On the other hand, living with my father and his wife was quite the other extreme.  They were very wealthy and very strict.  We went to church but it was more of a society to be seen in and to build your reputation.  God was taken legally in my family and he definitely was not a forgiving God.

    At the age of 14, my father and stepmother gained temporary custody of me by taking my mother through court and accusing her on molestation charges that were false.  They taped phone conversations of my mother drunk and took me to a psychologist.

    My freshman year of high school began terribly.  I had moved to a different country, different school, and was shaken and confused by the sudden change.  I was not in a position to make proper choices and I was vulnerable.  I didn't choose friends with high value.  Instead, I chose friends that I thought I could relate to--kids just as messed up as me.  

    The beginning of my freshman year I was raped.  I didn't tell my father and stepmother in fear that I would be punished and blamed.  Instead, I buried my rape in drugs and started to drink alcohol quite seriously.  After graduating--my father and stepmother didn't want anything to do with me.  They dropped me at the side of a bus stop with my bags and no money and told me to "figure it out."

    I moved in with a drug dealer during my first year of college.  Clubbing and using drugs became my daily lifestyle.  At the end of my first year in college, I was pregnant and I got an abortion.  That year I realized my life was a mess.  I moved to my mother's house only to make contact with my old friends and drug dealers and I finally moved in with them.

    Soon after, I met a guy and we both decided to quit drugs together.  His mother influenced us to rededicate our lives over to the Lord.  I praise God for giving me that opportunity to get clean and see the direction I needed to head towards.  A few months after I met this guy, my mother was diagnosed with renal kidney cancer and in four months she was dead.  It was a difficult moment in my life because my father and stepmother didn't take my mother's cancer seriously and I felt alone.

    I praise God for waking me up just in time to be able to be with my mother before she passed.

    It took me about a year to recuperate from my mother's death and feel like "myself" again.  Once again I was running around with the wrong crowd.  I started to use drugs but this time harder than I had used before.  I became a full-blown cocaine and heroin junkie within a month's time.

    You could say that my life really changed over a year ago.  I had hit bottom when my boyfriend walked into the house and found me lifeless.  He thought I was dead.  He gave me CPR for 15 minutes before the paramedics arrived only to revive me seven hours later.  The next day I was checked into a chemical dependency unit at the local hospital.

    A representative of Teen Challenge came to the hospital and told me that Jesus Christ was my only solution to my problems.  He spoke with such love and gentleness, I wanted that love for myself.

    Through Teen Challenge, God began healing from the inside out.  I have learned how to live a healthy lifestyle with God as my backbone.  Changing my abusive lifestyle was a struggle as I was dealing with problems I buried in drugs.

    I have come to understand the importance of working through your problems with the Lord.  Through Christ I will receive victory in overcoming life's obstacles and I praise God for creating a new heart, mind and body--a new creation.