The manuscript of Sylv’s ‘My Spiritual Journey’ was found by Pete at the bottom of their photo drawer whilst he was looking for photos for the Celebration of her life. It was written by Sylv some years ago and is reproduced in full. Sylvia Kegg – ‘My Spiritual Journey’ My spiritual journey must have begun before I was born. Ephesians 1v11 ‘In him we were also chosen having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will’. I was brought up in a large family with 5 brothers and 4 sisters. We were always very poor, but my mother especially managed food and finance extremely well. We were always well clothed and well fed. Many of our clothes were second-hand and our food simple, but we were never without. Mum often went without a meal because there was not enough to go round. I was sent to Sunday school with my brothers and sisters when I was 3 or 4 years old. Lots of children went to Sunday school then. When I was about 8 or 9 years old a neighbour’s daughter asked us (my sister and I) if we would like to go to their Sunday school, because at Christmas they always had a good party and a present of a game or other toy and a knitted garment, e.g. cardigan or jumper. I found this quite appealing as we didn’t very often have new jumpers or cardigans at home. It was there at the Elim church that I first learnt that Jesus loved me, and I learnt a lot about the bible. I left the Elim church when I was 11 because I thought I was too old to go to Sunday school. However, at 13 I joined a Congregational church with another friend, but only went for about a year. I remember thinking that I didn’t want to go to church anymore and hoped nobody would try to persuade me to go. My parents were not keen that I should stop going but as I was 14 by now I managed to persuade them I was too old to go to church. I thought it was something that one only did when one was young. Never having seen my parents go to church I assumed that this was so. My sister is 3 years younger than me and, at the age of 12 years, went to a John Wesley White crusade in Gosport and became a Christian. When she told me this I said “everyone in England is a Christian”. Over the next few years she continued to go to church with a thriving youth group. They went on rambles together, had wonderful Christmas parties and learnt to study the bible. She went 3 times on Sunday plus an after 8pm meeting which was primarily for young people, but quite often older people would go too. I couldn’t believe that she actually enjoyed going to church. When I was nearly 18 my then boyfriend was going to be away for the Easter holidays because he was in the merchant navy, so my sister asked me if I would like to go on their ramble to the Isle of Wight. It was a good day out with about 30 or 40 young people between 14-18 years. I was one of the oldest but I knew very soon that these young people were different. After that day I started to go to the Youth Fellowship on Friday evenings, the Gospel meeting on Sundays and the after-8pm meeting. The young people often went for bike rides in the summer evenings, and it was on one of these bike rides that my friend Gill (who was from a Christian family) told me how I could become a Christian. She explained the Gospel to me and said it was personal to me and all I needed to do was to repent of all the things I had done wrong and accept that Christ had died for me. That night I gave my heart to the Lord. I don’t know what I expected, but I know my life changed from that moment on. My whole attitude changed to other people and I just wanted to tell people at work about God’s love. While I was at this church I met Pete. It wasn’t love at first sight but I always admired him for his walk with God. Even though he was only 18 he had a tremendous knowledge of the bible. He always knew all the answers to the bible quizzes etc. We started going out together seriously when I was nearly 21 and we were married 14 months later. We have moved around a lot with Pete’s job and until we came to Eastbourne in 1969 we had always been in a Brethren church. In 1974 we went through a hard time spiritually, like a wilderness experience (and not to be our last). This lasted nearly 2 years. During this time we continued to go to church but were not committed. Life was a struggle. One day two of the young people came to visit us who had been to a meeting somewhere in the town, and came in very excited because they had been baptized in the Holy Spirit. Not being quite sure what they meant and not wishing to dampen their spirits we asked them to explain. We were not sure about it but we could see that they were keen. Over the next few months the two girls went to these meetings which were obviously changing their lives. One day when Frances (one of the girls) came to us she could see we were down and Pete agreed to go to church that evening (Victoria Baptist) where God spoke to him about the ‘door of Hope’ out of the Valley of Achor (bitterness). Not long after this Frances asked me if I would like to meet Kath and Gordon. As soon as I met Gordon he told me he though I had been hurt, which was quite a shock to me. After that we saw Kath and Gordon quite regularly and agreed to go on a conference with them to Norfolk. It was for a week, and although I was really searching for more from God, I actually didn’t enjoy the week. We came back Friday evening and I felt disappointed that God hadn’t touched me as he had the others at this conference. However, it was the next morning when Pete and I were praying together that I poured my heart out to God, and I didn’t want to stop until he showed me something. After two hours of reading the scriptures, praying, singing and asking God that if there was anything in my life that need cleaning out, would he do it. He did. I had a wonderful picture of a silver goblet which I could see through and it was filled with clear water but at the bottom was black sediment. Suddenly the base of the goblet opened up and the black sediment fell away leaving the clear water. I knew then I was clean. God filled me with his Holy Spirit and I was a changed person. I had been a Christian 15 years and had never known the wonderful joy that I experienced that day. The scriptures suddenly came alive to me and through the next few months God seemed to speak to me through his word continually.