Baptisms - June 2006

Helen Hodson's story

God has always been in my life. As a family we would go to church every Sunday without fail. I remember very clearly as a child praying to God night after night-praying that I wouldn’t die. I was absolutely terrified of dying and going to Hell. God really scared me. I carried on going to church throughout my early teens, mainly because I’d had made good friends at youth groups, but I couldn’t get close to God. I realize now that I didn’t really want to.  Apart from being scared I had so many questions, questions I couldn’t find the answers to. I just didn’t ‘get’ God. I felt angry with him too, it would have been so easy for him just to have let me know he was there-but nothing, he was either ignoring me or he just didn’t exist.
I never felt good enough, I was never good enough, and I was always in trouble, always letting my family down and letting God down. I wasn’t sure about God but I spent a lot of time praying for forgiveness. I was still scared of going to Hell. Throughout my teens I had fantastic friends and a great social life, then later I could add to that a good job and money too, but I felt a total failure. I got to 20 and with it came anorexia. It wasn’t a weight issue; I’d always been very slim. I knew I looked terrible and I’m sure I was an embarrassment to my family. It felt scary going from someone who was fit and healthy and had enjoyed walking holidays to someone who would feel exhausted just walking up the stairs to bed. I stopped going out with my friends, our times together had usually revolved around drinking and eating- I was too scared to do this now. I so wanted to get back to how I was but I just couldn’t eat. I’d often wake up in the middle of the night, my heart would be pounding so hard and I’d pray as I had done as a child that I wouldn’t die, but this time when morning came I’d be sorry that I’d got another day to get through. Anyway I very gradually somehow got myself better and life carried on. Maybe I was just more scared of death than life. I had stopped going to church for sometime now and tried not to think about God though of course he never went away.
At 25 I married, I wasn’t sure I was doing the right thing, but for many reasons, all wrong ones, I decided to go ahead. I could actually do something right at last. The marriage wasn’t good though, I realised how big a mistake I’d made at the wedding reception when my new husband swore at me- it was too late to back out now though, I was married. Not surprisingly the marriage wasn’t good and gradually got worse. Eventually 4 weeks after Daisy’s 1st and Clarks 3rdBirthday on a cold, grey wet Monday morning in February after my husband had gone out to work we packed up our clothes, Clark and Daisy’s toys and I left my husband. I hadn’t gone to church for years now. We had a few moves from Surrey to Birmingham and back to Surrey to my Mum and Dad’s. But then in April 2004 we moved to Ipswich. I hated having to move and yet again having to say Goodbye to friends and I’m embarrassed to say that I wasn’t even sure where a bouts in the Country Ipswich was-Sorry! The day we moved here was terrible and I’d have done anything to have stayed where we were. Coming to Ipswich though has turned out to be the best move we have ever made, for the 1st time ever I felt God really was with us. The only people I knew here were Sue and her husband Dan. Through Sue we met Helen and Trevor and they all made us feel so welcome, they really looked after us. Helen and Sue invited us to come here to church with them-which we did. I actually started enjoying coming to church now and would look forward to it. Thankfully there were no long hymns that went on verse, after verse, after verse accompanied by slow organ music, neither were there scary sermons based on Revelations. Gradually I became much less
scared of God I began to see him completely differently life started really coming together, we made new friends Clark and Daisy my fabulous children, were doing really well and I found part time jobs to fit around school we all felt very settled and life was good.
Clark though started complaining about the lack of men in his life and began mentioning it more and more often. Eventually I told him we were fine as we were but if we did have a man in our lives he’d have to be a good one or there’d be absolutely no point. I suggested we make a list of what we’d like and then pray about it as I’d remembered reading somewhere in the Bible that you should write down your requests to God. So we made a list, a bit like in the film ‘Mary Poppins’ when the children do a list of what they wanted in a nanny, but we didn’t particularly need someone with rosy cheeks! So we made this long very specific list and prayed, don’t bother with pubs, clubs or dating agencies, get a pen and paper, write out what you want pray about it- and God might do the job, free of charge , for you. He did for us. Along came Neil, I was amazed, he was absolutely everything on our list, even down to the correct age being a Christian and having a motorbike something that was on Clarks list and as a bonus even does have rosy cheeks sometimes! He’s become a great friend.
I’ve finally realised that God does actually love me and not just everyone else, he not only listens to my prayers but answers them too, I’m not terrified of dying anymore.
It’s taken almost 36 years of struggling with what I believe but I think I’ve finally got there. It’s incredible and it’s a huge relief.

