Testimonies of Changed Lives

Teen Challenge is one of the oldest, largest and most successful programs of its kind in the world. Established in 1958 by David Wilkerson, Teen Challenge has grown to more than 200 centers in the United States.

Here you will find the testimonies of lives who have been changed through this effective ministry.  Enjoy reading about how God has rescued these young people from the torments of drug and/or alcohol addictions and other life controlling situations.

TESTIMONIES

Josh

My  name is Josh.  As a young  boy I  always felt lost and lonely.  I didn’t have a father figure as  a child and thought that  was the source of  my emptiness.  At age fourteen I  finally  met  my father and I  had  a lot of questions for him, but  I  was  never comfortable asking him for answers.  Instead of trying to be a father to me he became my friend.  Feeling very confused I started drinking and smoking pot. I thought it would help me deal with my confusion and hurt, but it opened a door to even more pain than I had already experienced.  I continued drinking and smoking pot and at the age of fifteen started using heroin.  I was blown away with the feeling it gave me and immediately I became addicted.  I quit school to get a job because I needed money to support my habit.

At eighteen I was introduced to cocaine and grew even more addicted to drugs.  I continued to work but could never make enough money to support my habit.  I decided to get married because I thought that the extra income would help me.  I was wrong because I became a junkie husband with no money.  I started to steal and before long I got caught.  My minimal punishment encouraged me to continue stealing as my drug use spiraled out of control.  At age nineteen I was introduced to the needle and started injecting heroin and cocaine into my body.  My addiction had gone further than I ever thought it would. My family no longer trusted me, my wife hated me, and I would steal everyday to get high.  I have overdosed twice and been in and out of prisons.

Growing tired of the control drugs had on my life, I began searching for help.   I learned of Appalachian Teen Challenge and decided to contact the Director of Admissions.  He assured me that hope could be found at the Training Center.  I enrolled into the program and am so thankful to have found freedom, hope, and peace for what seems like the first time in my life.

Ronny

I’m Ronny and as a child  I grew up in a loving family and was taken  to church faithfully. I thought church was boring and didn’t feel the need to develop a relationship with a God that I couldn’t see.  At the age of fourteen I smoked my first cigarette, drank my first beer and tried marijuana for the first time.  I thought I was cool, but by the time I graduated from high school I was a full blown alcoholic.

My mother passed away shortly after my graduation and I became very bitter and angry.  I began to behave  recklessly and destructive.  I found myself in and out of relationships with men.  By age twenty-seven I had been married twice and had a daughter, in and out of psychiatric facilities, and always in trouble with the police. My life was going nowhere.  I was convinced that I couldn’t survive without the use of alcohol and medication.  I lost custody of my daughter and in losing her I also lost all of my will to live.  My family tried to help me but I pushed them away by lying and manipulating.  I destroyed my relationships with the people who loved me the most.

Because of my addiction I could not keep a job. I felt empty and darkness surrounded me.  My mind was constantly tormented and I was ashamed of the person I had become. I knew if I didn’t find help that death was my only option.  Through a friend I found out about the Appalachian Teen Challenge Women’s Center.  I was offered hope and a second chance upon enrolling into the Training Center.  Today, I  am no longer ashamed of myself but am excited about the person I am becoming.  My family is being restored and I am learning how to be the mother my child needs.  I don’t depend on alcohol or other medications to get me through each day.  The God I had no interest in as a child has totally transformed my life.  Even though I can’t see God physically I know that he is real because only he could bring freedom from the life I was living.

Dedrick

I’m Dedrick and my life has been a struggle from the very beginning.  I was born three months early and nearly died.  My father was murdered when I was just a baby which left my mother to raise me and my brothers by herself.  My mother dealt with the pressures of being a single parent through drugs and alcohol and the same methods became a learned behavior for me.  Living with drugs and alcohol daily they became a normal part of my life.  I was also physically and verbally abused and felt like the drugs would cover the pain I was feeling.

