Pastor Pieter Henning
Toowoomba Community Baptist Church
I recall receiving a small New Testament when I commenced my secondary education in what was then Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) – I found solace in reading the Psalms when my parents experienced marital breakdown and the family became fragmented. That was all prior to me inviting Jesus into my own heart a few years later, and I then used that NT when sharing my faith because it was a pocket sized Bible that was easy to carry around.
Later on in life, I received another New Testament when I was conscripted into military National Service in South Africa, eventually serving as a troop sergeant in an armoured car regiment on the border frontline in what is now Namibia. When my personal faith was ascribed to a bit of a ‘backseat’ in my life, my New Testament was often still of great comfort and solace at times.
I am still encouraged to see Bibles placed by Gideons in hotel and motel accommodation whenever I travel, or when I visit congregants in hospitals navigating their way through surgery and illness, and I usually try to make use of the Bible in their room as an encouragement for them to use it.
‘How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth!’ – Psalm 119:103