Mady’s Story

Please note that we no longer have a women’s program.

Hope after failure

Mady finished the Living Free program in 2014. Read about what’s she’s been up to.

I came into the program at the age of 17 due to rebellion and drug abuse.

My parents told me it was my last option because they could not keep me at home the way I was behaving.

At that present time in my life I was seeking something more because I hit a point where I wondered what the purpose of my life was.

I had been considering many religions when all of a sudden Teen Challenge SA popped after my nana went to a church service in Victoria.

I went into the program with a horrible rude attitude of ‘I don’t care about these people and I don’t believe in their God’.

As Teen Challenge SA promotes Christianity, I decided to ask lots of questions to try and prove my team leader wrong but little did I know during the time of proving her wrong I was actually proving myself wrong.

I became more and more curious about this God they kept mentioning, until I started to realise something in my heart was changing. I started to fall in love with the Bible and God’s word through the thought of hope after failure.

I got baptised on my birthday and from then on have had my struggles but have continued to be a follower of Christ. I graduated from the program, and after becoming a qualified childcare worker, I am now working in aged-care and studying at Uni to become a registered nurse.

There are still so many struggles and it’s not always easy, but no one said it was going to be. Learning to come back to the word and stay close to Jesus has turned my life around for the better, and I couldn’t have done it without the support of Teen Challenge SA and their staff, my family, and most of all Jesus.