A six-year-old girl can't stop telling her friends about Jesus after her mum gave up drink, drugs and crime when she was saved.
Alice herself grew up surrounded by crime and drugs. But thanks to Christians Against Poverty, which has posted the story on Facebook, her daughter Sienna is surrounded by God's love.
'I was on road to nowhere. I hit a brick wall. I felt like I was just standing there and I didn't know where to go. There was literally nowhere to go. I didn't know what I was doing, I felt like a failure in life. I've suffered with obsessive compulsive disorder from the age of about nine. It was so bad when I was a kid just because there were certain things in my life I couldn't control,' says Alice in the video.
She describes how she grew up surrounded by 'crazy' things such as seeing police raids on her house. When she did go out, she would go out with friends, drinking, taking cocaine and smoking marijuana. 'You would not want to speak to me. I was so angry.' She was even arrested for fighting.
Alice's own mum invited her to a Christians Against Poverty Life Skills group. Her first reaction was: 'What? Another churchy thing? Please no. And she was praying for months for me to come.'
Then one day she thought, 'Alright, I'll come, so stop asking.
'And I just went in there with no expectation or anything. It just made me realise how important I am to God. I said the Sinner's Prayer and I gave my life to Christ. And I started to walk with Jesus. And it was like immediately, all my anxiety went.'
She had been through many kinds of therapy and psychiatric treatment and counselling. 'None of it had ever helped, really. Then I said that prayer and it was just all taken away. All of it. He took all that hurt out of my heart and literally just replaced it with his love.'
The sessions at CAP helped with budgeting as well and helped her realise all the money she was wasting and taught her how to cook healthy meals on a budget. 'They helped me understand forgiveness, and to forgive people I didn't even realise I needed to forgive.'
She learned to forgive herself in the process.
'It made a real big difference in my life, gave me some purpose.'
She was baptised. 'Everyone was like, I want some of that.' Her whole family – four generations – then accepted Christ. 'My daughter, through going to church and Sunday school, it's given her a really solid foundation, the sort you can get only by knowing God and Jesus. She's actually turned into a little evangeliser herself. She's telling all the kids in her class how much Jesus loves them. It's just amazing. Coming from a six-year-old it's just amazing.'
Siena told her mum, 'Mum, I know I've got daddy and I love daddy, but I've also got God and he's my heavenly father and he's the best daddy ever.'
Alice has now trained to be a life skills coach herself so she can help others.
Churches wanting to run the new CAP Life Skills courses should click here.
