Bible isn't rubbish any more!

Terry White from Belfast found a Bible in a council skip. It changed his life.

I come from a non-Christian family. In 1985, while walking up the road one morning, a friend offered me a job. Immediately I said 'yes'. I wanted it because I had been unemployed for three years. He told me to come down to the council offices for an interview. After I had a medical, I got the job!

Early the next year, this friend died suddenly with a heart attack. That really made me think.

One afternoon, a work mate went over to a skip in the yard and started to open the plastic bin-bags, hoping to find something he could sell. I looked into this skip and saw a pocket dictionary and a Gideon New Testament. I remember thinking: 'How could anyone throw a Bible out?' I lifted it out and thought I would give it to my cousin who was a Christian. He had a Bible and did not need another, so I placed it on a cabinet in the living room of our home.

About a week later, I opened the Testament at Revelation and was convicted of my need of the Saviour. My aunt asked me if I would go to a mission in a local church. I thought I would be smart and said to my mother that if she went, so would I, not expecting her to go. But she agreed to go, so I had to!

I had not been in church for many years. The minister preached from John 3 and I came under conviction, but the devil made me think of what I would have to give up and what my friends would think. I went away convicted that I needed Christ.

Only a dream, but...

My aunt invited me to the last meeting of the mission. The minister preached about the thieves on the cross and again I came under conviction. A few nights later I had a dream. I could see the people who lived around me, my neighbours, in great distress with terror on their faces. It was frightening. I woke up in such fear. I rushed to look out of the window, and, with real relief, thanked God that it was only a dream, for I needed to be saved.

God used my aunt again. She asked if I would like to go to church on Sunday morning. At the end of the service I really wanted to give my life to the Lord, but there were so many people around the minister, I could not get near him. I left, dejected, thinking that maybe it was my last chance.

God was merciful and the following Sunday evening I gave my life to the Lord. It was wonderful to feel the burden of sin going from my shoulders. God has led me step by step ever since.

God recently opened a door for me into the Irish Baptist College where I am now studying. Where he is taking me I do not know. He is the Master Planner and he will guide me - my responsibility is to be obedient.

This article first appeared in the Summer 2003 issue of Gideon News, and is reproduced with kind permission of The Gideons International in the British Isles.