Nothing wrong with getting nostalgic at Christmas, is there? Do you remember the feel of that thin, shiny foil Christmas presents used to be wrapped in? Or the Georgian soldier and his sweetheart on top of the tin of chocolates you were not allowed to touch until Christmas Eve? Can you recall the excitement…
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The nights may be dark and long and the weather wintery but the journeying home for Christmas is usually fully of eager excitement and thousands of memories. It may be old, but the song ‘Driving home for Christmas’ still plays out each December! Millions of miles in the air, on rail-tracks, and roads are…
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During the 1930s depression a small town on the east coast of the USA held a public meeting to discuss the serious financial problems faced by the town. Among those present was an out-of-town visitor whom no one knew. He seemed very interested and started to make helpful suggestions, but was interrupted. He stopped…
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The Christmas story began with a census, and the Bible itself ends with a different registration. 2021 is the year of the UK’s next census. William the Conqueror carried out the first one in England, the results of which were published in the Domesday Book in 1086 AD. Since 1801, when the first census…
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The sun was setting across the dazzling Pacific as I contemplated my life. Was I happy? I was a success – that much was obvious. Successful in the eyes of my parents and friends back home in the UK. I’d effectively ‘made it’, if the objective was to get as far away from my…
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When I was a child I was dragged out by the collar on Sundays to Sunday School and different things like that. I absolutely hated Sunday. But it did give me some foundation of knowledge of the Word of God, even though at the time I had no interest in it. After I left…
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I was born in the West Midlands but my family is from South Asia. I always thought that to be Asian was to be Sikh, Hindu, Buddhist, or Muslim – and that to be anything else would be following Western ideas. Nearly everyone at my local school was Muslim. However, they fell into two…
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Stephen, a young blind Jewish man, contacted the missionary charity Christian Witness to Israel wanting to learn more about the Christian faith. However, he was worried about how his Orthodox family would react. The CWI office put him in touch with their Director of Ministry, Richard Gibson, who contacted Stephen to find out more.…
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I grew up in Hungary where I was baptised into the Roman Catholic Church as an infant for cultural reasons, even though my family are not Christians. I had been thinking about Christianity for a couple of years after some difficulties in school because of my own sins and sins against me. I felt…
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I didn’t grow up in a Christian family. My mum did take us to church when we were children, but I had no concept of a relationship with God. I do remember praying once when I was an adult. That was when a good friend was terminally ill with cancer. When she died shortly…
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I didn’t grow up in a Christian household, so I was never sure if there was a god of the universe out there. Even in the fleeting moments while I wished there was a powerful god, he just seemed vague and distant. Like many, I wanted to seek happiness and fulfilment, so a successful…
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One of the saddest days of my life was the day of my father’s funeral. It was a dark, drizzly and murky winter’s day. The weather outside seemed to mirror our mood inside. We had a service in church, giving thanks for my dad’s life, and then went to the cemetery to bury him.…
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