From drug trafficking to helping the homeless

Ohad Green

Ohad Green used to be a drug trafficker and woman trader. Born and raised on a little Kibbutz about 40km from Tel Aviv, Israel, he found Jesus about 7 years ago and began to turn his life around. Paul Calvert spoke with him to find out more.

Paul: How did you become a believer in Jesus?

Ohad: Yes about 7 years ago I gave my life to Jesus. First of all let me start by saying that life hasn't been better since. My story starts when I was 11 years old; I was a pretty rough boy; I was hyper active and wasn't doing very well at school. Not doing very well with society meant I found myself hanging around with a very bad crowd in Rehovot in a very bad neighbourhood; they later demolished that neighbourhood. I started doing drugs when I was 11 years old. I started with hash and grass, things like that; also at the age of 11 I started to do LSD, coke and a little bit of heroin. I started dealing when I was 15 years old. I moved up the scale and things went really well for me when I was about 17 as I hit a connection with some major Mafia families in Israel. I became a bodyguard for a woman importer who imported women from Eastern Europe. I used to fly with him once a month to Moldova, Romania and Bulgaria. I was strapped to a suitcase full of money; the biggest amount of money I was strapped to was 2 million dollars cash. Everything was done by consent by the way, we never kidnapped a girl.

By that time I started trafficking drugs around Europe a little bit and into Israel, that was when I was 18 nearly going into the Army. When I went into the Army I started my own line of importing from Lebanon because I was serving inside Lebanon. Every other weekend I came into Israel with 5kg of hash and 5kg of opium.

After the Army I moved to live in Eilat and started being the head of security for the Casino boats that they have over there. I was living the high life, I was living in a big apartment, lots of parties, girls, lots of money and lots of drugs, but the whole time that I was in Eilat I felt that there was something missing; everything was perfect but it was the most imperfect thing at the same time.

Then I met an English girl and she got pregnant. She decided that I'm not a good father so she took off, I just saw my son for the first time in my life a few months ago. After she took off I went to the mountains where I took some time off everything. I was heart broken, I did tons of drugs, and I spent over a period of two weeks over £6,000 on drugs.

I was in the mountains of Eilat for about two weeks. I don't really know how I survived. I went down to the beach for a little bit, I didn't pack anything I just went with a sleeping bag. After about two weeks there in the mountains I sat down on a rock and I just screamed out loud that whom ever calls me now, whoever answers me, that's the one I will follow; but I need help because I'm taking my life down the drain. I said I don't care if it's Muhammad, Hare Krishna, if it's Buddha, if it's Jesus or God, I don't care, whom ever answers that's where I go.

When I woke up in the morning my body was walking automatic, I started walking, I don't know where I was walking, I didn't know why I was walking but I ended up outside the Shelter in Eilat...

The Shelter is a believer's hostel, but I didn't know the shelter before that, I had never met the owner; but all of a sudden as I sat down in front of the gate, the owner opens the gate and says "Hey Ohad I was waiting for you, come and have a cup of coffee".

I thought "You were waiting for me; I don't think I know you".

So he said its ok, come and have a cup of coffee.

So as I'm drinking this coffee with him he starts talking about Jesus. Then I understand that Jesus answered me. So I started working with the Sudanese programme and the youth programme. I was getting re-acquainted with the Bible. After about two years I moved to Tel Aviv and a couple of friends of mine and myself we opened a team called People With No Home. It was kind of illegal and what we did was break into squats and vacant apartments fix it up a little and put homeless people inside, mainly youth. I did that for about three and a half years and got into a lot of trouble with the police. I guess nobody cares if you want to do something, I just wanted to do something but I didn't know how to do it the right way. Not all that long ago God really impressed on me that, ok Ohad you're doing the right things the wrong way, now it's time to do the right things the right way.

I started going around the streets with a group of believers evangelising and handing out sandwiches and coffees every Monday, which put us in contact with a shelter in Tel Aviv. He took me to the Door Of Hope and as I entered the door it was exactly as God showed me; the counter was in the right place, the sofas were in the right place, the cabinets, the beds, everything was just like God showed me for the place for where I'm going to do the right things the right way.

I'm working at the Door Of Hope now but God's vision for me actually is to open a runaway youth mission. This is something that has been put on my heart because I was that kid and I know that when kids get into junctions in their lives they have a very narrow vision and they see only one way out. I want to be there to show them the other way, there is more than just one way, there is God's way and the wrong way.

Paul: Will you find it easier to talk to young people because you've been there yourself and you know what they're going through and the difficulties they face?

Ohad: Actually yes this is God's gift for me; I know how to reach people.

Paul: What's it like for you working with the drug people and prostitutes in Tel Aviv? Does your heart really break for them when you know what you've been through yourself? You know what they're searching for and how they are searching, how do you feel about that?

Ohad: My heart breaks because its spiritual warfare and I know for myself after doing drugs for 11 years, God gave me the power just to toss it into the toilet and flush it because it's one thing to get free from drugs and another thing to get clean from drugs. To get free from drugs it's only God, to get clean it's a week and a half that's all. Traditional ways have about 98% failure; God's rate has 100% success.

Paul: Are drugs easy to come by here in Israel?

Ohad: It depends where you go, but where we work it's easier than getting a pack of cigarettes.

Paul: Are there many young people on drugs at the moment?

Ohad: In Israel I would think it's about 75% of people use drugs, whether it's alcohol, marijuana or harder things than that. From the youth I would say about 85% of the youth is using drugs, drinking every weekend, smoking pot, a lot of them are doing LSD, LSD is quite big in Israel.

Paul: Now when you think of Israel, you think of it being a very religious country so why are people turning to alcohol and drugs?

Ohad: Think of Moses, he led the children of Israel out of slavery into the promised land; everybody knew he was doing a good thing but when he went up to the mountain with God they didn't even have the decency to call him by his name. What has that man done to us? That's how they talked about him. Moses symbolises the strictness of the Old Testament, the old laws and that is what they see around here. How everything is very strict, there is no compassion, there is no love and actually that's why Moses never led the people into the Promised Land. It was Joshua, who symbolises the New Testament; the love, the personal relationship between God and us as human beings. That is why there is no love, they don't know what love is; they don't know what hope is.

Paul: Is there drug abuse and addiction amongst the Orthodox religious community?

Ohad: Over there it's much more alcoholism. Alcoholism is the number one thing with the religious orthodox because it's kind of hard for them to do drugs because they are spending 18 hours a day in their communes so it's hard for them to get drugs; but it's very common to find them sitting with Bibles and drinking their brains off on Vodka, it's very common to see.

Paul: What's your prayer for those people who seem to be caught up in this lifestyle?

Ohad: My main prayer is to let God with his river of living water just water out the seed that he planted, just like in the story of creation we can see that the snake gave Eve the fruit and Eve gave it to the man and they were hiding in the Garden from God; but God was saying, "Man, man, where are you"? He knew where man was but that tells us that God seeks us before we seek him. There is hope for them they just need to be cut free from the blindness that Satan has put into their lives. That's how I broke free.