Jason's Freedom Village Story Part 2

I got put into a foster home because my family couldn't handle me. I got kicked out of the house one night, it was this time of year, December. In Wisconsin it gets real cold, there's like 3 feet of snow. I had nowhere to sleep, because it was too cold anyway. I stayed outside all night. I finally got to my grandma's the next day, and my mom came over and said, "Let's go." I said, "what are you talking about, go where? Are we going shopping or something?"I was just being dumb. She said, "No, we're going to school." I started laughing at her because her words didn't mean anything to me any more. I did what I wanted. She said, "No, you're going to go to school." We got into an argument and she calls her pastor over. She always got him involved because my dad wasn't there, and even if he was there, he didn't know how to be, so she got him involved. I hated him and everything he stood for. We got into a little verbal argument, and then it got physical. I grabbed a steak knife out of my grandma's drawer and I took a swing. I remember the swing. I went swinging. I forgot, he used to be a police officer. Yeah, that was a fun roller coaster ride. I went down to the ground and his elbow was in my cheek, and he told me I was going to school. He called the cops over there and they came and got me and brought me to school. I didn't get it. God wasn't what I was looking for. I thought God was boring. I thought God was pointless, and I didn't want anything to do with him. I kept running and running.

Finally, my brother got in trouble for some dumb stealing, things like that. I was always slick, so I thought I would have got caught somewhere along the line. The police knew what I was doing. They threatened me a couple times, almost caught me with marijuana and speed, but I got away both times. So for me, I wasn't ready to change. My brother got caught and my name came up, and the cops threatened me and told me I'm going to jail. One of my other friends was already in jail for getting into a gang fight and he was locked up for a long time. I just wasn't looking forward to that at 14 years old. I told my mom what the cops told me. Even though I treated my mom like trash and even though I did everything I did to my mom, I can just remember seeing her cry and telling me that she loved me and asking God what did she do wrong. I just didn't care, I spit in her face. When I came to her and told her what the cops said, she said, "Well, I'm going to try and help you out." No matter what I did to her, she still loved me and still tried to help me. She still prayed for me and told me that God had a plan for me. That made me more mad than anything. I hated it. I thought if God could do enough to her she would just leave me alone, but it didn't work.

If you're a mother in here or if you're a grandmother in here, don't stop praying because you grandmas are lethal weapons, OK? I tell you, seriously, don't give up, because I was one of the kids that people look at with my baggy pants, braids in my hair, walking with that limp listening to the rap music. People would just push me off to the side and shove me like I'm nobody and act like I'm a loser and never going to make anything of myself or my life. My mom didn't give up, she kept praying for me. I remember that more than anything. She got a list of places I could go to. One of them happened to be Freedom Village. Now I'm not going to say, "Oh, Freedom Village. I want to come to Freedom Village." She kind of tricked me into it. I didn't know what it was really all about.

I didn't know what it was all about. I came out there in my baggy clothes, my new rap CDs and my knife, my blue and white bandannas, the gang colors. I didn't know what it was all about, obviously you can't have that kind of stuff, you don't need that kind of stuff there. I was there for about six months with that same mentality.

I was there for six months, that same mentality. I was stubborn, real hard headed. I wasn't going to accept God, I wasn't going to. I was going to do my year, leave, and go back to everything I was. It was right at the six month point in time where the Holy Spirit just convicted my heart and that night I knew that I was done. I knew there was no other way to live, there was no alternative, no going back, none of maybe I could do this, maybe that. It wasn't one foot over here, one foot over here. I knew I needed to give my life to Christ when I got saved, and that night God changed my life completely. Now, you know I still made mistakes after that. He changed my heart and I wanted to do what was right, and I wanted to become a better person. I wanted to help other people. He took that stone cold heart and He gave me a warm heart that wanted to love other people and help other kids. Ever since then I've been learning a lot of things and God has changed my life big time. I graduated high school this last year. I was failing my last two years, going nowhere. I got a purpose and plan in my life.

