One of the first things I noticed, as a child, was that there was no LOVE, I mean real love, God's unconditional love. 

 

I grew up in a multi-national slum in Birmingham, England, and I suppose I was somewhat of a loner by nature. I also chose to be a loner, simply because all the others seemed to be dead. I played with the other children sometimes, but they always ended up doing what I considered evil, stealing, bullying, fighting, pulling legs off spiders, etc. I didn't do those things; I just wandered off on my own, as a loner does.

 

Funny though, I never felt alone as I always had someone to talk with, and ask my 10,001 questions. The one who was always with me, I believed, was God, my close friend.

 

Coming from a non-religious background, no one had ever told me that you can't just talk with God, as they believed and which was obvious, or they wouldn’t do the things they did, but I conversed with him anyway. I didn't tell anyone, they wouldn't understand or most likely wouldn’t want to. And to this day, I know I did talk to God and that He always answered me.

 

Did you know that we all live in sin?

 

If you go back far enough to when you were a small child, you may recall your first sin against God, and God's highest creation, (us) and we sinned and we knew it, and felt bad, but nothing happened because we are born into time - where things get delayed, but sure enough, there is a price to pay for our sins. The price to pay happens in our future, but at first we don’t see the relationship between the two, some people die and enter the spirit world still not understanding the reason for their suffering.

 

Anyway, in the end I felt I had to play with the other kids, they didn't do bad things all the time and I was getting a bit lonely, and that’s when I first sinned, just a small thing which some people might not even call a sin, but I felt it in my soul that God warned me, do this and there will be more to follow, but I did and there was more to follow, it was as if I had opened a door I couldn’t shut.

 

One morning I woke up early, I felt that someone told me to look out of the window, so I did, what I saw, gave me a shock to say the least. Between our house and the neighbour's, I saw something so hideous as I have never seen to this day, that this used to be a man and before that a baby. It was a skinny, smallish, ugly, black demon.

 

As I observed it scurrying along the pathway, it suddenly looked up at me with the most hideous grin anyone could imagine. I shouted to my brother to come and have a look, but when he eventually got himself over to the window it had gone.

 

Then I was told inside of me that these types are out there doing mischief all the time, but people cannot see them and do not ask for protection against them, you have to ask to receive, and ignorance is not bliss, but quite dangerous. I asked for protection.

 

You see, I considered myself good until I started to mingle with the others and it was then, that I began to slowly spiral downwards. Although I didn't think I was bad nor did the others, but I knew that I wasn’t sinless anymore.

 

Where I grew up there were gangs, all the gangs had their area and boundaries, and if someone was caught in another gang's territory, they would probably get beaten up.
The whole place was built on fear and hate, no-one had enough, and money was the greatest thing. It was a place where stealing was good and many times I heard a parent say, “Well, they should have looked after it better, shouldn’t they?” to their child who had stolen something, most of the grown-ups stole things, too.

 

This is how it is in the slums. I remember once someone stole all our washing that was hanging outside. My mum knew who did it and when that person found out that she knew, she came around to our house and nearly beat up my mum, but she didn't, I supposed she had protection, too.

 

Once a man and woman with a baby moved into our area. All the kids used to go into their house, they said this man was ok. He played with them and taught them to whistle in a special way and gave them sweets and gifts. But for some reason, I never got acquainted with him. He used to ask them to come inside, but never me. It made me feel left out. It seemed that he didn't like me; he looked at me with a frown. Was it me, or him? I thought there was something strange about him.

 

And after only a few months, they moved out without me knowing about it, and so I asked a neighbour if he knew they had moved, and he told me that this man had been sexually misusing these kids, and the police had taken him away.

 

Those kids, my mates, didn't have protection, but there was someone watching over me, and this sort of help and protection happened many times even as an adult, I do not doubt it and never have done.

 

This whole place was due for demolition; we were living there only to get on the list for a new council house. When I was around nine years, we moved to a house right by the side of the countryside. Now for me, this was a dream, from an asphalt slum to green nature and there was a river nearby, too, a new house and my very own room.

 

Ian