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Testimonies

Tracy

“Life before Jesus was unbearable. I never realised how lost I was until I slowly began to accept God’s truth, and He gently led me out of a life marked by neglect and abuses of all kinds. I had lived life by lurching from one crisis to another, one relationship to another, none of them bringing any kind of peace. I was unable to commit to any goal or be stable or grow as a person. Out of this pain and confusion, I became an injecting drug addict, and my life was lived in darkness and depravity. If the drugs hadn’t took my life by overdose (accidental or on purpose) then disease was certain to, when I contracted hepatitis c as a result of using needles. My body was ravaged and I was desperately ill in every sense of the word. But after I started attending Christ Church with a friend, Jesus began to heal me of herion addiction, and brought me out from under it without my even having asked Him. I now realise this was simply because He loves me and knew what I needed and what was best for me.

Since then it has been a journey, sometimes difficult, to seek God’s will for my life. Whatever I have had to face, and what ever the future holds, I know he is with me. I am still learning to know and trust Jesus, to let Him into my areas of true brokeness. But this I know, without Him I would have lived and died without hope. On the hardest days, when depression tries to close in again, I know I do not have to lie down and submit to hopelessness because He is with me. I know in my spirit that He is real, and that He died on the cross that we may all know forgiveness and eternity in heaven with Him. Now I am a mother and waiting to go to university. None of this would have been possible without Jesus, and now my body is healed of hepatitis c. Working through the doctors, whom God created and gave the skill and knowledge to treat illness, I am now hepatitis c negative and serious back problems have been healed by the hand of God Himself without medical intervention. It’s nearly seven years since I last used a street drug, and I attribute this miracle to God and God alone and will tell of His wonder all my days that others may know also the hope we have in Him. There is nothing He can’t sort out…nothing.”

Claire

“Dear friend, I didn’t have a very nice childhood. I was raped at twelve and went on to use drugs. By the age of fourteen I was injecting heroin. By the time I was twenty nine I had contracted Hepatitis C. I cried out to the Lord Jesus ‘Help Me!’ and He did. He came into my life in power. I have now been set free from addiction and healed from Hepatitis C. I have a hope and a future in Jesus.”

Glen

“I have very little recollection of my past behaviour before I became a Christian. I do recall growing up in a loving home but still enjoying a sinful lifestyle. I disliked school immensely, dreaming of the next holiday and thinking how on earth did I arrive here? Why am I here? What is life all about? I doubted my teachers had a clue either!

In 1984, when I was nine years old, my Mother took my Sister and I to a Methodist Church to see Christian singer and guitarist Bryn Haworth. After his concert and testimony, an alter call was made. It took no time at all before my mother dragged us both to the front for prayer. Before I knew it I was reluctantly saying the prayer of salvation.

It wasn’t a radical conversion or anything to write home about, and life went on pretty much as normal. I attended youth groups at church before drifting away during secondary school. Disappointed by the behaviour of the Church and despondent with God.

Ten years later in the summer of 1994, I boarded the YWAM (Youth With A Mission) Mercy Ship M/V Anastasis and worked aboard as an electrician. It was my first international trip alone and first real experience of mission life, opening my eyes to a new, exciting and vibrant lifestyle. Living and working with so many servant-hearted Christians from all over the World. This positively impacted my life and restored my faith and hope in God.

Unfortunately, over the next seven years my church attendance became rather sporadic until I gave up altogether and pursued a successful career in Telecoms. That came to an abrupt end in 2002 when the Telecoms bubble burst and I was made redundant.

Though unsettling at the time, this gave me the golden opportunity to sell my home and pursue a dream career as an Outdoor Adventure Sports Instructor. However this exciting role was short lived and damaged within a self serving Christian environment. Thus I began to seek contentment elsewhere training as a Divemaster in Roatan, Honduras (a remote Western Caribbean island), and afterwards backpacking around the World.

