There is an interesting and confusing sub-theme to my journey which hasn't yet unveiled itself fully. I think I began following Christ sometime in 1998-1999. I was utterly stoked at this love I had discovered - it blew me away, span me round and left me feeling like I could explode if I didn't express it in some way to everyone I met.

A group of my friends decided to go to Soul Survivor (I'm guessing Summer 1998) and I joined them. Jackie Pullinger was there with a whole bunch of young people (former heroin addicts) from Hong Kong. I listened to their stories about how their lives had been impacted through encountering Jesus and I was invigorated. I think there were 8 seminars with Jackie in the course of the week and I went to them all, drank them up like a refreshing glass of water. The only thing that stopped me from signing up and booking myself onto the next flight to Hong Kong was that I was still in school.

So instead I went home and learned everything I could about the poor. I discovered that The Guardian was the most likely British newspaper to cover anything related to the world's poor as though it was of any importance, so I read that. I realised that I could make a small (tiny) difference by boycotting non-fairtrade chocolate and coffee and encouraging others to do the same.

The more I read the Bible, the more I realised that God really does care about justice and the poor. Isaiah 58 became one of my motivating passages as my heart burned to find out what I was to do.

I finished A-levels and decided that I would study Law and Politics, because this seemed like the most likely avenue for somehow addressing injustice. At law school I realised that the majority of my colleagues were in it for the money (something I just couldn't relate to), and that our primary focus was the high-profile administration of our UK context (e.g. "what is the meaning of the word intent in that small sub section of statute?"

To cut a long story short(er), the furthest I've got along this path to date has been helping out occasionally on a soup run before I left Cardiff, being willing to say yes when asked to get involved in work of this genre, and nothing else. Somewhere along the way my passion and belief that this was one of the motivating goals of my existence has found it's way to the back burner.