Welcome to the Bridgetown Church Podcast. In this episode, Jonathan Tremaine Thomas talks

with author and speaker Pete Portal on a vision for justice and mercy and how the spirit

empowers us for mission. We would like to caution you as you listen that there will be references

to violence, drug use and addiction, including brief language. I'm here today with Pete Portal,

the author of No Neutral Ground and part of the core leadership team of Tree of Life, a 24-7

prayer community in Manningburg, South Africa. Pete, welcome to the podcast. Thanks, it's

great to be here. Well, we're just so honored to have you and really looking forward to hearing

your story. Tell me a little bit about your upbringing, where are you from and how did God bring you

into the work that you're doing today? Yeah, so I'm from London, originally, London, England,

but have, as you say, been in South Africa for the last 14 years, hence the slightly mixed up

accent, but I grew up in a middle class home. We weren't Christian, so to speak, but we were kind

of middle of the road. Anglican, I suppose. I grew up knowing all of the sort of church of England's

stuff, but had no relationship with Jesus. Got saved after getting in a fight in a Kabab shop,

age 15. We had funny story, actually, we had me and a couple of mates. I was at boarding

school and we had found, at the back of those lads, mags, they have like little fake ID things

you can order. So we all ordered fake IDs and filled them in, went out on a pub crawl,

over and doled somewhat, ended up in the takeaway shop and ended up, long story short,

getting in a fight with the manager of one of these pubs. And a guy in the corner split us up and

sort of sorted it all out and I kind of walked home with a bloody nose and dented ego.

My mom, I think, realized that I was going off the rails in a very sort of

coseted middle class way. There's nothing particularly bad, but packed me off to Christian camp.

And the next week, this was, so I turned up and had my, what was it? Nokia 5110, those old bricks

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