Anger at his family’s financial struggles led Shawky to violence and drinking. Until one night, in a drunken haze, he drove the family truck over a cliff edge.
Shawky (not his real name), a member of the Berber community in mountainous northern Algeria, recently appeared on Free Souls, a testimony programme screened on Middle East Christian TV network, SAT-7.
Financial trouble
Shawky described his feelings of despair as he watched his large family struggle financially from year to year. He heard some workers in his brother’s field talk about the hope they had found in Jesus Christ, but their words fell on deaf ears.
Instead, Shawky tried to bury his frustration in alcohol, drinking heavily and hanging around with people who encouraged his anger and alienation. When his uncle found him work in the fields, he lacked experience in the job and hated it. Eventually he lost this work and his anger and resentment toward his situation and family grew. As did his drinking.
Shawky would become violent and drink so heavily that he would leave the house and wander the streets at night. This forced his family to stay awake and try to prevent him from leaving. But one night, he was able to slip out. That night changed everything.
Driving back after drinking heavily, Shawky lost control of the family truck on a sharp bend. As the truck veered off the mountain road, Shawky called out Jesus’ name. The vehicle plunged over the cliff edge within sight of his home. His family saw the accident and looked on helplessly.
The truck split in two as it fell and the family thought Shawky was dead. Yet Shawky miraculously survived with only minor injuries and lacerations from cactus thorns all over his body.
Changed for ever
That experience changed him forever. After the accident, Shawky recalled the conversation he had with his brothers’ workers and began going to church. As he learned more about the God who had spared him, his accident brought him to the feet of Jesus. Now he is committed to sharing his testimony with others.
‘Jesus Christ changed my life 100 per cent,’ he told viewers on SAT-7’s Free Souls. ‘Now I have a new heart.’
Launched in 1996, SAT-7 broadcasts Christian satellite television to an audience of at least 21million people in the Middle East and North Africa.
