Meet the people
Here are some stories from a selection of people who come along to West Howe Baptist Church:
Beryl's story: Beryl Hinder has been coming to West Howe Baptist Church for about five years and was baptised in June 2007.
“Having been brought up as a Baptist, I spent some years away from the church before deciding about four years ago that I wanted to find a local church to attend. After visiting several, I came along to West Howe Baptist one morning … and have been coming ever since.
In 2004 my husband died and that was a very difficult time for me; I put some distance between myself and God and felt that He had let me down. About September time last year, I felt that I really wanted to move on and I spoke to Ian, our minister. He suggested that I should do a course to help me understand what life with Jesus is all about. The course is called ‘Discovering new life with Jesus’. After completing that course, I then began a second one called ‘Growing in Knowing Jesus’ and about half way through that there was an opportunity to make a commitment to God. I said the prayer of commitment and remember sitting down on the sofa afterwards and feeling a wonderful sense of warmth and peace. After that, I knew that I wanted to be baptised and my baptism took place in June this year.
Since I made my commitment to God, I have really known His presence with me. I have to say, I have also had times when things have gone wrong and I have been tempted to question God as to why, but I realise these things that happen are because God’s enemy, the devil, really wants to try to disillusion me. I know that God accepts me as I am and I am learning that it doesn’t matter if I get things wrong, so long as I come to Him and say sorry”.
Sean's story: I have been at this church for about 3 years now and I came here not knowing much about God. Through these years I have grown in knowledge of God, but it wasn’t until Soul Survivor 2006 (a Christian festival aimed at young people which teaches about worshipping God and following Jesus with your whole life) that I really decided to make that commitment to God and began my journey to being a Christian. I felt God’s presence at Soul Survivor throughout the five days but it was one particular night that made me really commit to God. Towards the end of the evening service the worship leader, Mike, said that the Holy Spirit was beginning to rest on some people. When this happens sometimes people can begin to physically shake because of the power of God. I looked across and noticed that Catherine, one of our group, was shaking a little and a couple of people laid hands on her and prayed. I decided to pray in my head for the Holy Spirit to rest on me. A few minutes later, I was still praying and I felt that God was trying to connect with me a bit then Catherine came over to me and said “God asked me to tell you that He loves you”. I began to just repeat it in my head, “God loves me”, “God loves me” and these words just sunk in and I thought to myself, wow, God loves me. Since then I have really felt that love with me all the time and I know that God’s love will never leave me. I thank God for all He’s done and is still doing for me. As you can see from the pic, Sean plays drums and is regularly involved in playing in the music team at our Sunday morning meetings.
Chris's story: My family began coming to West Howe Baptist Church when it opened in 1956. After many years of Sunday School and youth club, I understood who Jesus was and that He loved me and wanted to be involved in my life. At the age of 14, I made a decision to follow Jesus, asked Him to take charge, and was baptised. I don’t know what I expected to happen when I made this commitment but, in reality, nothing really changed and life just went on, although I did learn more about Jesus and grew in my relationship with Him.
In 1972, I joined the army. A year later I was married and almost immediately went abroad with the army and spent a number of years overseas or in Northern Ireland. Very slowly, as the years went by, I grew away from God and his teachings. I wouldn’t say that I had lost my faith at that point but I certainly didn’t have any kind of relationship with God and had stopped praying, even when things around me were going wrong.
1992 heralded a devastating two years of my life in Germany: after several not so good years of marriage I discovered that my wife had been seeing other men and that she wanted a divorce. This happened very quickly and I lost both her and my children. I became very depressed and slowly as the months went by I became an alcoholic, drinking up to 3 litres of Brandy a week. I was never sober and, considering I was the Colonel’s driver at this time, this was not a good thing! Looking back, I am sure God must have been looking after me because I never had an accident. Because of the alcohol abuse, I had to have a kidney operation which went wrong. I had blood clots on my lungs and heart and almost died, I was in intensive care for two weeks.
Some months after this, I was told by the army that the unit I worked for was being disbanded and, six months from then, I would be made redundant. I was offered another job in Germany but, before I could make a decision, I received a phone call from my brother-in-law to say that my father had died - he was 62. This news was ‘the straw that broke the camel’s back’. I totally lost it with God - I was so angry with Him; I was the bad person so why hadn’t He taken me? Instead, he chose to take my father who loved Him and served Him loyally. After all that had happened to me, I didn’t want to know God and I was having nothing to do with women either; I had been hurt by both very deeply. The level of stress that I found myself under had pushed me almost to self-destruction.
Looking back now, I can see that everything that happened was God’s plan for me, although it was not much fun at the time. As time went by, another big part of God’s plan took shape: a lady called Ruth who had also been through a horrendous divorce and had many problems, both financially and emotionally. This part of God’s plan was very simple: Get two people together who were in need of love and support.
After all the terrible times I had been through, God took a hold of me and in less than one year Ruth and I fell in love and were married. God also took a hold of my relationship with Him and showed me that no matter what things happened in my life, He loved me and would help me, if I would trust Him. In recent years, I have been very involved in the life of West Howe Baptist Church again, taking on the role of deacon for a number of years and undertaking a number of jobs to help with the practical running of the church.
Everything is possible with God. He can take the worst situations and turn them around. If things are not looking good in your life at the moment, remember God is always with you, even if you haven’t been aware of it, and He does have a plan for you which is good.
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