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Home > Outreach Ministries > Ventura County Rescue Mission > Stories of Changed Lives Changing Lives for Good
36-year old Brad has a strong desire to serve our country. He attained high scores on his service exams and is awaiting his entrance date into the U.S. Army. We are very proud of this new soldier and we salute you, Brad. Through the Lord and the U.S. Army, you'll become "all that you can be." Click here to help people rebuild their lives and be a part of success stories like these.
Dear Heavenly Father, my life has been so jacked up for so long it was hard to imagine my life without drugs and alcohol, which I was trying so hard to fill that void in my heart with. A two-month stay at a rehab facility, two drunken drivings, two months in jail, stealing, lying, from family and friends resulted in my living on the street. It was only for a couple of days but it brought me to my knees and cry out to You, Oh Lord. I had heard Your voice many times before but I just didn’t want to listen to it. The fact is I came to believe that the job and money I had made for myself would be satisfactory in life. That’s as long as I didn’t use too much, so I thought. I was falling back into my old lifestyle at lighting speed. I didn’t care anymore especially about my well-being. Lord, do you remember when I had said that if I didn’t end up in jail or dead that I would go to the Rescue Mission, which my dad had talked so much about. That’s exactly what happened, just like all the other times. You’ve always had Your hand on me Lord. You saved me again. Thank You so much Father God. Although the day I came to the Rescue Mission wasn’t the first of my returns to my faith in You Lord it brings me back to when I accepted You in my life. The first time I engaged in a real relationship with You Lord. It was at a place called U-Turn for Christ. A rehab facility in Perris, California during Feb. of 2007 I was baptized. I started to read Your Word daily. I was praying on a daily basis. I was understood a little at a time of what it meant to follow You Lord. I understood that You, God sent your son Jesus down from heaven to die and be crucified on the cross. He shed His blood for the remission of all mankind’s sins, my sins. You gave me salvation and all I had to do was accept it. I did so Lord and I haven’t been the same man ever since. You made me new. The old has passed away. I also learned that reading, praying, fellowship and attending church are essential in my walk. Applying was also a concern, the biggest one. I say this Lord because I fell four days after graduating that program. I began to use and drink because a situation with a girl was too much for me to handle sober. I felt I needed to numb the pain or feel something. It didn’t matter, it didn’t help anyway. It led to a drunken driving accident and jail time, and then kicked out of my home. I had hit rock bottom. Lord you needed me broken so You could pick me up and start healing me. I’ve known You’ve always been there for me but through every experience here at R.M.A. I’ve felt more than ever before in my life. You’ve given me a joy and peace in my heart I’ve never known. I’ve seen the Holy Spirit work here; within and through everyone that allows You to Lord. You’ve taken our messes and turn them into messages. I’ve learned how to work sober and fun doing it. It’s all for Your glory Father God. Patience is one aspect that You dealt with when it came to my character. It’s currently still in progress but much better than it was.
