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        <h1 class="display-6">Autobiography of Andrew Palfreyman</h1>
        <p>Andrew was suddenly called to heaven on 25th June 1997, aged 16 years, during an 'A' level PE lesson at school. Shortly after his Homecall the following autobiography, which was written as GCSE coursework, was found in school. We have added a photo of him taken during our last family holiday.
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        <p>Written in 1995</p>
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        <h1 class="display-6">Born Again</h1>
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        <p>In this autobiography I am going to write about some of the most important events that have taken place in my life and I will look at some of the ways in which I have changed since I have become a Christian. Also I will think about the ways in which God has guided and directed me in His infinite wisdom.</p>
        <p>The first memory that I have of anything to do with God is a very large, thick Bible that my dad used to read to us in our occasional family quiet times. The Bible had a dull yellow cover, with a string of camels going round the middle. I remember feeling a sense of fear and reverence to God whenever I looked at the book and also a curiosity as to who God was. The other thing I remember about those quiet times was that my brothers and I all had to pray at the end, and it was agony trying not to laugh when my youngest brother prayed because he sounded so cute and funny.</p>
        <p>Sundays were always agonisingly long and boring days. I had to attend Sunday school and the Lord's Supper in the morning, and then the gospel meeting in the evening. Two things I used to do to pass the time away in the Lord's Supper, which went on for over an hour, were to count the number of pages in my Bible, and find the page dead in the middle of my Bible. The one problem with this was that I always lost count half-way through! The only consolation for the gospel meeting was that once a month refreshments were served afterwards, and as my brothers and I weren't spoilt, a biscuit was a real treat!</p>
        <p>But one day everything changed. I was only about five years old, but after one of our quiet times, I decided to become a Christian. Trembling, I knelt down beside my bed, told the Lord Jesus that I was a sinner, and asked Him to save me and come into my heart. When I got up, I felt a deep sense of peace and warmth, and since then I've been able to know what true happiness is. After that I listened in fascination to the Sunday school stories, and made an effort to concentrate in all the other meetings that I went to. Suddenly I had a desire to learn about my Saviour, the Lord Jesus.</p>
        <p>At the age of eight, I went to my first Christian camp. I hadn't developed very much as a Christian since I'd been saved, but my love for the Lord had grown slightly, and there were moments after some of the meetings, when my heart was full of joy.</p>
        <p>My older brother, Daniel, and I set off to Bognor Regis apprehensively, half wishing that we hadn't agreed to go. When we got to the campsite, things seemed a bit more pleasant. There were only four tents up - one for the boys, two for the girls, and a marquee. There were two other boys in our tent, as well as Daniel and I, a quiet twelve year old coloured boy, and a domineering fourteen year old.</p>
        <p>The camp lasted for a week and we did various activities such as swimming, walking and playing different games. In the evening, we had a short Bible study, but unfortunately these didn't help me very much spiritually and I didn't grow any closer to my Lord. There were some parts of the camp that I didn't enjoy very much, but it was sad to leave and go home at the end and it had been a good experience for me, because it was the first time that I'd been away from my family properly.</p>
        <p>A year later I went to another camp. This time it was in the New Forest area. About seventy people went - a lot more than at Bognor Regis, but it was very well controlled and everyone was really nice. On the Sunday, we were given the option of going to church or staying at the camp. Ignoring the guilty feeling that I had, I decided not to go, which shows that my enthusiasm for being a Christian had refused to grow and that the years I'd spent since becoming a Christian had been wasted.</p>
        <p>The New Forest camp had a greater emphasis laid on Bible teaching than at Bognor Regis. Each morning, every tent had to act out a scene from the Bible, using bags and mattresses as props. Then in the evening, the whole camp had a long session together in the marquee. Firstly, we sang beautiful Christian songs together with the accompaniment of a guitar and a keyboard. Then one of the leaders gave a gospel message. Sitting in the quiet, warm tent, with the beautiful cool, dark evening outside, I was forced to wonder whether I was really a Christian - little wonder considering the lack of progress I had made as a Christian. I was made to think about how essential it is to be saved and have our sins forgiven, and I was worried that the prayer I had prayed so many years before hadn't been enough and I was still on my way to hell.</p>
