"My name is Annie. For a long time, I lived with personal disappointments. I’ve been growing up in a Christian home, but for various reasons, I felt very discouraged in life. I didn’t even like myself in the first place!

"...I had no true friends, and hated the way I looked, and that made me feel totally lost and confused! On the inside, I felt so empty!

"...In the beginning of July, I had a terrible fight with my parents right before my birthday! The smiley-face girl they once knew was now a grumpy and depressed teenager. I was all by myself and didn’t want to share anything with anybody. 'Nobody cares for me', I thought, so why bother to share how I felt.

"...I just prayed, 'God, give me real friends, Christian friends and let me go to a Christian teen camp!' I prayed like this for days. I knew some teenagers from a local church, but we weren’t really close. We just kept chatting on facebook. Then, one of them said, 'You really need to come to this teen camp!'

"...This is where my life began to change! I felt how the Lord Jesus was healing and restoring me to Himself. I found the true friends I was dreaming about for such a long time!

"The entire camp experience was one surprise after another. But the most important element was how the volunteers cared for us and really wanted to spend time with us. They shared personal stories of transformation and deliverance, and stories of victory in Jesus Christ! I could really see Jesus in the way the volunteers on camp treated us.

"I have never felt so special, unique and loved in the eyes of God! We all came back changed! We were not just a group of teens anymore! We treated each other like family.

"Today, we grow together in our faith, we minister to others in the city and meet every week for fellowship and Bible Study."

Story provided by ECM's partner New Hope Bulgaria