When I was younger, I was into playing sports, football in particular. I mean I was pretty into the game; the way we worked out, the exhilarating feeling I received after scoring a touchdown or making an interception and running it back for a large gain. Now that I think about how I played the sport, it could have been my whole life at that time. It was all I thought about, all I did the entire week, and then the big game on the week-end was almost like a drug, I didn’t really knowing how to qualify that type of feeling. Anyway going from the total athlete and having only athlete friends to smoking, drinking, and hanging out with a bunch of “stoners” - my grades begin to suffer and all the people who knew me before this all happened were disappointed at my new choices! It didn’t seem to matter to me, because I thought I had found this new sense of independence along with a new way of feeling about myself. I felt confident and assured in who I was. I didn’t feel like the guy who wasn’t suppose to be at this school or in this town or have any of the friends I had. You see, I had been battling these demons since my parents and family and I had moved into our new neighborhood, a white neighborhood. In the late sixties that just wasn’t done much. When it was done, the results were the same prejudice and hate, always to the minority, and I was the minority! Growing up that way was difficult to say the least, so I always found myself challenging God an awful lot as to why He put me in that situation. How could God have made me so different from the white kids I was growing up with? Why couldn’t I just hide from everyone and turn off my feelings? I began at this point to become resentful toward anyone and everything! I was angry because I felt that I wasn’t being treated fairly and that I had been dealt unfairly in life by being born black. I kept thinking, how can people be so full of hate toward me they don’t even know me? After a while I figured out one way I could hide from all the rejection and hate I was feeling from all around me (with the exception of my family), that answer came in the form of alcohol and getting high. For a while it even seemed that I had something in common with the people I was getting high with. At least while I was getting high, I could be anyone I wanted to be and the drugs and alcohol allowed me to do it! It was as if people stopped seeing me as a black so and so and more like one of them. It was hard to explain, but I felt like I didn’t really need to explain this to anyone seeing as I was being made fun of by so many. My grades suffered a lot and I quit all sports. I was not the same person I was years before. I used to read the Bible with my Dad and two brothers. I was not the same person that used to pray to the Lord on a day-by-day basis and bring my Bible with me to grade school. I really had lost touch with who I was spiritually and I walked instead in darkness. I tried as many drugs as possible as the years progressed, smoking them, popping them, snorting them. It eventually wound me up in my first rehab at the age of 25 (one of many that I would attend over the next 20 years of my life!). It seemed like the more rehabs I attended the more they seemed the same. I would be so excited to prove to everyone that I was ready to finally quit my addictive ways. Everything would be going great, then the inevitable fall, either while I was in the program or directly after completing. I kept thinking maybe it was the program I was entered in, maybe there was something they weren’t teaching enough of, or that they might they be teaching too much of something. Whatever the case was, I begin to build up resentment to this type of recovery and I became very cynical. I remember saying in 2006 to some friends of mine that I would never check into another rehab because they could not help someone like me. I was beyond any rehab recovery. Then I came to the mission in August of 2007. When I walked into these doors I was truly beat up physically, emotionally, and especially spiritually. I said to the Lord, “If you aren’t mad at me, then please turn my life around.” Then over the next couple of months here, I began to hear things that I hadn’t really heard before or maybe that I had not really been listening to. I heard that I had to truly believe that God was not mad at me! As a matter of fact, He had never ever been mad at me and all the anger I thought I felt was self-inflicted. I saw a video with Charles Stanley about accepting the Lord’s forgiveness and letting go of all the condemnation that I was associating with God’s feelings toward me. I simply prayed to the Lord that I was tired of not forgiving myself and that I was sorry I wasn’t truly letting his Son’s sacrifice clean me from all my past hurts and mistakes. From that point on, I have felt like a weight literally lifted from off my shoulders! It has been so much easier to search for the joy that Jesus has promised me from the very beginning of my life. I now see the hope that I have when I begin to surrender to His will, not my will. This process has been like anything else that has taken place in my life (that is worth anything); it has been slow and deliberate but fruitful. I am recognizing who God the Father is and what He means to me. I am truly thankful for God the Son who gave his life for me and sits in heaven to give me His light and love. I feel the Spirit of God empowering me to do any and all things in Jesus’ name! My life is a testimony of God’s unconditional love to me his son. He has given me a sound mind and replaced the fear and hopelessness I was feeling with joy unexplainable. My recovery here at the mission is exactly that – recovery. For the first time in my life, I am expecting the very best for myself because my Lord God has said it! I thank the Lord for bringing me to the Rescue Mission! This has been a place of healing and I am very grateful for the opportunity to stay here. That was almost three years ago. After graduating from the program, I enrolled in Bible College and became reunited with my family. I also perform an internship in the form of volunteer coordinator at the mission. It’s a pleasure to work with kids and I hope to become a youth worker someday. I no longer have feelings of inferiority and am being healed from my painful past day by day. I am grateful to the Lord and to my “momtor” (rather than mentor) Carol Roberg. Jonathan was hired as the Community Relations Coordinator for the mission in Dec 2009.
