Gareth James

Secondary School Teacher

I was born in May 1981 in a British Military Hospital in Munster, West Germany. Because my father was in the Army we moved regularly during my childhood. I lived in Gibraltar, Hampshire, Wolfenbuttel and Berlin before finally moving to Abercynon, South Wales in 1994 to live with my grandparents so that I could have a stable education. My parents moved a number of times again before finally settling in Abercynon in 1998. The school I went to was a Church in Wales Comprehensive in Aberdare. The school has a Christian ethos and all pupils take Religious Studies up to GCSE level. As part of the GCSE RS course I looked at the gospel accounts of Jesus' life in detail for the first time. As a family we had always attended Church of England churches regularly throughout my childhood, so I considered myself a Christian although I never really thought about what that meant.

Through studying the gospels in school I started to think about applying the teachings of Jesus to my life and what that would mean, but my life didn't really change outside of class. I was a very proud and ambitious young man. I wanted to achieve the best possible results that I could and be top of the class so that one day I could have a very successful job and make a lot of money. At the age of 16, during my first year of A Levels at the same school, I became friends with two girls from my form group. They attended a youth group at their church in Hirwaun. The group had a special service at Halloween, aimed at young people. A group of us from school went along and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Before long a few of us started going to the youth group regularly and it was there that I started to understand what the gospel was actually all about and what the Bible says being a Christians really means.

Previously I had thought that simply going to church and believing in vaguely Christian ideas makes you a Christian - but I came to understaand that Jesus died on a cross so that I might be saved from my personal guilt and sin. I slowly came to realise that there was no other way that I could get to heaven other than believing and trusting in Jesus Christ and what he achieved on the cross for me. Being nice and moral and church-going cannot get anyone into Heaven; only Jesus can save people. So before long, in late 1997, I trusted in the Lord Jesus Christ to save me and take away all of my guilt and sin so that I could be forgiven of my self-centred life and given a new relationship with God and certain promise of eternal life with Him.

Being a Christian hasn't always been easy. Family and friends find it difficult to understand and therefore quite worrying. The Lord promised that it wouldn't be easy but He also promised that He will never leave or forsake His people. I know that my immediate and eternal future is secure in the hands of God and that nothing can ever take that away. It is a great comfort in difficult times but it is more than that: it is the centre of my life.