Just over a year ago my grandson Alden and I were hit by a van while we were lying on the grass at the Ardingly show ground. We were crushed under the front bumper and both sustained serious injuries. Many people have described our survival as a miracle and I truly believe that God saved our lives.

Alden was airlifted to St George’s hospital and I went to Royal Sussex County Brighton. When the helicopter left with Alden it was feared that his injuries were life threatening and the relief we felt on hearing that although he had a fractured pelvis there was no sign of internal bleeding as they had feared was indescribable.

Due to Pete’s Multiple Sclerosis he has complex care needs and at the time I was looking after him with increasing difficulty at home with the help of Carers. It was immediately obvious that I was going to be unable to care for him for some time. From A&E I managed to contact his regular respite home and arrange for them to collect him and his equipment the next morning. Family and friends rallied round and kept him safe until then.

I freely admit to being something of a control freak and over the next few months of surgery, healing and initially being able to do nothing much for myself or Pete I had to constantly turn to God to give me grace and patience.

It was a source of comfort to us both that Pete had been able to go to Heatherley where he was known from his respite visits over several years and there were staff who knew Pete when he could still talk and knew the important things such as never putting him in front of Eastenders and to make sure he got to the service held there on Mondays.

Heatherley had given us some unwelcome news in the March of last year informing us that, although Pete could go there for respite if they had a bed free, we could no longer book ahead as I needed to if, for instance, I booked a holiday. I had spent three months looking at alternatives and found one home which met his requirements. Then that one had promptly failed its CQC inspection. Due to a very high demand for the type of care Pete needs, exacerbated by similar homes being closed locally, we found ourselves in a position where if Pete came home we couldn’t have regular respite and if we could no longer cope at home there was no guarantee of a bed being available.

Pete in the meantime had been at Heatherley for 4 months and was doing really well. He had been given a room with doors to a patio on the side of the home we preferred. All things considered we prayerfully took the decision that he would remain there. This has meant much adjustment for us both emotionally, practically and also financially. We have valued the support of friends and family as we continue in this new way of life.

I have been particularly helped through this time by certain scriptures. Brian Maidstone preached from Zephaniah 3 v17 The Lord your God is with you, he is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over us with singing. This painted such a picture for me of the rela-tionship God wants with us and his great care for us.

When you experience a big life changing event there are questions you have and a sense of puzzlement that things have happened in a particular way. 1 Corinthians 13v12 says “for now we see through a glass darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as I am known”.
In having to constantly seek Gods assurance that I can trust him in this situation I have come to real-ise in a new way that it actually doesn’t matter if I can’t see the whole picture, God can.

Since I was a child I have been fascinated by white deer and am lucky enough to live where there are now 3. In the past as I have paced around the woods with the dogs, mulling over something with God in my head, I have always felt his reassurance when I see one, as if he is saying “Yes I’m still listening look what I’ve found for you” In this difficult year when I have needed extra reassurance I have lost count of my white deer sightings.

In one of my daily readings last year about how overwhelmed we can feel by trials and troubles there was the phrase “we cannot be destroyed” – this stuck with me. Had I died in the accident I would not have been destroyed but in the words of the song “my soul will go on” and that being the case we need to be sure of where that soul will be.

Sue.

Elliot’s Weekend Experience ‘in a Field’:

Last weekend, I went along to a Men’s Festival Weekend called The Gathering (organised by CVM – that’s Christian Vision for Men) in ‘A Field Near Swindon’ – look it up on Google Maps! It was a great weekend of fellowship with Dan and several of the men from The Beacon Church in Poole.

The main sessions, in a huge marquee in the middle of the field, featured an eclectic mix of both serious and not so serious things.
The weekend featured some brilliant teaching – in particular this weekend focusing on how the Christian life isn’t easy. It was great to hear that honesty about how being a Christian doesn’t automatically solve everything but also giving that great encouragement that God really is always there for us! The main sessions also featured some incredible testimonies from people who had overcome the greatest of odds – even a Ugandan woman who had been in deep poverty with no family but through the support of CVM and the work of God had become Uganda’s best sniper and is now leading an anti-corruption unit!

