UNSHACKLED! Audio Dramas

Cindy’s mother, a paranoid schizophrenic, often beats her and Cindy locks herself in the bathroom to sleep at night. Her father has numerous girlfriends and begets half-brothers and sisters who also beat up on the hapless girl. She finds a Bible that gives her comfort until her mother chops it up while she’s at school. When she gets pregnant by a local rowdy, they marry, prompting her father to di...

Matt and his older brother are sexually molested by older boys. He becomes a binge drinker to forget, and his brother has a mental breakdown at age 18. Matt goes to college where Christians witness to him. His best friend is killed while drunk driving, and matt flunks out of college. He marries, finds a tract at work and prays for salvation. Then he becomes psychotic and is taken to a mental ward....

Bob grows up in a liberal church and family. He joins the Marine Corps after Pearl Harbor, trains as a tanker and ships out to Australia, where he severs tendons in his wrist during a drunken brawl. Chagrined at his failure, he reads the New Testament for months as he recovers and then receives Christ as his Savior. His unit sees combat in three different islands, culminating on Okinawa, where he...

After being shot in the throat, Bob is rescued by fellow Marines. He is taken by hospital ship to San Francisco where he and the lieutenant are reunited; then he goes to Idaho where his father visits and is offended by Bob’s faith in Christ. Bob then goes to Philadelphia for specialist surgery where he spends a year. He returns to Salem to work for a Christian missionary, cares for his terminally...

Art grows up with restrictions and lots of Bible verse memorization. He attends Bible college in Chicago but rebels and is expelled. He joins the army and goes to radio communication school. He meets a girl and they plan to marry when the war is over. He serves in China, drinks too much because of Japanese bombing and meets a missionary who urges him to go back to his faith. When the war ends, Art...

During Bible college, Art is called to the mission field. He falls in love with Florence, on her way to China as a missionary and reluctant to commit to Art. China’s civil war forces Florence to Japan where Art also goes. He continues his courtship, but the two misfire, and he gives up in frustration. Then they are reconciled and marry. He and five other missionaries launch PBA after some difficul...

Neil grows up with a godly mother who dies when he is twelve. In despair he quits going to church but prays for forgiveness for his worldly lifestyle. After hearing an evangelist he believes God and is called to Japan as a missionary. His girlfriend drops him and he vows to stay single. In Japan he meets Peggy and regrets his vow; but God releases him to marry. They launch a ministry, Japan Missio...

Neil and his wife Peggy expand their hospital ministry to include prison evangelism. They use newspaper ads as well as radio to reach millions with the gospel. Anecdotal dramas provide insight into the various problems they encounter and the false religions that permeate Japan. Their son, David, and his family have joined the ministry as the second part ends.

His harsh dad causes Jay’s heart to harden. At ten he begins using alcohol and drugs. He has a bad motorcycle accident at thirteen, but rides motocross and does well. A friend’s drug overdose causes him to quit school at sixteen and run away to Florida. Life from then on is downhill. He steals, gets in trouble and goes home. He marries, has a son and they split. He goes berserk and trashes his mot...

Larry tries alcohol at fourteen, gets drunk and becomes an alcoholic. As a chef, working at country clubs and hotels, he learns the art of ice sculpture. During the war he serves as a cook, stays on in France, drinking. He goes to Korea as a government employee, meets Ethel and then becomes ill. Paralyzed and blind, he is diagnosed with multiple sclerosis and deemed incurable. But his mother and E...

Robert begins stealing at five to gain attention. He smokes at ten, uses drugs at twelve and steals from his employer at sixteen. He burglarizes a store and is sent to prison at eighteen. Unable to break the meth habit, he marries and has a son, tries drug treatment eleven or twelve times over the years. His wife divorces him, and he allows another man to adopt his son. He falls in with bikers and...

Nick’s parents divorce and his father raises him and his sister. In drug and gang infested Detroit, Nick and his friends make a pact to never use drugs. They steal some plywood to build a skateboard ramp and the police catch them. In high school they fall prey to drugs and gangs, but Nick graduates. His best friend is killed in a car accident and then his father nearly dies of a brain aneurysm, le...

