I was born in what is now a housing estate in the Louis Margaret, Cambridge Military Hospital in Aldershot, England in 1972. I spent my early formative years in Ash, which is on the Surrey, Hampshire border. Maybe that is why I feel like I am often caught between two worlds – neither here nor there! We moved as a family to Beverley in what was Humberside, now East Yorkshire where my Father took up work as a driving instructor for the Ministry of Defence at Leconfield. It was here in this area I began to take note of the world around me, at the age of 8, with the help of a family book The Hamlyn Guide to Birds of Britain and Europe by Bertel Bruun; Bruce Campbell .
During this period, I also became aware of the need for Jesus in my life. My family went to church at Latimer Congregational Church in Beverley. (When I was born, they attended Pinewoods in Ash and Manor Road Brethren in Guildford, UK). I was keen on reading and I used to read the Good News version of the Bible – the one with the bright yellow cover and picture of the rainbow on the front! Inside were great simple pencil drawings. If it was not for them, I may not have continued my interest in reading it!
We used to receive material from Scripture Union which is an organisation still around today which helps young people in understanding the Bible. I was reading one morning about being lost and that I needed to make a decision to follow Christ to help me to be found. That is when I committed my life to Christ.
My parents took a keen interest in missions, my Father with Soldiers and Airman, Scripture Readers Association (SASRA) and my mother with various overseas missions. We often had people visiting us from some of these organisations or those needing a connection to other people. Hospitality was extended to all kinds of people in our house. I appreciate this as I look back as it is something that has influenced me for good in my life. The seed for reaching out to people to share about Jesus was also planted early on in my life and it became a prerogative for me wherever I go. In my youth I was quite fanatical for a quiet, laid back, non-aggressive person! I took the opportunity to talk to people about Jesus where I worked and in my own time as a teenager, I went on mission trips both locally where I lived and to other towns.
In my nearly teenage years, we moved as a family again which was a challenge for me. The challenge was being part of an English sub-culture I was not used to – that of West Cornwall. I commenced secondary school in Beverley and moved a few months later to Helston, so you can imagine what it was like for me to start a new school at that age!
A further challenge of following Christ came in my early teens, in the form of baptism by immersion. I was attending Helston Free Methodists in the mornings and Helston Baptist church in the evenings. A family within HBC ran a youth group on Fridays from their house. I became good friends with one of the girls of that family. Her Dad helped me to see my need for baptism. He was very persuasive! I was baptised in Porthleven at the Apostolic Church. At the time I was not entirely sure what I was doing but the act has grown on me.
You could say from that earlier time of committing my life to Christ I had an internal impelling drive to reach the highest goal, the upward calling of Christ. Looking back on my life it shows up in different ways.
The youth group I was connected too had some influential people. People who were not big on money or fame but in friendship and making a difference by the choices they made. Somehow, we ended up from time to time being involved in wider youth events from camps to theatre events with a speaker and lots of music – known as ‘Grow Bag’! (It was at that time in Christian circles where there was a lot of outside meetings on hills, in streets and public events and mass marches with music and singing).
At one of those events I think a guy who had renamed himself(!) Ishmael led us in whacky joyful songs. Someone spoke about baptism in The Holy Spirit. I was too nervous to go to the front of the meeting and get prayed for. I thought I had missed my opportunity. That occurred on a Saturday evening. The following Sunday when I do not recall it ever being preached on before, my local Free Methodist minister preached on it. I knew if a response was required what I had to do. In our small congregation of around 50 I asked for prayer. The most significant thing for me following that was obedience, the sense of unquestioning compliance to my parents at home, a real peace and being at one with my world and God’s. All at the tender age of 14.
I am one of those who was never sure what to do with his life. I do remember saying to God. I want to do what you want me to do Lord. Some of what I did in the past or assented too I am not sure of today, that which relates to some of the things on the edge of Christian experience and thought. In my youthful enthusiasm I explored it. An example of such a thing is where I attended a meeting after reading a book by a certain individual known at the time. He would blow on people and they would fall over. Whether I succumbed to some mass joyful hysteria or the influence of the Spirit I am not sure, but it was a temporary feeling, very pleasant and which I think lasted a few days!
A lasting work of the Spirit that remains with me to this day and has I am sure helped me – is speaking in tongues. It certainly helped whilst writing reports, which I did not find easy, for my HND Conservation Management Course. I do not say this to boast of that. I know people who do not speak in tongues and are still effective in their Christian lives. There have been times in prayer when I get stuck and then I change to use tongues. Unfortunately, it is a clumsy term because what else do we do when we speak, we use our tongue! So, let me call it a prayer language. This is where it comes in to its own for me and others I know. At the time of writing I tend to use it privately but when there is a sense of freedom in a place of worship, I have used it publicly but not often. I received the gift in a weekly evening meeting at an Elim Pentecostal church I attended for two years. I was rather excited about that and cycled home on my bike speaking loudly down the street! When I arrived home my parents were away thankfully, and I jumped up and down and continued for some time. During that time (an extended period where life went on believe it or not) I had some long-extended times of praise and prayer for all kinds of things.
During my teen years I would go off on my own quite a lot to the Cober Valley which was easily accessible for me where I lived in Helston. It was a short downhill walk from my house. I spent many hours exploring the moor like habitat and river Cober in my wellies. Some of the time I would fish for brown trout and catch the occasional eel. This environment appealed very much to my imagination. The river Cober feeds into Loe Pool which is by the sea near Porthleven. At its conclusion is a sand bar which has built up over time. This whole area was mine and it held many happy hours for me.
