THE ARCHIVE

I was brought up near Heathrow Airport, but have lived most of my working life outside of Britain, in Iran, Uganda, Bolivia and Spain. I lived in Barcelona for three years in the Eighties—it was very different by the time I came back.

I work with a little Spanish congregation of about 40, functioning in Castilian and to some degree in Catalan. Historically, they were all local people from Sabadell but nowadays about a quarter are from outside. We have South Americans and one Australian. There aren’t many English people in Sabadell, they tend to live in prettier places.

I was brought up in the Church in the sense I was sent to Sunday school and was confirmed. That is the graduation from Sunday school and the point where most people never go back. I kept going because I had a friend there and we went to different schools. She kept going, so I kept going.

When I went off to [Oxford] university, I found myself in a hostel with about 12 students. The majority had church connections, so they said: “Come to church with us on Sunday.” I’d always been to church on Sunday so I did! I’ve often wondered what would have happened if I’d been with a group of people who’d said, “We’re going on an excursion on Sunday,” and I really don’t know.

I discovered in those early weeks in Oxford that being a Christian wasn’t about one hour on a Sunday morning. I found that in an environment where biblical truths and arguments were presented in a rational way, I could not say, “I don’t believe it is true.” It’s got to be all or nothing. So I began to look at mission work.

I had always wanted to travel. My older brother is 10 years older and when I was going off to secondary school, he was going off to Africa as a geologist so I’d kind of grown up with the idea that the world is out there and you can work anywhere. I had no idea where my work would take me. If you had used the word missionary [to describe me then], I would have run a mile.