I was born in the Isle of Man. I attended Sunday school, and later church, and at the age of about nine, realised that I wanted to give my life to Jesus, and tell others about Him.

At the age of thirteen, I visited the M.V. Logos, when it visited the Isle of Man. The M.V. Logos was the first ship which was bought by OM , and was staffed by people from several different countries. I remember seeing people from all those different nations and thinking that is must be really great to be a part of this kind of ministry and would love to be a part of it when I was old enough. I also remembered thinking that I wouldn't ever be able to qualify to join something like that because I would never be a good enough Christian.

Anyway, as I left the ship, I forgot all about missions, and didn't give it a second thought. In my mind, being a missionary meant going to Africa and never coming back again.

In 1992, however, George Verwer came to the Isle of Man to do a weekend of meetings. Because I had been on the Logos and had heard of OM, I decided to go and hear what George had to say. It was a Saturday morning, in a small Sunday school room, there were about 30 people there, and I was the youngest by quite a few years, so George was not exactly on a recruiting drive. He was simply sharing about the work OM was doing in different countries, and the work of the ship's ministries. He specifically mentioned the need for staff on the ships. At this point I really felt compelled to be one of the people who could help meet the staffing shortage. So in January 1993 I joined OM and the staff of M.V. Doulos. I spent fours years on board and visited 40 or so different countries, in 4 different continents. During this time I saw such great spiritual need and wanted to be involved in mobilising other people to come and be a part of what God was doing in World Missions.