‘I was more dead than alive’

Story provided by Volodymyr Bronovitskyy, the Kiev Regional Director of the Ukrainian Bible Society

Oleh Kapatsyn, an ex-convict and recovered drug addict who now brings the Bible to prisoners. Kiev, Ukraine. Photo: UkBS (UKR04DJ-29.JPG)

An ex-athlete whose addiction to drugs led him into a life of crime, tells how the ardent prayers of his family helped save his life and led him to help others in similar situations

KIEV, Ukraine — I was born into a large family in Kryvyy Rig in 1967 and, as I grew up, spent a great deal of time playing on the streets. At that time, Kryvyy Rig was one of the most crime-infested cities in the Soviet Union.

My passion was cycling and as I had a talent for it I was sent to study at a special sports school. The future looked bright, especially when I began attending the Kharkiv State Institute of Physical Culture, developing my skills and participating in high level competitions.

Then something terrible happened – I had a serious accident which ended all my dreams of a successful cycling career. I became deeply depressed. Looking for another direction for my life, I started attending a technical college. I was still very young – only 16 – and started using drugs as a way of dealing with my disappointment. Soon, I was not only using drugs but selling them too and I was arrested. The night of my arrest, recalling how my Baptist grandmother had prayed, I prayed for the first time in my life.

Drug dealing

But I only had a short sentence and I was soon drug dealing again. I had gained the respect of my drug-taking friends and I started to use my leadership and managerial abilities for criminal purposes. Over the years I was imprisoned three times, my last sentence ending in 1993. By then I was totally addicted to drugs.

During my time in prison I encountered the Christian faith in a very powerful way when my best friend and cellmate, an inveterate criminal, gave his life to God. I had been in an isolation unit for six months as punishment for bad behaviour, and when I got back to my cell I found him totally changed. This was a great shock for me. I was one step closer to God: I now understood that God really does have the power to change people.

I wasn’t yet ready to give my life to Jesus, however, and, when I was released in 1993, I went back to my old ways. I required increasing amounts of drugs to keep me happy and nearly died four times from overdoses. At last, I realised that I needed God’s help and I went to different rehabilitation centres and churches. They were not able to help me in the way I needed and after a time I was back to drugs and crime.

Bucha prison on a rainy day. Ukraine. Photo: UkBS (UKR04DJ-28.JPG)

In 1999, when I found myself in trouble with the law again, I prayed to God. I had gone as usual to a gypsy’s settlement to buy drugs, which I immediately injected. It was several hours before I came to my senses and I had to walk home in the dark. I got lost and had to spend the night sleeping in a forest.

The next morning when I got home, I was arrested on suspicion of a murder that had been committed that night. For two days I was interrogated, tortured and beaten. I knew that the only way that I would survive would be to confess that I was guilty. At the end of the two days I was so weak that I was willing to sign anything. I knew that the next time someone came to my cell to torture me I would confess. I fell to my knees and asked God to help me. A whole day passed before a guard opened my cell and told me I was free: a witness had come forward and identified the murderer.

Bleeding

Although I was free, the two days of torture had left me with severe injuries. My ribs were broken, my internal organs were bleeding, and my heart and nervous system were damaged due to the electric shocks I had received. I was in hospital for a very long time but the medication had little effect on my drug-addicted body. Ordinary anaesthetics did not dull the pain and my friends brought me some stronger drugs. They relieved the pain, but only temporarily. And they were slowly killing me.

I was more dead than alive; my wounds would not heal and I developed a blood infection. I understood that I would soon die and my family took me home. They tried to help me but my condition worsened. I was delirious for a whole month, with a temperature of 41 degrees Celsius. In my brief periods of lucidity I thought with great sadness about my life and all the bad choices I had made.

Ordered a coffin

It was so obvious that I was dying that my family started preparing for my funeral. They even ordered a coffin. But they had become Christians some years before and believed that a miracle could still happen and that I could survive. They prayed ardently, as did many members of their church, for God to heal me. Their prayers were answered.

Not only did I recover physically but spiritually too: I turned to God, asking his forgiveness for all the bad things that I had done in my life.

Since then, I have been trying to help other people in similar situations to find God and leave their bad choices behind them. Together with my wife, who teaches psychology at the university in Kiev, I work with drug addicts and alcoholics and run a Bible study course in a prison in Bucha, attended by 40 prisoners. We regularly visit patients in prison hospitals and I give talks at a rehabilitation centre in Kiev.

(WR 388/22 - 10/11.04)