Boston Spring Break Update - Part 3

I wanted to tell you all a little bit about Stephanie, one of the
women we met at the rescue mission. Stephanie was my bunk mate and
had only just arrived at the mission from prison a couple of days
before we got there. She was one of the first people I talked with
there. A little about her story, she's my age and didn't start using
drugs until her twenties. The trigger point for her was finding her
boyfriend of 10 years dead from a drug overdose. Instead of that
making her afraid of drugs it pushed her towards them because they
helped her "cope." Her dad had a history of drugs and alcohol abuse.
They frequently used together. Some time later, Stephanie got caught
driving with alcohol, and every type of drug imaginable on her. She
was sentenced to one year in prison. Now she is at the rescue mission
finishing her prison sentence. She has found out that her dad is
dying due to drug and alcohol abuse of a long period of time. His
dying wish is that she would get clean and stay clean. She doesn't
really know if that is motivation enough for her. Her battle is so
intense. She told me there isn't a minute of the day that she doesn't
think about using drugs. She was addicted to heroin, and that can be
some of the worst stuff. I got to listen to her a lot and share with
her a lot. She would definitely say she's not a believer and she just
doesn't know what she really thinks about God. She told me she
doesn't care if she lives or dies and she hates herself. It's so hard
to know all the right things to say in situations like that, but I
walked through verses like John 3:16 and Rom. 6:23 with her. I drew
out the bridge diagram (a diagram showing how Christ bridges the gap created between God and man by sin) and gave it to her. We talked through sin, our
need for a savior, God coming and suffering for us, many deep spiritual
truths. I challenged her to read the gospel of John. When I got home
I mailed her a NIV study Bible. I hope that she will read it and
that God would pierce her heart with His truth. I pray that maybe he
used me to plant seeds that others will come along and water and one
day will yield the fruit of salvation in her life.

Boston Spring Break Update - Part II

The first story I will tell you is about a resident at the Boston Rescue Mission named Paul. Paul had been living at the Mission for about 4 months. He was addicted to alcohol, heroin, and oxycodon pills, to name a few. He has been divorced and has two sons and lots of nieces and nephews. His family has a hard time really trusting him because of the way drugs and alcohol have controlled his life. We met Paul early on during our visit to the Mission. Our third night there, I came up to our floor and saw Paul looking at the book of Philippians with one of the guys in my discipleship group, James. James was walking Paul and another guy named Billy through what he has learned in Philippians this semester. Paul just loved everything that James told him. He loved it so much that he gathered us together every night after that for a time of reading at the Bible and prayer. God really used our time at the Mission to impact Paul's life. While we were there, Paul told us a story about how he told some lady on the street that Jesus loved her (that was his way of sharing what he knew of the Gospel). We bought him a study Bible before we left so that he could continue the ritual we had started of looking at the Bible every night. It was cool to see Paul's desire for others living at the Mission to experience some of the same things that he had experienced. He would always try to get others to join our group at night, or he would get people together in a group so that they could hear some of the things we were talking about (the Gospel and Jesus Christ). Yesterday, i received a letter from Paul and here is what was in the letter: "God has blessed me by bringing a guy like you into my life to help understand there is a better way. Things are moving along for me one day at a time. God bless. please keep in touch." We have many more stories similar to this about how God used us in the lives of the residents at the Boston Rescue Mission that we will tell you over the next few weeks.

Boston Spring Break Update - Part I

We just recently returned from our Spring Break trip to Boston. We took 8 students (James, Drew, Jens, Emily, Adina, Tana, Kayleen, and Jamie) to live in the Boston Rescue Mission for one week. The Boston Rescue Mission, or Kingston House, houses between 20-50 guys and girls in a post detox program. The residents have just recently come from detox programs (or prison for all the girls), and they are in the process of trying to get their lives back together. Many of them have been addicted to alcohol, cocaine, and heroin. So for our trip, we went and lived amongst people in this program for one whole week. During the day, we worked at the mission cleaning up, doing the dishes, painting a closet, etc. At night, we devoted all of our time to getting to know the residents, hearing their stories, watching TV with them, and sharing the Gospel of Jesus Christ with them. We saw God do a lot in our lives, the students' lives, as well as the lives of many of the residents. Over the next few weeks, we will be posting different stories about the people that we and our students interacted with on a daily basis over the last week in Boston.

Boston - Spring Break '08

We just returned from taking some students to work at the Boston Rescue Mission in downtown Boston for Spring Break. We will put up some pictures and write more of an update in the next few days.