GEORGE HENRY, STAR Writer

At age 10, Reverend Verol St Aubyn Dixon knew that he had a God to serve, and did not hesitate to start doing so. He believes that at the time he started to serve the Lord, it was done because God had called him.

"I believe it was a calling because when I was about six years old I went to an outside toilet at my house; and when I was coming out of the toilet a little white hand came over my hand and just passed over it; and I started to curse. Not bad words," said Dixon.

He said he started to ask where a duppy came from to touch him; fanning his hand and persistently asking where the ghost came from to interfere with him. But, he said after questioning where the ghost came from he just started to preach.

"This was age six; and I then put a stick into a lime, tied it onto a can and used it as my microphone as I started to preach, while persons in my community heard and came to sit and listen to me preaching. I started preaching even before I started to go to school at the age of six," said the preacher.

Dixon said when he started attending school he got the nickname 'Preacher'. He said prior to him being given that nickname, he started attending church with an uncle at age five, and it was from there that he continued to attend and love church even up to this day.

The Adventist preacher said when he reached 10 years old he attended a crusade at Mason Run in Manchester and told his parents that he wanted to get baptised.

Reverend Dixon said during the early years, his Christian life was a bit rough. This was so because when he was 18 years old he fell out of grace with God.

Courageous Christian

"That was when I got my first son. I fell out of grace; and let me tell you, that was when I was all over the place preaching and going to high school; and the folks, they gave me hell, because they did not expect me to fall like that," said Dixon.

However, the courageous young Christian decided that he was not going to stay down, but would fight his way back to the Lord. That he did successfully by brushing himself off and got going. He added that from that fall off with the Lord he has not looked back since.

Dixon who is now a pastor for any of the churches in the Adventist movement said he likes to do evangelism, because he gets the opportunity to go many places to preach the Gospel to scores of individuals who are without the Lord in their life.

"As an evangelist, you do your four weeks crusade here and you gone; the next month you might be in Kingston, the next month you might be in Montego Bay; so you get the opportunity to spread the Gospel. You do not sit one place with the Gospel and say this is my church for four years. Oh no! I want to be moving. I want to spread it like wildfire," said Dixon, who has been involved in evangelism for 22 years.

Reverend Dixon who is a member of the Mandeville Seventh-day Adventist Church, wants persons who do not know Christ, to understand that not knowing Him (Christ) is like not knowing themselves. He explained that Christ is everything because He is the light of the world.

"If you do not know Christ you are in darkness. If you die out of Christ you will be in a sad state. If you believe it or not, Christ is real, if you believe He is coming, he is coming; and if you don't believe He is coming, He is coming. Ready or not, He is coming; so the best thing to do is to be on the safe side," said the evangelist.

Dixon is married to Patrice and has five children: Luther, Verol, Prince, Raldino and Abigail. He loves the verse of scripture which says 'All things work together for good to them that love the Lord'.

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