I was a civil engineer: building bridges, railways and roads. My husband and I bought this house and thought we’d fill it with a family. We were going through infertility treatment. I had two early miscarriages and then a later miscarriage with our...

I got married quite young. After a few years we wanted children, but after a few more years – during which time I’d had a miscarriage – nothing was happening, so we saw specialists for tests. They didn’t find anything, but we had unidentified...

On 6 August 2014 ISIS came to our city and we were forced to leave. ISIS had said that Christians should convert to Islam or they would be killed, or taken with them. I was a teacher and had an ordinary Christian life. We wanted to stay Christians an...

When my mum was pregnant with me, my parents read Psalm 121 a lot. It’s comforting and very beautiful. It gives an atmosphere of peace and support. Then there was a fire in my mum’s house about a week before I was due. The house burned down. My d...

In August 2016 I lost my job. My biggest worry was financial. I have three daughters. I had a mortgage. I was already struggling with the mortgage and three daughters on my own. That was the biggest thing. I had to sell the house last year and I was ...

I was in my late twenties and working at a radio station in London. One of my colleagues invited us all to a carol service at All Soul’s Langham Place. We all sat in the row. At the end, I was in tears, which later I learned was the Holy Spirit tou...

'I loved the sea. So, from school I went straight to naval college and, when I was 17, I was on board the British Vigilance. She was a tanker taking 10,000 tonnes of aviation fluid to Malta. We were ten miles off Gibraltar when we were torpedoed...

I met my wife in Spain. When I came to England, I could only say, "Good morning, very pleased to meet you Mr Bolton," that was my father-in-law to be. That was my only sentence. I could say "I love you" and "hello." Ever...

'I go to the Scriptures every day. There’s a bit where Jesus stands up and says he’s come to bind up the brokenhearted and set the captives free. I base my life on that: meeting people’s needs and helping people. My husband and I have been...

I’m a medical researcher. I grew up in Xinjing Province in China. I didn’t have much information about Christianity or the Bible. No-one believed around us. It was only when I came to this country that I had contact with Christianity. I lived in ...

For 20 years, I was a monk and lived in West Africa. Then, I did a sabbatical in Ireland. I had to go to see a cloistered nun for six days as a retreat. It was a moment when I saw that the calling to be a monk was no longer on my life. I had a feelin...

My husband, Jim, was a vicar. It was a very stressful job. He went away for a long weekend to France. He loved riding his motorbike, and he was killed leaving the ferry on it. He went to France on the Thursday and he was dead on the Friday. He was ca...

I worked in the City for 10 years, in derivatives. It was the fastest, most aggressive and cut-throat part of the City. It was great fun. But I did a Bible course for two years. It was a complete change of pace. I found myself coming back into the C...

I came over from Austria in 1959 to improve my English. I was just 19. I wanted to be a nurse, but my father objected, because he considered it to be not good enough. I went behind my father’s back and applied to work in a hospital. I wrote to my f...

I have found several passages meaningful to me. Currently, the one that resonates the most is Jeremiah 1.4-8. In it God says, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you and before you were born I consecrated you. I appointed you to be a prophet to...

The first two chapters of the Bible give us a picture of a world that's perfectly designed by God and perfectly in line with his will and character. People live in the way they're meant to live, and all the ingredients of the natural world ...

The job that brought me here, I really, really wanted. The desire for it was disproportionate. I’m from Northern Ireland and had been living in Oxford for two years. The situation there wasn’t particularly great, so at the time, I felt that this ...

Before the coronavirus outbreak, I came out to New Zealand, because I’d won a two-month writing scholarship. I’d wanted to do this for years. I feel pretty safe here, but, now there’s the chance to get a flight home. If I don’t take it, I cou...

I manage the Glo bookshop in Motherwell. It’s an independent Christian bookshop and part of a wider mission organisation. Before lockdown, bookshops had been struggling anyway. Because we own the building, we were insulated from some of the trial...

‘I met my wife when I was 28 and we married at 31. She was a lovely girl, beautiful looking. We started dating and then she got pregnant and then we had to get married, because it would have been a shame to have a child out of wedlock. We didn’t ...