I was not a religious person at all for the first twenty years of my life, and the thought of God never really entered my thoughts at any point. This was all to change on my twentieth birthday when I was given a Bible for my birthday from a friend who is a Christian.

I was quite amused at the sight of this present. However, I started to flick through it until I came upon a page entitled ‘The Prayer of Salvation’. For some reason this page stopped me in my tracks from putting this book upon my shelf with the possibility of never being opened again. I felt an urge to say this prayer out loud. Therefore I did so, not knowing what to expect.

After saying the prayer I didn’t think much else of it and went to bed. The next morning I woke up and felt unusually happy. I wondered why, as I had no particular reason to be joyful. Over the next few days I realized that something had changed and that I felt the presence of something in my life that wasn’t there the week before.

I realized over time that this was God and that by saying that prayer truthfully and meaning it I had opened a door to a spiritual side that had always been closed in the past! I became very aware of my sins and that in order to please God I needed to change the way I thought and acted. I also felt the desire to join a church.

Two years have now passed since the saying of that prayer, and I sit here amazed at the changes that God has wrought in my life and the opportunities that He has placed in my path that are helping me walk on this narrow path to become more like Christ. I have been truly blessed with people around me who encourage and help me in my walk with God, and I look forward to looking back at my life in another two years' time to see what God has done and what I have achieved through Him.

Adrian Roberts

(a member of one of St. John's Fellowship Groups)

World War two and I arrived almost simultaneously. My parents had just returned from what was then the Belgian Congo (Zaire) where they had been working as missionaries. They had gone out as newly-weds in 1926. Now, with the addition of three daughters, they were forced to return home because of my mother's ill health.

They settled in Devon, Dad went back to work for the Midland Bank, from which he had resigned 14 years before, and I was born!

Exeter suffered quite severe bombing in the '40s. My sister tells me that during air-raids at night, huddled in our shelter, the family would sing 'Silent Night' to drown the sound of explosions and keep baby brother from crying! My worst memories from the war were that sweets were rationed!

The Bible was central to our family's way of life. We lived under what nowadays would be seen as an extremely narrow regime. It was church three times on Sundays, and no noisy games allowed. The cinema, playing cards and dancing were definite evils to be avoided.

For me, God was an accepted part of our life. I knew a lot about Him and could quote bits of the Bible, which we were encouraged to memorise. I knew the Bible said 'God is love', and it talked a lot about His loving us. However, my experience was of insecurity and emptiness. When I was about seven, my eldest sister decided