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Sunday Gathering – MCF This Is Us – Michelle Loveley
Transcript
Today I'm going to be interviewing a dear friend of mine, someone I've gotten to know well over the years, travelled a lot with and I'd like to introduce the lovely Michelle Lovely. But as she comes I would just like to do this. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday dear Michelle. Happy birthday to you. Thank you. Okay we're gonna do this as an interview and many of us know you as a part of a long-standing church family. But I'm sure that there are many in here that don't know you and so could you start by telling us a little bit about yourself, your family and how this church has been part of your life. Sure yeah I feel like a bit of a part of the furniture here really, I've been there so long. But my name is Michelle, I am married to Mark Lovely, that is his name, honest. And we have two children, Sam and Eliza, they're not kids anymore, they're 22 and 19, they don't really know how that happened but there we go. So we've lived in Sheffield forever basically apart from four years in Ireland where we left this church, went over there and then we came back and came home basically. So I've been part of MCF for well it's over 30 years, I'm just gonna leave it at that, I was considering it was my birthday today, I don't want to think about how old that is. But yeah over 30 years, came as a teenager and then actually you guys have seen me through all stages of life,Transcript you know, teenager, university, year out, getting married, having small children and then you know having adult children. And currently I run a charity called Your Kids Around the World, probably I say can be harping on it but yep, so I do that, that's down in wood seats, charity shop and then I also work for a charity as a project manager, managing relationships with projects here and abroad. That's kind of me. Brilliant, so you've grown up in a Christian family and in this church, how did your personal faith in Jesus become real to you and what helped shape it along the way? So initially obviously yes, Christian family, you know my parents, Graham and Karen are in the church. So yeah, so I kind of, I always knew Jesus was real, it just, it never was an issue for me, you know, he's always been there. But when I was six, Billy Graham came to Sheffield and did Mission Sheffield and Mum and Dad were leading Dorontotley Christian Fellowship at that time and they were involved in being the prayer team and the ministry team for that and we actually, we had to go two nights and I'm sure it was because one of the nights they couldn't get a babysitter but I'm really glad that happened because that was the night I decided that Jesus was for me and I actually needed to make that decision. So that was the start but obviously as a six year old you don't really know very much do you? So it was much later, excuse me, when I was a teenager and you know, God had been part of my life for all that time, you know, being in a Christian home, being part of a church, you know, they were church leaders, it's not something that you walk away from really, it's all, it's every day. But when I was a teenager, you know, you hit those times where you start to have to think a little bit more for yourself and yeah, and so one of the things that was really pivotal for me in my faith journey was that I was just watching Telly one day and some of you will remember Challenge Annika? Yes, love that program, I thought she was fantastic. But she went out to a Romanian orphanage and I was just sat there, you know, having quite a nice time watching Telly and she walked into this disgusting place. It was awful, it was absolutely awful and I am going to cry, don't worry about it, it's kind of how it is, ignore it. But I remember just sitting there and my heart broke. I don't know the way to describe it and God broke my heart for those children, just seeing the mess that they lived in and the lack of joy or hope really that they had. And I just sat there andPublished on 3 weeks, 5 days ago