At age fifteen, I was very violent, bitter and resentful and hated everyone around me.  I ended up in detention centers and a foster home due to my behavior.  I dropped out of school which only increased my drug abuse and criminal behavior.  At age eighteen I watched as others my age started college, but I was a drug addict facing six years in prison. I wasted time sitting behind a jail cell feeling trapped. After serving my sentence I thought I was finally free, but I was still bound on the inside.  Immediately after my release I returned to using drugs and found myself in legal trouble again.  I considered taking my life rather than sitting in jail again. I  thought my life was worthless and that I  would be better of dead.  I desperately wanted  to change or die.

Thankfully I learned about Teen Challenge and the opportunity to turn my life in a new direction. I was permitted to enroll into the program and while at Teen Challenge I have found freedom not only physically, but also emotionally and spiritually for the first time in my life.  My life which seemed to be a struggle from the beginning is now one of hope and a promising future!

Kim

My life began with a family who taught me good morals and had many dreams for my successful future.  My name is Kim and I was taken to church regularly and was involved  in the youth group, but  at age sixteen  I  began  experimenting  with cigarettes
thinking  they  were harmless.  What  seemed like fun led  me to drinking  alcohol and  smoking marijuana by my senior year of high school.  A year after graduating I became pregnant with my first child.  I married thinking it was the right thing for me to do, but was divorced before my baby was born.  I wanted so badly to prove everyone wrong who felt that I was unable to be a good, single teenage mother.  I was able to  support  myself and  my child  for  the first  three years,  but  I  began to feel like I was missing out on “life.”  I watched as my friends  partied and went to bars  and  before long  I found myself participating.

I met a man who would become my second husband and he introduced me to pain pills. The pills made me feel happier.  I talked more, cleaned faster, and had more time because I required less sleep.  For the next four years I took pills daily and gave birth to three more children.  Due to my tolerance level with pain pills I had to take twenty to thirty pills daily and add other drugs just to get high.  I would pass out for long periods of time.  At this time morphine, heroin, and oxycontin had taken over my life and I had become a needle addict.

Every aspect of my life began to fall apart.  I stole from my family and child protective services began to investigate my children’s living conditions.  I created a very unstable and unhealthy environment for my kids. They learned  if  I went to lay on the couch in the morning, due to having no drugs that it would be a very bad day but if I had drugs in my possession I was much less agitated with them.  On the verge of loosing my children I found out I was pregnant with my fifth child.   Trying to keep my children, I  enrolled into several rehabilitation programs and a methadone clinic. Nothing they offered could break my addiction or desire for drugs.

My addiction continued to get worse and child protective services removed my children from their home.  Having written fraudulent checks I was placed in jail. My rights to my youngest child were terminated and I had my final visit with him  while sitting in a jail cell.  I made up my mind that day that when I had served my sentence I would get high one final time.  I was going to use enough drugs to be assured that I would never wake up.

Reluctantly, I attended a church service while incarcerated.  Little did I know that I would learn about Teen Challenge during that service.  The thoughts of the Training Center never left my mind after I returned to my cell and thankfully the judge allowed me to enroll into the program.  When I arrived on campus I immediately felt peace.  I heard testimonies of lives changed at the Training Center, even one of my former drug suppliers had found help through Teen Challenge.   After being at the Women’s Center for several months I can say that my life and a future with my children are also being restored.  I am trusting daily that I will regain custody of my kids and return home to be the godly mother that my children deserve.   I am so thankful for the second chance I have found at Teen Challenge!

Rose

A little girl who only knew her mother by the name on her birth certificate is how my life began.  My name is Rose and I was a very lonely little girl.  Having never met my mother and my father being murdered when I was eight, left my life in shambles almost from the beginning.  I always felt different from  other children because I didn’t have parents.  I thought God was punishing me.

