FREE FROM FEAR

VILMA 

I was born in 1961 in Cuba. From childhood, I suffered from health problems that made me feel self-conscious. I grew up unhappy, without feeling loved, and in fear of my father.

Later on, my love life was marked by many setbacks, and then my health began to suffer.

I got involved in politics, but nothing satisfied me; nothing was going right in my life (Matthew 7:24–28).

At the age of 27, I was disappointed with everything; I wanted to die...

Throughout all my struggles, ever since I was a child, I cried out to GOD. But I also dabbled in spiritualism, and then turned to ‘Santeria’, a mixture of Christian beliefs and an African idolatrous cult.

It was a complete failure: I felt increasingly unbalanced. Until I discovered and accepted for myself the sacrifice of JESUS CHRIST!

On 3 December 1994, I accepted JESUS as my Saviour and Lord, and my partner followed suit. We then formalised our relationship and began to serve the Lord. We were baptised in 1995 (Mark 16:15–16).

Two years later, my mother also turned to Jesus Christ. What joy there was in the family, after so many years of failure and suffering!

Today, I continue to serve my Lord by visiting the elderly and the sick, and I welcome others into my home to hear the word of GOD.

I want to bear witness that GOD has saved me, healed me and set me free from the fear of spirits, darkness, witchcraft and death (Galatians 5:1).

I pray to GOD that many of my contemporaries may discover his love and his help. (John 3:16).

Vilma (Source: La bonne semence 2025)

ADDICTION OVERCOME

‘I used to pick up cigarette ends off the street’ 

I started smoking – in secret – a few menthol cigarettes that I’d steal from my stepmother’s packet when I was about 10 years old.

As a teenager, I even used to smoke in the toilets at my school.

Later, when I was about 15, if I didn’t have any money to buy cigarettes, I’d pick up cigarette ends off the street to salvage the remaining tobacco and roll my own cigarettes. I smoked all sorts of tobacco: blond, menthol, dark, cigars, rolling tobacco… until I became addicted to dark tobacco.

When I was about 25, I got to know some friends, former drug addicts, who occasionally took heroin but regularly smoked hashish. That’s how I was introduced to it. Thank God, I didn’t get into hard drugs and stuck to hashish. However, I wasn’t as addicted to it as I was to tobacco. It was cigarettes that really had the strongest hold over me.

When I was around 30, I tried several times — unsuccessfully — to give up smoking: nicotine patches, acupuncture, self-hypnosis… Whenever I managed to cut down, I’d get into such a foul mood that my colleagues eventually asked me to start smoking again.

The price of cigarettes was constantly rising, and this was putting a heavy strain on my budget. But I had become completely addicted. Whenever I found myself without cigarettes on a Sunday evening, at the weekend or on a public holiday, I would travel several kilometres to find a tobacconist’s that was open.

It was at the age of 39 that I was set free from this addiction — and from cannabis — by Jesus Christ (Luke 4:18; Galatians 5:1).

I use the word ‘delivered’ quite rightly: I made no effort whatsoever to be set free once and for all, and it had no effect on my mood. One day, when I longed with all my heart to be baptised, I knew that continuing to smoke was incompatible with the commitment I wanted to make to God. After praying, I simply threw my lighter, my cigarettes, my joint and everything else into the bin (Ephesians 2:8–9). From that day onwards, I never felt the need to smoke again.

Today, at nearly 64, I have no lasting effects. What Jesus did for me, He can do for you too… and much more besides.

Mireille