“For many years, I suffered emotional, physical, and spiritual abuse,” says Amanda M. “I was raped as a young child, and then raped again when I was a bit older. I pushed all these traumas to the back of my mind for many, many years, until I became involved with a man I eventually married. He was very abusive, too.”

Amanda’s journey to the Lord through heartache and terrible experiences started when she was very young. “I was born and raised in Soweto. My father died when I was 9 years old, and my mother was absent from my life. She was not a Christian; we did not go to church. I suffered abuse and trauma. Someone who was close to me tried to kill me. My family openly tried to initiate me to be a witch doctor. I was brought up in ancestor worship,” and more.

In 1991, Amanda met a woman who took her to church. “I became born again at that church—Grace Bible Church,” she says. But because she was steeped in the culture of ancestor worship, because she was running from the pain of her past, and because she was a baby Christian, she didn’t know how to know God and grow in a relationship with Him. She didn’t know how to go from “spiritual milk to spiritual meat,” she says; she didn’t know about the Bible or how to begin to study it.

She says that “what happened to me after becoming a Christian was problem after problem.” She went from church to church, trying to understand and grow, and she talked to people of different cultures and religions, people who had different views of God. But because God was working in her heart and life to draw her to Himself and to heal her from all that she’d been through, she understood that their views of God were not right.

“Then I found Walk Thru the Bible. What I learned from Walk Thru the Bible was so powerful that it only took me a short time to begin to grow in my relationship with God, to receive understanding, to read the Bible and understand who God is,” she says.

Amanda took our Walk Thru the Bible courses Chiseled: Becoming the Masterpiece God Created You to Be and Catalyst: Helping Others Pursue Their Purpose (our Biblical Character Series courses based on the life of Peter and on the life of Barnabas) through our Pastors Institute in Southern Africa. “God has called me to be a Bible speaker, and I’m receiving training in understanding the Bible and teaching it to others,” she says. “I understand that God brought me through the storms of my life and He uprooted all the dead things in my life and healed me,” she says.

“Because of what God has done for me and in me, and because of Walk Thru the Bible, I can see a clearer path of where He was chiseling me to become who He made me to be. He is creating me to be a woman of valor, a catalyst who can help others see Him as He really is. God brought me through all the trauma and heartache and terrible experiences, preparing me for the good future He had for me. And He used my brokenness to solidify my faith and belief in Him.”

We hear so many, many stories of what God is doing in the hearts and lives of people all around the world through the hope and truth of His Word. The stories are countless and varied depending on circumstances, but there is a constant . . . He is working in people through the ministry of Walk Thru the Bible.

“Thank you for the opportunity to tell my story,” Amanda says, “an opportunity that gives light to what Walk Thru the Bible did for me.”

Watch Amanda share her story alongside others from the Pastor’s Institute:

Let the stories continue!

Give a gift today to help people everywhere live God’s Word!