        <p>After each meeting, those that wanted to were invited to one of the leader's tent if they had a problem they wanted to discuss, so I decided to go one evening and explain my fear. Unfortunately, a girl walked in directly behind me and started talking to the leader about something, so the opportunity disappeared. I don't think that I ever did get the problem sorted out at the camp, but I committed myself to the Lord many times in the next few months, just to make sure that I was saved.</p>
        <p>At the age of eleven, I was still a very poor example of a Christian and I had no desire to serve, love, or know God any better. I tried to hide the fact that I went to church from my friends and it appeared that I was getting further and further away from God, rather than growing closer to Him as I should have been.</p>
        <p>During the summer holidays before I started my secondary school, Broxbourne, I went to a camp in Chepstow in Wales. Throughout the week, I felt a deep hatred and jealousy towards a boy, a year younger than me. I don't know why I hated him, but I vented all my built in anger and horridness on him. I did my best to annoy him by stealing his sweets and tripping him up. One time I started punching him for some small reason and he cowered into a corner in fright. Someone urged me to 'finish him off' but I suddenly felt a pang of guilt and refrained. Looking back I feel disgusted with myself and ashamed but I can thank God that He looked at me in my awful and depressed state and lovingly drew me back to Himself.</p>
        <p>When I started Broxbourne school, things got worse and worse. I didn't make many friends and I wandered round growing more and more miserable. The only time that I read my Bible was on Sundays and even then my mind wasn't on it. However, there were some occasions when my heart would overflow with joy and peace that comes from knowing God and being saved. But these occasions were rare and didn't cause me to make a fresh effort to try and please God.</p>
        <p>Another problem that I had was my obsession with football. I supported Tottenham and spent hours writing out team-sheets at school. Whenever they lost, which was quite frequently, I was almost heart-broken and spent the next couple of days mourning their loss.</p>
        <p>One Tuesday evening my brothers went out with my dad to listen to a talk on Africa's wildlife by my youngest brother's junior school teacher. I decided to stay at home because Tottenham were playing and I wanted to listen to the game on the radio. We don't have a television because, as Christians, we view that everything on it is rubbish and it is defiling.</p>
        <p>Tottenham had been playing well over recent weeks and I was sure they were going to win. After a few minutes however, the opposition scored. It wasn't long before they scored again. I was dumbfounded and shattered. I listened in horror as goals poured into the Tottenham net. Twenty minutes from the end we were trailing six-nil. Heart-broken, I asked myself why this was happening. Then guiltily I thought of God and realised that football was taking God's place in my life and that I should be as devoted to God as I was to football at that time. Humbly and reverently, I got on my knees and prayed for God's forgiveness. I purposed to read my Bible more and spend more time in prayer.</p>
        <p>Progress was slow and painful, but my personal Bible study frequented to two or three times a fortnight and then to four or five. On each of these occasions I felt a sense of joy deep down in my heart - God's reward for my obedience and diligence. Gradually I grew closer to God and became a nicer and happier person.</p>
        <p>One Sunday morning, I suddenly decided that it was time that I got baptised. I wasn't christened as a baby, because at our church we believe that there's no point in being baptised or christened unless you've already become a Christian and are going to carry on and try to do God's will. Also being christened doesn't make you a Christian because you have to decide for yourself if you are going to accept Christ or not, and a baby wouldn't have the knowledge of Him to do that.</p>
        <p>I was twelve years old when the day of my baptism came in December. I was fairly nervous, although all I had to do was to say 'yes' a couple of times. Before I stepped into the baptistry we have in our hall, we sang a beautiful hymn - 'When we walk with the Lord'. As the last verse was being sung, I took off my shoes and socks and stepped down into the waist-high, rapidly cooling water. My dad, who was baptising me, stepped into the water behind me. When the hymn had been sung, he read me a verse from the Bible. Then he asked me if I'd received the Lord Jesus as my Saviour, to which the answer I gave was yes. Then he lowered me down, completely under the water, and back up again. This symbolises that I have died, been buried and am now risen with Christ; that I had died to my old way of life - full of sin (though I wouldn't have been able to truthfully say that a few months previously) and had been born again and am now living a new life.</p>