I used to treat my mom like trash and I used to treat my sister Nicki like trash. There was more than one occasion when I'd get real physical. There was a couple times when I could have done a lot of damage and maybe almost killed her, and I don't deserve to be standing up here tonight telling you what God can do in a life, but not only in my life, but what He's done in my sister's life. Because God changed my life, it took me four years before I got my sister here. He changed her life and she's making something of herself. I don't deserve to be standing here and I don't deserve to have a relationship with my sister. In the whole 14 years I was home, I treated her like she was trash, like I didn't know. I love my sister now, and God has given me that relationship that I never had. And my mom doesn't lock herself in her room any more. She's not afraid of me. She doesn't flinch when I lift my hand up. I give her a hug and tell her I love her, because it's real, because I do.

Yeah, I got a purpose in my life now and everybody that's sitting here and works for Freedom Village, you're doing an awesome thing, you don't even know how many lives you're touching by touching one of our lives, because now I've got my life straightened out. She got her life straightened out. How many people God's going to use her to touch lives. God is an awesome God, and I'm a real person, and you can touch me. This is reality here. I like to have fun, I like to joke around, but God is so awesome and He's real. He's done an awesome thing in my life. I love my sister now. I thank God so much for her.

My friends, He is able. He is able to take a young man who terrorized his entire family, and turn him around and make a man out of him. All I can tell you is that you aren't going to beat that system, young person, that system will beat you. You can't run with the wrong crowd and turn out right. Eventually, sometime, some place, somewhere, it'll be over. I would encourage you, call 1-800-VICTORY and trust Christ today, while you still are alive and can do it. Take a look at the world for what it is. It's a bunch of dead ends. The worst day that you'll ever have in Jesus will be the best day that you'll ever have in this world.

Jason's Freedom Village Story Part 1

Hello, my name is Jason and I'm 15 years old. I've been at the Village for almost five years now to myself. I came in June of '97. And for me, I have two parents, always have. They never got divorced, but my dad was never around. I don't remember too much about my childhood. The thing I do remember is the fighting. There was a lot of fighting, arguing at my house. I have a younger sister and older brother. Whenever I had a problem, we just dealt with it. My dad wasn't there to take care of it. My mom, she really didn't know how to either.

When I was 8 years old was the first time I heard about God or church or anything like that. My family never went to church or anything. At that point in time my mom got saved and so she started going, and this was a new thing for her, and a new thing for us. These rules and different things like that. She would take us to church, Sunday School. We'd learn about Moses, Abraham, and all those different Bible stories and stuff like that, because I would go to Sunday School because I didn't understand what the preacher was talking about. Reading out of the Bible didn't make sense. I started at 8 years old going to church and learning those kind of things.

But for me our family didn't have a lot of anything. My family wasn't a middle class or high class. We were some other class somewhere. I don't know what you call it. I just remember not having a lot of anything. I would get made fun of in school with the public school moral life, getting picked on and different things like that, and my father not being there. Just a lot of different things. I had my reasons I thought why I became who I was, and I don't like that. I don't like people making fun of me. I don't like feeling that way. Self esteem, that's a huge problem all over, but I didn't like the way I felt, and I thought maybe if I made people respect me, I'd make people fear me. I had a quick temper, seeing the fighting all the time in my house. That's how I learned how to handle problems. I remember in kindergarten I punched some kid and got sent out of class our first day. But I do remember one thing my dad said. He said, "Don't go starting fights, but don't stand there and get beat up either. Let him have it."

Growing up, I was a good kid in school. I always had a good heart and wanted to do what was right in elementary school, and the teachers told me I have to attend to different things like that, and as I started getting older I started rejecting my mom. I started rejecting church and everything she stood for because she had that, but for me it didn't do anything for me. And every time my dad would be home, he would come home on the weekends, because he worked away and later he got a job and so he would work away and he would be home on the weekends, and all they would do was fight and argue. On Sunday mornings they would fight and argue in the car, fight and argue to church, go to church, be quiet for a little bit, get back in the car, fight and argue all the way home. And all day Sunday was world rumble. That was what Sunday was.

