I was brought up in a church- going family and so I have always believed in the existence of God. However this meant little to me as a child. But as I grew into my teens my conscience was awakened and I saw how my nature was one of disobediance and defiance. I knew from going to church that I should follow God's commandments and that a Christian person should be kind and loving. So I would try hard to be like that but would find that after a short while my resolution to be a nicer person would wane.

In my mid teens I went on some Christian-led youth holidays. On these I learnt a lot about the Gospel and really understood for the first time who Jesus was and why he came to this world and died on the cross. However I could not let go of the feeling that I had to make myself better before the message of the gospel could be real for me.

Time went by and I continued like this- going to church and still trying to make myself a better person. I got married in my early twenties and moved to the Walderslade area. However my husband and I continued to attend the church where he had been brought up. After a couple of years we felt unhappy there and started to look for a church more local to us. We then found Enon Baptist Church in Chatham and started going there.

The preaching at Enon really spoke to me and again I learnt about Jesus Christ and why he came to this world to die. I started to realise that Jesus had completed the whole way of salvation for us. He came to save sinners and therefore we do not need to make ourselves better, instead we actually need to recognise that we can't save ourselves. I then began to pray again, asking God for forgiveness for my wrong-doings. This time I trusted it wholly to God rather than trusting in my own efforts.

One evening, reading my bible, I read a passage familiar to me: ' Ye believe in God, believe also in me.' These were words spoken by Jesus Christ and as I read them I realised, yes I had always believed in God so why did I doubt Jesus. God gave me the faith then to believe that yes, Jesus had died to save me and my sins were forgiven through His death on the cross.

Shortly afterwards my husband and I both made a public confession of our faith and were baptised and received into the church at Enon. Since then we have become involved in the work of the church and trust God for guidance and help in all we do.