Colin was brought up near London’s Heathrow Airport, where his father worked as an auditor. Converted while in the Boys Brigade, he travelled with a Gospel beat group, giving testimony and lugging sound equipment around coffee bars during the 1960s. This led to Bible College in Australia before he and his wife Brenda, (since graduation in November 1970), returned to UK to work with Ambassadors For Christ Britain in itinerant evangelism mid 1971.
He became national director in 1973 and concurrently had three part-time pastorates – 1975-9 in Ascot, 1979-81 in Maidenhead and then in Redruth, Cornwall, from 1981-89. He also travelled with AFC International, especially working often since 1979 in Sudan with local church pastors, Nagi Konagi, Alfred William and Mufid Farid.
The opportunities for ministry in Cornwall grew and in 1989 he went full-time into evangelism with AFCB again – and a local team was established. Ministry grew as God blessed in schools, community opportunities and a mobile Christian training programme.
In 1999 Colin and Brenda left AFCB and went to Sudan to pastor Khartoum International Church. There he also taught as a visiting lecturer for Gideon Theological College and Gereif Bible School. In 2002 while in Sudan he earned an MA in evangelism with Cliff College and Sheffield University, but returned to the UK permanently in 2003 because of ill health. The health problems persist but so does the determination to encourage and teach – now via writing, publishing and via the Web!
A number of Sudanese believers whom Colin met there since 1979, long-time friends and colleagues, are among those still supported with encouraging resources at the present time.
“We are unworthy servants; we have only done our duty”, Luke 17:10.
The following chapters show how Colin and Brenda’s faith was tested through cancer in his voice-box, with later struggles to square their Christian beliefs with what God was allowing to happen in and around their own lives.
They say: “It is not what we would wanted; but it is what we have got”!