Enid Avery - I had no Christian background
When I look back over my life, what strikes me most forcibly is God's election and sovereignty. No one in my family had any interest in spiritual things. God's name was used blasphemously. Even the experience of living in London during the war, with bombs falling around us, dog fights overhead and death our daily companion brought no thought of God to them. However, the girl next door took me to Sunday school and so began my pilgrimage.
The church was around the corner. It was a Free Church of England. Here they preached the good news of salvation in Christ and I believed. When I was fourteen I was confirmed by a Bishop Magee.
Just after my sixteenth birthday my father died suddenly and my mother, younger sister and I stayed at my grandmother’s flat in Southsea. This was a difficult time for me as no guidance was given about a church and having been taught very little about cults I could so easily have gone astray. Eventually we moved to Worcester Park in Surrey. Now began a new search for a spiritual home.
After attending the parish church for a while someone pointed out that there was a daughter church much nearer my home and with more young people there. I transferred to the daughter church and it was there that I met Brian and we were married in 1957. One of Brian’s work colleagues talked of doctrines of grace and lent us books by Spurgeon.
Our next move was to the West Country where more new lessons awaited us. We began to meet together with other Christians for prayer and Bible study in a home. This was because neither of these activities occurred in any of the three local Protestant churches. The Biblical need to belong to a church where the Gospel was preached and being born again was accepted as normal for Christians, became an urgent issue among our group. Eventually we joined Widcombe Baptist Church. Brian and I were baptised a year later and eventually three of our six children were also baptised there.
Eventually we came to Southampton and Spring Road and found both sound doctrine and love. Our move to Huntingdon when Brian retired (so we could be central to our scattered family) proved to us that our Spiritual home is here in Spring Road Evangelical church and we are thankful to our Heavenly Father for leading us back here.
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