Neil Fitch's story

As a boy I was christened and attended “The Meeting Room” Sunday School, as it was known then, in High Street, Ipswich.  Although I attended, I can honestly say that I never really understood why I went or what I was doing there?   The year was 1967, this I know from the small bible I was given.  On the inside cover the sticker read, “The Lord is my Shepherd”.

The only thing I can remember is the older boys climbing through the window before the adults arrived and the weekly visits to the museum opposite, the highlight.  Since that time I have lead a life of SIN, have ridiculed, and even laughed at people who have attended church and in essence was a disbeliever.  Some people here today will vouch for this.  The only other time I have been seen in church has been for weddings and funerals.

However, over recent years, I have experienced several upsetting and meaningful events.  These included the sad loss of my father-in-law, a great friend had a serious road accident, and more recently marital problems which saw a total breakdown in my relationship.
For the first time in many years I found myself praying!

Without realising it, I began to enjoy alcohol and would turn to it for release.  Inevitably this affected my marriage of 18 years.  15 months ago my wife suddenly told me she did not love me anymore.  I tried to hold onto the marriage desperately during March and April last year.  During this time something very strange happened.   I woke to a voice telling me loudly and clearly that everything was going to be alright and I was to go to Burlington Baptist Church, somewhere I had only visited once before.  Thinking I was dreaming I pinched myself to make sure I was awake.  5 waves of incredible comfort came over me.  I asked who this was, I was answered by the word GOD;  I spoke with him, and said if you are who you say you are bring those incredible waves of comfort back over me.  Then 3 more sensational waves came over me.

Some people sitting here today will like I did, ridicule this as laughable.  All I would say is unless you experience something like this in your own lives then I would fully expect your response to be the same as mine used to be.

As the Sunday approached the urge I got to attend Burlington became like a magnet, for why, I had no idea.  Sunday arrived; during the service Simon Harris, the Minister here, said something that had a profound affect on me.  He said, “you can be in the Millennium Stadium full of people, but without GOD you would still be alone?

Just think about that for a moment!

As I was going through my marriage breakdown, this is exactly how I felt.  I had all the support, from friends and family, but I still felt most empty!

During that week, as I was running my regular course around the fields of Akenham, GOD spoke to me again, he shouted for me to stop where I was and to dig at the soil, I tried to ignore this, but the power stopped me.  Thinking I was going to find a Roman coin I found myself scraping at the soil with a piece of flint.  Dig here and there it said I could see nothing, thinking I was going mad, I got up threw the flint away and ran on.  GOD kept saying what did you see, what did you see, nothing I screamed back, but you did He said, you saw the soil that feeds you.  I now understand this to be, that like my own life, I only saw the surface and not what was going on under it!

By May last year things between my wife and I came to a head and I laid the blame firmly at her door and have used the blame factor to describe to people my situation, which I now realise that this may not be totally fair.

Attending Burlington Baptist Church regularly for the past 14 months has no doubt in my mind saved me and brought God into an otherwise empty life.  Although I am still going through difficult times, I know with the fellowship of this church I will become stronger and eventually get through these testing times.  I truly believe I was called here for a purpose.  After going on the membership course in the early part of this year my faith in the Lord has just become greater and greater, so much so that I stand here today wanting to follow God and his word for the rest of my life.

Since making the decision to get baptised I have had days when I have had periods of negativity, temptation, questions about whether I am doing the right thing, and even not wanting to pray or read my bible.  I believe that there are two forces working in all our lives, one of sin and the other of righteousness and ever hour, every day, every week, month and year we must check ourselves and what better way to do this than to have this church family around you.

