I haven't always been a Christian, much the opposite in fact.... come to think of it, if I'm brutally honest I think I've pretty much trashed my way through all but one of the ten commandments - you'll be happy to know I have never murdered anyone! If someone told me 4 years ago, that I would become a Christian I'm afraid I would have laughed ... A LOT.

Where to begin???? In January 2004 a lot of things changed for me, at this time I lived in London... I had a very nice job, a very nice apartment and all the little extra's that make life comfortable for a 30 year old. I had just given the option of redundancy at the company I was working for and decided to take it and go travelling. Though I had all the things a person could want I couldn't help think that there was 'more to life than this', I had always loved watching Lonely Planet and decided this was a great opportunity to go and see a bit of it first hand. I had every intention of volunteering for some organisation or other whilst in the depths of South America and spending the foreseeable future saving trees and monkeys.

Many of my colleagues I worked with in London were from the far reaches of the globe and I had invites from two of them to visit their families 'back
home'. One originated from Colombia, the other was from Australia. I booked myself an around the world flight and off I went... First stop: Colombia! My friend Maria accompanied me on this first flight out of London, we landed almost a day later in a small coastal town of Colombia called Santa Marta. Over the course of the next 3-4 weeks she took me to some beautiful places, white sandy beaches in the most remote areas of the Colombian coast line and beautiful forest reserves. She steadily introduced me to what seemed to be an enormous family, towards the end of my stay she introduced me to her cousin Kikio. A young man of 24 who's wisdom and maturity seemed to belong to a man twice that age. He was a successful businessman, an entrepreneur who was incredibly intelligent and who thankfully spoke English! We all spent a couple of evenings out and we got talking about a whole range of things and I enjoyed the conversation. Then on the third evening out he got onto talking about something that made me feel VERY uncomfortable.... he got onto talking about his faith in God. I remember thinking that this intelligent, wise young man was completely nuts, I smiled politely, and made appropriate gestures and noises to show I was listening but didn't really have much to say on the subject. It was perhaps best I didn't say anything to be fair, my thoughts on such things were a little negative to say the least. I mean, look at all the starving and suffering people in the world... So to cut a painfully long story short (as I only wished Kikio had), the night came and went and not much more was said on the matter of 'Big G'. Phew!

Over the following few days I spent a lot of time with Kikio because he had cattle farms, and where there are cattle; there are horses.... and I love horses! Whilst visiting these farms I saw a very different side to Colombia, not the cocaine fields as I'm sure you might expect but incredibly poor townships and people and such extreme poverty like I had not seen before. I was ashamed of my own comparative wealth and was humbled by their generosity and hospitality. In the early hours of the mornings saw men pushing carts made out of scrap wood through the streets of Barranquilla, picking up any cardboard or empty cans left in the street. Kikio told me they can get money for these, fractions of pence.... and they have to survive on this. Some had children with them, most had the words "Dios es Amor" either painted or etched into the sides of their carts... "Dios es Amor" is Spanish for God is Love, I was overwhelmed by their faith when they lived such an existence. I visited many families, all welcomed me and offered me what food or drink they had, smiling faces, close-nit families, all had a deep founded faith in God. One person we visited was an elderly lady, she lived with her granddaughter and suffered very poor health. Her grand-daughter was not yet old enough to work and they were very poor, they had a couple of chickens but that was it. They lived in a lean-to half way up the mountainside between Medellin and Manizales.... Not the safest place for westerner to be, but hey ho! In the short time we were there, three people stopped and gave them what food they could spare; Banana's, Plantain & Mango's. None of these people had much of anything themselves, yet they offered what they had. I realised that my view was completely wrong, historically when asked the question 'Do you believe in God' I had retorted with something about how could there be one when there's such suffering in the world. I was overwhelmed with emotion, I realised with unbelievable clarity that this is precisely where God is and where He works His most profound miracles.

It wasn't as cut and dry as that though, and my story does go on... but I'm bored with typing now so if you should happen to drop by St L's one time, be sure to give me a nudge and I'll be happy to tell you the rest over a cup of coffee.