From A Homeless Alcohol Addicted Man To A Doctor Of Theology, God Almighty Is Indeed Good

……. Born in the women’s prison, father unknown. My “free” life under the bridge lasted 3 years.

The testimony of Koni Oberle is full of inspiration and a classical example of “What God cannot do does not exist”. It is hoped that the testimony would help a soul that the devil is ravaging to discover him or herself and come to the knowledge of the power in the salvation that God Almighy gives freeely.

Konrad (Koni) Oberle is a father of two wonderful children, grandfather of one and a committed pastor of the Weinberg
congregation, Amberg, Germany.

Fasten your seatbelt as we go on a jouney with Pastor Konrad Oberle, one of the recipients of Ph.D , Theology (Honoris Causa) awarded by Immanuel Theology Education Institute International, South Africa at the recently concluded LEIC Nigeria 2023 conference..

“In the beginning everything was barren and empty”, that’s exactly how my life started. Born in the women’s prison in Aichach, father unknown, given up for adoption, then first lived for 4 years in anorphanage, until my wonderful parents adopted me and I was allowed to have a nice life with them near Aschaffenburg.

My parents were 2 great people, an entrepreneur couple, who loved me until their death. They formed me to a decent person with values, which they also lived. Love, harmony, security, justice, decency and social thinking shaped my life as a child and teenager.

At the age of 13, despite the nice life in a well-off parental home, I started drinking alcohol for the first time. I was looking for something that my adoptive parents could not give me, although they did everything possible for me. So I drifted more and more into alcoholism. After I completed an apprenticeship as a wholesale and foreign trade merchant, I had great success in my subsequent professional life. At the age of 25, I was already managing a large furniture store branch very successfully, but my main focus was always on the end of the day. The main thing was to “party”; gamble, drink and supposedly enjoy myself. That was what I wanted.

As a result, I slipped deeper and deeper into all these things, but didn’t really notice it because I was successfully fulfilling my duties every day and yet everything looked good on the outside. At that time I didn’t really know what I was looking for, but I was looking in the addictions. Alcohol changed me more and more.
Good friends were breaking away. The pubs changed more and more to “dive bars” and I myself remained blind to all the negative changes in my life. I then got married, although my mother advised me against it, but I knew better and was then divorced again after a few years.

My daughter wasn’t with me after that either, which dragged me down even more. Despite everything, I remained successful professionally. I earned a lot of money, left the house every morning in a suit and tie, and managed my workday really well.

One day, early in the morning, wearing a black suit with a silk shirt and tie, I was standing at the train station in Frankfurt to go home after a night of drinking. Then I was overcome by the thought that I no longer wanted this life. All the social constraints and requirements were repugnant to me. To seek recognition in things through which I got none.

My own career aspiration was to become a truck driver, but for my father’s sake I became a merchant because I was supposed to continue my
parents’ business, but when I was ready, my father sold his business and once again something pulled the rug out from under me. I told myself that no matter what I did or was doing, it was not right or sufficient and that somehow I was doing everything wrong. None of what I was living and doing gave me fulfillment , so I decided to stay in Frankfurt. I went under the bridge with suit, silk shirt and tie, emptied my bank accounts and started a life “in freedom” under the bridge in Frankfurt.

I thought that I was now living a life that I could live for myself. No more demands, no more disappointments! I messed up a lot in my life, but my father always got me out of it. He paid my debts and straightened out what I messed up. He didn’t let me clean up my mess myself, even when I asked him to, but he didn’t understand, because he always wanted to help me, but he didn’t really do that.

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My “free” life under the bridge lasted 3 years. I knew the red light milieu of Frankfurt in detail, my body was pumped full of alcohol around the clock. I was always woozy, begging for money on the street, buying new alcohol again and so every day passed the same one after the other. Especially at Christmas time, many people came under the bridge and wanted to give us something, but we felt that many only wanted to soothe their own conscience. You sense if someone is giving you
something because they have love for you, or if they are just giving to please themselves. There was a nun, Sister Gisela, who came to us every Saturday under the bridge, brought us warm food in a handle, sat with us and took an interest in our lives. She always said to me: “Koni, I pray for you. You are too good for under the bridge”. This small woman was full of love for us, she did not want to free us religiously, but only to bring us the love of God and we felt that and that opened our heart. She met us in our need, as JESUS met the people in the need and helped them. He healed the sick, he made the blind to see, the lame walk, he gave food to the people and then he spoke about the kingdom of GOD.

One day in the spring of 1993 I sat on a stone on the bank of the Main, had a lucid moment and asked myself: “Koni, is this all there is left to be? Is this the life you want to live”? If I had continued to drink like this for another 2 years, I would have died of it. I realized that my daughter should not live without her father, because she has a right to her dad. That was the point at which I wanted my life to change. I didn’t know how yet, but I knew it was time.