About a month later I started working at the Bargain Center, I enjoyed the opportunity to interact with others and with the public. Again the devil was trying to get me to quit, but I am not a quitter. Prayer was also new to me. The only time I remember praying to God, was asking for Him to get me out of this mess, and telling Him that I would not do this again. I did learn that prayer works, if it comes from within. After witnessing three graduations, I said to myself “I want to be up there someday.” That day has come; I am right where I promised myself that I would be. That is a sign of God to me, because I know that I could have not done it on my own. This program has turned my life around; I have gone from the streets of dreams to the reality of life, in the real world. I am very grateful to all the men in the program because we all have to live together like a family. I know that a lot of us have not gotten along with our families, but this time at the mission is like practice to us for when we reunite with our real families. God bless you all. There is a quote that I heard about three weeks ago, it came from Lance Armstrong- Tour De France champion, who is battling three types of cancer. “Pain hurts for just a little while, but quitting stays with you forever.” (Daniel is now reunited with his family, free from substance abuse, and has hope for the future.)
I used to wonder if a soul could die. When thinking upon my life and the ten years I’ve wasted of it running amuck that’s exactly what it felt like was happening. Drugs had me doing things I’ve never wanted to remember, hurting people I could never forgive myself for hurting. Slowly drugs replaced my soul. So I stopped using. “If I stop using all will be well with the world,” is the dream. Contrary to that dream however, is the fact that my spirit is broken; my spirit is in the ICU on life support and the insurance has just run out. The guilt, shame and general feeling of discontent brought on after using have now added to the original unhappiness that started my using initially. So I drink, though drowning may be the more apt term. The beauty of booze for me was that memories faded to the background and I could live in a state of impulses and emotions. Like I said my soul was near-death, and booze would artifice my happiness, so long as I remained drunk. The reality soon became that no matter how hard I tried to remain intoxicated the effects grew weaker over time. So I’m stuck in a perpetual cycle of despair and self-loathing; catalyzed by my substance abuse; accelerating towards my ultimate self-destruction. Fun. The details of how I came to the mission, the events and circumstances are inconsequential; but like some of the other men who found themselves sitting in the foyer waiting for an intake interview, a combination of fear and desperation had brought me here. I had been wholly beaten and that by my own failings. “I do not understand what I do...it is no longer I myself who [does] it, but it is the sin living in me…for what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do – this I keep on doing…I find this law at work: when I want to do good evil is right there with me…I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin…I myself in my mind am a slave to the law of sin.”(Romans 7:15-25) This is what brought me to the Mission. For with all the bad I did, my mind knew it was wrong; and this contradiction destroyed me. Thus the need for a savior: “for there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, for the Law of the spirit of life in Christ has set us free from the law of sin and of death.” (Romans 8:1, 2); and in that, for me, lay the rub. I denied Christ most of my life, and though I knew little about him I would try to find faults with having faith in him (yeah, I was one of those cynics). Yet for all my prideful efforts to deny him, or say it was impossible to know him, in my darkest hours, for some reason, I would turn to him and he would deliver. “For [his] grace is sufficient for [me], for [his] power is perfected in my weakness.” I wholly believe, considering the type of agnostic I was, that I had to get as beaten up as I did to finally find God, and that because of his Grace, mercy and love, he was still patiently waiting for me when I could no longer live life without him; and it saved me. So He brought me to the Mission where I would become drenched in the word. Upon arrival here I was willing to try anything to change; a willingness I didn’t know was missing in my prior attempts to remain sober. In my prior attempts I had gone to secular programs where my agnosticism was accepted and spirituality was touched upon as if they were walking on eggshells. I can recall an argument my dad had given me about faith during this time when I asked how to find my own. He said: “you just do it; you just believe.” At the time I had found this explanation to simplistic to possibly work. When I arrived here however, I was