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MARIUS VAN STADEN
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Marius van Staden new producer of The Hell Hole Having been quite a good athlete at school, I never really excelled in anything else than sport. You see, for some reason I had an extreme low self-esteem and a great fear of people. The fear of people I used to have started early in school after being bullied time and time again by groups of boys trying to impress one another. Already then I was so low that I never wanted to do any oral exams at school, I’d rather just tell the teacher I didn’t prepare anything and got a zero marking.
After school I met a couple of new friends and soon enough started using drugs. The feeling of acceptance into the ‘group’ was so great that I immediately got hooked... All along I knew that what I was doing was wrong but that feeling of acceptance just stood out more and more. Growing up, I almost never missed out on Sunday school (I was forced to go by my parents) so to put it this way, at least I had a good foundation of Christianity in my past.
Using the drugs more and more and from softer types of drugs to harder and harder, it eventually started ruining relationships, causing me to lose my job several times, causing my self esteem to drop lower and lower, so much so that I eventually had such a big fear of people, I would lock myself in my room for days on end because I didn’t have the strength nor courage to face anybody.
To make a long story short, I got saved but back-slid, went to rehab but started using again. One night, after a night of drinking a lot of alcohol, pain- and sleeping tablets, sniffing and smoking all sorts of drugs, I started feeling that my life was being squeezed right out of me and that I was busy dying of too much drugs. After writing a quick letter to my parents and ex-girlfriend, laying on the floor barely able to move my hand, I called on God for forgiveness and to come fetch me because I couldn’t carry on anymore. But, with an audible voice God replied to me that He was not yet finished with me and that I still had a lot of work to do for Him. At that moment I was set free from drugs forever.
After this experience God explained to me that He was going to use my weakness (being so afraid of people) to strengthen me and to serve Him. I am glad to say that I have grown from strength to strength and have done some public speaking, preaching and of course my favourite, acting.
God has blessed and entrusted me with this form of evangelical ministry where I can exalt Him, minister to the lost and enjoy myself all in one and with the help of my mentor and writer of The Hell Hole, David Bezuidenhout, I aim to do this the best I can and to reach as many of the lost possible by the Blood of Jesus.
John 8:36: So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed. |
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