At age thirteen I started smoking cigarettes, drinking, and experimenting with drugs.  I allowed men to use me just to receive the attention.  I searched for anyone or anything to fill the emptiness in my life and for someone to love me.  By the age of sixteen I was pregnant and married.  When I turned eighteen I was divorced and pregnant again.  By age twenty-one drugs had consumed my life.  I was having my third child and was a full blown drug addict. I would lie, steal, manipulate and cheat everyone around me.  My children suffered horribly from my addiction.  I hated who I was but I didn’t see any way out.  I tried rehabs and other secular programs but nothing helped me.  I even enrolled into college thinking a degree would change the person I was.  This degree would only enable my drug usage.  I was full of guilt and shame and just wanted to die.  I thought everyone around me would be better off with me gone.  My second marriage was ruined and my children were embarrassed that I was their mother.  I was one step away from being homeless and had just enough money to pay for one week at a cheap run-down hotel.

I stayed in that dark hotel room not knowing that a serial killer was just a few rooms down from mine.  I remember seeing him walk in front of my door several times but didn’t know that he had already taken the lives of several young women.  I could have been his next victim,  but he took his own life as I lay in my room.

All I had left to my name was a bible and a garbage bag of clothes.  Once an educated nurse, I had lost everything.  I was lonely and afraid.  I got on my knees in my hotel room and begged God to either change me or let me die.  I couldn’t face another day of the life I was living.  The next day my phone rang and it was the Appalachian Teen Challenge Clarksburg Headquarters Director.  I had talked with him before but now I was desperate for help.  He told me “I don’t know what you have been praying but pack your suitcase you are going to the Women’s Center in Athens.  Just one day short of living on the streets, God answered my prayer.  I begged him to change me and that is just what he did.  I enrolled into the program without spending one night on the streets.  I went from a dark, unclean hotel room to a beautiful new dormitory with a clean warm bed and good food.  For the first time in my life I am experiencing pure love and learning how to have healthy relationships.  My guilt and shame has been healed and my children are no longer embarrassed of me.  I am learning how to be a godly mother to my children.  Thank God for Teen Challenge.  Had the women’s center not been open I know I would be dead today!

Larry

My name is Larry and I started experimenting with drugs and alcohol at a very young age.  When I was fifteen I went to a friend’s house and drank a deadly amount of alcohol, which due to my diabetes nearly killed me.  My father came looking for me and found me just in time to rush me to the hospital. God spared my life that day, but it didn’t stop me from drinking again. I fed my addiction to alcohol the whole time I was in high school until the age of twenty-five when drinking could no longer satisfy me. I turned to drugs hoping to find even a small amount of peace.  I used every drug I was introduced to trying to fill the void in my life.  When I began using oxycontin and methadone they took all of my time, money, and energy.  I was a slave to pills.  I would spend every penny that I made on my addiction and end up knocking on my neighbor’s doors asking for something to eat.  I was ashamed of myself and was out of control. I remember waking up many times thinking this will be the day I die.  I had no reason to live.

Desperately wanting to be free from my addiction and pain I began to search for help. Thankfully, I learned about Appalachian Teen Challenge. I knew that it was my last chance to survive.  I enrolled into the Training Center and have found a purpose for my life.  I now have a reason to live and have a healthier, shame free life ahead of me.  At Teen Challenge I have found joy, peace, and a purpose that I didn’t know I could ever have.

Crystin

My name is Crystin.  I was raised in a family that took me to church and taught me of good, moral living at an early age.  I was a model student with a 4.0 grade point average, a member of the National Honor Society, and third in my class.  I had plans of attending medical school and had a bright future ahead of me, but my plans ended with a vehicle accident at age seventeen.  I was on my way home from a study group with a friend and the vehicle we were riding in left the road and crashes into several trees.  When the emergency workers arrived the found me lifeless.  I had stopped breathing for fourteen minutes.  Desperately trying to save my life I was transferred by helicopter to a local hospital.   Emergency workers were able to restore my breathing, but I still lay on the verge of death.   My parents were told to prepare for my expiration because there was no way I would live through the night.  At 3:30 a.m. my family members were allowed to enter my room to say their final goodbyes.  I was placed on prayer lists and had many people asking God to do a miracle in my life.

