At 16 I discovered punk, I learnt to play the drums and played in afew bands, I moved from listening to bands like Nirvana to NOFX and Rancid and especialy Rage against the Machine. This got me thinking outside of my box. And althoguh nothing that bad had ever happened to me I saw that bad things did happen to other people and some things in the world were not how they should be.
I was brought up a Christian but looking back I don't think I really understood it. I saw it as a tool to keep my personal life wrapped up in a nice neat little package. A reason to be good. And once I discovered Punk I gave much more attention to what a band said in an interview than whatb anyone said in church. I wandered away from church. Not particularly dramaticaly just wandered away.
I realised I had spent most of my life on the small Island I grew up on. I knew I had to see the rest of the world. I developed a plan to travel large parts of the world on foot and got an office job to fund it. Everything was leading up to this. Other alternatives were suggested to me but I ignored them. I didnt want anything planned or organised for me I wantedf to be free to wander from place to place.
One morning I sat at my desk at work and everything changed. Not because of anything which had physicaly happened. It was a normal morning. But I changed all my plans and decided to go away to do some volountary work. God spoke to me dramaticaly and told me not to waste my time wandering around the world but to do something useful. So I applied to about six different agencies and decided that I would go with the first one to get back to me. A group called Latin link E-mailed me back first inviting me to go to Peru for four months and then go somewhere else in Latin America for two more months. I took it up and got ready to leave.
Peru changed everything. I saw poverty and hopelesnes. I saw people eat out of the rubbish bins, I saw people living in houses made out of junk. I saw street kids living in a sewer pipe. I can never look at the world in the same way again. I began to read my Bible during this time and soon discovered that when read in the light of what I had seen it was a dramatic call for change. I discovered that sin is not primarily a lack of personal holiness or forgetting to pray every day or not going to church. I saw sin in the structures of this world which we have created in which the poor suffer to keep the rich living comfortably. The structures whithin which it is acceptable that the poor will work 18 hour shifts in in human conditions to make cheap goods to fund rich lifestyles. This is sin and the Bible spoke out against this dramaticaly. The punks which I previously regarded as having something important to say look pale in comparison.
On coming home I knew my only option was to search out the poor in my own country. I found them as homeless alcoholics with nowhere to go. The God who had spoken to me origionaly helped me and a friend to open a shelter for them. I wanted to study the Bible more though I wanted to understand it and know it so I went away to study. I moved to London to study at the London School of Theology. I am now two years into my three year course there. I am getting married in a few weeks and plans for the future are coming together.