Jonathan Bellamy spoke with Aaron from the Jubilee Training Centre.

Aaron

Aaron is a student on the Creative Arts Academy at the Jubilee Training Centre and he spent time with Jonathan Bellamy talking about his struggle to know who he was growing up and find the right direction for himself and how focusing on his relationship with God has helped him in his own identity.

Jon: So how long have you been at the Training Centre?

Aaron: I'm in my first year now, so I started last September.

Jon: Tell us your story then, what's your background?

Aaron: I was born and raised in South London. I lived there all my life. I grew up in a Christian home. My dad is actually a pastor, so for me coming up I had quite a good knowledge of God and things about Him. But because I was a pastor's kid, I always felt kind of different to everybody else, so I always had this thing about proving myself. I wanted to be everything that I wasn't really born in to. So coming up I would do what my friends would do. I basically wanted to be like everybody else, just trying to fit in.

I think I was quite insecure in myself and in my identity. Even in school I was just following the trends and whatever my friends would do, I would try to do even worse. I remember things got really bad when I started University. When I went to Uni I didn't really know what I was doing there. At the time when I got asked by my parents, what do you want to do? What do you want to be? I'd just say, I just want to be rich. If they asked me what my interest was, then the only one I knew was music. But at Uni I was studying Physiology because I was good at Biology, but it wasn't really something I was interested in. While I was there I really got into smoking weed and partying and all that kind of stuff. I was heavily into that and I barely went to lectures. I wasn't really going anywhere in life. I had no direction and I didn't really think ahead about things.

Because I'd had that Christian foundation I would still go to church, but I felt like a real hypocrite. There came a point where I remember I was in my room at Uni and I was alone; I think I was hung-over and I just said, "D'you know what God, I'm fed up, I can't live this double life, it's really frustrating not knowing who I am".

Even though I had good friends I never really felt like I fitted in anywhere. That was a real struggle for me, just not having any direction, or knowing where I was going. Eventually I ended up not even passing my course in Uni so then that was a real tough time for me.

I had no direction, but at the same time because of what I had been doing, I didn't think I was good enough to approach God. I felt like he's not going to want anything to do with me and that was quite tough. I tried to read a Bible and pray, but I didn't feel like I wasn't getting anywhere. Then I heard about the Jubilee Training Centre.

When I first heard about the Creative Arts Academy and that they did music, I thought, why am I gonna go and learn about music in a Christian setting if I'm not living a Christian lifestyle, so I was like, forget it. I read through the prospectus and there's so much more than that. If you look on the website you see there's a lot of testimonies of what God has done in people's lives personally. I thought, well you know what, if that's the case then I'm going to try and do that.

Over this time I've really felt like I have a direction in my life now. I know that with God I'm going somewhere in life, which is really cool. My life has purpose and meaning now. I'm more secure in who I am and I've grown in my self-confidence quite a lot. I used to be really shy, even having conversations with people was hard. I really struggled to relate to people because I had a lot of trust issues as well just from trying to fit in. So being around Christian people who just love you for who you are was really cool. It was something that really helped me to be secure in who I am and in my identity, which is really cool.

Jon: You communicate in a way that shows you have got a great sense of who you are. You know a little bit of who you are; some of the baggage and also how you're changing. Is that language something that you've been learning at the Jubilee Training Centre? Have they been able to help you to see yourself?

Aaron: Yeah definitely! It's a practical course, it's not just a bunch of head knowledge. It's good to learn things, but then when you haven't applied it and tested it out you don't really know how much you've learnt. In that sense I learnt that I'm somebody who's of value and who's worth something and who can do more than they think they can, but I won't know that until I do it.

You get so many opportunities within the Jubilee Training Centre to be able to step out of your comfort zone. I've never really been comfortable speaking in front of large crowds, or two people even, but within the first week of orientation, something we do at the start where we really get to pull together as a team, I was asked to give a testimony in front of people, which is uncomfortable. I've done performances, I've rapped in front of people, I've stood up in front of loads of people and it's just something that I never ever thought I would've been comfortable to do before. But each time I've done it I've seen I've been more and more comfortable as I've done it. I'm more comfortable talking to people and relating to people. I actually genuinely have love in my heart for other people now that I'm me as well. I'm not as insecure or afraid to open up, but I feel really secure. It's been a good experience.