Daniels Testimony

please note this blog posting was not actually made on the 2nd July 2004, however we have entered that date as it is the date of remembrance of our wedding as this is the date when we got married. This posting was actually added by Daniel after our return from missionary service abroad in July 2008, but we wanted to add it to give some background to one of our lives - to give information of what happened in our lives before we went abroad to serve the lord in third world countries.

Hello there everyone,

well a testimony ( life story ) of what God has done for you is a very personal thing, and not something that I would have considered putting on the inernet before. But our life stories are very important. The Bible says that "by the power of the blood (Jesus dying for us and rising again to give us life and set us free from our sin, the bad things we have done) and the word of our testimony, we have overcome".

So I have decided to share an outline of my life story here on this blogsite and I hope it challenges, encourages and blesses people.

My life story in a way starts before I was even born. That sounds kind of strange I know, and by that I dont mean that God planned my life before I was even born, although that would also be true. The reason I start my story before I was born was because I had a brother called Martin who died before I was born. This happened to my parents in very tragic circumstances the first time they were in Africa ... my mum left a drawer on the floor that she thought contained just papers or something like that, but there were pills in there and my little brother found them, thought they were sweets and took them and got sick and died. Good things come out of bad things though if we look to God, and my parents came to have a real and living faith in Jesus through what happened because many christians helped them and loved them and showed them the love of God.

This whole thing affected me somehow as a child though, because I found out from a young age that I had a brother who died when he was small before I was around. I became acutely aware that death and sickness etc were real, and I developed a very strong fear of both even as a small child in Africa. I can still remember my mum being scarely impressed that at a young age I knew how to spell the word "dead". If my mum put me to bed at 8pm, then I would find it very hard to go to sleep, as I thought that if i went to sleep I might just and never wake up..so I would put the light back on and just lye there for hours on the bed until exhaustion would take me over.

I was born in England, however when I was just a baby then my parents went to Africa again with me, to follow the Lords calling so until I was 7 years old I had many black friends who did not have many things materialistically and lived simple lives. I loved it there in the hot heat and with my friends. When we moved as a family back to England it was very strange for me. I knew that I was british, but none of that really meant anything to me. I mean my childhood stories included such things as me finding a bowl of caterpillars that a man had been collecting for his lunch, me feeling sorry for the caterpillars, setting them free and then my mum having to cook him a proper meal !!!

Compared with all this England seemed very strange, and rather cold and unfriendly, people were more into material things and not so much into a love of each other, having less time for each other with a more frantic pace of working lives etc. For my first few years at school I was a fairly average kid with average grades and some friends. I had become "saved" (asked Jesus into my heart to forgive me for my sins and to save me from my bad things that separate us from God ) when I was in Africa though I cant remember an exact time or date...but i believed in Jesus as the son of God, and realised Gods wonderful love for me......but here in England the church didnt seem on fire or exciting, and although I continued to believe in God I didnt really pray much or seek him for myself anymore.

When I went to high school at age 12, for some time I had a number of "normal" school friends and was ok, just doing the usual teenage things like listening to music and playing football etc.....

But because I had always felt so ""different"" from everyone else, especially since arriving in England from Africa, then after a while I found a "bad gang" at my school rather attractive. I didnt want to be with them to do bad things, but because they were not afraid to identify themselves as DIFFERENT and because I had always felt like a "black sheep"I started to be with them at school, and going to some parties with them etc. They were getting into drugs, drinking lots, smoking, and sleeping around, but I was just happy to be with them and curious to see if any of it really made people happy or not....as time went on I could see that it actually didnt but I was just glad to feel like I had some special friends.

After some time I came to realise they were not really my friends at all. One night we went to a "dance party" and there they were all smoking. They decided the time had come for me to at the very least smoke, so they put the cigarette into my mouth, and told me to smoke. . I didnt even know what to do! So I breathed out and many hot ashes went up into my eyes, so I ran to the toilets to put water into my eyes. When I returned to the all of my so-called ""friends"" were laughing at me !! and from the very next day I decieded not to be with them anymore....but I didnt fully realise what the consequences of that decision would be.....

