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PHIL and Barbara Buckman have headed off into the unknown.
The Liphook couple knew God was calling them to Wales to set up a home for abused children - but they went there with no house and no jobs.
But, after living with and praying through this vision for seven years, they are convinced God guided them to create a ‘safe’ house where children can rebuild their lives in a loving environment.
It could be a private house where they can foster children, a residential home or a respite care home - they don’t know yet. But they stepped out in faith, selling their house and moving anyway.
“If we’ve got it wrong, then God will have to show us very clearly fairly soon,” said Barbara, a 49-year-old mother of two.
Her concern for abused children stems partly from her own experiences. She lived with her grandparents because her mum was ill and her dad left home. But between the ages of seven and 11, her grandfather regularly sexually abused her.
Until she became a Christian through a Billy Graham rally in 1989, she had tried to bury those painful memories. Once she’d joined Liphook Church, she was given regular counselling that helped her to deal with what had happened and to forgive her grandfather. She even spoke to other groups of women in similar situations about her experiences.
“I had a huge amount of emotional baggage, and becoming a Christian meant I didn’t have to keep dragging it around with me and harping on about the past,” she said.
She nagged Phil to come to church with her, but he was sceptical. He had been a chorister himself for six years, but regular church services had meant nothing. In 1990, during a healing weekend, Barbara persuaded him to go church and have his back prayed for by the former Bishop of Singapore.
“I had no intention of letting anything happen to me, but he prayed a few words and then I fell on the floor,” said Phil, now 50. “It was almost as though God had to do something drastic to get my attention!”
The couple say becoming Christians saved their marriage. They had bought their Liphook home expecting to divorce because of constant arguments.
“Phil seemed to actually change physically once he became a Christian,” said Barbara. “His face and expression looked so different that people asked ‘What’s happened to Phil?’”
Both led Sunday School and youth clubs at church - which they say was the best way to learn about a faith they were initially unfamiliar with.
But it was in 1996-97 that Barbara had three vivid dreams about a ‘safe’ house where children would laugh, play and feel secure. The house had many bedrooms, a gravel drive, a large garden and the land dropped away steeply to the left. After much prayer, they were amazed to come across a similar house in Alton that was on the market.
“If we’d had the money, we would have bought it,” said Barbara. “But we can now see that it would have been wrong to do that. God still had to do a lot of work to prepare us. But if I ever doubt the vision, I always come back to the fact that that house was exactly the same as my dream.”
Since then, their lives have been transformed. Barbara started working with children, leading school assemblies and lessons, and then leading playschemes and holiday clubs. Before they moved, she supervised contact between foster children and their parents in Leigh Park and completed an NVQ in childcare.
Phil had worked his way up from being a tea boy to being the director of a freight forwarding company. He was made redundant in 1995, then launched his own telecommunications company. In the end, he gave that up to study social work.
“By the time I closed my company down, I was sick and tired of it,” he said. “I had always assumed that this was Barbara’s vision and that I needed to earn money to make it happen. But I gradually realised that it should be my vision too.
“I remember going to our Crusaders youth club and saying to another leader: ‘I’d like to do what you’re doing - social work’. And the moment I let go of my business, I realised it was the right thing. I’d only left school with an art O-level. I’m not academic at all, but I did an access course and I’m now completing my first year at university. It’s scary, but I’m doing it.”
They only realised Wales was the right place after searching for suitable houses across the UK. After visiting friends, they stumbled into a church in Cardigan and discovered they were talking to a pastor whose congregation shared their vision.
“It turned out that the vision of the church was to work in the community with young children from broken homes, or low-income families,” said Phil. “It was almost as if the pastor already knew us and knew our vision. The congregation now pray for us regularly.”
The couple are renting a home initially while they raise enough money to buy the care home of their dreams. They still don’t know where that is - but they’re trusting God to guide them to it.
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