Ed grows up with his mom, grandma and great-grandma, but no father. He fears his grandma, who is mean to him and his mother. At ten he is addicted to alcohol. At thirteen he drops out of school, addicted to drugs. He and his drug friends take over the house. Ed is violent. He steals his mother’s car, breaks into a gas station and goes to jail but not for long. He forges his grandma’s checks and go...

Ed steals a car loaded with marijuana but the police catch him. In a jail Bible study he meets Pastor Don, who visits him in prison and helps Ed when he’s released. Ed gets drunk, but Don and the church keep accepting him. Ed goes back to prison for parole violation, gets out and then fails by getting drunk and trying to rob a restaurant. Pastor Don doesn’t give up. Ed gets probation, goes into re...

Harvey is one of ten children, the only one to graduate from high school in his family. He surrenders to full-time ministry and manages to work his way through a Christian college. He marries Norma but isn’t accepted at seminary, so he becomes a lay minister in his church then is ordained – with difficulty – through equivalency ordination. As a pastor of several churches, he reluctantly visits rel...

Caleb’s mother is a widow with two daughters when she marries Caleb’s father, who is abusive, forcing his sons to read the Bible and pray. He home-schools the boys while their mother works. Caleb grows up hating religion and runs away numerous times. He prays to be saved but is never sure. He joins the army to get away but is so rebellious he is discharged. He goes to live near his grandparents an...

Phyllis has many disappointments in life. She is born with a heart defect. Her father is a master weaver in a large textile mill that provides heart surgery when she is fifteen. She is gifted at the piano and her mother teaches her, but her father can’t afford college and sends her to secretarial school. She marries Gil but they can’t have children so they adopt. Gil secretly drinks, sending Phyll...

Steve grows up without his father. Between three marriages to alcoholics, his mother works at a tavern run by Steve’s Aunt Lil. Steve and his brother steal from the tavern as well as their aunt and uncles’ cars for joyriding. At 16 Steve and two buddies attempt a burglary but are caught. Aunt Lil helps him bail out. Steve, his brother and mother go forward at a church service, but fall away from t...

Gil’s parents drink, fight and practice infidelity. His aunt provides each of the five siblings with a week of respite at her home. Gil’s father, who spent five years in prison for bootlegging, punishes the children for their occasional church attendance. But Gil loves his dad more than he loves his mother; and when dad dies of liver failure, Gil chooses to go to a boys’ home. His mother visits on...

Gil meets Nancy, a Jew, and they elope, living with her parents until he graduates. He works for a print shop whose owner pays poorly, and the men try to unionize but lose their jobs. They plot to kill him; then Gil is diverted to Atlanta where he works and takes his wife and four children. He goes overboard with drinking and drug use. Some church ladies come to the door, inviting them to church....

Neil is born with congenital glaucoma. His poor Orthodox Jewish family moves downstate so he can attend the state school for the blind. There he encounters prejudice but makes a few friends among the black students, who introduce him to boogie-woogie music which becomes a passion. Because of prejudice about Jews, he decides to study Hebrew and passes his bar mitzvah, planning to be a rabbi. Libera...

Neil shares an apartment with another musician. A friend takes him to a Sunday evening service where he hears Truth that makes him miserable. He thinks of suicide. Then a friend comes by and leads him to Christ. Neil tells everybody, including his family, who are upset but don’t disown him. He loses his job and goes to Bible college. His blind friend, Joe, is his best friend. Desperate for love, N...

Melva and her family move from Kansas to western Colorado when she is nine. At seven she had gone forward during a tent revival for salvation but doesn’t feel saved later, listening to a radio preacher. She lives by good works, obedient to parents and studying hard in school. Because the family is poor, she works for room and board in high school and earns a scholarship to college where she tries...

Melva and Wayne get back together and marry. While he’s away at the Korean War, a new preacher creates doubt in her heart about her salvation. When Wayne returns, he tries several jobs then confesses that he’s running from God, Who called him into ministry. She’s thrilled, and they go to Bible college. She sits in on his classes and again feels troubled about her soul but decides she must be saved...

Ron’s grandmother stops his mother from throwing him out the window as a baby. The next seven years he endures his mother’s drunkenness, immorality and neglect while his dad is away in the army. He and his older brother join gangs in Brooklyn. His mother finally sends the children by bus to live with their dad who has remarried. The family moves to North Carolina where a woman prays for them and t...