Earl Soham Baptist Church - who are we?
Andrew Behrend
Andrew has been in Earl Soham since 1989, though long-term illness accounts for him keeping a fairly low profile for much of that period.
Born up north, near Liverpool, he was converted at 14 during a mission at school and has been active in church life since then (health permitting), including organ playing in Anglican churches. A music degree led to teaching music at school but he soon decided this wasn’t for him. For reasons too convoluted and obscure to go into he ended up down in Suffolk, sharing a house in Earl Soham (where he knew people at the Baptist Church, particularly the Pecks) with a family and setting up a piano teaching practice. Increasing ill health in the form of M.E. dogged him through the 1990’s to the point where he gave up teaching in 1995. He still struggles with M.E. and has periods feeling relatively good (usually summer) and other periods feeling poor (usually in the winter).
At church he helps out with the music, looks after hire of the building, and when he can get his head into gear, likes to develop his interest in philosophy and theology with John Peck, our former minister. He likes the freedom to be creative. “All can have an input.” What he doesn’t like so much is its lateness.
Besides still playing piano (just about!) and performing occasionally, he enjoys reading (increasingly poetry) and listening to music (mainly classical and jazz). He’s also an armchair football fan with a vague feeling of guilt about not managing to transfer his allegiance from Liverpool to Ipswich F.C. (despite the worthy example of John Peel!)