Suddenly we were surrounded by soldiers.

To be marched anywhere with an automatic rifle in your back is bad enough.

But when the soldiers are absolutely stoned out of their mind, as these guys were, anything could happen.

And they said to us, where are you going?

We said we want to visit Father George Culture.

We want to pray with him. No way that was

going to happen. And they marched us to the end of the street. They were just about to put us in

their car and suddenly everybody disappeared. And we were left standing on the street. Suddenly,

we were free. I don't know what happened, but I know God had something to do with it.

Hmm.

Welcome, everybody. This is Simon Gilbo with Inspired.

Inspired if you're new to us is all about hearing great stories from people that have had super interesting, inspiring lives.

I am sick to death of the relentless bombardment we get through the media of bad news. If you follow the news too closely, you're just letting someone else curate all the bad stuff to make you more depressed, more cynical, more anxious, and we don't need that. What we need is to hear good news that stirs us in our faith and gives us a skip in our stride, which I've got no doubt you'll have in an hour's time once we've finished with the wonderful Merv Thomas. Welcome Merv. Hi, Simon. Great to be with you. Yeah, brilliant to have you, mate. So funny enough, Merv and I were together in London yesterday, the last few days are at conference. Over the years, we've been at loads of overlapping conferences both speaking to different crowds. He is a governor of Moncton Coombe, which is where two of my kids are here in Bath, and I think most importantly in terms of what we'll be discussing, he's the founder of CSW, Christian Sorodality worldwide and has had a beautiful impact in the lives of many, many people. And I'll plug it from the get-go. I've got your book here, Merv, standing up and speaking out,

which is a good read. And because I've read it, I'm going to have to fake it that I don't know anything about your background. But go on. Fill us in. How was your childhood? Well, my childhood. Well, I was born in Essex. I'm an Essex boy. And grew up in a pretty strict Pentecostal home.

Way back in the 50s, Pentecostal churches were probably much stricter than they are today.

Lots of rules.

I was never allowed to play football in the garden, for example, on a Sunday.

My mum and dad hadn't got a car, and so we walked to church because we couldn't

get, although we could have got a bus, but we weren't allowed to make the bus driver work

on a Sunday because it was the Sabbath. So no TV, no Sunday newspapers. And we would walk

three miles to church Sunday morning, we'd walk

three miles home, we'd walk three miles to Sunday school in the afternoon and three miles

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