After 20 years of working in a beauty salon, a conversation with a waitress in Jamaica prompted a Scot to find her calling. 

The 50-year-old has now been ordained as a Church of Scotland minister after beginning her journey to faith at the age of 31. 

Rev Kaye Gardiner has been inducted into Kenmure Parish Church in Bishopbriggs in the north of Glasgow and nearby Wallacewell Church.

She said the ordination was a "night of celebration" and described it as "pure joy". 

The 50-year-old continued: "On the evening of my ordination, I had the most wonderful sense that I was exactly where I was supposed to be and that I was in God's timing.

"Nine months earlier I had been offered the opportunity to join a team ministry but I heard God say ‘wait'.

"It is not an easy word to hear since I had been in training for seven years and I was ready to get going.

"However, none of answering God's call is about us so I had to be obedient as I know that I can't do any of this on my own strength, I need to be in step with Him.

"Kenmure Church was packed, the worship was incredible and we thought that the roof was going to lift off.

"What a night of celebration, it was pure joy.

"The praise flowed out of the church's open doors into the surrounding area and to my delight local residents tuned in online with us.

"This seemed a perfect start to my ministry as when I was doing a placement in Zambia with the United Church of Zambia, I often was drawn into churches as I walked past because I could hear the worship and I prayed that one day this would also be the case in Scotland."

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The minister joins the two congregations on a one-year-contract. 

Rev Gardiner grew up on a farm near Lesmahagow in South Lanarkshire and worked in hospitality before training as a beauty therapist and barber.

She worked at her mum's salon, Jennifer's Hair and Beauty, in Lesmahagow for 20 years.

Although she grew up in the Church of Scotland, it was not until a holiday to Jamaica that she decided to truly embark on her own journey with faith. 

"I was on holiday in Jamaica and got talking to a waitress at the resort and she shared her testimony with me," she recalled.

"I saw the love of Jesus shine from her eyes as she shared that the most important thing in her life is going to church to worship Jesus.

"I knew in that moment that she had what I had been looking for all my life.

"Up until that moment I had tried to fill the hole within me, that only God could fill, with material possessions."

She had that conversation when she was 31 but it was another four years before she "picked up the courage to walk through the doors of a church".

The 50-year-old recalled "shaking like a leaf" that day but added: "But God met me that day and for the first time ever I heard the gospel that no matter what I had done in my life, Jesus loved me and had died and was raised for me so that I could start again."

She later graduated with a BD Hons Divinity and Ministry (First Class) from the University of Glasgow.

As part of her training for the ministry, she did placements at Kirkton Church in Carluke, South Lanarkshire under former minister, Rev Iain Cunningham who encouraged her to do a placement with the church in Zambia.

Back in Scotland, Kay did a placement at Viewpark Parish Church in Uddingston, South Lanarkshire and spent her probation at St Rollox Church in Glasgow thought to be the Church's most multicultural congregation.

She added: "My hope for the future is to see the Church on fire for Jesus."

"God has given me such a passion in my heart and what He gives me is to give to others.

"Therefore, I long to see the Church so passionately in love with Jesus that they can't help but shine wherever they go so that others long for what they have."