Iriston - from looking to criminals to looking to Christ

Iriston – from looking to criminals to looking to Christ

Hello, my name is Iriston. I was born in North Ossetia. In 1999 my father was killed and we lost the breadwinner in the family. I lost a mentor in my father too, and because of that I continued to grow and be shaped and moulded in the streets. A boy needs a father. You do not become a man without a father. Since I was looking for a mentor in the streets, my life became really bad and I found my role models and authoritative figures, people that I admired and I wanted to be like in the streets, they were criminals, and I liked their way of living.

My character became really bad, and my character ruined me. As a result, because of my character, I had to do harm to people that I underestimated and I had to be in hiding for a long time. I had to run away from home.

At nights I knelt near my bed, even though I wasn’t a believer, and I asked God, “God if you exist, can you please get me back into the time when I was still a good man.” And then in the daytime I went out and was the same old me. And my neighbours told me about God, before I left home. I remembered about them very often. I even saw some billboards saying we can help you. I wanted to call those people but I couldn’t find the courage to.

After a while, I went into a coma because of a drug overdose, and when I came out of it, I decided that I should turn to God for help because that would be the last resort that I hadn’t tried. Because I had tried to change my life. I came to a church that was a Pentecostal Church, I went forward when there was a call to repentance and I repented of my sins and from that day on my life began to change.

The reason that I want to study here is that I want to serve God, I want to dedicate my life to him and in order to be a good, high quality servant of the Word I need the knowledge. But my biggest prayer request is that my mother and my brother are saved.