Lorry driver, Bus Driver!!!

Spiritually:

I came to the Lord in 1989 just before we got married while at All Saints, Woodford Green during the time of our pre marriage attendance (6 months to the day of our marriage in fact!) We had a proper Christian marriage having both come to the Lord only a few weeks before.


Luggershall Christian Fellowship. Once married and living in Tidworth, near Andover, we attended a little Fellowship where we received a measure of deliverance ministry and were baptised in the Holy Spirit.  This was amazing as it really opens your eyes to the Word and to God.  We really started then to learn how to really walk with The Lord.

Berlin. That was a really blessed time of growth which prepared us for a wilderness time once we moved to Berlin.  In Berlin fellowship was sparce at first.  We fellowshipped briefly with Eddie for a while and we survived by listening to Don Francisco albums and with visits to other friends of ours in the RAF with whom we would often visit with until it was getting light while listening to Adrian Snell and John Michael Talbot.  We learned a lot from these lovely friends but they eventually moved on too, as is the nature of life in the forces. We then met a another couple while I did a stint as an Auxiliary Policeman with the RMP's and had some really wonderful times with them too, Stephen went on to become forces padre and still serves to this day.  We made friends with some Scottish folk from the Gordon Highlanders (now almagamated) and we began to fellowship with them every week for a couple of years where we would sing, study the word and fellowship.  We became like a support group for each other and we all valued it greatly.

Gateway Christian Fellowship. When we moved back to England and after attending our village church for about 6 months, in which I was finally water baptised, we eventually found a little fellowship group.  At this group we had an amazing time of growth where we were able to really discover and develop our giftings.  It was a perfect environment for this as we were a small and intimate group of about 6 families and we ate and fellowshipped together often.  During this time I discovered that I could write songs and put them to a tune on a guitar. I was often called upon to lead the group in worship and we had some really good times in Gods presence.  We also attended a Good News Crusade camp at Malvern with them.

Orwell Church. It came to a point when our boys were at an age where they needed to mix with other Christians of their age so we felt moved to go to an NFI church in town where it appeared to be sound and was lively.  Times were really good there and we attended for 8 years.  We made some firm and long term friendships there.  While there I became involved in playing in and leading from time to time the worship team.  That was a time of huge blessing for me as I developed the ability to play in a team as opposed to on my own.  I had to lay this down for a while and subsequently became involved with teaching young people in the church.  I found this to be very rewarding indeed.  It is a very profound and humbling thing investing in the spiritual future of young Christians.  Quite a responsibility which I miss to be honest!  We went to Grapevine and Newday during this time.

Wanderings and time for a complete change.  Things started to go wrong at Orwell for us, and with hindsight I believe God wanted us out of there.  I won't go into details at this point but we found ourselves in a situation where we had to 'tow the party line' or leave.  We left!  This was a difficult time for us because not only were we confused about not being in a church but it was a time of challenge because I felt that church as we had become used to it didn't appear to be working as God intended.  It seemed to produce more hurt and damage than good we seemed to be founding out as we shared our story with others.  I started looking into the Emergent movement to see if this was the way.  I found that more confusing than anything else as I had trouble finding anything biblical about it.  The more I looked into church the more I discovered that heresies were prevalent and deeply seated within.  I felt lost if I am honest.  I missed going to church but could not be a party to false and flimsy doctrine any longer.

House Church and Hephzibah.  After a while we found some fellowship with some 'Bereans' and we started to do some really good studies where we learned how to discern good from bad doctrine.  Just before this time I was dragged along to a Hephzibar meeting where I struggled to understand what was being taught.  It is very Israel and eschatology centred and my problem was I didn't know much about either.  I am gradually getting to grips with it and I discovered that if you apply yourself to it understanding comes.  I believe God rewards those who truly seek truth! I have come to the point now where I don't take anyone's word for anything and check it out to ensure that it lines up with scripture.  In fact I prefer to look at a scripture to see what it says than to fit a scripture to a theory, so that I don't take anything out of context!  We continue to fellowship and study the Word with our fellow bible believing friends and recently we have taken to meeting regularly to pray with a friend who is a serious intercessor.  We are learning how to really pray!

I continue to work out my salvation.............