UNSHACKLED! Audio Dramas

Sherry Goodwin stops to help a crippled old man who is embittered by having been robbed and left for dead. She gives him money, prays for him and gives him rides to town each week. She eventually goes to the shack, where he lives without electricity and water, then invites him home. She tries to help him materially until she realizes his spiritual need. In time she leads him to Christ.

Bryan is tormented and rejected in his younger years at school. He has perfect attendance at church. In high school he goes all out for football and is at last accepted; but drinking and smoking are part of that acceptance. He joins the navy to please his father, marries right away and risks his marriage by drinking too much. Based in Spain but flying around Europe, a friend witnesses to the coupl...

Sharon’s mother is neglectful and abusive, all the more after Sharon gets polio and needs special care. With a trache tube in her throat, Sharon is unable to attend school. A teacher comes and gives her the love she needs. At thirteen she starts school in the sixth grade. As a teenager, her home life gets worse. Her father stays away, having affairs. A car crash nearly kills Sharon, making her mot...

Sharon marries Peter and they miraculously have a son, which is life-threatening. Because of her mother’s continued abuse, Peter moves Sharon to another state. They adopt a daughter. Sharon’s health deteriorates and she almost dies of respiratory failure. She bargains with God but cannot keep her vow because of secret fears, then through Bible study gains strength. Her father dies, her mother dies...

Al goes to church with a friend at age nine. His parents profess faith, but Al resists and begins rebelling: smoking, drinking and doing drugs. He drops out of school, traps wild animals and sells drugs. He’s arrested four times, then charged with assaulting an officer. While serving time in jail, his old drug buddy visits, sharing the gospel. When he’s released, Al finally goes to church and yiel...

Barbara is raised in strict family and church, where salvation is by baptism. In college she is distracted by evolution, joins the army to please her boyfriend. They marry but are miserable, and she gets a hardship discharge after six months. The marriage fails, and she slips into drinking, pot smoking and promiscuity. She gets pregnant, goes to an abortion clinic but then relents and has the baby...

Terry grows up during the Depression hating alcohol because his father sometimes got drunk. The family of eleven children are impoverished and move to Illinois when Terry is 17. He drinks with buddies, breaking a promise to his sister, then he enlists in the navy, where he becomes an alcoholic. Afterward, he marries Grace and they have six children. He tries to quit drinking but can’t. His brother...

Andy’s parents, addicted to alcohol and prescription drugs, isolate him and he has panic attacks and does poorly at school because of dyslexia. He drinks vodka at sixteen, which helps him socially. In college he marries Susan, transfers to business college and excels. But he must intervene in his parents’ lives, putting them in mental hospitals. His father commits suicide, adding guilt to Andy’s p...

Harry grows up in a family that goes to church but doesn’t know the Lord. Harry has a fascination for electricity and is self-taught. They move to Chicago when Harry is 20, and he works for the Edison company. A co-worker invites him to a Bible conference but there’s no invitation to receive Christ. Harry finally kneels and prays at home. After salvation, he preaches on street corners and at Pacif...

Told through his wife, Gene’s eyes, Harry accepts the job of superintendent in 1940 and faces a badly run-down mission that he cleans and changes from top to bottom. He begins a Women’s Division, a Serviceman’s Center and “Unshackled!”, but faces his wife’s unhappiness when he neglects his family. She prays and comes to understand God’s will and supports him.

Although her grandfather is a preacher and the family has Bible study and devotions, Marquita’s parents divorce because her dad is abusive. She is bullied and beaten by schoolmates and molested three times: at age three by a stranger, at fifteen when she is drugged and again by a teacher in high school. The first part ends as the teacher denies the rape.

She gets pregnant but has the baby. Then she begins living with Gus and they slide into drug and alcohol addiction. Living in a shelter, she hears the gospel from a woman. After a murder in the shelter, Marquita prays for salvation. She and Gus marry, but testing comes. Marquita has a double mastectomy and sinks into depression. Gus gets saved. Her mother dies, and at last she is prepared for mini...

Elise grows up in England but comes to the U.S. from Canada. She meets Bill who pursues her but feels unworthy of her. They marry just as the Depression hits, and jobs are nil. A daughter is born to them. They go to church but are not saved. Bill’s drinking leads to abuse. Elise goes to her brother but returns when she is unable to live on her own. Their daughter is born-again at sixteen. Elise &...

