Meet our deacon interns: Andrew Thompson
Ten years ago while travelling alone I visited a Buddhist temple in the forests north of Phnom Penh, Cambodia during a violent electrical storm. The rain hammered on the roof and the lightening lit up row upon row of orange–clad monks sitting cross–legged on the temple floor. It was an extraordinary experience which left me feeling a little unsettled as I realised that I was very long way from home. But there, in that moment something shifted in me; I suddenly became aware of the fact that for years I had been ignoring my relationship with the living God, Jesus Christ and although I felt far away from him I was reminded that he had always been with me.
Looking back now I see that moment as the point where I stopped moving away from God and began my journey towards a deepening faith in Jesus Christ which has led me to the Church of Ireland, to conversion, confirmation and now to ordination.
There have been many other milestones which mark out the last ten years, the most significant being my marriage to Sharon and the birth of our three children, Harrison, Grace and Elijah and it is with them that I step out onto the next section of the journey.
Although we are not moving home the Thompson family is on the move; Harrison and Grace are starting new schools this autumn and all of us are leaving our church family at St Elizabeth’s in Dundonald to join with our new family at St Donard’s in East Belfast.
Ordination will bring many new challenges and there will, no doubt, be times when Sharon and I will feel as lost as I did back in that forest in Cambodia but the comforting truth is still the same, Christ is with us every step of the way.