But the weekend is also full of many bizarre and random things! The main sessions alone featured a variety of random things including a man in a kilt playing the bagpipes to introduce everyone on to stage, a knight in full armour walking around with a sword, riot police running across the front of the marquee, T-Shirt cannons and even a full on coup from the stewards, driving trucks right through the middle of the crowd!

Graham Kendrick led the brilliant worship throughout the weekend, one of my absolute favourite parts – just hearing 2500 men singing their hearts out creates such an incredible atmosphere and experience (but no flags or interpretive dance!)! Even a generator failure couldn’t stop the worship as everyone sang along to a bagpipe rendition of Amazing Grace!

One incredible moment was when we heard about someone attending,  who had lived a life of crime and had been disappointed when he saw police on site because he thought it would ruin his weekend. But then he heard the life changing message of the gospel on Friday night, and on Saturday morning was invited to the front where he said he wanted to hug a policeman! We then saw something like 15 police officers running to the front to give him a hug! Truly I incredible!

Of course, this was a men’s weekend so it was all about the BBQ’s! I dread to think how much meat I ate over the weekend! But overall this was just such a perfect mix of a really fun weekend, a relaxing one but also full of great teaching and worship. It’s a weekend I’d highly recommend and I’ve already got my ticket booked for next year! If you’re interested, come have a chat to me about it!

Elliot Smith

July 2019

There is a small child with a penny in her pocket and a stamp book gripped in her hand walking alone up the road to the church.  She arrives and is greeted by a kindly elderly lady who limps badly and is dressed in black. The afternoon is a happy time and she enjoys the singing and the story time, and especially getting the next stamp for her book. The stamp reminds her of the Bible Story she has heard that afternoon. The collection is taken and her penny is placed in the bag. A prayer, a song, then a walk back home. She hums the songs she’s heard and remembers the story about Jesus she’s heard. Her parents are glad to see she is safely home. She puts her stamp book in a safe place ready for next week. Not much is said to her parents about the Sunday School lesson.
This walk was the start of my walk of grace that led me to my Saviour. I look back and trace those moments and events and the ultimate call of Christ on my life – the realisation that I was a sinner and needed a Saviour. Those Bible stories in my stamp book came alive. 
I reflect often on the many many people who have impacted and influenced my walk, including the little lady in black. I am forever grateful to my Saviour for graciously bringing them into my life. I am grateful too for the challenges, storms, griefs, losses and for the triumphs. I am thankful for my family who know and love the One I know and love. I am thankful to my parents who let that “little”girl go to Sunday School and who so much later came to love Him too!
“For it is by grace you are saved … not of yourselves, it is the gift of God.” Ephesians 2:8
How little did that little girl walking up the road realise just how much that gift cost to the One who gave it.

Thankyou Jesus.

Sandra Piggott

July 2019

Gill Burley shares about God’s dealings with her and Tony:

I was not brought up in a Christian home and although my Mum was very strict in teaching my sister and me right from wrong morally, the only time we went to church was for weddings.

When I was 12 or 13, our friends invited my sister and me to go to Denne Road Sunday school, being picked up and dropped off by Ian Topalian in his minibus. Over the next 4 years I was taught by Ian and (amongst others) Andrew and Wendy Smith. There was also a weekday evening club which David Ansell helped to run and, from about the age of 15, a Sunday evening after church group held in the homes of various church members.

From all the teaching and interaction with those church members during this time, God opened my eyes to see that I was a sinner needing forgiveness and that Jesus’ death on the cross was the only way of salvation but I kept putting off taking that final step of asking Jesus to be my personal Saviour until I was 16. Isn’t it great that God knows our human condition and is very patient?