        <p>I was taken into fellowship with the assembly at Cheshunt, which means that I am now part of the church and am allowed to break bread, or take part in the Lord's Supper. I was also considered able to take part in some of the various forms of service to God, that go on in our assembly.</p>
        <p>After a few weeks in fellowship, I was sitting at the Lord's Supper, with my heart full of love and gratitude to the Lord Jesus. My thoughts were directed to one of my favourite hymns -'Man of sorrows, what a name!'. With shaking legs, I took a deep breath, stood up and announced the hymn - taking part in the meeting for the first time.</p>
        <p>I continued with rapid progress to come closer to the Lord and grew to love Him more and more. I remember looking back over a few weeks and marvelling at how far I'd come and how much I'd developed as a Christian. I started to take more part in the Boy's fellowship we have every Monday and took quite a leading role. Also I started helping with the children's work we do, sometimes doing the prayer or the quiz. Also I took part in some of the assembly prayer meetings we have.</p>
        <p>Then one Sunday I was asked to give a five minute talk in front of the Bible class we have every Sunday morning. The Bible class is for eleven to sixteen year olds, so it was quite nerve-racking talking in front of a group of people, some of which were older than me. I went through the book of Luke for the next two years, talking about a roughly twenty verse passage each week. My personal Bible Study also improved and I started reading three chapters a day, covering the whole Bible in one year.</p>
        <p>In April of this year - 1995, I went to a camp in Sunbury, in London. There were only about forty people there, but everyone was really nice and it was an extremely pleasant camp. For the first time since I started going to camps, I listened enthusiastically to the meetings and I didn't get bored or lose concentration. This shows how much I'd grown to love and know the Lord. The influence of spending a week with a group of Christians also had an effect on me and I determined to spend more time with God.</p>
        <p>The last camp I went to was at a place called Cheddar, in the summer holidays. Two things stand out from the camp. The first was when we all had to run around a reservoir adjacent to our sports field, as the last event of the sports day. The reservoir has a perimeter of about three miles, which is one of my favourite distances, so I was determined to win. After the first hundred meters, I was on the shoulder of the leader and digging deep into my reserves of determination, I broke away from the field. Hanging on grimly with heroic bravery, I came home twenty seconds ahead.</p>
        <p>The other thing that stood out from the camp was when my friend, called Blair, was saved. I'd been talking a little bit about God to him throughout the week and one evening, he came up to me, looking subdued and anxious and said that he wanted to become a Christian. I went with him to our tent, praying earnestly that the Lord Jesus wouldn't return again in the next few seconds, so that Blair would have time to be saved.</p>
        <p>When we got to the tent, we both knelt down and Blair prayed that the Lord Jesus would forgive him for his sins and be his Saviour. When he stood up he was a totally different person. He had a big smile on his face that I'd never seen before and he said that he had a happy feeling, deep inside, that he'd never experienced before. It was a brilliant moment for me as well - being with someone when they made the most important decision of their life and accepted the most wonderful gift there is - salvation.</p>
        <p>When the new term started, I took on a bit more responsibility, with the service for God we do at Mill Lane Chapel. Up until then, I'd been taking a small part in the children's meetings, sometimes teaching a verse from the Bible and sometimes giving a quiz about the story that had just been taught. But a few weeks ago, I progressed even further and was asked to tell the story. This involved standing up in front of twenty children between the ages of four and eleven and talking for twenty minutes about the Lord's baptism. I was fairly nervous just beforehand, but once I got up the front, I quite enjoyed it.</p>
        <p>Also, I was asked to give a five minute interlude at a children's meeting in Hertford. I didn't know the children, and some of them were even older than me, so I was quite nervous. But the children quite enjoyed it because I took along a trainer and a hammer to use as visual aids!</p>
        <p>In September, I was asked by one of our elders, to take part in the prayer meetings we have before the gospel meeting each Sunday evening. After a few weeks of experience, I have found that the key to success is to put your heart into it and mean what you say!</p>
        <p>As for the future, my one ambition is to fulfil 2 Timothy 4 vs. 7 : "I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith".</p>
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