Our Unplanned Journey
The original brother who first told us of the gospel considered our journey to the truth a modern-day miracle.
Read Time: 3 minutes
Last month Bro. Darren Tappouras ended his article, “Preaching: Ready, Set, Pray!” by soliciting brothers and sisters to share details of their journey to truth. We were so pleased to receive this one from Bro. David Jackson of the Hutt Valley Ecclesia, New Zealand. It is a testimony about how small comments can lead a willing heart to pursue the LORD.
I sincerely believe that my wife, Rosemary, and I were called out by God. The first step was through a work colleague when I worked in London who out of the blue asked me if I had read the Bible. I said “no,” but I did have a small New Testament given to me by a friend of the family. He then said, “I suggest you read 1 Corinthians 13. It is a lovely chapter.” So, when I got home, I read it. The print was very small, so I wrote the whole chapter down on a larger piece of paper because I liked what I had read. I still have that piece of paper. My work colleague’s name was John, and I never saw him again as he left for a new job. This was step one.
After this I also moved to another job away from London, where my wife and I got married. We were well settled in our life together, we had three children, a new house, and I had a good job. But things were going to change soon, and it started when a work colleague who had emigrated to New Zealand came back on a visit and we were talking about his new life there.
He said it was a good life, with plenty of job opportunities. I did not think any more about the conversation until I saw a travel program about New Zealand. I think it was from here that the seed which had been sown by John started to grow. One day I said to my wife, “What would you think about emigrating to New Zealand?” Much to my surprise she did not say, “Are you mad!” This was step two.
I knew from my job that they had an agent in New Zealand and my boss said he would enquire to see if there were any vacancies. As it happened there were openings in New Zealand, Canada, and Australia. My wife was not keen on Australia or Canada, so we ended up in New Zealand. By the time we arrived, the only vacancy left was in the Hutt Valley outside of Wellington. So that is where we started our new life. This was step three.
My boss turned out to be a Christadelphian, and it did not take him long to find an opportunity to start talking to me about the truth. Fortunately I have always been a bookworm, and one of the books I had read was titled “The 1948 Jewish war of Independence.” This had been a book recommended to me by another bookworm, and it is not a book I would have chosen to read normally. The relevance of this is that there had been another flare up in Israel, and my boss asked if I knew anything about Israel. I said all I knew was what I had read in that book, and I could not understand how they had managed to survive the War of Independence. Well, that was all my boss needed, as I ended up having a thorough introduction into Israel as God’s chosen people. This is step four.
We had found a rental property while we looked for a house to buy, and as it happened there was a Christadelphian family who lived a short walk away. My boss introduced me to the husband, who had agreed to take over discussing the Bible with me if I agreed. It was at this stage that my wife had become very interested in what I had been telling her, so we both started learning together.
The brother would come to our house every Saturday. We would do a reading together, and discuss what we had read. He would answer any questions we had. One of the questions my wife asked was, can our children come to your Sunday School? The brother said that would be fine, and since we had no transport, he arranged to pick up the children and come back later to take us to the meeting. This is step five.
The classes with the brother covered a period of fourteen months of instruction, which led to our baptisms on March 27, 1976. We later had two more children, and all five have been baptized and married into the truth. Of our ten grandchildren seven have been baptized and three are under instruction. So, we have been truly blessed. This is step six.
The original brother who set the ball rolling considered our journey to the truth was a modern-day miracle. When I look back, I am convinced that we were called out by God, as neither my wife nor I had a religious background and never knew what a Christadelphian was. Later in life I did find out that Bro. Frank Jannaway had also lived on the same road as we did in London, and the nearest ecclesia was a half hour away.
David Jackson,
Hutt Valley Ecclesia, NZ