How I Found Christian Science February 18, 2013 ISSUE

Au pair ad led to answers

Colette Gilroy

I grew up in France. I had always loved school and dreamed of becoming a teacher, but that dream seemed over when my mother took me out of school at age 15 to work in a factory. After a year there, wanting to become fluent in English, I answered an au pair ad in the London Times to work on a family farm in England and was accepted.

The family worked out a date for me to arrive. When I got there, however, the family was surprised to see me and said that they had hired someone else in the meantime. They told me I had time to catch a boat back to France that evening. I responded by sitting down on a bench, telling them that what they did to me was improper and that it was up to them to find me another job! At that moment I was surprised at myself—at the age of 16, in a foreign country, with my incomplete grasp of the language, managing to be so firm and so clear with those adults. This was different from teenage rebellion. Even though I had no real knowledge of the Bible at that time, I believe I was guided instinctively to be obedient to God’s command, much like this one Moses heard: “I will be with thy mouth, and teach thee what thou shalt say” (Exodus 4:12).

The family made a number of calls to people in the area and at last found another family that would be able to take me in, but only for a few days. As we drove to the new family’s home, I was told that I must be careful how I talked to them because they adhered to an unusual religion called Christian Science. I was able to stay with the new family for three weeks rather than just a few days, and later returned to be with them for an extended stay. The mother in this family was a Christian Science practitioner, and I had a healing of an infected hand through prayer, with this woman’s loving support. (My first healings in Christian Science were recounted in The Christian Science Journal, September 1986.)