Tony – I’m Tony and this is my wife Pat. We’ve been married since 1994 and we moved up to Scotland from Haydock, Lancashire in May, 2005.
Pat – A few years ago (1998) we were living pretty ‘normal’ lives and I considered myself an atheist. I had no Christian upbringing at all, I didn’t believe in God and I didn’t believe in life after death. In fact I was pretty hostile to anyone who professed to be a Christian and they therefore kept their distance from me.
Tony – I was raised a Roman Catholic and always thought I was a Christian. I stopped going to church as an adult but I did pray now and again but this was mainly through the habits taught to me as a child. In 1996 my mother died and I began looking for answers to some of life’s great questions such as, ‘Why are we here?’ ‘What’s life all about?’ and ‘What happens when we die?
Pat – About February/March 1999, independently of one another we began reading Christian books by Billy Graham and others. One evening it was as if a light bulb was suddenly switched on in my life as I realised I believed in Jesus and He became real to me. When i told Tony it transpired that he had had a similiar experience. It seemed to us as if God had suddenly decided to call us – He found us and showed Himself to us, we didn’t find Him. We didn’t know any other Christians so began looking for a church.
Tony – A work friend of mine invited us to his house where he said we could meet with other Christians so we went. The teaching that night was on faith. I realised very quickly that it was not enough just to believe in God and that ‘faith without good deeds is useless’ so I took all the ‘borrowed’ pens and stationery back to work and me and Pat really started for the first time to try and live a life according to the teaching of Jesus.
Pat – I was so excited about my new found relationship with Jesus. I couldn’t believe that I had been so blinkered for so many years. The other Christians we met asked us to go to a local church for a Sunday service and we did. It was nothing like how I imagined a church would be. There were no pews, there was a carpet, a band was playing great music and everyone was so friendly.
Tony – On our second visit to the church the Vicar asked people to come forward for prayer and before I knew it I had stepped forward. As he prayed for me the tears flowed and I really felt the power of God who seemed to be smothering me with love and cleansing me from within.
Pat – In 1999 I was baptised. It was a full immersion which means you go right under the water. It was a really amazing night. When I came back up out of that water I felt refreshed, cleansed and full of the love of Jesus.
Tony – When we become Christians we really do become ‘new creations in Christ’. I’ve gone from a situation were I knew about Jesus to actually having a personal relationship with Him.
Pat – My new found faith has changed my life drastically. I now know that God is in control and that He has a plan for us all. We just want to serve Him and help bring other people into His Kingdom.
Update to our testimony – January 2002
Tony – We’ve been on an emotional roller coaster ride since we moved to Haydock from Liverpool in 2000, as we have been getting to know Jesus more and more. We learnt so much from our friends at the local church but we felt God telling us to move on.
Pat - God gave us both a burden for the ‘lost’ folk of Haydock and St Helens and He made it quite clear to us that He wanted us to reach out to those folk who would never enter a ‘church’ building. We resisted God’s call on this for quite a while, until in December of 2001 we made the decision to step out in faith and cut all ties with our local church.
Tony – It was not an easy decision but we just had to obey our Lord. After much soul searching, praying and seeking God’s will for our lives we started a ‘house church’ in our home in Haydock.
Pat – We are very excited at what God is going to do in Haydock and St Helens. All we want to do is listen and obey Him, and do everything with love and for the glory of Jesus. Hallelujah!
Update to our testimony – January 2004
Tony – Our journey with Jesus continues and we just want do His will. After opening our house up to anyone who wanted to come and learn about Jesus we had a number of local teenagers come to our mid week Bible studies. Some of these were what we call ’street kids’ and it was a blessing to be able to tell them about Jesus. They came for a number of weeks and at one stage we had 8 of them sitting on the floor in our living room listening to the Christian message in quite simple terms. What has become of these kids we don’t know because they didn’t come back, but we do know that we were obedient to our Lord, and that we planted seeds that may well grow and be watered elsewhere. After running the house church for about a year, during which time we had various people along, but never in any great numbers, we felt that it was OK for us to look for another church. We went along to Bridge Chapel in Liverpool with a work colleague of Pat’s and immediately knew it was the right season for us to be there. We joined a House Group led by Steve and I ended up being baptised in 2004. (I hadn’t found a church up to this point who would baptise me as I was baptised as a child – what rubbish!).
Update to our testimony – January 2005
We both firmly believe that our God places us in places and situations in seasons and in January 2005 He put it on our hearts that it was time to move on again. We didn’t know where at first but as we prayed about this and sought God’s will it became clear to us that we would be moving to Scotland – quite a big move seen as we didn’t know anyone in Scotland. Anyway, to cut a long story short we again just obeyed the Lord, sold our house in May, 2005 and travelled up to Scotland in the caravan to look for the new home the Lord was going to provide for us. And boy, did He deliver. In July we completed the purchase of a country farmhouse in a beautiful location on the Moray Firth.
The house was (and still is) in need of renovation so we just got stuck in to those DIY and building jobs, that we know could only be done with God’s help. The fact that we have done most of this work ourselves is another testimony to God’s provision because neither of us had the skills beforehand to do this. We feel really blessed at what He has given us and we are now settling in to the local community. We visit many of the local churches but don’t feel that we should become members of any one church. We are attending a mid week Home Group run by the Elgin Community Church and we have made some marvelous friends there. We are both earning a crust and we are just trusting Jesus to look after us. One thing we can say is that He has NEVER EVER let us down! We have a heart for those folk in Moray who don’t know Jesus and we are praying for the Lord to visit us and to revive His church, for His glory and for Him to ‘heal our land’ (2 Chronicles 7:14).
update to our testimony March 2008
Our journey with Jesus continues and He has continued to reveal His truths to us. We are no longer a member of a denominational traditional church. You see, the Lord has again told us to ‘come out of her’ and we just have to obey Him.
We are members of the church of Jesus Christ. What is that you ask? Well it is the true church of all believers. With us geographically, it’s just me, Pat and Jesus, being the church in our home.
We are believing more and more that rather than bringing us to Scotland because a revival is coming, the Lord has brought us here to get us out of the city. Why? Because the cities are going to be destroyed!
Contrary to popular belief, the Bible doesn’t teach that there will be a mighty end times revival. Rather Jesus said, ‘when the Son of Man cometh will he find faith on the earth’. Luke 18:8
Jesus is coming back soon!
Millions of church folk, or Christians are deceived. Those who lead or are actively involved in the Charismatic Renewal movement, those who ‘exchange the truth of God for lie’ and believe a different Gospel and those who compromise or water down the word of God are losing their crowns (Rewards) and we can have nothing to do with them.
‘And have no fellowship with with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them.’ Eph 5:11
THE APOSTATE CHURCH IS HERE NOW!
So, we are on our own again with Jesus. It can be quite lonely, but we are thankful that Jesus has shown us the truth.
We just have to live each day as it comes, be thankful, trust in Jesus and remain watchful as we await His coming.
Come quickly, Lord Jesus!
