FREETOWN, 9 April 2010 (IRIN) - Pastor Morie S. Ngobeh, who puts his age at "over 70", has been spat on and stabbed by addicts at a centre for drug abuse and mental illness in Sierra Leone's capital, Freetown. He told IRIN how he got into counselling drug abusers.

"God just put this burden on my heart. I went to Bible college to pursue pastoral work. One day I saw small boys in the street; I was curious what they were up to so I approached them. They insulted me saying: 'We don't want any policemen around here.' I told them I was not a policeman. They said I was lying and told me to leave. I insisted I was not police. Then they said: 'Buy some bread for us'. I did.

"I realized they were smoking cannabis. I also saw that some of them lived in the streets, not with their parents. I was touched. I started visiting them in the ghettos. I invited them to my home. [In some cases] I worked on reconciling them with their parents. Children started coming around [to] my home; many were not ready to be free [from drugs], but came for food.

"Some of those going through treatment [for addiction at the centre] get violent. One woman took a knife and put it in my leg here." He showed a scar from the 2003 incident. "Blood started oozing out. But that lady has now been set free. Now when she sees me she greets me; even if she's in her car she brakes and gets out and hugs me and says 'This is my Daddy'.

"The joy of seeing them free is what I love...They spit in my face, stone me, insult me, insult my mother, insult my father. 'You are a bastard', 'You are this or that', 'You are a fake pastor'. So many things. But one needs to have courage. One needs to have patience and empathy. What if I were in their position?

"My doctor once told me, 'Pastor if you stay together with these people you will go mad.' I said, 'By the grace of God I will not go mad. Because God has called me to do this, I will not go mad.' I am their magistrate, I am their lawyer, I counsel them; even if they need me at midnight I am there.

"When they quarrel, I make peace and ask them to embrace themselves with these words: 'I love you'."