Before I finish I would like to say a few thankyou’s, firstly to my two children Emily and Jeremy, Simon Harris, who has simply been fantastically supportive, Peter and Pat Smith, to this church and each and every one of you and finally to Helen Hodson for being so very special in every sense of the word.

Thank you.

Liz Finch's story

I would first like to thank my family and friends for coming along to witness this special event in my life. Thank you all for your continued love and support.

I stand here today, someone who has been a Christian for nearly 30 years.
I have been in church since I was a young child, having been christened as a baby.  I went to Sunday School and sang in the church choir and was confirmed into the Anglican Church of St Michaels. Although I went through the process of confirmation, I don’t feel that I really gave my life to Jesus until I was 15. 
I was a Guide at Christ Church, Tacket Street and I moved there, where I was part of a strong youth group. At 16 I helped in the Boys’ Brigade eventually becoming an officer. I took part in the Church Life Committee and helped to organise events.  When the Guide Leader was leaving I took on that role, which I did for 7 years.

I met Richard through BB and after we were married we carried on worshiping in different churches.  We found this very difficult and so after 2 years I moved to Richard's church and became a member there in 1990.

Like most people Richard and I have had our ups and downs, but we have always been part of a supportive Church family. This I feel is very important to me.  I love my birth family very much but being a Christian means that I have a church family too, and I really cherish the church family that helped Richard and I through one of the most important times of our life. 
When Rebecca was born in 1991she was very ill and she had to go to Gt. Ormond St Hospital on the day she was born. We had such great love and prayers lavished upon us at that time which helped us through and I especially felt very close to God in that first week when Rebecca was in Great Ormond St Hospital and I was in Ipswich Hospital. 
From this time on I was totally committed to God and the work at Hatfield Road Church. I was involved in the worship group, leading Brownies and Rainbows, helping at a Mum’s and Tot’s group, Church Minute Secretary and fundraising to name but a few tasks.

But then I came to the point that shook my faith to the core. About 4 years ago I began to feel that I was being taken for granted, increasingly lacking in confidence, enthusiasm and strength.  I was doing too much, burning out of energy and faith.  Because I didn’t go out to work, I was available for everyone. “If there was something to do, Liz would do it”, and I didn’t know how to say No. I wanted ‘out’ and decided that I would escape, get a ‘proper’ job.  I went to college, studied computers and joined a ‘back to work’ programme. 
I was growing further and further away from God. I was finding it hard to open my Bible, and I just didn’t have the right words when I wanted to pray.  I was in a mess. A few of my close friends were there for me but I still felt trapped. Church was a big problem.  I couldn’t go into the building without feeling really sick and I wanted to distance myself from everything and everyone that was part of that church.  I talked with friends that had moved away and friends from other churches, and I decided to stop worshipping on a Sunday altogether. I didn’t worship for 5 months.  In February 2004 I got a job at the Council and this gave me a new focus.  Something to live for!

But God had other plans.  He knew that I needed to be part of a church family! That I should get back on track.  Throughout those weeks when I stopped going to church, Andy and Sally Sago kept asking us to visit Burlington Baptist Church. I was curious and wanted to go, but with a family to consider I wasn’t about to go on my own.   Richard still had responsibilities at Hatfield Road, as I did, and Rebecca and Matthew were not really enjoying church and there wasn’t anything to keep them from walking away from church either.  Eventually in July 2004 we decided to give it a go.

That’s nearly 2 years ago and I feel completely at home here. The welcome and fellowship we have received has been very special. There is a real sense of community here. Richard and I are especially pleased that our children are being drawn closer to God by the experiences they have had and I have had the space to be me.  The teaching is true to the gospel, and Jesus is so real to me.
I thank God for being there for me, even after I totally abandoned Him. I know that I don’t deserve to be called ‘His child’, but I thank God for sending His Son to die for me. I want to tell others of the love that He gives and that Jesus can be a personal friend for them too.  I’m sorry when I get it wrong but I know that God won’t let me down.

