Cigarette, Alcohol Addict Rescued

“If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.” – John 8:36

PRAISE the Lord! Brethren, my name is Uchenna Amanchukwu.

 I worship  at the Okoko Parish of the Watchman Catholic Charismatic Renewal Movement, Lagos. I thank God that today I am a Watchman and I want to also thank Sister Nkechi and my wife who were the people God used to facilitate my salvation.

Some people here may be familiar with me. Some may have known me at Alaba Market where I do my business. I was addicted to smoking and drinking of alcohol.

My smoking habit was so terrible that before I finished drinking a bottle of beer, I would smoke between ten and fifteen sticks of cigarette.

I could finish eight to nine bottles of beer and yet not be satisfied, and that would arouse the urge for Indian hemp. There are some familiar faces in this congregation that can bear witness to the veracity of my testimony.

I had been invited severally to attend one church service or the other but I ignored them all. I thank God for my wife who was able to endure my shortcomings and encouraged me to honour Nkechi’s invitation to come to this church. I came here with her on one of the Tuesday fellowship meetings which, as I now know, is called the Charismatic Hour Fellowship.

 I was so excited at the testimonies of some brethren, the prayer sessions and especially the message which was food for thought.

I want to give thanks to God because I am now a new person; all those bad habits have all gone. I can now stand in the market place to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ and people would marvel at the sudden transformation of my life, with some remarking that the beer parlour people have lost yet another valuable customer.

In the course of my preaching, I usually tell them that I am not a stranger in their midst, that they know what I was into in the past, but now I am a new person by the grace of God, and that they too can also  repent and come to Christ as I have done.

At such occasions, they would call each other and exclaim that wonders shall never end, that they can’t believe it that I am the one preaching the gospel. But the interesting thing about it is that they would all stay to either listen or watch in amazement.

Some have braved it, and have come to ask me the secret behind the sudden change in my life and I always tell them that it is by the grace of God, and that God used my wife and sister Nkechi to bring me to the church where I heard the word of God that transformed me.

Before now, I would easily react violently to the least provocation, but I thank God that today I have learned to forgive. Somebody threw a challenge at me the other day by saying that he had seen many like me who, after several years of patronizing beer parlours, would come out to claim that they have embraced the gospel, only to go back to their old lives after a while.

 In fact, he said emphatically that he would be waiting for me over there at the beer parlour to witness when I would retrace my steps and return to drinking. I told him that I have taken that as a challenge which shall continually ring in my ears anytime the temptation comes.

 I expressed my belief that I would always be able to overcome whatever influence that would try to take me back to my old habits. Others may have gone back, I told him, but certainly not me. I believe God will help me to be able to overcome and stay on till the end.

Praise the Lord!”