Who we are...
David & Valerie Norris
I was born in Wolverhampton, England and studied in France where I met my wife Valerie who holds a German passport although she was born in Ukraine. I am a graduate of Birmingham University gaining a Masters degree. I spent a year at the University of Constance in Germany where I took a particular interest in literary theory.
Valerie and I spent some years working in Austria and Germany and have travelled in Poland and Ukraine. Apart from my native English, I speak fluent German and some poor French. I am currently working on the Russian language. Now retired,I spend my time writing, gardening and looking after Valerie who now has Parkinson's disease.
We still live around twenty miles from the spot where I first opened my eyes to the light of day. Like Peter whose Galilean brogue gave the game away to those around him (Matthew 26:73), “thy speech bewrayeth thee”, it would be difficult for me to hide my origins, even should I wish to do so. German bombers were flying overhead at the time. Coventry had received punishing bombardment and this continued. The fires from the city lit up the night sky and this could be seen from our home on the outskirts of Walsall around thirty miles away. We were kept safe. Thankfully, I remember little or nothing of those days, save for some experiences of the ‘blackout’ and gathering coal from an open cast mining site in deep snow.
Meanwhile over a thousand miles away, my future wife’s family, she then but a toddler, was forcibly removed from their small farm by the Nazis under threat of incarceration. Ethnic Germans, they were moved from what is now Western Ukraine into the homes of dispossessed Polish farmers just south of Warsaw. This was a Nazi version of what we would now call ‘ethnic cleansing’. Not long after this, the family fled from the approaching Russian forces amid tales of appalling brutality by the soldiers. Dad had been now conscripted into the German army, despite being well over fifty years old. Whilst we collected coal to warm our modest home, at least we had a roof over our heads, Valerie along with her mother, brothers and sisters joined literally millions of others in a six month trek west through the bitter winter of 1945. Exposed to the cold and attacks from the air by marauding fighters, many died en route. On reaching West Germany they were not well received. Billeted on unwilling farmers, they were seen, not as proper Germans but as ‘dirty Poles’.
Valerie has pleasant memories of being brought a cup of tea in the morning by British soldiers who pitied the plight of these hapless refugees, often living two families to a room. They gave out chocolate to the children, something they hardly knew. What a strange folk these British enemies were! It did not stop her getting caught up in shouting, “Go home Tommies!” Little did she know then she would later marry one! Valerie and I met in France in the early sixties when we were both students. Sadly, the deprivation of those war-stricken days left its marks: positively, she wastes absolutely nothing; negatively, her health suffered. She survived a severe childhood attack of rheumatic fever, the effects of which have now resurfaced to plague her evening years. Had we both lived something other than modest lives, she would possibly no longer be with us.
How mysterious are the workings of our loving heavenly Father! We marvel so often. How God protects His children and gently cares for us. Often I mull over the Psalms even at night before falling asleep. They have a poignant and blessed meaning to us both. How God orders our steps and does not suffer our feet to slide. We daily experience at first hand the knowledge of His presence and the blessings of His loving kindness. We praise Him continually for His constant mercies, nothing do we deserve of what He freely gives.
Yet at a time when, humanly speaking, we should both be slowing down and doing less, we find ourselves unavoidably caught up in serving others. Furthermore, we find ourselves under a constant constraint to make known the Gospel of God’s grace. Why? I ask myself why? Are there not so many others who could do these things more ably? But then why are they not doing it? These days, unlike in my youthful past, I now positively hate the limelight pushing myself forward to make my voice heard. Are there not many other things I would rather be doing? Occupying myself with reading, gardening, indulging my love of languages and of music, travelling about, taking photographs and video shots would make life considerably easier. Particularly in times of weariness and loneliness, I confess to being a reluctant servant.
I love the land of my birth. It is good and right that I do so. I have benefitted much from living here, we both have. How God has in the past blessed Britain. Yet today our people are set on a course to inevitable disaster, calamity of the worst kind. They have set their sights on a ruinous end. Like many of you reading these words, I am appalled and outraged at some of the godless laws enacted by our parliament, laws that can only bring yet more misery and tragedy upon our people. I am deeply saddened that a substantial majority our people assume they can with impunity commit the most grievous evils against God. Sin and godlessness is rampant and men sin assuming nothing will happen to them, no retribution will visit them. We see no instant fire of God’s wrath, no storm, no wind of judgment. However, to abandon God is the height of folly, but to be abandoned by God, to be given up by Him to reap the consequences of our evil-doing, at least according to Romans 1, is itself irremediable judgement.
My dear wife Valerie who had suffered with Parkinson's disease for many years went to be with the Lord in June 2023. I miss her so much.
GONE TO BE WITH THE LORD
Valerie Norris
1938-2023
Some of you will already know that on the late afternoon of 9th June my dear beloved wife, friend and spiritual companion Valerie passed from this world to behold the face of her precious Saviour whom she loved and served for the best part of her life. I miss her terribly, of course I do. I loved her too much perhaps. She possessed spiritual courage and backbone.
God lent this dear woman to me to be my wife for 57 years. He has now taken her back to Himself. Should the Lord tarry, I shall one day follow Valerie through the door she has passed through before me into abundant joy. For my part in the meantime, I will live to Him totally and not to myself.
“For our conversation is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ: Who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself.”
Philippians 3:20-21
Read the extraordinary events of Valerie's life including the flight of the family from eastern to western Europe at the end of World War 2, through a harsh winter, six months in a covered wagon, and how God preserved them all.
click here________________________________________________________
THIS IS MY STORY
A spiritual pilgrimage...
I do not know how many years God still will grant me or whether I shall fall to some sickness or disability, but it is my intention to live my life to the glory of my precious Lord who saved me.
My hope is built on nothing less
than Jesus' blood and righteousness;
I dare not trust the sweetest frame,
but wholly lean on Jesus' name.
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To read the full account click here
To turn one’s back on something, as I did with evangelicalism quite a few years ago now, implies a turning to something else or a complete abandonment of the Christian faith altogether. Certainly, I shall not be returning to the modern evangelical fold which left me disappointed and bewildered.
For many years I fought shy of identifying myself as ‘reformed Baptist’. I even avoided aligning myself too closely with groups that were exclusively Baptist. On two occasions I turned down pastorates in a Baptist Church.
Today, my conviction is that paedobaptism within the context of the Reformed faith is a thoroughly biblical position. This has come not from trading different Bible passages on baptism with Baptists. Involved is a move to a very different, wider and I believe more biblical understanding of the Christian faith.
How, when and why I turned from Evangelicalism to a full-orbed Reformed Faith
READ THE COMPLETE STORY HERE
