^{Long before being a church leader in the west Dublin suburb of Blanchardstown, Pastor Austin Francis found his faith in Nigeria.}

^{At the age of 13, Austin has lost his parents in a road accident. His mother was only 28 years old, and his father was 33. “I became an orphan, I was helpless, I was everywhere,” he says.}

^{Austin never was really Biblically inclined before his early twenties, he recalls. Born a Catholic, he was going to church only two times a year, around Christmas.}

^{“I knew there was God, I knew I was born to know there was God, but I never had a relationship with Him,” he says.}

^{“Until one day, I was in the city working for money. And this day, I went to a church, and I needed someone to pray for me because I was expecting something. I didn’t know that nobody prays for you, you pray for yourself.”}

^{In his youthful innocence, he recalls, his search for prayer led him to being taken advantage of.}

^{“I gave this guy money to pray for me; he took the money I was supposed to pay my rent with. So I was thrown out.}

^{“I was crying, and I said ‘God, I really want to serve you, but I don’t know how and when.’}

^{“So that night, in my dream, I saw a hand writing the name of a church: Four Square Gospel Church.”}

^{Feeling otherwise hopeless, Austin went to the church. When he stepped inside, he started to cry “like a child who came back home,” he says.}

^{Later deciding that he wanted to go and share that sense of belonging he felt, he became a pastor.}

^{“I had to meet my pastor, and he prayed for me, and then I was ready to know more about this Jesus, about the Word of God.”}

^{In 2002, after having travelled to many countries, Pastor Austin Francis arrived in Ireland, where he is now preaching at the New Heaven Church of God in Christ in Blanchardstown.}

^{His move to Ireland also inspired a new venture for the pastor: an album singing about his personal experience with God and Jesus.}

^{Neither a musician nor a singer, he wrote his first song, ‘I Live Because He Reigns’, in 2006.}

^{“I don’t sing, I don’t play any instrument. The one who sings is my daughter. But in 2006, He gave me that song in the middle of the night, the Lord sang it to me, and I wrote it,” the pastor says.}

^{Through his songs, Pastor Austin wants to share his personal relationship with God, and what it brought to his life. “My relationship with God is on the Bible. I am telling people what God has done for me and why they should come to Him,” he says.}

^{Pastor Austin’s album was released on 16 December, and he already has new songs to share with his congregation, as well as a YouTube channel to reach more people and spread the Word in music across Ireland and even the world.}