I am in my midlife as I write these words so maybe it is a time when one does consider such things more intently. As I was lying in bed one morning, I was remembering something long forgotten that I’d had a major operation in 1994! A lot happened either side of the event around that period. I felt overwhelmed thinking about it. When one considers life in this way you realise the frailty of life and that maybe there is someone taking care of us after all!
In 1994 I was at Mount Edgecumbe Country Park (MECP) as a seasonal ranger. I was required to leave prematurely which turned out was a good thing. Minor collapses in my right lung needed to be assessed. The year before I was due to go on the Walk of 1000 men Cornwall and I was one of two who didn’t make it. This was due to a major left pneumothorax at a church service where a Nigerian Tunde Bakare preached. He called for people who needed healing to come to the front (he was quite aggressive) and the rest of us were asked to stand and reach out with our hands to pray for them. That is when the lung collapse happened! I cycled home 1.5 miles in agony after having caught the train from my sister’s in Bromley. She felt bad when she found out about it. She thought I was just being neurotic about a stitch! (By the way I don’t hold that against her!)
I slept in the chair under my grandparents’ room due to the effort of going up the stairs. Darkness descended on me and not because it was night-time! I have never had that experience again thankfully! I went to the doctors the next day and they booked me into Frimley Park hospital and told me to rest for 6 weeks and the lung would heal itself!
On the day of my check-up a young man of similar age came in to the hospital who had the same pneumothorax happen to him. Apparently, it was an unknown cause in tall thin young men. At a men’s breakfast some time later a medical person told me it was probably related to torso height breadth ratio. I was quite thin in those days and underweight! In the following year I had a pleurectomy, where the surgeon used video assisted keyhole surgery and subsequently I have had no further lung collapses.
Later after 6 weeks of recovery I volunteered with a group linked to Bishop Burton Agricultural college as I was living in Beverley at the time. We did various practical habitat management tasks such as hedge laying, coppicing and fencing.
In 1995 after completing my National Diploma in Rural Studies I moved back to Guildford. I had a whirlwind relationship with a young woman where I ended up going back to Beverley a bit of an emotional wreck where I worked as a temporary pall bearer and then as a postman at the end of that year. I moved back to Guildford the following year to start as a postman full time.
Before finishing my last year at Merrist Wood Agricultural College I travelled with a team from Leeds to the Ukraine in an old football bus. We went to support an evangelist as a prayer team travelling around with him to the places where he preached. That was September 1995. (See an example of that time here towards the end of this post)
Two years later I had enough of posting letters and investigated mission work. I went on a course called Probe at Wycliffe Bible Translators (WBT) at the then headquarters near High Wycombe to explore whether linguistics, literacy or phonetics were suitable for me. After some temporary work I got the bug for mission work and started the Special Assignment Literacy Team (SALT) course and like a previous time (not finishing my Conservation Management HND under advice) ended up doing a unique version tailored to me. This opened a door for me with help from the then Literacy Director of WBT UK in Ghana with the Ghana Institute of Linguistics, Literacy and Bible Translation (GILLBT). There I worked in various positions under the grand title of Assistant Development Coordinator typesetting, report writing, computer support and travelling.
During this time, I was in communication with a friend back home who two years later I married in 2001.
He met Debbie when she asked about joining the twenties and thirties group Rob was assisting with at a local church. They only met up for a few times before Rob went to Ghana for two years! However they started corresponding and Debbie came out to visit him three times. On her third visit, when she came with his sister, Rob decided to propose. After months of planning he waited until the day after she arrived. Rob was so worried that the night before he couldn’t sleep, but paced the room until morning. At 7.00am he asked Debbie to marry him on her balcony. The next night there was a terrible tropical storm that kept everyone awake – except Rob. He was so exhausted he slept through it completely!
Alison Stevenson,
Emmanuel Stoughton, Outlook writer
Married life began and the involvement with the church 20’s and 30s group. I worked in print after a little temping with Colgate and Royal Mail for a couple of years. Then started a family. I worked at Kendall’s car and van hire and Budgens’. In-between times I carried out practical conservation volunteering and tried to break into the countryside industry, unsuccessfully. This was after having applied to All Nations Christian College liaising with different mission organisations. That came to an end as the church leader and mission team representative felt I needed to stick with one job longer, particularly in one in which I was passionate. Hence the volunteering and spending a lot of time investigating what creation care and the theology behind it was all about. (See Creation Care)
Meanwhile a guy in the church asked me to join him and his gardening team to help me out. That was 2008 and I am still gardening in a solo self-employed capacity. I did have five years from 2011 to 2016 in education as an Environmental Learning Support Assistant teaching gardening, ecology and Forest Schools to 5- to 7-year-olds in a local Infant School. There I became a Forest School Practitioner which had a strong influence on me beginning Forest Church, which I lead a local expression of, currently once a month.
During 2014 and 2017 I had the privilege of being part of two teams going to Tanzania from my church. We worked to support some local people in building a church, digging a ditch for a water pipeline, putting up a fence to protect from cattle and children’s activities. (See more by putting ‘Tanzania’ in the blog search engine).
In March 2023 during convalescence from a hernia procedure I stumbled across an advert for an apprenticeship with Surrey Outdoor Learning and Development (SOLD). The advert sounded appealing to me. Wanting to have a change I applied but didn’t get offered the apprenticeship. I was offered a job though as a bank Outdoor Learning Instructor which I accepted. After some months I decided to resign as it wasn’t working out for me. I continue gardening and writing here at this website!
In the last few months since writing here, I have become involved in the charity Dose of Nature where I volunteer as a guide.