The "gang" started bullying me and as I had not other friends, i became a school loner on my own without anybody. It was hard as I am a very sociable friendly person and my confidence went down very fast and I got very depressed lonely and sad. To begin with my way of dealing with this was to walk the streets during my breaks and lunchtimes just aimlessly wandering around, trying to kill time until the next lesson. But in England, in the winter it gets very cold with rain and hail and even some snow, and I was not able to do this anymore then....so I began to just take my lunch with me into the toilets, lock myself in and just cry and eat my lunch there. No-one knew all of the details of this not even my parents as you feel like it would be shameful to tell them when you are a teenager you just want to act like everything is ok.....

I never gave up on my belief in God, I have never accepted the lie that I and the whole beautiful world with sunsets and surises is just an ""accident"" as Science would have us believe, but in this time I was angry and upset and felt rejected and cast aside not only by people but also by God. For some time i even stopped going to church with my parents, and when they were at church praising and worshipping God, I would be at home on my own drinking a couple of beers and watching a movie to try to escape the reality and pain of my life....

I came to the end of my time at school, where nearly everybody went on to University . I planned to go, but in my depression and loneliness I felt that if I went straight away, probably something really bad would happen. So I briefly picked up one day a Christian Magazine in my house that my parents subscribed to, and in the back I found an advert saying ""free christian year out in schools evangelism in London "". Evangelism means telling people about Jesus and God and his love, and this was not what I expected to be doing in the midst of me feeling lonely and not sure if God even loved ME. Somehow, the advert still captivated me, as i realised the year would be free, and I could delay going to university, so I applied and was accepted and for a year. I was sharing through drama and other methods about the bible and the "gospel" story of how Jesus died for our sin ( the bad things we do ) so if we believe in him - Gods only Son - that we can then be saved and go to heaven instead of hell. The most common verse we were sharing with the kids was the verse from John chapter 3, verse 16 in the bible that says """ For God so loved the world he sent his one and only Son, so whoever believes in him will not perish (be lost) but have everlasting life."""

Running christian lunchclubs, befriending some of the youth, helping in my local base-church with running sunday school talks etc etc was a lot of activity. I was genuinely doing it to further the gospel and to bless all the youth. Despite all of this I wasnt very sure about my own faith, as I still felt lonely even though there were many people I had daily interaction with. I believe looking back this was because God was wanting me to be ever closer to him in deep intimacy with him. When we dont draw close enough to God, then even if we have overall faith in Jesus as saviour of our sins, yet we can still feel empty at times, as we need to spend much time with the Lord in prayer. Just as Jesus would go to one side away from the crowds often as shown in the bible, to pray to his Father in heaven, if he the son of God had to do such a thing, then this is a good example for us to follow regularly and often. The bible teaches us to pray without ceasing and during this time God was calling me to come closer to himself.

The full year-out in primary&secondary schools evangelism that Daniel partook in was in London with the Pais Project, an interdenominational organisation set up for youth work training and schools evangelism. The website is http://www.paisproject.com/

After this evangelism year-out of ministry in London schools in the UK, I went to university for 3 years to undertake a business course. I am not really a mathematical or statistical kinda person, being much more relationship-people based in terms of my personality. Despite this I felt business was what I should study and so off i went to university to learn this course. I made a very good friend at the university. But after a few months this friend (who was a girl even though we were only ever on a friends level!) got a serious boyfriend and he was part of a group of friends. I hadnt yet allowed the holy spirit to cleanse and heal me from that past fear of groups, So I lost my friend because she was now part of bigger groups.

