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Testimonies
Nick’s Testimony
I spent one day, twenty hours and ten minutes on a Greyhound from Los Angeles to Minneapolis. It was a long ride and I had a lot to think about, but it was not even close to as long as it will take to get to where the Lord wants me to be.
I was about ten months old when my dad committed suicide leaving my mom and my older brother and me to find our way. It would be years before I would understand that it was because of my father’s addictions to drugs and alcohol that he crossed that line and decided to end his life.
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To find a new life for the three of us, my mother remarried and we moved with my step-father to California. There my brother and I realized that we had inherited not only our father’s musical talent, but the addictive nature that all too often accompanies the lifestyle of a musician in Los Angeles.
My brother and I loved to jam with the guys we grew up with. I was blessed with the passion for music that my father’s brothers have. Drugs weren’t always around, but increasingly they made their way to as many jam sessions as our instruments.
Joe Perry of Aerosmith described the path we were on when he said “We were drug addicts dabbling in music rather than musicians dabbling in drugs." I am still alive to quote him, my brother was not so fortunate. A few years ago he disappeared from a rehab facility and was found dead of an over dose. That was when my path turned severely and after a series of arrests, a life of dealing, stealing and self destruction I found myself homeless on LA’s Skid Row.
I spent some time sober only to lose control when I found out that a girl I had been seeing aborted a child we both assumed to be mine. I recall standing over a barbecue at a party for a friend in L.A. with a stolen bottle of vodka in my hand. My next recollection was of waking up in a hospital bed about a mile away from where I had stood with the bottle. Thinking that I was a victim of some sick joke that my friends were playing on me, I got up and ripped the IV out of my arm and walked out. I walked the mile back to my friend’s place. When he opened the door I cursed at him for playing the joke on me. His response was, “Dude, feel the back of your head!” When I did as he said, I felt the staples that were holding my scalp together. The night before apparently didn’t end where my memory did. I had fallen and split my head open in the middle of a nearby street and was taken to the hospital by officers who could not arrest me because I was on a private road.
Getting off of the bus and feeling the frigid Minneapolis air woke me up a little more to the reality that I survived against many odds and hurdles I created myself. The staples were still there, but soon my head would heal and I knew it was time to heal the rest of me.
I am here at Midwest Challenge now. I am safe, warm, fed and thankful that the Lord has given me the opportunity to live my dad’s dream of continuing music and living a life he would have wanted for me.
- Nick
“But He was pierced through for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; The chastening for our well-being fell upon Him, And by His scourging we are healed.” Isaiah 53:5
Journey into Light
My name is Sammy, I am 58 years old and a resident at Redemption House. I grew up in Cleveland, Ohio and came to Minnesota in 1999. I was an only child, and was raised in a prosperous family never wanting or in need of anything growing up. I was brought up in the Catholic faith, and participated fully in my youth as an alter boy, choir member, and commentator. I also attended Catholic school all the way through High School.
I began straying from the path at age 12 when I began to drink alcohol, and by age 15 had begun to work for an organized crime family as a bookmaker in my high school. By age 17 I was married, had a child, and was living on my own. I was totally unprepared to be a husband, father, or a provider and my slide into addiction became more rapid. |
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I continued to work fulltime for the mob as a bookmaker, and worked in a hospital part time. As a result of my hospital work, I had access to prescription medication and became a full blown drug addict and alcoholic.
I was divorced by age 21, was allowed no contact with my son, and my drug addiction and illegal activities with the mob continued for 29 more years. During those 29 years, while I continued to attend church on a regular basis, I was literally spiritually dead. I was making enough money from my illegal activities to support my growing addiction, and it wasn’t until 1996 that it seriously affected my work. In 1999 I was so high that I lost a very valuable betting sheet, and got in serious trouble with the mob. In fear for my life, I fled town one night buying a bus ticket with the last $100 I had to my name. I said to take me far away from Cleveland as it would go which turned out to be Minneapolis.
At that point my addiction had become so severe that in the last prior 3 years I had burned through a quarter of a million dollars and was broke, and broken. Spiritually, emotionally, and financially bankrupt, and physically sick from full blown opiate withdrawal I landed at the doorstep of the Fairmont Hotel which was a flophouse in Minneapolis. It was at that point that my recovery process began and I checked into MetroHope, and for the first time in 27 years was sober and began to realize and feel the love of Jesus Christ.
From my graduation in 2000 until early 2007, however, I struggled with sobriety. It was able to function and held numerous jobs to support myself, but had rekindled and began feeding my growing addiction. In June of this year I hit bottom yet again, lost, broken, and homeless. But I heard about a place called Midwest Challenge, where lives were being transformed so I reached out for help. My prayer for deliverance was answered and I was accepted as a resident of Redemption House. I am currently, and thankfully, clean and sober. I’ve reclaimed my life, my faith, my dignity, and my self respect. I’m fully involved in all of MWC activities, and volunteer and enjoy serving wherever I can contribute. I was also elected house officer, and am actively enjoying being a leader and a mentor to younger residents.
I’m not sure where the Lord will lead me in the future, but I intend to stay involved actively working in a service capacity helping others like me who are suffering and in pain. I thank Midwest Challenge for helping me reclaim my life, and I thank God for leading me here to the support of this amazing ministry. People like me are being helped here every day. If you put your faith in Jesus, miracles can happen…I stand as a living testimony to that fact. My entire life has been a long but thank God, a successful journey from darkness into light.
God Bless,
- Sammy
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