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Well,
it all started a long time ago, 4 Years ago to be
exact.
Doing well
I was living at home with my
mum and my younger brother and sister. I had an extremely well paid job and
things, I thought were going very well and that I was quite successful in
life.
A short time before
then, I had a partner, Jo. Jo was a Christian and she enjoyed going to
church quite a lot. Jo moved away to Kent to undertake her dream and study
to become a Primary school teacher.
Things
started to go wrong
After that things just seemed
to get worse and worse. Due to many reasons, then unknown to me, Jo and I
split up. I was quite upset about this, but I just tried to get on with it
all.
Then, there were quite few major problems at home, my mother and I seemed to
argue all of the time. And after a very long painful and stressful time my
mum asked me to leave.
So, I reluctantly left. |
Invite
to a barbeque
Then one day whilst I was
in town some man invited me to a barbeque, with free food, held at Eld Lane
Baptist Church, in the Town Centre.
Strange I thought. But I went because there was
free food. And that was mainly for me the only reason. But someone well
known to all of here today, had very much different plans.
While I was at the barbeque I
met this lady. She met up with me here on the four day event. This lady was
a Christian and she liked to pray all of the time and I thought that this
was very strange... I thought to myself that there could not possibly be
anyone else like this here.
Prayer
Then she introduced me to a
man, also a Christian and who also liked to pray a
lot. Great, I thought!
We went into the church and they both started to pray. |
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Night
shelter
I eventually, after a couple of months, managed to get myself
into the Night Shelter. I started talking
with my family again and I thought that things were going ok. Then my family
had yet another argument with me and we stopped talking again.
Homelessness
I had to leave the night shelter as my time had expired and the
council could not help me, so I decided for some unknown reason to leave
Chelmsford, my home town for 18 years and I came
to Colchester.
During the course of the previous 3-4 years and the long duration of my
Homelessness, I have seen some very horrible things. I have experienced
verbal and physical abuse and I was subjected to quite a horrible and nasty
physical attack, which very few people know about.
I have attempted to end my life on various occasions because of my
circumstances and the most serious of which being after my attack.
I had been in and out of the Night Shelter twice or three times before I was
forced to sleep rough.
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This lady was Jeannette of St
Margarets and the man was John, also of St
Margarets.
John prayed for a loving home, a hope and a future
and that I would soon be in a loving home with all of these things. I
thought to myself that this was a complete waste of time, as I knew that it
was never going to happen.
But just a few months after I
met with John and Jeannette, I have just that. I
have a loving home, with Jeannette and Kevin and their two young children,
Ayden and Elodie. I have a Job now, and I have
friends that don't judge me on my circumstances. I have a hope and a future,
and also with the help of Jeannette I am speaking to my family again, and
things seem to be a lot better than before I left. And now today, much to my
amazement, Jo is here, and we are now speaking again.
I
became a Christian
Shortly after coming to live
with Jeannette and Kevin I became a Christian, I have become quite heavily
involved with the church and am now starting a new project in Colchester in
the work with Homelessness, Called Nightstop.
See our
Providing page to learn more about Nightstop and
Jeanette and David's story.
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I would just like to say thank you to everyone,
especially to Jeannette and Kevin, and to John and all those at St
Margarets for making me feel so welcome and so special. If it was not for
these people, I would not be standing here
today.
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Bible: Jeremiah 29 v 11
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