Blind drunk, Bill pushes Elise down the stairs and she separates herself, having him live alone downstairs. Feeling compassion one day, she helps him, but he tries to choke her. As she surrenders to the Lord’s will, Bill releases her. Diagnosed with cirrhosis, he quits drinking. They are reconciled. They retire to another state where Bill becomes active in church and commits to the Lord. When he d...

Gary grows up in a Catholic family and always goes to church, believing God rewards good works and punishes bad. He continues going to church long after his peers quit, but his real gods are money and success. In college he uses drugs to gain acceptance and even sells cocaine. After graduation he lands a good job in sales, does well, but feels empty. Success isn’t enough. His boss invites Gary to...

Solomon is blinded and burned over all his body when he pulls a pot of boiling beans on himself as a child. His family abandons him, giving him to Emperor Haile Selassie, who supports the boy. Solomon is educated in a Christian mission school, but rebels against God and mocks Christianity. One day he enters a chapel to hear the music and goes forward to give his life to Christ. He goes to law scho...

Born in Quebec, Terry and his twin brother are adopted by an American couple. Terry is dyslexic and constantly ridiculed at school as stupid. His parents love and support him, but he withdraws into an imaginary world of fantasy. In spite of his father’s death when Terry is twelve, Terry graduates and completes training to be a mechanic. He hates the job, but a co-worker leads him to the Lord, chan...

Thelma’s mother, who often abandons her children, forces Thelma to quit school at age fifteen and marry. Thelma’s husband dies, leaving her with eight children and no income. One daughter runs away. Destitute, Thelma gives up three daughters for adoption. “Unshackled!” writer, Kennetha, comes back home however. Thelma manages to build her own house. Kennetha gets saved and witnesses to Thelma, who...

When Reuben’s parents divorce, he starts drinking at thirteen and running with the wrong crowd. Drugs and a bad attitude cause him to fail at school. Arrested for assaulting police officers, he joins the army, but gets in trouble there, too. He marries Coretta and fights in the Gulf War. When he returns, his sister visits and talks about Jesus. He finally goes to church with her, where he and Core...

Tom grows up in a religious family, a descendant of Arab Christians. As a boy, he is fearful of God’s wrath. He discovers pornography as a teenager and becomes addicted, lying to his parents, hiding his obsession for x-rated movies. He marries Mary Jo but their marriage suffers because of his secret life. After five years, they begin going to Bible study with his cousin, and both get saved at a ch...

Levi grows up in a large poor family in West Virginia. His dad has a violent temper, so Levi takes a beating for his brother at age sixteen, leading to a schism with his dad. He joins the army after Pearl Harbor, fights in Europe with Patton’s army and learns to forgive the Germans as the war ends. He is injured and hospitalized with blood poisoning, but recovers. Coming home, his dad still won’t...

Levi asks his dad’s forgiveness, and the two are reconciled. He finishes Bible college, marries Phyllis, and begins serving the Lord as pastor. In 1972 his daughter brings home books from school that contain abhorrent teaching, and Levi starts a Christian school. The State of Ohio takes him to court and Levi fights a four-year battle to the State Supreme Court, winning the right to have his school...

Lloyd grows up in an Orthodox Jewish family. He joins the army at nineteen to escape his domineering mother. His bi-polar disorder manifests itself in the army and he gets two courts martial. His father hospitalizes him. From then on Lloyd periodically sees a psychiatrist. While manic, Lloyd can’t control his impulses to run away or gamble in Las Vegas. Gambling and infidelity destroy his first ma...

Dwight’s family is poor and he is ridiculed in school for his southern accent. He becomes a rebel, fighting and being suspended from school, drinking, smoking pot and stealing. He joins the army at 17 and fights in Vietnam, but gets three courts martial. Ashamed that the army wants to dump him, he asks for another chance. On leave at home, his parents are born-again, but he refuses salvation. Fini...

Rebellious and wild, Greg worships his older brother who teaches him to fight. When he disappoints his brother, Greg becomes self-destructive, injecting drugs with his cousin. Treatment doesn’t help, talking with the pastor doesn’t help. He marries Tammy, and they are invited to revival at church, where Greg gives his life to Christ. Now an evangelist.