I became very bitter about life. I wondered why things were so bad and why we could never have the privileges that others had. We would get terrified when Dad was drunk since he would beat us. We had no family to love us at all.

I was once an alcoholic, a drug addict written off by everyone... Yet God called me, touched me and anointed me for His work. It is a miracle...

"As a dancer I had fulflled one of my life's dreams but emotionally I had plunged into a deep, dark valley."

When I stopped using drugs I managed to get a good life but still I felt empty inside until I made a good choice...

When I was a small child, no one had hope for me. My mother would cry thinking about me because I couldn't do anything on my own. She would wonder what kind of future I would have. I was disabled, uneducated and unskilled as I did not go to school.

I called a friend and told him I need to see a doctor. He rushed and took me to a cardiologist. I just collapsed on the doctor's table. The doctor checked me, there was no pulse and no heartbeat. I was unconscious... I was gone

I was alone in my room. The door was locked on the inside. I suddenly heard a voice calling my name. I looked around and found no one. I heard the same voice tell me 'Pray'!

I would wonder about the creation of the sun, the moon, the stars and the galaxies. I thought, "Who was this God who held the sun and planets in place?" How was it that these heavenly bodies would revolve but not fall down?

"I was once an alcoholic, a drug addict written off by everyone. Yet God called me, touched me and anointed me for His work. It is a miracle..."

"If the god we served really had power why didn't he stop this from happening?" Revolutionary ideas filled my mind and I began to believe that there is no God...

Never give up, there's always hope. You can always start over, says speed skater Mika Poutala.

One day my mother prepared me saying that we were going to watch a movie. Actually she was taking me to surrender before the village head. A man came and forced me to go with him. I said, "Maa why is he taking me with him? Maa..."

"Before marriage I had promised her that I would follow Jesus so that she would marry me. But I didn't really mean it. Later I forced her to change her religion..."