My teammate Saraya wrote Robert’s Testimony for y’all to read! Hope you enjoy another POWERFUL story from one of our Macedonian brothers!
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Saraya- “Robert is one of the men that my team and I have had the honor of working with this month in Macedonia. He is always smiling, always making us laugh, and the joy of the Lord pours out of him continuously.
He was willing to let us take down his testimony, so that it may be an encouragement to others all over the world. His story of forgiveness and the Lords enduring love and pursuit of us is truly inspiring.
I am so happy to have such a wonderful brother in christ, and to have been a part of this godly Macedonian family.
This is his story.”
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I grew up in an extremely dysfunctional family. My mother was not allowed to have anything to do with faith or religion, because her father was part of the police force. My father was an alcoholic and would often beat us and my mother.
I would see my mother getting violently beaten by my father daily, my home was filled with screams and arguments and I grew more angry as the years went on.
At 15 years old I began to drink with my friends, trying to drown out the pain that my home life had caused me. I never wanted to be home to see the violence and sadness, so I would stay out and drink with my friends every day.
My friends and I would often go to boxing matches and practice our fighting. We became very skilled in the sport and I swore that I would use my talent for fighting to being revenge on my father.
When I was 16 years old, my friends introduced me to marijuana for the first time. It was fun and we always forgot our problems when we would smoke. It helped me suppress the true feelings I had against my family, so I began to smoke as well as drink everyday.
By the time I turned 17, I was very skilled in fighting, and was much stronger than my father. I began to beat my dad every time that I was home. I beat him because he used to beat me. I beat him because I loved my mom, and he hurt her so much. I beat him because I didn’t know how else to fix this darkness inside of me.
During this time, I had been dating a girl for three years. She was the only one that fully understood what I was going through and the only form of support that I had in the world. When she moved away, the pain was almost too much to bear. The drinking and smoking weed wasn’t enough to numb this much pain.
When I was offered heroin, I knew that this was it, this is what was going to finally help numb all of the pain. I began to shoot up heroin everyday, doing everything I could to get my fix.
I began to be violent towards my family and steal from them in order to buy more drugs. I began to lose all of my old friends, because they didn’t want to be around me when I was using heroin. The only community that I had left were other drug addicts.
My mother became very sick when I was a teenager, but I kept stealing from my family and had stopped caring about my family. I was always in trouble with the police, and when I was 21 years old, I was set to prison for the first time.
After 1.5 years in prison, I was released. There was no rehabilitation available to me, and I faced the exact same problems that I had before. I continued to use heroin, fight, and beat my father. I had a horrible reputation in my community.
When my mother passed away, it seemed that life could not get worse. I began to take methadone in addition to drinking, smoking, and shooting up heroine. I was in the darkest place in my heart, and the only thing I knew would help was drinking and drugs.
I was sent to prison again shortly after, and I had hit rock bottom.
In prison with me, was a guy that I used to do drugs with. He told me that he had found the love of Jesus and that his life had completely turned around. He began sharing God’s love with me. He would pray before meals, and even thank the lord for the food in prison. This man truly saw good in a world that I knew as completely bad.
One day his wife came to visit him in prison, and i really got to see how much his faith in Jesus had turned his life around. This man had been even more addicted and out of control than I had been, yet the Lord was able to save him, cleanse him, and give him new life.
I began to pray to Jesus every night to release my from my addictions, to help me turn my life around just like this friend had.
I was released from prison 6 months later, and I began to go to church with the friend who has told me about Jesus in prison. The pastor of the church offered rehabilitation to me, but I told him that I wanted to stay in the church instead. The pastor would pick me up for church, have coffee with me, and invested so much time in me.
One morning at church, I heard a message of forgiveness that made me think of the unforgiveness I had for my father and for the things that I had done to him that I needed forgiveness for. That day I went to his fathers home and we were both able to forgive each other for everything. They we have a renewed and close relationship thanks to the forgiveness through Christ Jesus!
In 2002 the I met the leader of YWAM Macedonia; he introduced me to YWAM, and I felt that it was where I needed to be. I began to attend school at YWAM where I found a godly community, I was reading the scriptures daily and grew in my knowledge of English and of the Lord.
Shortly before I graduated from YWAM, I was asked to be on staff. I went on to work with YWAM for 3 years, learning about Islam and working with the Muslim community in ministry and relationship. After YWAM, I had a huge passion for working with drug addicts and ministering to them through my personal testimony.
I began to work full time with the church that I had initially attended, and was lead to serve as an elder. We opened an NGO through the church where I know work with other men who have been freed from drug addiction and alcohol abuse.
Now, I am still working with the church, I have been married to my beautiful wife for 3 years, and have been blessed with a son who is now 2 and a half years old.
From the time we have started our outreach, 10 men have come out of drugs and have accepted christ. A few of them have remained at the church to serve and use their testimonies to impact others. The Lord has used my brokenness and turned it into a beautiful story of redemption and I can now use my story to reach others for the Kingdom.
My future dreams for my life include using my personal land to open a rehabilitation center for men that want to leave the life of drug and alcohol addiction.
I want to see my father and brother come to Christ, as well the church to be able to reach many other men and women in our community, and for the gospel to be spread in all of Macedonia.
