John’s Story
My name is John Dowbiggin and I became a Christian in 1975 at the age of 28. It came about because of meeting a member of the Bethesda Temple Mission choir, who were visiting from the USA and who I saw give a stunning performance at Kendal Priory.
After that, everything was plain sailing – NOT! In 1980, my wife and I separated (and subsequently divorced) and I changed career by taking a government sponsored TOPS course for Systems Analysis. This led me to a fulfilling career that was moderately well rewarded until I was 61.
After my divorce I drifted from God although I didn’t stop believing He was there.
In 1984 I invested £5 in an ad in a Valentine’s column of the Leicester Mercury, and as a result met Lindy, who turned out to be my soul mate, and we married in August of that year, and have just celebrated our 41st wedding anniversary. In her teenage years Lindy had been a regular church goer but had also drifted as life took its toll.
In 1995 we moved to Kinver, near Stourbridge, to live with Lindy’s widowed mother, Joyce. One Easter, I felt drawn to join the Dawn Chorus in front of the cross on Kinver Edge. So, on a dark and miserable Easter Sunday morning, we got up and walked up the Edge to join a fair-sized crowd to celebrate the risen Lord.
After that we became involved in St Peter’s, Kinver, joining the choir, reading intercessions and running a music fellowship where my guitar playing background came in handy.
After a while, we began to feel that we needed different spiritual sustenance and decided to look at other churches in the area. The first one we went to was Amblecote Christian Centre, led by Clive Sandry and we looked no further. We spent 13 happy tears there until we moved to Worcester, and in that period, grew considerably as Christians as we took their teaching on board.
While we were there, I had a serious bout of sepsis, was hospitalized, died on the operating table and was in intensive care for 6 weeks. I don’t consider it a coincidence that I the night I died and then came round the church had called a night of prayer for me.
When we came to Worcester, we were going to look for a church when our next-door neighbours, John and Wendy Turner, introduced us to St Paul’s Pentecostal church. We once more advanced on our spiritual journey and took to this church like ducks to water and made many friends there.
Then came Covid!
During lockdown we couldn’t meet although we had some services via You Tube. At the end of lockdown, while we could attend a service, we had to still wear a mask, and I couldn’t handle wearing a mask and singing, so we took to watching and joining in the service via You Tube. At that time St Paul’s started having problems with the transmission to the extent it becomes virtually unwatchable, so we switched to watching the morning service from All Saints.
After 2 or 3 weeks, I said to Lindy I felt a real calling to be there, so the following week we went and were made very welcome and felt like we had found a new spiritual home. After a few weeks, we met with Brian and Judith Mason to discuss joining a life group, and from there were introduced to Catherine and David Wightman. That brought us to one of the best things in our life, our life group. A group of about a dozen people, who over the past few years have become our friends, and who have our backs in prayer as soon as we express a need.
Thursday nights are now very special, as we meet to discuss various aspects of scripture, usually related to the week’s sermon, and to pray for each other.
This has all helped us grow, and the splendid teaching from Rich and the team is always good.
As we have got older, we have had various medical issues, and we are pleased that sometimes we can join the morning service online when we don’t feel up to rushing.
Through our life, God has blessed us many times and guided us to a place where were happy to call our home ” Domus Gaudio” (House of Joy), and that is the first thing you will see as you come up our drive.