Amazing Grace

Davor is from Sarajevo. He attends the church where I go, and is quickly becoming a good friend of mine. Until his dramatic conversion to Christianity five years ago, Davor lived a hellish lifestyle of heroin addiction.

Davor was in his most insecure and sensitive preteen years at the onset of the war in 1992. He is now 25 years old. Most Bosnians in their mid-twenties to early thirties suffered unbelievable emotional trauma, as many of them lost one or both parents, were raped, and had friends on the enemy side that turned against them during the war.

As many also did, Davor turned to heroin for his temporary escape from the misery of day to day life during the war years. Throughout his teens and early twenties, he was criminally convicted multiple times of robbing cars and supermarkets to support his habit. During that time he was in prison more often than not. His twenty-eight year old brother, Alexander, who also developed a drug habit, is still serving a prison term for drug use, trafficking, and theft.

Five years ago, Davor decided that enough was enough: it was time to get clean. He checked himself in to a rehabilitation clinic, one that happened to be run by Christians. There he got clean, and he got saved. He has been clean since, but because of the drug use, he contracted Hepatitis C and is going through rounds of brutal, chemotherapy-like treatment cycles to kill the virus. Because of the treatments, he constantly feels sick and nervous, and there are periods when he is not able to sleep for weeks. The treatments will last for two more years. He also has two years left on probation for his criminal activity and history of drug abuse. But Davor is a changed man.

Now he is preaching and teaching in the churches here. His radical faith and love for Christ is amazing to see. What amazes me most, though, is that despite all that he suffers physically, Davor lights up every room he enters. His joy is infectious--I've only met a few people I can so easily laugh with. He is a tremendous encouragement to me and to everyone here, when in the natural one might think it should be the other way around.

Davor's life tells of the mighty way that the Lord raises us up out of the miry place and sets our feet upon a rock. I don’t think Davor realizes, or perhaps he does, what a powerful testimony he is of God's amazing grace.