Alieke’s Story: from a Burn-out to a Burn-IN!

            As a six-year old girl, I was molested. After that incident I began getting horrible nightmares where I dreamt that I was no longer loved by God. These dreams stopped though when I asked Jesus, with tears in my eyes, to come into my heart. At age 15, I was baptized by my father who was my pastor. When I was nineteen, I felt like God was leading me to go to the south of Italy where I served as a missionary for eight years. My time in Italy was very difficult and when I returned to Holland I came back with an extreme psychological and physical burn-out. I found myself completely exhausted.

            My desire to do things for God has always been great, yet my strength was always limited. I was able to go to a Bible School and also work at a children’s home and orphanage  in Holland. However, I struggled continually with depression. In the midst of this, God gave me many good friends with whom I could pray and do things together. There was one friend  who suffered incredibly and had to live in a psychiatric hospital. On the weekends, she stayed with me. Even though I also was suffering with depression, I took her in and cared for her to the best of my ability.

           

Then something horrible happened; she committed suicide. My world fell apart and I could not understand God any longer. My faith seemed to disappear and I stopped going to church. I fell into a dark depression and I felt like I did not want to live any longer. I could not work, felt alone in the world, and did not have a special ministry which I so longed for. I found myself weak and because of chronic fatigue I laid in bed for many hours every day. I had fallen into a very deep pit and did not know if I would ever come out again.

             I am in my fifties now, and had not been to church for many years. One day I was talking to my nephew and he told me that his church (New Life West) has a kids outreach. Something in me got excited, because I had always felt a love and burden for children.  I visited the kid’s club and loved it. At kid’s club Matt also invited me to church. That very first Sunday, Todd Presley, an IPHC missionary to Wales, was the speaker. He shared about his own struggles, his own seasons of depression. He spoke about true freedom through Christ and that God offers us a way out of darkness. Todd did an alter call and I went forward to receive prayer. At the moment he prayed for me, I experienced God’s love very powerfully. Instead of a “burn-out” God gave me a “Burn-On” and my life has changed!

           

Since then, I have not gone to bed during the day. I also have the strength to teach at Kid’s Club as well as teaching Kid’s Church at New Life West. Teaching children is my gift and my passion! Another special gift is that I am now engaged to get married. Since my encounter with Him, God has brought back into my life a special man who I was in love with many years earlier. A new life, a new partner, a new future, a new hope, new passion, new strength: these are some of the things God has given me this last year. God has used Matt and Femke and my church New Life West to discover these gifts God had for me. I have seen God’s light and love breakthrough the dark night of my soul. Through Christ, I have received a New Life.