Being at Burlington has made me question my faith and I have learnt to lean on God more, and less on my own strength. ‘40 days of Purpose’ challenged me to make a new start and I thank God that He gave me that second chance. I always thought that because I had been confirmed, baptism was not necessary. But this feels like a new chapter in my life.  Going through the waters of Baptism today washes me clean from my sins and show everyone that I am serious about living for Christ.  I pray that the Holy Spirit will help me to live every day of my life for Jesus.

Matt Holmes's story

Mine is a journey of people and events, which I now know that God placed in my path so that I could get to know Him, put my trust in Him and realise that there is a better race to run.I vaguely remember going to Sunday school and learning the bible stories but that is as far as it went. After that I only ever went into a church as a scout, a tourist or for weddings, funerals and the like. I just used to go through the motions; I didn’t “get” God or Jesus.

I’ve also done my fair share of ridiculing the odd Christian and my fair share of idiotic behaviour, selfishness, self-centeredness, bad habits and attitudes in my 20’s. God or Christianity was not even in my field of vision apart from some wild fear that if I went to speak to them I would be kidnapped, brainwashed or cloned!

By the time I was in my early 30’s, in the world’s eyes, I was pretty successful; I had a lovely wife, a brand new baby, and had worked my way up the corporate ladder to become the youngest area manager in a large multi-national. But something wasn’t right; I could feel myself going down a path that I didn’t want to go down. I was making decisions that weren’t entirely moral. I felt I was being led where dishonesty and sin (which is what I now understand it to be) were becoming second nature, and that eventually I wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between right and wrong. The feeling grew that there had to be more to life than becoming another executive statistic – workaholic, stressed out, paying the mortgage, keeping up the image, but with a wife and kids who at best didn’t know me or at worst, hated me.

One day driving home from Southampton, I got a stomach ache (probably too many Cornish pasties from the petrol station I thought) which ended up as appendicitis. Left on a trolley in a hospital corridor overnight and then not being operated on for six days with nothing to eat, pumped full of antibiotics and pethadin, on a ward full of diabetic old men certainly made me realise that I was not invincible, immortal or immune.

It couldn’t have happened at a worse time: a month after Christmas, with Alex six months old and teething. But I now thank God this happened three years ago because He used this event as the start to where I am now, about to publicly commit my life to Him. The illness forced me to take a month off work and in between racing the OAP’s round to the shops, I had a long hard think about where I was going. We decided that if the opportunity arose I would leave my job and find something else.

Back at work, three months later, God nudged me again; the company were looking for voluntary redundancies, so I volunteered and got the payoff. What was I going to do now? Something to do with conservation or the environment I thought, get back to what I done for my degree. “Have you thought about teaching?” someone said, other people said “You’d be good at that.”

God was nudging people my way and tackling my stereotypes of Christians at the same time. I thought, “How could I have a laugh with a Christian, they are all so boring, then I met James and Anna from our ante-natal group. James became a firm friend and a great laugh. He was not ashamed and was very open about his belief but didn’t try to preach to me – I had made contact with a Christian and not suffered any hideous fate!

Next I met Richard and Tim from Holy Trinity School in Guildford and they gave me a job. When being shown round, Richard said to me, “There are many Christians at this school who are very open about our faith, are you ok with that?” To which I replied, “Yes,” but thought, “Here it comes again – the old thoughts, what would happen to me?” Richard, Tim, Rosie and Vicki exploded my other stereotypes of Christians – if the meek will inherit the earth, you can’t get a Christian with drive, determination, vision and such joy in what they do. Other myths were dealt with too, I used to think believing in God was cop out instead of using your brain in a scientific way to find out why things happened. These people and others since hadn’t left their brains at the door, they questioned, probed, analysed and thought more deeply about things than unbelievers.