A doctor who took care of us always told us something about Jesus and provided us with food. This man came to my mind. I wanted to do therapy, informed my parents and was determined to go a new way. A turning point!

Two days later I went to the doctor who took care of us and told him that I wanted to change my life. There sat a man, 170 kg, with a very special charisma, who said to me: “You want to get out of the scene. Okay, then tomorrow morning south side main station, 9:00 a.m.”. I looked at him and asked myself: “What does this guy want from me”? Well, we talked briefly and he told me that he was doing rehab work and that I would find out more tomorrow. I then said goodbye that night to my buddies, who didn’t exactly advise me to go to this kind of therapy, but I set off in the morning with this man to the Upper Palatinate.

Once there, it was still dark, I met a man on the old farm who came up to me and asked, “May I pray for you, brother”? I was so startled because I didn’t know what he wanted that I just told him to leave me alone. I didn’t know where I had landed and what to expect. After about 2 days I found out that I had arrived at a Christian rehab and the guy from Frankfurt was the pastor here who runs this rehab. We were on an old farm that Pastor Olli had gotten to renovate. The rehab ran under the
motto “affected people help affected people” and although I was very puzzled about a lot of things, I let myself get involved with everything at first. The farm was not exactly a luxury hostel, but it was better than under the bridge. I converted relatively quickly, my beard fell, my hair was cut and very slowly the renewal of my inner man became visible on the outside as well.

I was made to feel for the first time in my life that I mattered without having to do or be anything in return. Just being “me” myself was enough to be appreciated and important. To simply be accepted just as I am right now. My lifelong longing for recognition (love) without achievement was satisfied here for the first time. It
was not a human being, it was God, who showed it to me. Who showed me that what I looked for so far in the world is to be found only with Him. The real love which does something with you. That builds a value in you. In addition the boldness and the liveliness came, which rise in you, because JESUS worked in you. The urge to clean up your life, to put everything in order, to clean up the mess and the hurts, to open all my “drawers” for GOD to clean, to restore me. My gratitude for
what JESUS did for me was and is until today my daily motivation for my doing.

A gratitude out of the personal experience, to know, there is a living GOD, who works through humans and fetches you there where you are just, if you allow HIM to be allowed to come into your life. Pastor Olli was the person used by GOD, who was full of love, mercy and understanding. I wanted to leave every other day for the first 4 weeks, but something kept me and I stayed. I could not cope with the love and understanding that was shown to me, but the promise of Olli to help me carried me through all my doubts because I trusted him.

From 1993 to 1995 I lived on the farm in the Upper Palatinate. In 1995 my heart burned and I wanted to move something in the kingdom of God. I had no idea how or what, but my passion to work for God drove me, so that I flew as a missionary to Uganda to build up a station for street children in the slums of Kampala. We lived in a crude building, without equipment, but cooked for the street children there. After 9 months, we were providing 250 children with a hot lunch every day. We were
a team of broken, from the society rejected from the rehablitation work, but we could experience the work of God there.

Many healings, signs and miracles happened and innumerable people converted. God did not need perfectionists, he used us who were in a living relationship with Him and were driven by mercy to do all that. After 1.5 years I had an accident and had to go back to Germany. I married my second wife and we had a son. I could pay back my 30,000 € debts within 6 years from my salary and my life came more and more into the orders of GOD.

In 2010 my wife died and I was alone with my 12-year-old son. A new, big challenge, but I knew that nothing in my life will bring me again where I was once. I quit my job, moved with my son to Amberg in the Upper Palatinate and joined Pastor Olli’s church, which grew out of the rehab work I was doing at the time. A community
of people who understood me and with whom I wanted to be on the road together.

After another 2 years, my pastor passed away and I now stood alone in the community as well. I never, really never, wanted to be pastor of a church and certainly not of this. To work for GOD in the second row was exactly the right thing for me, but GOD asked me if I wanted to become pastor of the Weinberg church in Amberg and I said “yes”, because I knew that HE would guide me and provide me with the people I need to carry out this office according to HIS will and HE did and does it until this day.

We support mission ministries in Nigeria, Slovakia and Ukraine. We distribute food bags to 50 needy people every month in Amberg, take time for them, talk to them, sit with them, listen to them and all this out of the love of our heart.

Let us do the services that Jesus did and meet the people as a human being; based on the love that God has put into us and accept everyone as he is and pick up everyone where he is.

I pray for you, who are reading this testimony, that no matter what situation you are in, God will touch you and change your life. I pray for you who are reading this testimony that God will touch you no matter what situation you are in and change your life as much as He has changed mine.