“I'M SORRY but your name isn't on my list," the sergeant-major said to 18-year-old Eelco van Daalfsen.

Eelco's Dutch regiment had been sent to Germany as part of basic training. Somehow there'd been a mix-up.

"Instead of working as a mechanic, I was told to sweep the workshop. My next job was to get up earlier than the regiment, put the kettles on and spend the day making drinks for 35 men."

A war of nerves began. Eelco was isolated from the others, pushed around and subjected to a barrage of aggressive remarks. With no communication and no friends he retreated into himself.

"I'd been addicted to smoking pot from the age of seventeen. Now I spent whole days alone, mostly high as a kite. My mind began to crack. When I started hearing voices, I asked to see the base psychiatrist, who sent me home, 'medically unfit'."

Going home meant out of the frying pan into the fire. Eelco had started military service early to get away from problems at home. Now, arriving back in Holland, he found the old problems still alive and kicking – and some new ones, as well.

"My parents split up when I was three. My brother, sister and I stayed with my mother. She was left very hurt by the divorce. Tensions caused my brother and then me to move out. When I came home from the army I had no money, no job and no hope."

Sharing a flat with his brother and then with his sister, Eelco drifted through the next two years. His life became a shapeless procession of days, spent smoking more and more drugs. Being alive seemed completely futile.

When he was fifteen, after one of the huge family rows that kept erupting, he went for a walk by the dyke.

"I'd tried everything to bring peace into our home. I sat down and sobbed. 'God, I can't sort this out anymore. If You really exist, show Yourself to me and give me a purpose in life. Make me of some value to others - that's the only purpose there can be!'

"Even though I didn't hear audible words, I felt like a little flame lit up inside. God also began to speak to me in vivid dreams.

"In one, I saw a tree hanging with smashed up fragments of the material things I coveted - including a speed bike and a radio-hi-fi. I woke up realizing how fragile material things were and that I could get by without them."

Soon after, in 1995, a Christian friend, called Luke, came to say goodbye. He was on his way to England to 'do something more with his faith' by trying out Christian community. Eelco asked him "Can I come with you and have a look - there's nothing for me here!"

"My first visit felt like a homecoming. I got really excited when I saw people sharing money and possessions.

"When I returned to Holland, my brother thought I'd lost the plot and took me to a psychiatrist. He turned out to be a Christian. He said 'You're not as mad as your brother thinks - just go and read John's Gospel.' I returned to the community - this time to live permanently!"

Looking back, Eelco now aged 30, feels an enormous debt for the soul healing he has received which has given him confidence to make radical decisions.

"The radicality of the church was the very thing that drew me in and brought me healing. That radicality creates power and forms brotherhood, based on hearts open to one another. Take it away and you'd take the cutting edge of the church away. That edge is getting rid of my prides and forming me into a man God can use."