After 310 days, touring seventeen countries on five continents, I returned home in 2004. I had plenty of time to reflect on my past adventures, the challenges faced, achievements made, dreams fulfilled, fears overcome etc. I had hoped after pursuing careers, ambitions, lifestyles, relationships and now travelling that I might finally find lasting peace and contentment in my own way. Yet these only offered temporary solutions.

Through each venture over the past three years NETS had constantly been a recurring thought. Whether this was my own thoughts or God’s prompting I could not tell. My current Christian growth had hit an all time low. I still believed the fundamental Christian truths and had a knowledge about God, but I didn’t know Him. I had become disheartened that God was not real in my own life and was currently running on ‘blind faith’.

In 2005 I embarked on NETS in pursuit of a real and intimate relationship with God, and ended up getting a lot more than I bargained for. Although rather sceptical of Christian communities (judging from past experiences), I remained guarded at first, but had an unshakeable call that God had called me to this place. It took some time for God to break through those defences and to lay the necessary foundations for what was to come.

God surrounded me with genuine, non-judgemental and encouraging people. Radically different to any previous Christians I’d ever encountered in the church. Imperfect yet humble people touched by God, practising daily the biblical principles, and thus positively impacting and inspiring others. It was as if God was shining through them and breathing new life into all around. This was the church, the body of Christ functioning as God intended.

After reading ‘Steps to Freedom in Christ’ by Dr Neil Anderson and ‘Drawing Near’ by John Bevere. My major breakthrough came at a point in time when I was completely broken and desperate for God to do something radical in my life. It came during one of my ministry times.

That morning I awoke expectant for the first time ever and knew something in my life was about to change. During the worship I surrendered all my mind, will and emotions to God. He answered my prayer to my surprise and thus a kind of volcano of emotions erupted which I will never forget. I experienced God’s healing touch of my crushed and wounded spirit in an indescribable way. When God moves and speaks awesome things happen and your life is changed forever.

This was the first of many ministry times where God would take me by the hand and walk me through my healing. Removing condemnation, anger, fear and rejection and by His grace replacing with strength, endurance, peace, contentment, love, joy, nurture, acceptance, belonging and the Father Heart of God. Life would never be the same again with God in the driving seat!

Now God has brought me and my wife Rebekah to this Church to support, encourage and counsel others. Helping people to find the hope, healing and freedom we have experienced in Jesus. Will you trust Him? He is faithful.”

Rebekah

“I want to share an experience with you. It’s as real and as honest as I can make it, it’s about my life!
I want to start by reading you a list of words that pretty much describe my life in past days:
Despised, rejected, sadness, grieved, troubled, wounded, crushed, oppressed and ridiculed.
I wonder how many of you can relate with these words?
When we can relate to a situation or somebody, we find comfort and understanding. We search to ‘fit in’, to be normal, for identity, to answer the question ‘who am I?’ The searching is part of being human, but where we search for identity causes problems.
For me I searched in, education and achievement, sexual relationships, money and possessions, even fitness and sport. Perhaps you search at the bottom of a pint glass, at the end of a tab or from the end of a syringe?
The reality is, no matter what our background, where we are brought up, we all experience some if not all of the pain of those words I read earlier, either through things we’ve done in our lives or things done to us.
Now let me tell you some good news.
That list of words was also used to describe the life experience of one special man- Jesus Christ.
You may know this name as only a swear word, or perceive an image of some guy in a white nighty hanging in some stain glass window! But this man can relate to your situation 100%.
For God so loved you that he chose to become human and live life on this world, experiencing the pain of those words, so you can relate to him. The only difference is, He never caved in on his identity, He was sure of who He was, He made no mistakes.
Several years ago, I chose to relate to Jesus Christ for my identity and my purpose. It’s not been an easy ride, but Jesus’ choice has broken the power of those words over my life, and He wants to do the same for you, but you too have a choice whether or not to accept Him.”