Finally I reached the stage when I was outside Addlestone Baptist Church thanks to Graham and Lucy (our neighbours), and my wife Jo. I shook hands with Richard (the pastor) but couldn’t make eye contact for too long, the old thoughts were sneaking in – “What’s going to happen when I step in there!” Needless to say, we sat at the back of the church, but what happened to me was such a wave of emotion as the service went on. I had tears trickling down my cheeks and felt such a release of pressure and a burden being lifted – I didn’t show or tell anyone this of course, except a watered down version to Jo. Following this, I wanted to go back, week after week, it was like a magnet. School started making more sense too; it felt more of a place to belong.

Part of our long term plan was to move back to Ipswich, to be close to Jo’s family, to buy a house that we could afford and to get a better quality of life. We tried one year, however, it wasn’t the right time, then last summer we moved. We knew it was right with God thorough confirmations, but what about the job. I had only just qualified as a teacher and I wanted to teach at another church school. After a couple of interviews, there was a job advertised at St Matthew’s, here was God nudging again (I was starting to realise it now and trust Him). After a fabulous reference from Richard and some fancy footwork from Jan, the head at St Matthew’s, I got the job.

What about a church? We had only just started to get established at Addlestone and I wanted to get that feeling back. We trawled around a few, nothing felt right, then one day, tired from a long walk with two children now (James had been born two weeks after moving in), fed up because the car had died and we had to walk everywhere, we walked into Burlington – our last hope!

Margaret Cameron grabbed us, immediately put us at ease and ushered us into a seat next to her. She told us where Alex could go and all the other stuff you need to now when you first go into a church. Claire was talking about Money Madness and the things that we desire, the first picture she showed was a car! Point taken God, we thought. During that service I had the same wave of emotion and knew I had to stay here.

So much has happened in the few months we have been here, already though I feel that this really is my church family. Every Christian on this journey that God placed in my path to show me that there is a better way have just been themselves, their own personality, living their life. They helped me find my own way to God through small acts or words, not frantically trying to convert me in the first five minutes. I am truly thankful to God that they helped me find a better race to run and to trust Him.

Margaret Carver's story

I was christened as a baby into the Church of England. At first my parents took me along to church but as I got older I went with my sister. We had to wear hats, which the vicar referred to as “topsies” and we were soon asked to join the choir. At age 13 I got confirmed. I didn’t really understand what the confirmation lessons were about but I was too scared to ask.

At 19, I left the midlands and headed off to London to train as a nurse. Shift-work made regular church attendance difficult so I didn’t settle into a new church family. I began to wander along the wide path, dabbling in astrology and getting more and more lonely despite having lots of people around me. I couldn’t express how I felt so I began hitting myself as a punishment for what I was doing.

I loathed myself and constantly sought the approval of others. I was getting married but called it off at the last minute when I found out he was seeing someone else. At this point my self-esteem hit rock bottom as I moved back in with my parents. Mom and Dad did their best, for which I’m grateful, but it was a Christian friend, Alison, who invited me along to an Oak Hall skiing holiday. I jumped at the chance, I could cope with a few hymns and prayers for the fresh air and mountains. During the week I came to understand how Jesus had died for my sins. A message came through loud and clear “Knock and the door shall be opened, or turn your back on me and, because you have seen the truth, you can no longer live in ignorance ”. I made a commitment to God, there in Lauterbrunnen, in the majestic mountains of His creation.

Back home I found fellowship with other young people at an Anglican Church. I was happy being single but met Frank at my sister’s party and soon found myself arranging another wedding. This time I made it to the altar but for 6 months we lived apart as I was working in Birmingham and Frank in Ipswich. I moved to Ipswich in January 1996 and went along to Hatfield Congregational Church in response to a flier. I served there for 9 years supporting various activities, singing with the worship group, as a Brownie and Rainbow leader and running the toddler group. By the summer of 2004, I found I wasn’t getting much out of the Sunday services so Liz Finch and Sally Sago suggested I come along to Burlington Baptist Church. I came with Frank, Elizabeth and Katherine and I instantly felt welcome. I enjoy the teaching and really feel part of the Church Family here at Burlington Baptist Church.

I still have a badge I was given at Sunday school that says “The Lost Sheep”. I see I was that lost sheep but now the Lord has brought me home. I feel now is the right time for baptism, to wash away the old and start afresh with the new.