Some of Snugs Story Hope

[snugsnug]

Hey family, yes I know it has been too long since my last visit or even my last post. So I will make this one a good one. This is some of a talk I have been giving around the state to find partners in a treatment community I have a vision for. We are getting donations in regularly.
Sterling

Hope
May the God of Hope fill you all with joy and peace as you Trust in Him. So that you may overflow with Hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. Romans 15:13
Hope is to wish for something with expectations of its fulfillment.
**My name is Sterling Cannon I am a member of Ward Street Mission In High Point**
I used to be a hopeless dope fiend-now I am a dope less hope fiend.
I had no hope 36 months ago. I left everyone and everything in my home town of Greenville, South Carolina. I abandoned my house, my wife and three children; I abandoned a hundred grand-a-year business I was running, and at the same time I was caught up in hopeless addiction. I had a lot of people fooled especially me--I was even the PTA president of our children’s elementary school at the time. I was obsessed with using drugs. Though my family loved me and depended on me I was too self-centered to recognize it.
I know Jesus was with me then just like He is today-carrying me in His arms. He allowed me to make those bad decisions, as He walked beside me patiently waiting-for the time when I would surrender to His love and ask Him for life. He is not finished yet.
When I left my family I came to High Point. I came there to use. My oldest daughter was living there at the time, and like me, she is an addict. We used together. I got an infection in my arm from sharing and using dirty needles. I checked myself into the hospital to get some antibiotics for my arm so that I could continue to use. I told the nurses in the emergency room I had been bitten by a spider. I was admitted, and they referred me to a surgeon. For the first four or five days I was in and out of consciousness-the doctor was trying to decide where to amputate my arm. On day seven my fever broke the antibiotics were working. The surgeon cut the infected area out of my arm. By then I was in a deep depression, I had bouts of uncontrollable crying, feeling sorry for myself, guilt was weighing heavy on me, and I was becoming remorseful. I had hit rock bottom. After about two weeks on the surgical ward the doctor who was treating referred me to a psychiatrist, he wanted me to go to his ward when the surgeon released me. On day 23 I was released and transferred to the psych ward, there I detoxed for the first time in over 30 years of drug dependency.

I have been battling drugs since I was 12 years old. I was already dependent on chemicals by the time I was in High school. Using drugs was not a choice for me anymore; I had to use, everyday. I went to five different High Schools; I was expelled from three of them as a direct result of my drug use.

Just so you know, my mother and father stayed married until my mother passed in 2001, they both are collage graduates, my father has a master in divinity, yes he is an Episcopal minister. I have two brothers and a sister.

