always there?
There were happy times early on, but I can remember sitting on the stairs with my younger sister in tears while mum and dad argued downstairs. I used to play with the other kids on the street, and sang in the church choir - there was something powerful going on there but the others didn’t seem to notice it.
Then one day mum said that dad would not be coming back. We would go and see him for a weekend every two weeks and for half of each holiday. One weekend when he came to pick my sister up, he put his foot through the door. After that we had to go out to meet him. After a couple of months, mum told me I would be going away to school but I wasn’t to tell anyone - definitely not dad.
I was eleven when I went to boarding school. I had bad dreams at first: in one dad turned up and I couldn’t stop him shooting my mum and sister. The terms were about twelve weeks long. I was allowed to see my mum about every three weeks but I was not allowed to see my dad to start with.
One night I sat on a climbing frame, alone in the dark, and started to talk to the comforting presence I had felt in church back home. I wanted Jesus to record what I was like and what I was going through. There was no-one else.
There were about six hundred kids there from nursery-school to sixth-form. Some of us lived in garden sheds or breeze-block cells. We were not fed meat, but could do pretty much what we wanted - sex, drugs, and rock and roll. We had to be sly, mean, thieves to survive. I began to sneak out to a Baptist Church in the town. I read bits out of the Holy Bible; they felt like letters from home. I talked with Jesus more. I got baptised in water at church on mid-summer’s day in 1987. After being at school seven years, I got some exams and went to college.
When I got to college I thought they had given me a staff room by mistake; it had two comfy chairs, lights, a desk, hot and cold water. It took me a year to trust that the other people were all right.
There was a club for people who knew Jesus, so I joined it. At the weekends I spent loads of time with some African students. We would pray, sometimes loudly, sing and read the Holy Bible. Often we’d talk about really amazing things that Jesus had explained to us supernaturally. I remember feeling massive power and blissful peace. I began to change the way I was with other people to give them a better impression of Jesus. I gave up alcohol, and mad music.
I left college ages ago and I moved to Bangor in North Wales. One time the pastor at the church there prayed for me to feel that Jesus really loved me. I cried and cried. After that I was able to be kind and chat to people that would have made me feel bitter, bored, or spiteful. I have had short jobs away from the area but have always come back.
Right now, I am working with Norfolk County Council. There are two churches where I help with music, Bible groups that meet in people’s homes and a Christian group that meets in a local prison to encourage the inmates. In fact, I am even considering becoming a minister in the church.
Dominic
North Wales exile.