I was baptised when I was 17 and started to help out with the youngest Sunday School class, something that I have continued to do to this day, some 35+ years later (although currently I have a small group of 10 year olds). This can sometimes be a bit of a challenge, especially when we don’t often see any obvious result that shows God is working in these young lives, but I know that so long as we persevere, God in his perfect timing can open the eyes to see, just as he did mine.
I met Tony through an old school friend and after a couple of dates he asked me to go on a day out one Sunday. After telling him I could not as I went to church on a Sunday I assumed that this would be the end of our friendship. Happily for me he accepted that this was an important part of my life and he even started to come along to the Sunday evening services with me.

Following our marriage two years later we started to attend the services at Rehoboth as there were many more people “our age” (Denne Road members being about 90% of retirement age). Tony later also accepted Jesus as is personal Saviour and was baptised at Rehoboth in 1998.
Though a relatively shy person (not finding it easy to approach people to start up a conversation) I enjoy the fellowship and friendship at Rehoboth and,  knowing that I need to be challenged, feel blessed to be able to help out at Little Verse where we get to talk to the parents/carers after the session.

To me Rehoboth has been our second family and I would like to express my grateful thanks to the Elders and leadership teams for maintaining that family atmosphere and for the faithful Bible based preach-ing and teaching of God’s word. I pray God continues to bless his church at Rehoboth.

Gill

Paul shares: I was brought up in a small village near Swansea in South Wales. The name of the village is Llangyfelach (see me for the pronunciation!). As a child I attended the village Anglican church. I went to Sunday school, as did most of my village school mates, and joined the church choir at 8 years old. Most of the choir boys were school mates too. We were no angels and I remember on one occasion we dared each other to steal sweets from the village shop on our way to choir practice! We also dared each other to jump through stacks of dried ferns which we’d set on fire! Somehow, my mother got to know about both incidents!

When the family moved to another village when I was 13, I stopped going to church but never stopped believing in God. However, I also started studying science in earnest and stopped believing in creation.

As an older teenager, I had a school friend, also called Paul. One day, I caught a glimpse of a wonderful young lady who turned out to be Paul’s cousin. I told my school mates “I will marry her one day”. The wonderful young lady’s name was Janet Rigby.

On April 17th 1980 I had my first date with Janet Rigby. If you’re impressed I remember the date, it’s because it’s also my youngest brother’s birthday! We dated for sometime, during which my friend Paul (Jan’s cousin – please keep up) became a Christian, after a summer holiday in Bournemouth. He and I would have fervent (angry) debates, as I disputed with this “jonny come lately, born again” who was challenging whether I too was a Christian, and that I needed to repent of my sin and turn to the Lord to be saved. How dare he!
In the run up to my exams the following spring, he invited Jan and me to church. Hedging my bets, and hoping for good exam results, we agreed to go. Jan and I sat there bemused and amused by grown men in “the big seat” shouting “Amen!” and “Hallelujah” whenever the preacher said something they really liked!

Sadly, Jan and I broke up (my fault) and spent the summer apart. During that summer, and after many more debates with Paul, the Lord finally broke through with me. A group of us boys went camping in Cornwall. Paul persuaded us all to attend a Pentecostal church on the Sunday. If I thought the Congregational church men of Swansea were wild, these Pentecostals were off the scale!
One night, in the tent, I could see Paul was reading his Bible. “What are you reading now?” I asked in something of a mocking tone. “Romans chapter 8” came the reply. I wasn’t really sure I was aware the Romans had their own book in the Bible. Seemed a bit rich seeing as they had killed Jesus, I thought.

Sometime later after returning to Swansea I decided to find out more about these Romans. I read chapter 8. These words hit me between the eyes “For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
At that moment I knew I didn’t have the same conviction that the writer of this book could testify to. I also knew I didn’t have the same confidence that Paul had come to know. I knew I wanted it, though. So I prayed, really prayed, and I was honest with God for the first time. I asked God to forgive me for the wrong things I had done – first of all for giving Paul such a hard time over him sharing his new faith with us! I felt a deep reassurance that God had heard me and that he had always loved me, was waiting to forgive me, and he came in to my life by his spirit. I read Romans 8 again and I knew that I knew it to be true for me for the very first time. “Amen!” and “Hallelujah!” I said…just like those wild congregationalists!