through trying to find excuses and told myself I’d at least attempt my father’s explanation. The amazing thing was how quickly it began to work in me. My father had unwittingly given me the same argument for faith Christ gives when He speaks of the tiny mustard seed flowering into an enormous tree in Matthew and Luke. This I see was God’s plan for me: my coming to the Mission with this tiny seedling belief in my mind, and having the staff and brothers just shoveling the miracle grow that is God’s Word upon it. This place “restores us to the Lord, so that we may be restored.” Jeremiah’s plea seems a promised fulfilled from God. As I go forth from this place I plan to continue with the best thing that I’ve ever done for myself, which is to grow in faith. Beyond that, it’s time for me to start out on the journey I failed to launch so many times before: growing up. I have an opportunity to continue my education, which I’m ready to complete. It’s a time in my life I think God’s set aside for me to better my life. Now that I’ve found my faith, a thing missing so long, I find I’m ready to complete the things I know I should. “He brought me up out of the pit of destruction, out of the miry clay, and he set my feet upon a rock, making my footsteps firm.”(Psalm 40)
Through a series of events, mostly due to my bad choices, including several DUI’S, an 11550 (under the influence of a controlled substance, and possession), several stints in jail, my divorce (after 18 years of marriage), and finally, the deciding factor that made me realize that my life was out of control, and that I needed help, was the look that my mom gave me as she took her last breath and left us to be with the Lord. After years of asking me, practically begging me to get help in turning my life around. Her death made me realize what was obvious to everybody else, right there and then; I made a promise to God, to my mom, and to myself that I would turn my life over to God. The date was March 26th, 2008. Having been a graduate of a Christian High School, I “knew” the Lord, or knew about Him. After graduation in 1975, the next four years were spent in the Air Force, working as an Aircraft Maintenance Technician. I got an honorable discharge in 1979 and entered the working world, putting the knowledge and training I had received in the military to good use in an aerospace manufacturing company. I met my future wife at said company, and after a brief courtship period, we married on Christmas day 1986. Shortly after, when we moved to an apartment complex in Moorpark, we got to be friends with the apartment manager and his wife, a church going couple, they invited us to what was then a small church just starting out, it was operating out of a small storefront in the ‘K-Mart’ shopping center in Simi Valley, right next to a ‘Chuck E. Cheese’ pizza place, in fact, back then we jokingly called the ‘Chuck E. Cheese’ church. The church was Sonrise Christian Fellowship; its pastor was Ken Craft, who now runs the San Fernando Valley Rescue Mission. It was he and his enthusiasm for the Lord, his demeanor and friendliness that brought me to the Lord, that was in the late 80’s. For a while everything was going good, I had a beautiful wife, two small boy, a nice car, we were going to church regularly, but then, little by little things started going out of control, culminating in getting myself deep in debt, bouncing from job to job, getting a divorce, etc, etc,…. It was after my divorce, that I was looking for a place to stay, I still had a job, a car, but nowhere to stay, that was about 3 years ago. At that time, I found the Rescue Mission and stayed as a line guest for about 6 weeks, until I found a place in Moorpark. It was then that I found out about the recovery program, but I wasn’t ready to commit myself just yet, I didn’t think I had a problem, a classic case of denial. After my mom’s death, several of my family members and I spent about a month or so in our hometown in Mexico. My dad had bought a second home in La Barca, Jalisco, where I was born and raised and went to school. He had bought it about 15 years before so my mom and dad could spend some quality time together, away from the daily grind and stress of living in the U.S. It was during my time there that I reflected on the promise I had made to mom. Within two days of re-entering the U.S. I came to the Mission and applied to the program, Chaplain Harold interviewed me. I entered the program on a Friday, June 19, 2008. Throughout my stay here, I have been on a rollercoaster ride of emotions. The first 30 days were the hardest for me, it is during those 30 days that you know whether you’ll make it to graduation or not. Actually the first 60 days are the hardest, as it is a time of growing; spiritually and emotionally, not to mention physically!!!! Within a month I had gained 15 pounds, I was eating breakfast lunch and dinner. I felt bloated and uncomfortable, but since then, I have learned how to manage my