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Iranian student Amin Abbasi saw no reason to live. Abused as a child, crushed by poverty, he was ready to kill.

But he was given the Scriptures in his own language and was fascinated by Jesus. He surrendered his life to Christ. He is now being trained at Elam Ministries which operates the only residential Bible Training Centre in the world for Iranians. This is his testimony.

Peer group pressure! It is a big factor in a youngster's life. this proved to be especially true when I was 12 years old. I had just started at a senior school in my home town of Windsor and I was eager to make an impression on new friends.

One of those friends, Alan, invited me over to his house for some fun. When I told him I was hungry, he suggested we went to the shops and got some sweets, but neither of us had any money. But that was no problem. 'We'll just steal them', Alan said. I had some qualms about this, my parents being good, church-going people, and being aware of what God thought of stealing. But my protest soon ended when I realised that Alan's estimate of me was plummeting rapidly, and that if I was not careful, I would quickly be labelled a coward at school. Quite soon we were coming out of the shop with pockets bulging with sweets and books we had stolen.

The end of 1995 marks the 200th anniversary of the birth of one of Scotland's greatest missionaries, Robert Moffat. Although less famous than his son-in-law, David Livingstone, Moffat was also a remarkable man.

His story has all the ingredients of the classic Victorian missionary saga: wild animals and even wilder tribes, exotic customs and bizarre costumes, daring expeditions into the interior, and above all, an indomitable missionary sustained by his trust in an Almighty God.

One evening in 1787 a young MP pored over papers by candlelight in his home beside the Houses of Parliament. William Wilberforce had been asked to propose the Abolition of the Slave Trade, although almost all Englishmen thought the Trade necessary, if nasty, and that economic ruin would follow if it stopped.

He studied first the state of Negro slaves in the West Indies. He found it bad. Then, the harm to Africa. This disturbed him. Then he examined the conditions for the wretched men, women and children as they were shipped across the Atlantic and he was appalled. The death rate on this 'middle passage' was dreadful. Every dead slave meant loss to a slave ship's owner, yet hundreds died every year.

During the week, St. Peter's Vere Street in London's West End is home to Christian Impact, but on Sundays it is fully used by Emmanuel Evangelical Church. This is a young, vibrant and growing international congregation. To find out more about it, John Marsh visited their pastoral leader, the Rev. Chua Wee-Hian.

EN: How did the church begin?

CW-H: Towards the end of 1988, a group of primarily Chinese Christians believed that the time had come to launch a new church that would reach out to students and professionals from ethnic minority backgrounds. This would also be in line with the Lord's mandate to 'make disciples of all nations'. So on January 1 1989, Emmanuel Evangelical Church (EEC) was born. Our dream and vision is to grow into an international church.