Madeline Mampengu (60) tells us about her life with eight siblings, her search for recognition and love, the abyss of abortion, the gift of faith and the world of stations. I was born in 1963, in ¬Kinshasa the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). My parents were wealthy. My dad made trades as a successful tradesman between Belgium and the DRC and was therefore often travelling. When I was two years old, my family emigrated to Belgium...

As a child, South African engine driver Charity, suffered poverty as a result of ancestor worship and belief in the powers of traditional healers; she experienced great need, nightmares and illness, and wanted to end her life. Then she began to understand that ancestor spirits are actually destructive powers that frightened her and were increasingly taking control of her life. 

Today, she trains engine drivers at Transnet in Durban...

My father died in an accident when I was three months old. My mother brought me up so lovingly that I never missed my father. It was great with her and I thought that this is the true life. She always gave me the very best and also with her family. I was the favourite child in the family. When I was sixteen, she died of cancer. I was so surprised and my life after her death changed completely. Her family had always showered me with love and affection but turned indifferent after my mother's death... 

I´ve struggled with my temper all my life. I get annoyed and angry. This affected my family and mostly my wife. In the middle of a situation like this the devil would come to me saying, “There you see, Børge, your thoughts about starting a RailHope Norway are never going to work. You cannot do Christian work among your colleagues. You don’t have what it takes to do this, just give up! Jesus is only with you when life is great and it´s going your way...

I had everything I wanted, I felt a great void within me which frightened me. The responsibility for my family showed me that I wouldn’t be able to manage everything at every time. When a was young I thought I could bend things like I wanted. In my extended circle of friends was no room for weakness and problems. Because I was one of the youngest I drank often too much to cover up things and to gain confidence. With this mask of alcohol and arrogance I managed to make end meets with my colleagues. But now as a family man the facade began to crumble. 

The train stopped at Rüsselsheim station, the doors opened, people got off or on, I looked at the signal - everything was OK, “Please stand clear of the doors”, a look at the platform, the doors closed, all vehicle displays were OK, I pushed the master controller forward, checking if all the doors were safely closed and if I was not driving too fast or too jerkily, then I looked at the signal again ... A moment of shock, before applying the emergency brake...

I was invited to spend an evening with friends. Among the guests were also a spiritualist and a healer from France. We criticized the church very hard and considered it to be a bastion of the obscure from medieval times. But on the way home I reproached myself of slandering an institution I knew nothing about. The very next morning I bought a bible to fill my lack of knowledge. But what this book taught me was a great discovery! Nothing at all corresponded with the image I used to have of it! Compared to all other religious books I had, the superiority of the biblical revelations seemed so very clear to me. At a public dump I burnt all my spiritualistic, occult and mystical books