Brandon's childhood was full of pain. His early memories of his parents consist mainly of arguments. One day his father turned on his mother and shot her and then turned the gun on himself. Their deaths left Brandon with only his brother. He spent the rest of his childhood in children's homes. On top of all that, young Brandon had heart problems which meant he had to undergo multiple heart operations.

As a young child, before the deaths of his parents, Brandon used to attend "Bible Club". But, perhaps not surprisingly, given all the pain and suffering he had known, Brandon had lost faith in God. But, some time after his parents died, he did go to a Christian camp.

"It was just a holiday for me," Brandon explains, but during one of the meetings he heard one of the camp leaders refer to God as her "Father".

This struck Brandon. God as "Father"? Could God father him in a way he'd so lacked as a small child? Was there a way out of the desperate aloneness he felt? By the end of the camp Brandon had become a Christian.

Brandon met the Jesus Army six years ago, when he was selling The Big Issue in Belfast. During one of the outreach campaigns in Belfast, two members of the team talked to him. Brandon told them he was a Christian and they invited him back to the Jesus Army double-decker bus. He said he might come by if he sold The Big Issues he was trying to sell in time - which was unlikely).

But they sold - "in miraculous record-time" - and Brandon visited the bus and recognised an old friend from a church he'd been to in the past.

That was the beginning. Brandon has stuck around. "I have truly found a home and new family," he says. Brandon knows God as his everlasting loving Father - and with his brothers and sisters at Safe Haven he's found the family of the loving Father all around him.

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Safe haven in a city of strife