Deborah 13: Servant of God

Deborah Drapper is very different from the average teenager living in Britain. Deborah lives in a remote corner of rural Dorset. She rarely leaves the farmhouse where she lives with her dad Andrew, mom Ruth, and eight of her ten brothers and sisters. But all that is about to change. This summer Deborah will spend a few days with her brother at University, to get the first taste of what life in the outside world is really like.

Deborah is the fourth of eleven children aged between eighteen months and twenty-one years. Her older sister Rebecca married at nineteen and is now a mom. At twenty, Matthew is the oldest of the boys and the sibling Deborah is closest to. He's just back for the summer from the University in Buxton where he's studying to be a chef. Matthew won his place at the University despite never attending a traditional school. Like all of the Drapper children, he's been educated at home.

Deborah is a strict Evangelical Christian. She believes she found God at the age of six and has never looked back. She's been invited by a council youth worker, Phil, to join him on his Friday night rounds, meeting teenagers in Bridport. She's decided to take Matthew along for moral support.

Each day before school starts, the family meet for Bible study. Andrew and Ruth use a traditional translation of the Bible and believe in teaching the children that not one word of it is open to interpretation. While the youngest children nod off listening to the Bible every night, Deborah prefers creationist's sermons found on the Internet.

Every summer Deborah joins the rest of the Drapper clan, to perform a puppet show to the unconverted at a nearby holiday park. Matthew's invited her to stay for a few days when he goes back to Uni in Buxton. Now that he's living away from the family he wants to make sure she's prepared for what life will be like beyond the four walls of the home. Matthew's keen to get Deborah as many new experiences as possible during her visit, so he's lined up a shopping trip she's unlikely to find in rural Dorset.