“When I was just 15 we had a visit from The Gideons to my grammar school. They came into our class and presented us all with small red coloured New Testaments with the Psalms included. The next day our teacher made us all sit down and write to The Gideons to thank them for their kind. We all had to sound really grateful whether we were or not!!

Mine lay in a drawer at home unused until I was 17 and in my final year at school. Through a series of circumstances, I started to think about spiritual things for the first time in my life and my mind went to the New Testament in my drawer. I looked up the daily readings and for several months I was drawn back, time after time, to read the portion for each day. Even when in the middle of a TV programme, I would have to stop and get the book out and start to read. I was searching for answers to life’s most pressing questions and I was talking to lots of people and seemingly getting more and more confused. But the New Testament spoke with clarity and certainty to my young, seeking mind.

On Sundays, I used to go for long walks and to do a lot of thinking away from distractions and would often stand across the road from a local church and watch the people going in and out and wonder what it was that drew them there. I was especially fascinated by the numbers of young people about the same age as myself. What was it they saw in Christianity?

Eventually, I sought out my cousin whom I heard through the family grapevine had recently become ‘good living’ as it was described, and he invited me to that church with him.

There I heard the message of the gospel clearly for the first time and I attended several weeks in a row, getting a greater understanding of this life-changing message. Then, in my daily readings I came to John 14 v 6 and the words seemed to stand up on the page and hit me between the eyes, “Jesus said, ‘I am the Way, the Truth and the Life; no one comes to the Father except through me.’” I knew I had been looking for those three things – a Way to live, Truth in a confused world, and especially Life – real life. And here in front of me were the claims of Jesus Christ that He was all three!

Shortly afterwards, after an evening service in church, I bowed my head in the back seat of a little mini car at the side of the road and repented of my sin and came to Christ.

The Lord eventually gave me Sheela as a wonderful wife, took us to Bible College and into Christian ministry. We had three children of our own and adopted another son in 2003. In late 2007 after a struggle with cancer, the Lord saw fit to take Sheela to Glory where she beholds with her own eyes the Lamb in Immanuel’s Land.

I thank God for the faithful witness of The Gideons. Never despise the power of the little!”