A fashion designer once created a beautiful fabric and gave it to a friend to turn into a fine garment. Some time later when he asked her about it, she confessed she’d used it as a dish rag! He immediately took it back and with great care cleaned and repaired it and made it into the fine garment he had originally intended.

This mirrors my life story. I was one who ‘knew it all’ and I seemed to be popular. However, I often felt like a dish rag. On my own I felt lonely and restless, often frightened and would have to go and seek company. In a crowd I had the loudest mouth and I felt others admired my self assurance. I craved people’s admiration, but inside I didn’t feel I deserved it.

People must have noticed how lonely, restless and dominating I could be. So did Jesus my Creator! When I eventually woke up and realised He was there, I found out He was interested in me. He gave me peace at last. Slowly and carefully He took away my restlessness. He washed me in His “special delicates” programme. He forgave my mistakes, my sins, my pigheadedness. He also healed all my sore places inside. He even helped me forgive those who had hurt me.

I now have peace even when I am on my own. When I am with others, He has taught me to look out for them and show them His touch and warmth. Even when I think “I can do it myself” and things go wrong again, He is there waiting to rescue me and take me back close to His heart.

All my life I have had a problem with allergies. I was allergic to all dairy products and eggs, which I absolutely love. If I ate something with eggs in I would feel really sick.

But at our youth camp, called ‘Hou Rā 08′, one of the leaders said he felt there was someone who had problems with allergies to be prayed for. So I thought, ‘well, I better go up then’. So I went up to the front and asked him if he could pray for me. So he did.

When I got home after the camp I tried different foods with milk and eggs and I didn’t feel ill and I haven’t been sick since!

We were relatively new christians when we first arrived at King’s Church in 2005. We still had lots of questions about our new faith.  Pete Henare suggested we went on the King’s Church Alpha Course.

Alpha was a great way to discover more about the Christian faith in a safe and supportive environment.  No question was too challenging.  It was a really social course as well. The evening starts with a meal together followed by an Alpha talk and then a time to reflect and ask questions in groups. we made some great friends on the course.

Soon after completing Alpha we decided to join King’s Church. We enjoyed it so much that we’ve since helped out with running Alpha courses.