Though he is without limbs, Nick Vujicic lives without limits.
Vujicic, 39, was born with tetra-amelia syndrome, a condition that, in his case, means he has no development of arms from the shoulders and only a small limb resembling two toes on his left hip. This enables him limited movement, but he mainly uses a wheelchair.
Vujicic knew from an early age he would face challenges most people could not imagine. He dealt with taunts, bullying and other adversity as a child, but at age 15, he had a spiritual experience that made him realize “I’m not a mistake, not an accident. I don’t have to be bound by what people think of me.”
For the past 20 years, he has brought a message of hope and faith (that he says is an acronym for Full Assurance In The Heart) and against bullying to people in 74 nations.
He was in Columbus on Thursday, April 21, to speak at St. Charles Preparatory School to students in the afternoon and adults in the evening. He told the students at the end of his 30-minute talk, “There is not another you. You can stop bullying.
“When 99.9 percent of you say they are against bullying, I feel sorry for the point-one percent who think it’s the cool thing to do. Their reputation for being cool is more important than being right. You are the majority, and you’ll win if you take things seriously.”
He asked students to pray for anyone bullying them and to follow four rules: Never give up, watch your dreams, take one day at a time and be thankful for everything you have.
Vujicic (pronounced VOO-yi-chich) is of Serbian descent. His parents met in a refugee camp in Yugoslavia and moved to Australia, where he was born in Melbourne. He opened his talk by saying, “I believe in God, that there’s a greater purpose and plan for each of us, but it was really hard as a teen to realize that.
“It’s difficult having no limbs. You don’t wake up smiling every day. … Your heart and soul have to mature enough to overcome adversity.”
He said that at age 8, he wondered if he would have a life where people weren’t teasing him and where he could be married and have children. At age 10, he tried drowning himself in a bathtub. After recalling those experiences, he told students, “Don’t believe your words or your judgments don’t matter when you’re dealing with others. You don’t know who in this school might be going through difficulties.”
He spoke the phrase “I have a choice” and asked the students to repeat it after him. “People see and hear what you do and say. You can be a bystander or you can be on standby, ready to actually make a difference,” he said.
He said his life began to change for the better at age 13. By that point, he could use his chin and toes to walk, swim, fish, skateboard and play soccer. Today, he also can drive a car with specialized controls.
“I was playing soccer when the ball came right for me. I jumped in a crazy Karate Kid sort of way. It hit my foot, and I heard ‘squish,’” he said. The contact was hard enough to keep him in bed for three weeks. That gave him time to think and to develop more appreciation for his loving family, his health and his “little foot.”
He said his parents never gave him gifts except on his birthday and made him earn money by doing household chores. “No arms or legs? Then you can run a vacuum cleaner with your chin and shoulder. They gave me $2 a week. By saving it, in time I could buy all the little things a kid wants.
“Now with my little foot, I can write, I can type 53 words a minute – faster when I’ve had a few cups of coffee. I had to give myself a chance. If my parents had given me everything I wanted, I’d never be grateful for anything,” he said.
When he was 15, he read Chapter 9 of the Gospel of John, in which Jesus heals a man born blind. Jesus says in John 9:3 that the blindness occurred not because the man’s parents sinned, but “so that the works of God might be displayed in him.”
“When I read that, I realized that just as God had a purpose for that man’s blindness, to use it to glorify God, He also had a purpose for me,” Vujicic said. “On reading that, a wave of faith came over me, and I realized that while I was looking for an answer to why I was the way I am, the answer was in not knowing why.
“The blind man stood still in front of Jesus without any plan beyond trusting Him. I needed to trust Him in the same way. If God could use a blind man for His purposes, He could use me.
“By the time I was 17, I wanted to tell others my story,” Vujicic said. “Each of us has a story, and it’s history – HIS (God’s) story.
“I called 52 schools asking if I could talk to their students before I got one to agree. I talked for seven minutes, and people were crying halfway through the talk. That was one of the most glorious days of my life. I spoke, people cried, and I realized my pain wasn’t wasted if God could use me to help others.
“Can you imagine if God had answered my prayers for healing as an 8-year-old?” he said. “That might have been an interesting story, but it would have been forgotten about after a while and not really changed things.
“Now I stand before people as a 39-year-old with a full life and a beautiful wife, to whom I’ve been married for 10 years. We can’t hold hands, but I can hold her heart.” The couple have boys age 9 and 6 and twin 4-year-old girls and are thinking of adopting a child.
“I love life because my soul and spirit are right,” Vujicic said. “I go through ups and downs. I’ve lost all my money twice. These two years have been the roughest of my life because of COVID. I don’t mind saying I needed counseling to help me deal with it.
“When you use failure as your classroom, you understand how the world will challenge you, and you get stronger through it.”
Vujicic moved from Australia to California in 2005, and his family moved to the Dallas area two years ago. He is president and chief executive officer of Life Without Limbs, a nondenominational ministry whose goal is to share the Gospel with one billion people by 2028 though live outreach events, prison ministry, digital ministry and prayer and encouragement.
He also is working with a Dallas-based organization known as ProLifeBank, which is attempting to set up a chartered online bank that would invest only in Judeo-Christian nonprofit organizations that share a belief system aligned with pro-life causes. He said the bank has a database of 40,000 people who would be willing to be depositors in such a bank once it is approved.
“In 2019, I received a letter from a major bank notifying me that they do not want any affiliation with me or my business,” he told reporters following his talk. “This bank formally refused to explain why. I also learned my bank gave to organizations that terminate innocent life, which does not align with my Christian values. After a long process, I went all-in with co-founder Betsy Gray to create ProLifeBank.
“I am praying to find Catholics who would help with this organization. I am not Catholic, but I believe the Catholic and the Orthodox churches worldwide are the most bold and firm believers in the sanctity of life from conception to natural death.”
For more information on Vujicic, his work and ProLifeBank, go to www.nickvujicic.com.