Wayne was raised in the county of Essex in England. He studied law at Southampton University (in Hampshire). He is currently at IT project manager for an IT company in Basingstoke, England. His hobbies are football and Thai boxing.
As regards my background, my mom’s saved. She’s a Christian and for a year or so went to a Bible believing church. My dad is an atheist, and he was unhappy with my mom going to church, so he stopped her from going.
I was brought up pretty much in an atheist household. My dad was just not happy about having anything to do about God being spoken about. He threatened that he would throw out any Bible he found in the house. I had a very worldly upbringing. As far as I was concerned, life was about getting as much money as you could; being as successful and as powerful as you could. That’s what my dad in particular desired for me to do. He wanted me to do well at work, and to see what kind of car and how big a house, I could have. But as my mom on the other hand, just wanting me to get saved and be a Christian. As long as I knew the Lord, she didn’t mind what else I did.
I wasn’t interested in anything much to do with the bible, and was quite happy to follow the path of making my dad proud of me by doing well. At the age of about 28, I was living in Basingstoke. I was working in the same building as a young lady called Susan. We did not meet very often at work. Occasionally we would speak about some work matters, but were not working closely together. One Easter, we met socially and got talking. People at work had told me that she’s a Christian. I thought it was odd that someone young these days would go to church. From the background that I had, it was not typical. I was intrigued so I asked her questions about the Bible and God. I challenged every answer she gave to my questions.
I tried to disprove everything that she had to say. That got me hooked, because she had some answers that I really had to think about. In addition, I had an interest in her as a person. We met socially again, and we talked a lot about Christianity and the Bible. Susan asked me if I would like to meet her family. Her dad was a Baptist minister. I thought okay—laughing to myself—this could be interesting. I said that I would like to meet them as I would see if I can challenge a Baptist minister with some questions. So I went out to meet them, and I really had a good day. She had a great family, and they were all really lovely people. I found myself really getting absorbed by the Bible and the questions that I had.
My arguments against the points I’m making were becoming more and more lame, and I was starting to realize that what they were saying was really holding water. I was totally struggling with the whole evolution view of life.
So I soon bought myself a Bible, and I started reading it. I also spoke to my mum about Christianity, because she was saved. It was vital for me to get as much information as possible on the subject and not to just have it from one individual or particular person. I wasn’t happy to just get it from a Baptist minister, you know. I wanted different views. I was aware of the gospel and the basics of Christianity. I knew how to get saved.
My struggle was that I couldn’t accept that there was one being that created everything. It just did not seem logical. I’m a logical thinker and to me I just can’t get my head around the Trinity; eternity; life after death; and things like that. I really struggled with these issues, and spent many nights actually praying about this. This was strange for someone that wasn’t saved! But I continued to read the Bible. I was attending church fairly frequently, as I stated attending the church which Susan attended in Basingstoke where Pastor David Ellsmore preached (West Basingstoke Baptist Church). Then I visited Susan’s family in Kent, and heard her dad preaching at the church there.
Things began to fit together, but I was still struggling with some things. I could accept that Jesus was a real man who lived. I certainly accepted that he died. I even accepted that there was a possibility that he could have risen again, given all the factual information that was captured at that time and all the people who saw him after he was killed. I did believe that he died, and he wasn’t just in so much pain he was unconscious.
But I still struggled with some concepts like the Trinity and a Creator. So over time I struggled with this, but I wasn’t just going anywhere. It was probably going on about four to five months, and I was feeling stagnant. I’d had enough and I just thought this isn’t for me. It is nonsense. It doesn’t fit together. It’s not logical. I think I’m just going to give it a rest now. I’ve had enough with it.
At the time, I was working with a Hindu guy who had studied philosophy for 20 years. We were having lunch one day, and the subject of religion came up. He said to me well—”you do realize that philosophically in terms of human structure, your mind has a limited capacity. You can’t possibly piece everything together and not everything is logical. From a philosophical point of view, you do have limitations and your brain is limited. It’s like you could have a computer and a super computer. The smaller computer wouldn’t be able to do as much work as would a super computer. There are going to be some things that you wouldn’t work out logically.”
So I pondered this and I thought—well ok, if I accepted everything about Jesus but I can’t accept a Creator. And there are some areas like the Trinity that I can’t piece together. That doesn’t mean they’re not true. They could be true. So where does this leave me? It obviously left me with the final piece, which is faith. And that’s one thing, I didn’t have. I could try and make an academic study, and try to piece it all together. But that’s not going to happen, and that’s not what’s salvation all about—it’s all about faith.
I realized that I needed to trust in Jesus Christ for myself. As soon as I realized that, the missing piece of the puzzle fell into place. I knew in my heart that there was a Creator—I couldn’t deny that. I knew that I was a sinner. Then I repented and turned to Christ for salvation. That happened in the 1st week of September 2005. I was baptized on the 10th of September 2006.
Wayne later married Susan. This information was given by Wayne in January 2008.