Doctors encouraged my parents to remove me from life support because they saw no chance for me to live, but my parents were  not willing to give up on me and kept trusting God to raise me back to life.  For the  next two weeks  I lay in a coma.  It was predicted that even if I did survive I would never walk, talk, or see again.  After two and a half weeks I awoke from my coma.  I was taken to a rehabilitation hospital and underwent therapy for four months.  While there I had to learn to walk and talk again.  Due to the injuries my brain had sustained my personality was totally different.

When I returned to school my friends did not accept me and my new personality and this caused me to hate myself.  I could not understand why the loving God whom I had always been taught about would allow me to feel so abandoned.  Becoming so lonely  I tried everything to fill the emptiness in my life.  I began to drink alcohol and smoke pot with a new group of people whom I thought had accepted me.  I just wanted to fit in with someone no matter what they were doing.  I thought drinking and drugs would take my pain away, but it only made me feel worse.  I began drinking all the time and using harder drugs.  Before long I found myself in an abusive relationship and pregnant.  My child’s father hit me, called me names and told me I was worthless on a daily basis.

I was introduced to crack cocaine and for a short time I thought my problems were solved.  It only led to bigger trouble when I quit caring about my family and my little girl.  Drugs consumed my life.  I tried to sleep to get away from my addiction but I even dreamed about getting high.  I lost my home, my car, and custody of my daughter.

My grandparents have been supporters of Teen Challenge for many years but they never dreamed that their own granddaughter would need the help of the Training Center.  Along with an Appalachian Teen Challenge  graduate they urged me to enroll into the Women’s Center. I took their advice and  I can truly say that I have found acceptance and peace for the first time in many years.  My mind is being restored and my plans for a bright future are once again visible.  I am so thankful for a loving God and a place like Teen Challenge.

Rebekah

My name is Rebekah and like many others who have enrolled into Teen Challenge, I grew up in church.  I was taught right from wrong and at an early age felt a call on my life to become a missionary.  I followed the guidance of my parents until I went to college and experienced what I thought was freedom.

Less than two years later I found myself addicted to heroin.  I knew that God had greater plans for my life than being a heroin addict, but drugs had taken control of me.  I wanted to stop using drugs, but didn’t know how.  I had to shoot heroin into my veins just to get out of bed.  I began robbing my family, friends and even church members  just to support my addiction.  My life was falling apart.

Jay

I’m Jay, and my story begins as a small child thrust into the middle of a divorce.  At age one my parents divorced and I went to live with my mother.  I was raised in a protective environment, but grew to resent religion.  When I turned fourteen I decided to live with my father.  There I thought I had found freedom and I began to run wild.  I started listening to satanic music and smoking marijuana.  This led me to abusing pain pills.  I made good grades and graduated third in my class, but I had an addiction that was beginning to destroy my life.

After high school I began using Oxycontin and cocaine on a daily basis.  I eventually ran out of money and grew sick of using these drugs.  I thought my solution would be found at a Methadone Clinic.  The only thing I found there was that I no longer had to search for drugs because they were readily made available to me.  I could get the same high while having someone else pay for it and still make my family happy.  I continued using Methadone for a year but decided to give the needle a try.  The drugs I injected gave me a feeling unlike any other.

In the midst of my addiction I married my middle school sweetheart and we had two children together.  Trying to support a family and an eight hundred dollar a day addiction wasn’t possible and my family fell apart. I can remember having no drugs to put into my needles, so I filled them with hot water just to be able to see my blood in the syringe and feel the heat of the liquid racing through my veins.  The stress of my addiction was too much for me so I attempted to end my life.  I took over 40,000 milligrams of various sleeping pills and nerve pills and was prepared to never wake up, however I did awake one week later in the hospital.  After a few days stay I went home on the same medications I used to try to kill myself.  Within a few hours of being at home a I had a needle in my arm again.  My wife was gone and I was without hope.

My family found out about Teen Challenge and presented the opportunity to enroll.  At the end of my rope I felt this was my chance to find freedom.  I wanted something different for my life and wanted to be a father to my children.  That was eleven months ago and I am so thankful that my desires are being fulfilled.  At Teen Challenge my family is being restored!

