I was born on 2/3/76 in Ipswich. My father left my mother before I was born. My mother and I first lived with my grandparents, who owned a shop in Spring Road, Ipswich. When I was about 3 years old my grandparents decided to sell up and move to Mablethorpe to start a B + B business. My mother decided to stay in Ipswich, and after a brief period of homelessness, she eventually got a council house on the Rushmere estate in Ipswich.

When I started school I was badly bullied. After a lot of abuse I started fighting back, and soon realised that I was a pretty good fighter myself. The bullies suddenly wanted to befriend me when they realised that they could no longer get the better of me. I realised that I could win popularity with my fists, so throughout my childhood I gained a reputation of being the hardest boy in school and one of the toughest boys on my estate.

I did all the normal things kids might get up to growing up on a council estate like fighting, minor drug abuse, getting drunk, sexual encounters with girls and so on. I left school with poor qualifications and no direction to go in.

When I was 19 years old I decided to put my size and aggression to good use and got a job as a doorman at various pubs in Ipswich town center, and eventually ended up at a nightspot called Chicagos permanently. Now despite being a bit of a wayward lad who got plenty of attention from girls, I always said to my mates that I would knock it all on the head if the right girl came along, and she did! Her name was Lynette and she is now my wife.

Lynette was a born again Christian and so was all her family. Being an open minded chap I didn't mind, in fact it made a nice change being around nice, quiet people considering all the mad people I was hanging around with. It wasn't long before I regularly started staying over with Lynette and her family at weekends, and in doing so, started to tag along with them as they faithfully went to Horham Baptist Church, Suffolk every Sunday.

During just over 6 years of regularly attending church, I learned much about the gospel, and on many occasions I felt God speaking to me, and quite powerfully sometimes through his Holy Spirit. But each time it happened I kept shrugging it off because I was afraid to change, although deep down in my soul I knew it would be the right thing to do.

But then back in March 6th 2002 it happened again right out of the blue, but it was far too powerful to shrug off this time. It all started after a normal days work when I went to see my Mum who still lives in Ipswich. Just before I left we got onto the subject of my brother who sadly died at birth before I came into the world, and my late Grandma who died back in 1998. Upon my leaving we were both welling up with tears and said our Goodbyes. It is a half hour journey from my Mums house to mine yet strangely I could not stop crying the whole way home. At some points I was sobbing like a baby and I knew that the Holy Spirit was again at work within me, convicting me of my sins.

When I got home I didn't want my wife to see that I had been crying, so I dried my tears before entering the house. However, she took one look at me and asked what was wrong and I immediately collapsed into floods of tears. She sat me down in the lounge and kept asking me "What's wrong? What's wrong?" But by now I was crying so uncontrollably that I couldn't even answer her. After a while I eventually managed to explain what was wrong. I said "I think that the Holy Spirit is poking about with me" and she suddenly realized what was happening.

My symptoms got so bad I wondered if I was coming down with the flu or something. I was crying uncontrollably and kept feeling hot then cold. I was restless - I didn't know whether to lie back in my armchair or sit bolt upright. I kept feeling faint. I was in terrible anguish but deep down we both knew what was taking place - The Holy Spirit was again at work in my heart. Lynette asked me if I wanted her to pray for me and I said "yes" because I would have done anything to relieve the terrible pain and anguish I was then suffering. So she prayed for me. She asked me if I wanted to become a Christian and, distraughtly I said "yes, I want it to happen". She asked me if I wanted her to leave the room while I said a prayer so as to save my embarrassment but I said "No, I think you deserve to hear this after you have been praying for me for the last 6 years".

I knew that I had to say a prayer asking Jesus to forgive me and to come into my life and save me. I also felt that I had to say it audibly in front of my wife, so that she could hear it and bear witness to it, but it still took about half an hour for me to pluck up the courage to do this.

Eventually when I did pray I was in such turmoil that I can't really remember exactly what I said, but it was something like "Dear God please forgive me. Please help me. Please be with me". Then almost instantly all my pain and anguish just seemed to melt away. Then after a few moments I started to smile, and my smile seemed to last for ages, and after about 2 or 3 minutes I felt the strangest, most beautiful, sensation that I have ever felt in my whole life. I felt something that I can only describe to you as my old soul dying and the birth of my new soul, and then I had another sensation, it was like butterflies in my stomach but higher up in my heart and in my chest area. Through all this I had a feeling of floating or flying. I felt my soul lift upwards to heaven. It was a strong feeling like I was soaring at great speed upwards, like when you are on a roller coaster. I knew from that moment on that my name had been written in the book of life up in heaven. I felt exhausted but at the same time ecstatically happy and relieved. The whole conversion lasted about 3 hours and at the end I was totally dazed and bewildered. I literally had a fight with God but it was a fight I could not win.

For the first 2 weeks or so I could feel myself buzzing with the power of the Holy Spirit. I felt no shame in telling my friends and family that I had become a born again Christian, and I will often stand and stare in a totally new and different way at the outstanding beauty of nature. I remember talking on the phone to another Christian called Steve Johnson from the Tough Talk team, for whom I helped to set up one of their talks locally about 1 month before I was born again, to tell him of the good news of my salvation. He was overjoyed but he said to me "Be careful Rich, because we don't suddenly become Angels over night". As time went on I realised how right he was…even now it seems I am always doing something wrong - whether it is saying or doing the wrong thing to someone, or indeed not saying or doing enough about my faith, but the difference is now I am always saying I am sorry to God, and asking for his forgiveness and to help me get back up on my feet and go forward with him, to do his work in his name and for his glory.

Now it is with great sadness that on the 14th May 2003 my Father-In-Law 'Reginald Catling' passed away suddenly. He was a good, solid Christian man who faithfully witnessed to me all the years that I knew him. So at his funeral I felt moved to stand up and say what a fantastic Christian influence he had been to me in my life. Also at the funeral was a gentleman called David Piper who invited me to have my testimony published in the Association of Grace Baptist Churches Report and Handbook, at which I was very happy to agree to. So here it is, and with it I send a covering prayer that it will be a useful tool in the furtherance of Gods beautiful kingdom. Amen.

Christian love to you all,
Richard Rolfe.