When I was released from the psych ward I went to a homeless shelter. I was told there was a drug rehab program there, I checked my self in. While I was in treatment I heard there was a Clothing Closet at a place called WARD STREET MISSION-they were giving away clothes. Having lost everything and now with only the shoes on my feet and the one pair of nasty clothes I had on my body, I hoped I could get some clothes.
Just one pair of clean clothes!
I came to the clothes closet and was greeted with smiling faces and open arms.
**They gave me hope. **
*The MISSION had people who personified hope. *
Working around the outdoor entrance to the Ward Street community ministries area, there was a man wearing shorts, sandals and a t-shirt soaked in sweat. I just assumed he was ‘one of us.’ We chatted for a minute or two as I was going in and when I came back out, he invited me to come back to Ward Street that evening for the church’s free supper. He said they were having some delicious sloppy Joe's and French fries. ‘Could have been grass and twigs for all I cared, anything would have been better than the soup kitchen gruel I had been eating.
I came back with a couple of other men, who, like me were homeless, and ate at the Free Community dinner.
I hoped for a good meal.
*The Mission had people who personified hope.*
The meal was awesome. Remember that man wearing the sandals and that sweaty t-shirt, he was there too. He came to sit with us and introduced him-self as Sonny. By the way he was not quite as sweaty then, though he appeared to have been working nevertheless. Sonny was asking us some basic questions about us, who we were and where we were living.
How we found out about Ward Street Mission.
I was a little reluctant to tell him the whole truth, but I did, and I fully expected him to politely excuse himself and sit at another table. But he did not change tables at all, as a matter of fact he got us more food, and brought the family over who were cooking and serving the meal, he introduced us to them as if “We were the three wise men” and not homeless drug addicts. The family he introduced us to were one of the oldest members of the church, Brenda Smith and her family. They were genuinely interested in our wellbeing. They cared about us and our story! It was as if they were looking for folks like us.
I graduated from the long term substance abuse treatment center about two months later, Sonny kept in touch coming to pick me up for worship services ant their weekly community dinners. He and his wife even came to celebrate my graduation from rehab. You see Sonny is the senior minister at Ward Street Mission and the motto of our church is
the Most Caring Outreaching Multicultural Church anywhere.
(You better believe it!)
I mentioned earlier I had abandoned my family. My wife Beckye and I used together, she was still using when I came to High Point. Some how she heard I was clean, not using, and going to church, she wanted to do the same thing. Today my family has come to live with me; Beckye stopped using drugs the day she left Greenville. She loaded our 3 children and as much stuff as she could fit into her two door car and came to High Point.
I helped her detox in a two room apartment, all that we could afford at the time. Today we are happier than we have ever been. Ward Street provided all of our clothes until we could get them our selves; they provide food for us when we could not buy it.
They have provided furniture, a washing machine and dryer, televisions, gas; you name it and they have help us help ourselves.
They provided hope when we had none.
*The Mission had people who personified hope.*
Ward Street has helped us start over; like many other families they were helping, unconditionally they loved us until we could love our selves, asking nothing in return. There were no strings attached. The Living Christ is powerfully alive at Ward Street Mission; I am the result of the Lord’s amazing presence in the Ward Street community.
My family and I joined Ward Street Mission in September 2005. We had found God, and we had found home. The church continues to remind us all of the gifts that God has given us. We have served on many different committees.
They have helped us understand that we are trusted servants and disciples.
It was a miracle to finally have LIFE and to be in a supportive community. It was essential, because in September 2006, my wife was diagnosed with an aggressive type of cancer on her face. She quickly began a series of–get this--fifteen major reconstructive surgeries in the next fifteen months—the last one being this past January. Praise God she is now cancer free. As a result of this overwhelming situation of having to be the caregiver for four young children while my wife was in a constant process of recovering from all of the surgeries; I had to resign my job and apply for welfare, food stamps, and a residence in public housing. We had no income for over one year, but our daily relational and spiritual needs were provided by the people of Ward Street. I had no desire to ‘give in’ and ‘give up’ and go back out on the streets during this trying time, because the people of Ward Street were Christ to us.
Today we still live in a High Point, public housing; we still have food stamps and Medicaid but because Beckye is back to health we have withdrawn from the welfare check, we are on our way back to self-sufficiency. Beckye has a part-time job. During that ‘year off’, I realized I needed to go back to school and I am now a second year collage student at GTCC with a 3.3gpa.
Remember I went to five different High Schools and never graduated. I made honors list my first semester and because of my scholastic and personal achievement, the school selected me this week to be one of a small group of eight chosen to be a ‘school ambassador ‘representing the school at civic activities. I am honored, humbled, and blessed. I know I am a walking miracle, and God is not’t done with me yet! My short term goal is to graduate in about three more semesters, get a job at a treatment facility; it would be awesome if we, the Ward Street community had a treatment facility by then I could counsel in.
And my long term goal is to continue my education at night until I earn my Masters in Social Work. That way I could run our treatment center. And if God is willing I would like to go on to seminary before I am too old.
In December 2006 “The Partnership for a Drug Free America” invited me to share my story with the nation. In January 2007 they sent a film crew to High Point from New York to interview me. They set up a studio right in the sanctuary of Ward Street; there were three still cameras and a hand held. The finished product has been turned into several public service announcements and footage for a web documentary. I recently signed the final release forms.
__________________________________________________ ___________
BUT MY STORY IS NOT UNIQUE. DID YOU KNOW? Research conducted by Boston University discovered one out of ten college students has a substance use disorder; and did you know according to the Journal of the American Medical Association fifteen percent of all physicians in the US have a chemical dependency problem.
Drug addiction does not only affect only the poor and uneducated, they are just the ones who do not get the treatment they need.
Drug addiction is powerful, cunning and baffling.
AND BACK TO THE WARD STREET COMMUNITY: THERE ARE PLENTY OF PLACES WHERE PARTNERSHIPS CAN HELP US. We need to be pro-active in changing our community at Ward Street.
We need to be able to FIND MORE WAYS TO offer help to those in need.
We need to be able to offer housing, such as half-way houses to the addicts getting out of treatment and those being released from prisons.
One of the neighbors of Ward Street Church would like to donate a house to the mission, the house is right across the street from the church. The property has been a crack house for several years and the owner is just sick and tired of running folks off, so he wants to donate it to us so that we can us it for a higher purpose. This house would be perfect for a half-way house for prisoners being released from prison with nowhere to go, or for addicts fresh from treatment so that they too can have a safe place to begin their recovery. There are several other houses adjoining Ward Streets property that are abandoned that would be Ideal for this purpose also, or to tear down and built a treatment center.
We need to be able to help THOSE STRUGGLING WITH RECOVERY to find training and jobs that will enable them to become productive citizens. We need to be GOD’S PEOPLE OFFERING A BRIDGE; to the hurting, sick people; that need, more than anything, to get back into a community.
We need to be able to BE INVOLVED IN MORE PROACTIVE, PREVENTATIVE education to the families of the community around Ward Street regarding the devastation that drug addiction causes.
We need to be able to prevent the children in our community from even picking that first drug up, not smoking that first cigarette, or drinking that first beer. And yes, cigarettes are gateway drugs.
I know this seems like a huge order, and it is, but we need to think big, think God big.
Victor Frankel who was a prisoner in Auschwitz, believed that the essence of being human lies in searching for meaning and purpose We can discover this meaning through our actions and deeds, by experiencing a value, such as love or achievements through work and by suffering.
We need …. PARTNERS. AND PARTNERS IN PRAYER IS A PLACE TO START. OUR PASTOR ALWAYS REMINDS US, “THE ANSWER TO PRAYER BEGINS RIGHT WHERE WE’RE SEATED… AND INVOLVES ALL OF THOSE AROUND US.”
SO HOW ABOUT STARTING here WITH ME, AND WITH GOD…? LET’S PRAY… AND IN THE SILENCE, LET GOD SPEAK TO YOUR HEART…
Father God, I lift this summit up to you, and all of your servants here, for you blessings of experience strength and hope, that we can continue this battle, here, against all odds, and that we can--as one body, feed the hungry, clothe the naked, lead those in addictions to you, so that you can fill that void they are trying to fill. So that you can bless them as you have blessed us. Help us find the resources we need. Give us the courage to stand up against SATAN in his many disguises….