Dusty Small

I had a loving family, good friends, and a future in sports. My life was comfortable and seemed to flow smoothly throughout high school. However, when I moved out to go to college, I felt alone and depressed. I was uncomfortable and unsure of myself. I failed out of the first semester because I spent most of my time drinking.

An accident prohibited me from enrolling in the next semester of classes. I got a job and was soon promoted, but this did not help the loneliness that followed me. One of my coworkers introduced me to crystal meth. The drug seemed to soothe my misery much better than alcohol. It made me feel like a new man. I could stay awake, get up in the mornings, and go to work, but only for a short time. I soon realized I couldn’t do anything without the drug. Even with it, I felt the despair and loneliness growing inside me. Crystal meth eventually helped me lose my job. I could no longer afford to pay rent, buy food, or support my drug addiction. The money soon ran out, and I moved in with my grandparents. I now had to figure out a new way to support my addiction.

I studied and learned how to make crystal meth. My life was soon consumed with making, selling, and doing drugs. I never imagined I would turn out this way. I was supposed to become successful, either through sports or academics, but I had only succeeded in dealing and doing drugs. I manufactured crystal meth in my grandparents’ barn, and when I burned it down, they kicked me out. I then moved the lab into my truck.

As one of the biggest drug dealers in the area, I thought I was invincible. However, the police began to notice my suspicious activity. Over the next two years, I went to jail three times. I wanted to stop, but I couldn’t stand how miserable and depressed I felt. A pastor came to visit me in jail and told me about Teen Challenge. He explained that without a relationship with Jesus, I would have to resist drugs on my own. I had already tried that, and I knew I couldn’t do it. I prayed and asked Jesus to help me get to Teen Challenge. The judge allowed me to come. and I learned that Jesus can not only provide a way out of a life of drugs, but He can replace the darkness and despair with love, peace, and joy beyond what I ever thought possible.

I graduated from the program in May 2004, and served as an intern for one year. After completing the internship, I was given the opportunity to become staff. I was the Intern Supervisor at Teen Challenge for 1 1/2 years, am now enrolled in Zion Bible College, and was recently elected President of my class.

Matthew Hulett

My parents were divorced when I was very young. When I was seven years old I started rebelling. I got into a lot of fights and started cursing. At age 11, I went to live with my grandparents in Oregon. They were good, Christian people and loved me very much. They used tough love, by setting boundaries and guidelines and punishing me when I crossed them. I attended church with my grandparents and participated in the youth group, but I didn’t take anything seriously.

My father died when I was fourteen, and I started smoking marijuana, thinking this would help numb the pain. Soon after, I decided to move in with some friends in my hometown. I was tired of all the rules my grandparents enforced. I was not interested in any kind of discipline and refused to listen to their instruction. I continued to drink alcohol and smoke marijuana and cigarettes.

After I moved back home, my brother offered me some crystal meth and I accepted. I immediately thought I had found what I needed to fill the void inside me. My addiction took hold and I stayed up for days at a time. The sleep depravation drove me insane and my thoughts turned to suicide. I did not care about myself or anyone else.

I wanted to be free from the grip drugs had on me. I eventually called my grandparents, who had always been there for me, and asked them for help. I had a lot of outstanding warrants for my arrest, and I was ready to face the consequences. They picked me up, drove me to the police, and I turned myself in. I wanted my life to be different.

When I went to jail, my grandparents visited me to bring me information about Teen Challenge. After I served my time and paid the fines, I began to consider which Teen Challenge center would be the best for me. I chose Appalachian Teen Challenge in Athens, WV. I spent four days on a bus traveling to West Virginia, not knowing what I was getting myself into. When I arrived on the Teen Challenge campus, I knew my life was going to be different. After being here for just two days, I gave my heart and life to Jesus Christ. I am so thankful for His mercy and forgiveness. I have also been given the opportunity to get my G.E.D. while I am here. I feel like a new person today, and am excited to see what God has planned for my life.