diet, among other things. My experience here has been truly ‘Life-changing’, I have seen a turnaround in my life, as have others, I’m told. This Christian life is hard, there are too many worldly temptations, and we must discipline ourselves to be diligent and follow Jesus’’ teaching, as we are his disciples. I find comfort in the fact that the Lord is always with me, and small confirmation, and numerous answers to my prayers tell me so. I have learned to put others before myself, as that is the will of God. There are several options available, and I’m not worried about my future, in fact, to borrow a line from a popular song by Alan Rider; “The future is so bright, I gotta wear shades”. I’m entertaining several options right now, and asking God, through the Holy Spirit to guide me in making the right choice. One option is the ‘Alcohol and Drug Studies’ program in Oxnard College. Another option is the Culinary Arts program in the same college, having gone thru the ‘Mission Culinary Arts’ school during the last 7 months, that also looks like a good option. There’s also Frazier Aviation in San Fernando Valley, it was there that the FAA revoked my technician’s license due to a positive random drug test, which was about 3 years ago. In order for me to be re-instated, I had to go to a substance recovery center, but at the time, I didn’t want to go thru the trouble of re-habilitation. My future is in God’s hand everyday I ask God for help in choosing wisely, how I can best serve the Lord. It’s not about me anymore.
I finally realized I needed help. I knew about the Rescue Mission. I knew they could help me and that God was there. Since I came here, God has really turned my life around. Since I have invited God back into my life, I have a peace within me that I never had. I have now been sober for almost 10 months. Since I let God be first in my life, He has changed me tremendously. Things in my life are looking a lot brighter for the future. God has restored my relationship back with my family, which I didn’t think was going to happen. But they are back in my life. They are supporting me now while I am in the program. I hope that they will find God in their lives too. God has also calmed my anger down to where I barely ever get mad. He took the urge to want to drink away, even through temptation that has come my way. The Lord has helped me to overcome my past in a positive way. I have received God in my life and He has made a big change in my life. I trust in Him because He will not lead me astray. I know the Lord will guide me into the right direction in life. I have seen what He has done in my own life and see Him work in my family’s lives as well. I can’t wait to see what the Lord has in store for the future.
My first experience developing a relationship with God was during the first time I had come to the rescue mission, which I had left after 5 months. I left before the miracle. At any rate, I knew that I would be returning to the mission when I was released from prison. I have never looked back. Everything about me has changed, especially my attitude. I now have faith and hope. My heart has softened and I feel love again. I like myself again. I have hated myself for years, and could hardly look at myself in the mirror without feeling repulsed with the stranger who looked back at me with a hollow stare an empty stare. Jesus Christ has saved me from myself. I am not the same man that walked in on January 23, 2008. I am a new creation. The wonderful people here have helped me more than I can explain, not to mention a group of program men that have been nothing less than awesome. This is blessed place and I feel honored to have been a part of the mission. I have developed a close relationship with God, my faith has been restored, and my health has been restored. I feel the Holy Spirit inside of me. I have even quit smoking after all these years. Thanks to all of you. |
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Brad Weaver graduated from the mission's 9-month Life Recovery program in March. In attendance were his loving mom and grateful daughters Karasa and Oliva. "I never felt comfortable in my own skin. In order to 'fit in,' I began using drugs and they gave me a sense of well-being and belonging. When my dad passed in 2002, my addiction spiraled out of control into crack cocaine. My life became a series of failed relationships and shattered dreams. Thank God, my ex-wife took the kids because I lost all hope and couldn't manage my life. At the mission, through many godly men and women, I realized that I had made a big mess out of my life and I needed God to help me out of it. I needed a complete overhaul, and that's what I got through the Lord. I no longer have to carry the hurt, shame, resentment, and remorse. What a big weight off my shoulders. I have learned not to get the roles mixed up - He is God and I am not! God provided me a second chance through the rescue mission. I am eternally grateful."
