Wullie’s Story – Teen Challenge

Wullie grew up in Greenock in a loving family. His life started to go downhill in high school. He started taking drugs and soon enough heroin had a grip of him for 17 years. Wullie served a long-term prison sentence and then found himself broken, lonely, isolated and contemplating taking his own life in a bedroom at the homeless centre in Greenock.

There was one person in his life who was always there for him, Maggie. She was a Teen Challenge Strathclyde volunteer on their outreach bus in Greenock. Maggie kept pestering Wullie to come onto the bus, so eventually he went onto the bus and he met these amazing people. They told Wullie, “Listen, your life doesn’t have to be this way, there is a different way to live”. That night he was faced with a serious question that he had to ask himself: “What is it that you want to do with the rest of your life, Wullie?” His life was going one of four ways: he was heading towards overdosing; taking his own life; going back to prison or taking somebody else’s life.

The Teen Challenge team helped Wullie get away to a residential rehabilitation centre, The Haven, that is where Wullie’s life changed forever. At a wee meeting, he heard a Scripture from Revelation 3:20, “Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and they with me.” The speaker said that the handle of your heart is on the inside and that you have to open your heart to let God in. Something shifted within Wullie’s heart and he knew then that this was for real. He just knew then that his life could change but only through the power of God. From that night onwards, Wullie bounced on and completed The Haven programme, and he learned to take responsibility for his own life. Now his life is like night and day from the way it used to be.

Now Wullie volunteers with Teen Challenge leading a Street Team in Greenock. Most of the people he meets know the way Wullie was when he was in his addiction and cannot argue with my changed life. Now he works at The Haven, he is married and God has brought my son and family back into my life. Now Wullie can be an upstanding member of my community. Now he know’s he has the ability to do something with his life, and it’s only through the grace of God.