Soon after, I was working at one of the Swansea hospitals as part of my biomedical student placement and Jan was working at the DVLA. One day, I drove past the DVLA bus stop and I saw Jan standing there. With much trepidation (and a little inward excitement!) I stopped my car and asked if Jan wanted a lift home. I was delighted when she said yes. We soon realised that while we’d been apart, the Lord had brought us both to faith, deal-ing with us independently but in order to bring us together – for his glory and honour.
We had been attending the same Congregational church but not at the same services! So we now started attending together. We started attending Sunday school, Youth meetings both at our church and in other churches and eventually started helping run the youth group.

We became church members and were married at the church in May 1985. One of the ministers who officiated at our wedding was Spencer Cunnah who now happens to be Calix’s pastor and visiting lecturer in Evangelical Preaching at The London Seminary. The Lord blessed us with our first child Martyn just over a year later and in 1990 we moved to Horsham and started attending Rehoboth………via Saudi Arabia…..and that’s a whole new chapter to the story!

Jan shares: I was born in a small town in the Welsh Valleys. My parents weren’t Christians but I was taken to the local Baptist church, where I attended Sunday school. I was familiar with dedications and baptismal services, every Whit-sun each church in the town would march through the town singing hymns, which I loved. I had a bible and was regularly read bible stories. My father had his own business as a butcher in the town, which meant he worked six days a week. So when he bought a car, Sunday became our family day and my attendance at Sunday school became less frequent.

At the age of eleven my father sold his business and we moved to Swansea.( We actually moved to Loughor, where the Welsh revival started in 1904.) In 1980 my cousin introduced me to his friend Paul Phillips! We started dating in the April. My cousin went on holiday that Summer and on his return announced that he had become a Christian. At this time if asked I would have said that I was a Christian as I believed in God, but I would not have agreed that I was a sinner. By the Christmas of that year my cousin rounded up our group of friends and took us to a carol service at the church he was attending. I enjoyed singing the carols, and was amazed (and amused) by the passion of the men sitting at the front of the church.
1980 came to an end and in 1981 so did Paul and I. It was during the Summer of 1981, that my cousin asked me to go with him to church again. I started going with him each Sunday morning that summer.

I slowly became aware that I WAS a sinner , and in fact it was because of MY sin that Jesus came and died, because he loved me so much. I started reading the bible that I kept in my bedside table ( a Gideon’s bible ). In the June of that year I asked the Lord into my life.
After a “chance “ meeting with Paul, in the Autumn of that year we discovered we had both become Christians and started dating again. The rest is history!
(Those passionate men at the front of the church, were to become Godly influencers and dear friends of ours.)

To start with, as many of you will know, I had the privilege and blessing of being brought up in a Christian household. As a young boy I attended Rehoboth and was baptised here over 10 years ago.

A few years after my baptism I sadly fell away from the Lord and got caught up in drinking and all the trappings that go along with the drinking scene—I will not go into the specifics, but the immorality of everything that was involved, was at the time, what I was chasing. I can only say that it was by the grace of God that I was never severely damaged on any of the nights that I was out, and that I also was kept from the darker aspects like drugs and sexual immorality.

When I was almost 19 I met Alison who was not a Christian at the time that we met, which in my heart of hearts I knew was wrong but, as you will gather now, I was not living a Christian life and so I ploughed on ahead regardless.

The crunch point for me was when we were on holiday in Switzerland with a company called ‘Oak Hall’ who specialise in Christian trips, each night they run a church style service. I clearly remember standing outside of the hall on the last evening and hearing and seeing all the people inside, and knowing that I should have been in there participating. After this Alison and I broke up at the end of the holiday after I put a lot of prayer and mental wrestling into where my life was going.

