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Apart from being an ambulance person, I am an elder and a youth worker.

My Bible: reasons to believe in the power of the Bible

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‘Apart from being an ambulance person, I am an elder and a youth worker. We go every year to a Christian youth festival. A few years ago we were there and I was praying that God would speak to the young people, but the message spoke to me. 

‘My relationship with my father had been an abusive one. I grew up in Zimbabwe, one of seven children. He sent me to the shops every morning at 5.30 am to buy the paper. It was cold then, but he wouldn’t let me put my jumper on. 

‘When I got there, the man selling papers wouldn’t be there, so I would wait in the cold in my t-shirt and shorts. I often forgot the change. My father accused me of stealing his money. He would hit me on the back with a cable 30 to 40 times until I bled. That was just one of the things I got beaten for. 

‘At the Christian festival, the preacher talked to the young people about abuse. I hadn’t expected that God would deal with me and my issue. Even now it is quite painful to think about. 

‘As I started the process of healing, the verses that spoke to me were Romans 5.1–5. It begins, “Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand.”

‘These verses told me that whatever adversity I had faced, God had changed everything into something beautiful. I couldn’t be the person that I am today, if I hadn’t gone through that – not that God wanted me to go through that, but he turned it to good.’

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