I recall growing up as a 12 year old in Pittsburgh, following the crowd I was with, and reluctantly smoking a cigarette. The whole time I was smoking the cigarette I felt I was doing something wrong. I wasn’t brought up to put anything destructive in my body, but I was brought up knowing that my body was a temple of the Holy Spirit. When I smoked that first cigarette, it made me cough and filled my lungs with an awful feeling, but I continued smoking just waiting for something to happen. That something I wanted to happen never happened! The smoking of that “harmless cigarette” turned into smoking pot, then it turned into drinking on a regular basis. I was hanging out with a totally different crowd then I had been used to when I was younger.
My name is Daniel Spector, I am a new creation in God. When I first came into the program on 12/2/08 I did not know what to expect, but once I arrived from the San Fernando Valley Rescue Mission, I was amazed at what I felt. The people here welcomed me with open arms and I felt the Holy Spirit run through me. That was something that I had never felt before. I arrived here at the Ventura County Rescue Mission pretty much de-toxing, people noticed it and they did show concern, I did make it through. After a few days, I was almost back to myself. After about 2 weeks I felt I did not belong and I wanted to go back to my old way of living, on the streets in the drama that I loved to live in. I realized that was the devil talking to me, but I didn’t listen this time. In the past I would have gotten my belongings and left, not telling anyone.
I’m Paul, the son of two conservative middle-class Americans; themselves children of alcoholics, who were fortunate enough to become blessed with an alcoholic child: namely me. One can imagine how thrilled they were to see me walk in the footsteps of my grandfather, and I can’t say I’ve had too much fun walking in them. For all the ups and downs in my life, however, it’s culminated in a man still here today, who for once in his life has a desire to live it. Much credit is due to the place that helped me in recovering that lost ambition, a place that didn’t just dry me out but took an interest in reigniting the spirit which was almost snuffed out.
Living from paycheck to paycheck, surviving day by day, not really living life, but rather merely existing. I would look forward to the next payday so that I would fill the void that was in my heart. Hopelessly wandering thru life bouncing around from job to job, not caring about anything or anybody, including myself. I had zero ambition, no zest for life, for most of my adult life it was all about “me”, no one else mattered.
Before coming to the Ventura County Rescue Mission, I was extremely angry all the time over the littlest things. I was drinking and smoking marijuana everyday. I was at the point were I was missing days at work or just hanging out with the wrong people who were up to no good. I was getting into fights in my household. I was going to jail. I was letting anger and alcohol run and ruin my entire life. I ended up losing my job. I also crashed my car while drinking and driving and lost my license. I even lost my family over it. My family didn’t want to be around me any more. I had God in my life before, but ended up putting Him last and stopped praying. I was now homeless.
My name is Larry. After 38 years, over 30 trips to county jails in various parts of the state and four prison terms I felt something come over me, compelling me to throw in the towel. My drug and alcohol was over, I was calling it quits. I was visiting a friend on October 20, 2007 and I asked him to call the Ventura police department because I had been running from parole and I wanted to turn myself in to serve my fifth and final prison term. He asked me if I had lost my mind, if I was sure of what I was doing. I had been running from the police for years, even leading them on a car chase through downtown Ventura, so for me to turn myself in was the first step toward my transformation. I decided to stop the madness that began when I was 9 years old. Drugs and alcohol had destroyed the first 47 years of my life. I had never had God in my life, but I did pray in times of trouble, so throughout my life it had been a relationship of convenience…my convenience. 
