As I had already been to boarding school when I was younger, arriving at Homerton College, Cambridge was exciting but not intimidating. I was eager to join clubs and hear speakers and when I heard that there was a Christian Union meeting, featuring a pastor from one of the local churches, I was happy to go along. I do not remember any details except that two students, who were in their second or third year, invited me to cycle with them to church the following Sunday. I should not have been surprised when we arrived at the Round Church, the church where I had prayed a couple of months earlier (see “the Round Church”). I had agreed with God, during one of my infrequent prayers, that if my grades were high enough for me to become a student in that beautiful and inspiring city, I would go to church at the “Round”. As my faith was so weak at the time, God did not wait for me to take the initiative but seemingly encouraged the two students to take me to that church. I continued going to that unusual, circular church for the next four years. Jesus had made sure that I would keep my promise.

Nowadays so many students in the US stop going to church when they get to college. In the UK the opposite was often true. In 1980 when I arrived in Cambridge, university cities usually had at least one effective church that taught the congregation about why we needed Jesus. Most of the village churches and many of the churches in towns too did not clearly communicate the truth about who Jesus was, why he came and why we needed to pay attention to him. Today in the US many churches make their services “seeker sensitive”, making the message appealing and avoiding teaching about our horrible sinful state. I am so pleased that Mark Rushton, the vicar of the Round Church did not do this. He taught the Bible as it was, providing in depth understanding of Scripture and challenging me to reconsider my notion that I was a good girl. To ensure that people had the opportunity to understand how we could become Christians, every couple of months they held a guest service when a visiting speaker would preach about sin, repentance and salvation. By November, I was ready to respond. I had been listening for six Sundays and was challenged by the Bible messages but needed to hear about my need for a savior. Although better, in my own eyes, than many of my teenage contemporaries I recognized that compared to Jesus I was a horrible sinner and I needed his forgiveness to be transformed into a new person. I had assumed that everyone had the right to go to Heaven but now I realized that without Jesus I was lost. As I walked up to the front of the church to declare my faith, I was starting all over again with Jesus at the helm rather than me. I was in better hands now.

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