Noel was born in Carlow, Southern Ireland in 1938. He grew up in a very religious atmosphere and from an early  age thought God was calling him into the priesthood.   In 1957 Noel moved to London, England to work and whilst there decided to enter a Theological Seminary to study for the missionary priesthood.   However, three weeks before entering the Seminary he had a life-changing encounter with the Lord Jesus Christ and from that moment onwards his one desire has been to introduce others to His Saviour.    In 1962 he married Sandra in the Elim Church, Ealing, London.

 Sandra was born in 1942 and grew up in Bournemouth, later moving to London.  She too had met with the Lord Jesus as a teenager and had the call of God to the mission field.  In an Easter Convention in the North of Ireland the Lord called them to Brazil and they set about preparing their hearts.

  After Noel's studies in the Apostolic International Bible School in Kolding, Denmark, a door opened to serve the Lord in Spain, and Gibraltar for a while, to learn something of the Latin way of life and then in 1969 they moved to Portugal under the leading of the Lord .  Whilst there they answered the call of their mission board to the pastorate  and in 1974 were sent by them to Brazil.  Because of ill health they had to return to England in 1988, where they took up posts in Dublin, Ireland and then North Wales, after Noel's recovery.  The pulling power of Brazil and particularly the children however, just would not go away and in 1995 Noel and Sandra took early retirement from the church in order to answer the call of God to work with the needy children there.