Again I became somewhat of a loner and felt very afraid of people. I tried going to a few churches locally to see if I could find some friends, but it didnt really work out. Either the place wasnt friendly enough (have to confess for myself and christian brothers and sisters no christians are perfect!), or even if it was friendly, then I would get scared if someone so much as offered to shake hands with me and I would end up turning and running out the building! It was like i felt a big spiritual war around and within me, knowing I wanted to get closer to God but feeling guilty and useless and condemned.

Eventually I found that there were 24-hour computer internet rooms at the university, open day and night. I had known vaguely about internet chat rooms, but now in this time of loneliness I entered into them in earnest. I would spend hours, days, even whole nights sitting in the university computer room talking to people online on the internet. It was as if it was a place i was able to talk to people, i had become so withdrawn and fearful of rejection that I couldnt even face up to talking to people face to face anymore really, yet online it was just text messages of conversation and I was able to deal with that. In my loneliness and pain I cried out to God to meet me where I was at, and to do something to show me just how much he loved me. I knew that Jesus had died to save me from my sins and I had never given up on my faith in almighty God.

God met me right where I was at, through the internet. One day in a chatroom I got talking to a girl called Lucy who "just happened" to live in the same town as me and "just happened" to go to a lively church. (I had been asking God to show me the right church to go to, but I also told him I was too afraid to go alone and yet as I was too afraid to talk to anyone to get to know anyone it was a vicious scarey cycle I was in!). This girl lucy offered me to come to her church which was near to where I lived at university. Seemed amazing. I began to thank God for my miracle. But then I realised with shock upon asking her what was her age, that she was only 14 at the time, and I was 21 years of age. I began to picture what would happen if I went around to her house. I had visions of her parents with a shotgun through the letterbox to shoot me, or them calling the police because of a 21 year old male university student harrassing their 14 year old teenage daughter!! And yet God was bringing this miracle through to completion in his plans for me. When the door opened of her home, she was there with her parents behind her, and they were smiling and welcoming !! They all took me to church in their car, it felt like a dream to me, then gave me sunday lunch and chatted with me afterwards. As I was able to sit with them alongside their family I wasnt so scared in church as I had been on my own, and I sat there in church and as the pastor talked about Gods love I cried and cried and even fell to the floor. I "knew" about Gods love and the reality of it in my head, and yet in all my guilt and condemnation feelings and all my bitterness sadness and sin I felt so very far away from him. But I kept going back time and time again even though I often felt torn apart as though in middle of mighty spiritual war in the church.

Although I was going to church, I was still very much a loner in university. I was still afraid of people, and still at university only talking to people online on the internet, even though my confidence was returning through my visits to church and drawing closer to Jesus. But then God met me right where I was at in university in that computer room yet again with another mighty miracle.

I met another girl, more my own age this time called Rhoda, who was studying at the time at Cambridge university, a famous university in England. We made friends, it turned out she was a christian and she sympathised and helped and encouraged me, and I in turn poured out encouragement into her life. She turned out to also be extremely intelligent, talented and beautiful! We talked online many times, then through letters, then on the phone, and then met up a few times in person. The first time we talked was online in February 2001. We got married in July 2004. Then, because we both felt a heart for going out to the third world nations to help people out there less fortunate than ourselves, and to bring them the good news gospel message of Jesus Christ, we then set out to Belize in July 2006, 2 years after we had got married.

The rest of this blogsite tells the story of what happens next abroad in the third world nations of Belize(near Mexico in Central America)....Ecuador(in South America) and Trinidad (in the Caribbean). We had to make big sacrifices to get to go out there. Although we had been married for 1 year in our own home, living in London, yet we left that home in 2005 to go and live with Daniel's parents for a year in Kent, in order to save up the money to go abroad. We sold our car and many other possesions to raise the funds and away we went. It has not always been easy. Jesus never said it would be easy following him. But he has promised to never leave us nor forsake us. He has promised that he goes before us to heaven to prepare mansions for us there. And whosoever believes in Jesus Christ as the son of God, puts their trust and faith in him and follows him shall be saved.

God bless you richly.

http://www.lookingforgod.com/

Daniel.