Obviously, Alison and I got back together and attended churches in the form of Holbrook and Three Bridges Free Church. After attending these for a while we were married and then started going back-eards again, accompanied by the excuse of being too tired and having too many things to do. These were nothing more than excuses and this time it was Alison who brought us back.

We were recommended by my grandparents that Rehoboth had a new pastor who was lively and may have a different style that would be helpful to us and. Boy, were they right! As soon as we came along we felt that we were welcomed.

Again we stopped coming with the old excuses of being too tired. In my mind, now it seems like the book of Judges where God’s people keep drifting away and then coming back, and I can only appreciate the grace that God has shown me and that he has never let me down, and the fact that he will not let me go is really the encouragement that I will tell to anyone.

I will struggle with being a Christian on a day to day basis, but knowing that I have the support of this church and my wife and the rest of my family, and most of all God keeps my head up and helps me to keep going forward.

Heidi Steel shares how the Lord changed her life -

As a child I had been taken to church once a week by my mum but at that time no-one in my family was saved and so church was just a Sunday venture. The reality was that since my teenage years I had not given God a second thought. During my early teens I attended the church youth group once a week but as I made more and more friends outside of church, I spent less time with my church friends and more time in the pursuit of other things. By the time I went to University I had no interest in continuing any sort of church going habits.

In 1997 I moved out of my family home and began my teacher training at Roehampton University. I was a hardworking student and loved the studies and enjoyed the work which I was doing. I loved being away from home so much that within the first few weeks I knew that I didn’t want to go back, especially for extended periods of time, including the following summer holiday and so I started looking into other options. I applied and was accepted onto an American Summer camp programme where I would work on an allocated camp for the duration of the summer. As part of the application process I had stated that I was a Christian.
God had His hand on my life and I was allocated to a Christian Summer Camp. Camp Joy was a ministry, preaching the gospel to children from New York City, namely Harlem and The Bronx. I heard the gospel told day in and day out and watched the rest of the staff live out Christain lives daily for almost three months. Somehow it went unnoticed that I was not committed to God in the same way.

After spending three months working on this Summer camp and hearing how much God loved me and how Jesus had paid the debt of sin that I owed and watching staff work out God’s principles in their lives, I couldn’t turn away from God anymore. I sat in the camp chapel one evening with a group of children who had chosen to stay and a handful of staff. The children were asked if they would sign two huge rocks as a sign of their commitment to God. On one rock was written,

‘I will love the Lord my God with all my heart, with all my soul and with all my mind,’
and on the second it said,
‘I will love my neighbour as myself.’

That evening I signed my name on the rocks as a sign of my commitment to God. I made my decision to turn away from a life of sin and follow God and His ways, trusting that He knew best. That was almost twenty years ago, God has had His hand over my life ever since and I continue to be blessed by the love and support and witness of those around me and the grace and mercy of our Lord and Saviour.

Heidi

Congratulations to David Ansell on his 70th Birthday

Dave recounts …

I was brought up in the Methodist Church and attended Sunday School and Youth Club at London Road. David Barrett, who some of you will remember, did personal evangelism there and in early 1964 I came to Christ through his witness. Later that year David Piggott, the late Tom Baker and myself obtained permission to re-open Mannings Heath Methodist Chapel—as long as we preached Methodist doctrine! I gave my first sermon there at the age of 17. I still preach regularly after 53 years. After leaving school I worked at Sunalliance where I met, my first wife, who came to faith. She sadly died of stomach cancer in 2012. In 1971 I undertook a year’s theological course at Cliff College in Derbyshire under the Rev. Dr. Skevington Wood. While there we went preaching in the area and took missions with churches and ran a three week Beach Mission at Bridlington.
After this we moved to Deptford, where I was a youth worker for the Shaftesbury Society. Moving back to Horsham in 1973, I worked for 5 years for the British & Foreign Bible Society commuting to London. There I was an administrator processing orders for Bibles in many languages to go overseas and to churches and bookshops all over UK. I was actually working there at the time of the launch of the Good News Bible.
Later, following that, for 15 years I was a houseparent at Warnham Court School. The school was founded in 1952 as a ‘Residential School for Delicate Children’. This often meant children with Asthma or, in the years after the Second World War, those recovering from Tuberculosis. London children would benefit from the country air of Sussex and the facilities that the school could offer. The school finally closed in 1997. I remained there till near the end, but then, a further change – after training, I worked another 15 years or so as a bus driver in the Horsham area.
I often did, and still do gardening work, and in fact tended Margaret Tingley’s garden. Our friendship grew and she and I married in October 2015. My hobbies are walking and exploring locally and short-wave radio monitoring. I am also a licensed radio operator – call sign 2EØNKC.
Above all, I have seen God’s providence and grace in my life for which I praise him.

