ATC Radiothon

Growing up believing in thousands of gods, it took only one to radically change a life headed for despair.

Robby Ahuja is the Development Director of Adult and Teen Challenge Central Canada. Ahuja and his family live in Thunder Bay, Ontario. 

He's worked in almost every position at Adult and Teen Challenge, other than counsellor, since 2008. However, he was a student before he was ever a staff member at ATC. 

"I was living a life of complete death and despair. I was highly addicted to crack cocaine," he says.

"Towards the end, we were basically watching our son kill himself with drugs and alcohol,' says one father of a son whose life radically changed when he met Jesus at Adult & Teen Challenge.

Dennis and Jodi Ginter had been praying for years when their son finally said he would go through the Adult & Teen Challenge one year program. 

"Sam's story starts back in 2008 when Sam had an accident which caused a brain injury," says Jodi.

The accident had both parents worried when an incredible and unusual encounter happened shortly after. 

During the most difficult season of his life, the now Executive Director of Adult & Teen Challenge, found God in a coffee shop of all places.

Daniel Emond's testimony is one of battling addictions along with spending time in jail just to get out and sell and do drugs once more. But it doesn't end there. 

"In my first year of University, my father was diagnosed with Lou Gehrig's Disease. I wanted to become a medical doctor. I was reading a textbook and ended up basically reading my father's death sentence."

A ministry leader says a car crash helped him discover his life's purpose, ministering at the same place that helped him recover from addictions.

Steven Keesic, once an addict, graduated from the Adult & Teen Challenge program in 2007. He is now the ministry manager for ATC in Southern Manitoba, based out of Winkler.

"I was almost done with my first University degree and my life had really taken a turn for the worse. That's when my addiction took over and got out of control."

Keesic realized he needed help.  

Steinbach may soon be home to a new Adult and Teen Challenge outreach office.

Daniel Emond is the interim executive director of Adult and Teen Challenge Central Canada. He made a presentation to Steinbach City Council at a committee meeting Tuesday evening and outlined the need for an office in the city.

After almost committing suicide on top of Lighthouse Mission, the same woman now dreams of working there.

Charlotte Lathlin, a recent graduate of Adult and Teen Challenge, says that fighting her addictions was a tough journey, but discovered Jesus in the process.

"I had never experienced love in this type of way. You can have a worldly love, but it is never going to be a love like this," Lathlin says about her relationship with Jesus.

Friend and pastor to murder victim Gerhard Reimer-Wiebe (AKA George), remembers a kind-hearted young man.

Terry Theissen says, "George was a very kind-hearted and compassionate individual, very full of life and a lot of character." 

Theissen is the Pastor of Community for Adult & Teen Challenge of Central Canada and knew Reimer-Wiebe inside, as well as outside of the program.