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Born without arms or legs, Nick Vujicic lay in the bathtub as a 10-year-old and tried to drown himself.
The troubled child -- now an evangelical minister whose message of hope will reach Utah this weekend -- couldn't see beyond the three stumps and "chicken bone" foot that made him such an oddity at school.
"Even those who loved me very dearly could only hold me as I cried," Vujicic recalled. "They couldn't understand what I was going through."
So the young Vujicic tried to end it all in the tub of his Australian home, rolling over in four inches of water to drown himself. But he couldn't go through with it. He thanks God that he couldn't.
The worldwide evangelist -- just 26 years old -- has since spread his message of faith, resilience and triumph to more than 3 million people in countries reaching from India to Colombia to Ukraine.
And starting today, Vujicic brings it to Salt Lake City with a three-day speaking tour that culminates in a Sunday night address at the historic Mormon Tabernacle on downtown's Temple Square.
"I asked for arms and legs," Vujicic said. "But [God] gave me something better. He healed my heart."
Sporting a black suit coat with tucked-in sleeves atop a table at the Salt Palace Convention Center, Vujicic mixed his gospel message with an occasional musing about, in one case, his wheelchair recently falling out of an airplane.
As the news conference broke up, he paused for a
"You do a mighty work," remarked Don Dickey of the Roy House of Prayer.
On a December morning in 1982, Vujicic was born without arms or legs in a Melbourne hospital. His father left the room to vomit. His mother found herself unable to hold him, except for brief moments, until he was 4 months old.
"If God is a God of love," his parents asked, "then why would he let something like this happen, and especially to committed Christians?"
Truth is, Vujicic came to wonder about God's reasons, too. As the first special-needs student to enroll in Australia's mainstream schools, Vujicic remembers the staring, the bullying and the feelings of loneliness that accompanied those early years.
"I felt like I was a noone," he said.
At age 8, Vujicic told his mother he wanted to kill himself. Two years later, he tried.
But Vujicic's life changed dramatically in the years ahead, starting with a newspaper article about a disabled man who overcame his disabilities and decided to help others. Vujicic doesn't recall any other details about the story, but he remembers that sudden relief of knowing he wasn't alone.
The real turning point came at 15, when he read the biblical passage in the Gospel of John about a man who had been born blind. Why was he born that way? Jesus' disciples asked.
"Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents," Christ responds in John 9:3, "but that the works of God should be made manifest in him."
Suddenly, Vujicic found his purpose, which prompted a God-centered ministry that has taken him to 25 countries. Last year alone, he spoke 300 times in 14 nations.
So how popular has his message become? Vujicic says he averages 200 speaking requests a week.
But Vujicic's life now includes far more than preaching. With only one small foot, the evangelist learned to surf last year in Hawaii under the direction of Bethany Hamilton, whose arm was bitten off by a shark. He also golfs, swims and fishes and hopes to someday sky-dive.
The evangelist -- who visited Utah last spring for several appearances during the National Day of Prayer -- was brought back to the Beehive State by Standing Together Ministries based in Lehi and 57 other congregations along the Wasatch Front.
He plans to spend two days speaking at the Salt Palace Convention Center and preach two Sunday morning sermons at a West Valley City church. Those speeches are open to the public.
As for the address on Temple Square? Those tickets were snatched up within 36 hours.
Vujicic aims to instill hope in his listeners with a simple message:
"No one is a mistake."
Evangelist Nick Vujicic will speak -- and Christian musicians will perform -- today and Saturday from 7 to 9 p.m. at the Calvin L. Rampton Salt Palace Convention Center in downtown Salt Lake City. He also will address junior and senior high students Saturday from 2 to 4 p.m. at the convention center.
Vujicic will preach Sunday at Life Church, 3818 W. 4700 South, West Valley City, at 9:30 and 11:15 a.m. services. That evening at 6:30, he will speak at the LDS Tabernacle in downtown Salt Lake City. No tickets remain for that event.
More information is available at www.lifewithoutlimbs.org.