I was about 13 when I first came to Rehoboth. Pastor Scott was pastor then and there was a good
congregation. But let’s go back to the beginning.

I was born in Lewes, my dad being a professional grocer there, and we lived in a flat above the shop.
After a while we moved to Horsham, and eventually to Claygate in Surrey, where dad became pastor
of the Baptist chapel in the village. We stayed there right through the war until peace was declared
in May 1945, and we had a wonderful street party to celebrate. The Lord had really watched over us and kept us
safe. The school was badly bombed, so our lessons were held either in the air raid shelter or the church hall. We
had ceilings down and windows broken, but no one was hurt.

During this time I had 4 years of piano lessons with a very good teacher, strict but fair. But then, on moving to secondary school, I found another teacher nearer home. I loved music and singing—still do! My good teaching has stood me well over all the years!
After leaving Claygate, we shared a house with some dear friends from the Dorking church. We went to school in Brockham, near to where my grandson and wife, Richard & April now live. Then we moved back to Horsham to the grocer’s shop that was on the corner of Devonshire Road, where dad was now the manager. I went to Oxford Road Secondary school. The headmistress, Miss Wilson, took our R.E. classes. We were asked to learn Psalms 8, 23 & 121 off by heart as well as some selected verses from the Epistles. I think I managed to do that!

Then dad became the pastor at Dorking Chapel and while there, I decided to go on a Fellowship of Youth holiday to Seaford. What a difference – all these young people just full of the joy of the Lord! So, I went again the following year, this time to Saltburn, North Yorkshire, and found it so wonderful. But I still hadn’t made a proper commitment to the Lord.

I was working at the British Railways Audit Office by Dorking Station and met Derrick. After a while we became engaged and married in September 1957. We lived with Derrick’s parents for a while, then moved to 30 Cambridge Road in February 1960, where we stayed!
Derrick and I went to Dorking chapel on Sunday evenings and I went along to Rehoboth in the mornings. In the early 70s we had a new pastor at Rehoboth, Frank Mortimer. He was different, a ministry I could understand. (I often had found it difficult with some of the preachers in years past as to what they were getting at!). Frank would always have a children’s talk and we learned new choruses and I listened more than I had done before.
One Sunday he preached from the verse ‘Unto you, therefore, which believe, He is precious’. 1 Peter 2:7 KJV.

I thought, that is exactly how I feel, but I’m sitting in this pew and doing nothing in the church. (No coffee rota in those days!) But the Lord had his hand in this as well. Not long afterwards, Steve Piggott’s father, ‘Mr Sam’ as we called him, who was Church Secretary, was taken ill and went to be with the Lord. In due course, Steve took over as Secretary and I had opportunity at times to play the organ for the services. So there was something I could do.
Derrick and I had continued to go to Dorking Chapel on Sunday evenings for a long time, until we had Andrew and Wendy. Eventually I went to see Pastor Frank at Rehoboth about baptism & church membership. I was baptised in January 1973; Derrick and Andrew in October 1978 and Wendy in January 1979. Praise the Lord! How faithful is our Lord in everything that happens to us. Two lines from one of my favourite hymns sum everything up:

‘What a privilege to carry Everything to God in prayer’ - and that means Everything.

Pat