So I didn't want anything to do with what they had. They didn't have anything for me. I still got made fun of. I still got picked on. I still wasn't happy with anything in my life, so I rejected it, pushed God away. The closer my mom got to God and the Bible and church, the further away I pushed it. There was a power struggle of good and evil in my life to one point and I was really wanting to do good and then it just crossed over to I didn't care about anybody except for myself.

When I was 10 years old, I started listening to rap music. I started looking up to my cousins. Those were people that had an influence in my life that I wanted to be like. They had the money, the clothes, the jewelry, the girls. They had anything that they wanted right in their hands and I thought that was what life was about, thought that's what I wanted. I was seeking, I was looking for something and I knew I didn't want it in church, I didn't want it in God. I thought Christians were geeks. I thought they had to wear their pants up to here with suspenders and pocket protectors, and had no fun. So I wasn't interested.

As I started getting older I was telling my mom, "I'm not going to listen to you, I'm not going to hear what you have to say." Being that my dad wasn't there, my brother and I, we'd do what we wanted to do. As I got older it wasn't just telling my mom no any more, it got real physical. I was a very physical, aggressive person. In school I'd get in fights to defend myself. Out of school I'd get in fights. When I was at home it was fights all the time.

When I was 12 years old that's when everything just went down for the last couple years. I first started smoking, first started going to parties. My cousins that were that age joined gangs, and I started hanging out with my cousins more, looking up to them and wanting to be like them. It went quickly from smoking a pack of cigarettes to two packs of cigarettes a day to marijuana real quick. Then it went from that to just anything I could get my hands on, to get my mind somewhere else and not have to worry about my family problems, not have to worry about anything else, to just go off and be whatever. I thought nobody understood what I was going through. I thought nobody understood me. I'm my own unique individual, that's how I felt. So I was taking drugs and I would feel better about myself. I would hurt other people because for one I thought making people fear me and respect me, and for two, maybe if I hurt somebody else, I'll feel better. After I got done getting high I would come down, and I would realize that I was the loser again, and after I got done hurting somebody else, I still realized that I'm even more of a loser. I started doing all these stupid things I said I would never do.

I remember being in the DARE program, Drug and Alcohol Resistance Education. The police officer would come and show us footage of people that did drugs and different things like that. I would always tell myself I'm never going to be like that, and I don't even know why people waste their time spending money on drugs or doing that. You know, this is your brain, this is your brain on drugs, you see the egg in the frying pan. These guys are losers, what in the world? 13, 14 years old, I had gotten kicked out of my house, so I ran away from home a couple different times, getting suspended from school, cutting class, stealing all the time, because I didn't have money, or to get money. To sell the stuff that I stole, I had to run a little business. Getting high all the time, leaving home, fighting when I was home. My mom was scared of me. She used to lock herself in her room at night and just cry because she was afraid of me. Like I said, I crossed over at one point in time for somebody that cared and somehow I could care less about anybody except myself.

I used to threaten to kill my mom. I always carried a knife. I carried a razor in my sock, and sometimes I carried a gun. At first, because the mentality, and then it was because I had to because I was always getting jumped. I always had to watch my back. I didn't know what was going to happen next. Life in the fast lane. You hear in the rap songs, my life became the rap song. It wasn't just a song any more, it was what I learned to be, and when I got there I didn't know what was going to happen next. It's the three-point mentality, nobody's going to tell me what to do. I had no respect for any authority, the cops, my parents, the teachers, it didn't matter to me, I didn't want anybody telling me anything. At 14 years old I knew it all, like all of us at 14 years old did.

One of the last things that happened is, well, it got really bad at home. It got bad, where whenever I was there, my brother and I, we'd do what we wanted when we wanted, and my mom just couldn't handle it any more. I'd spit in her face and tell her how stupid she was and I hated her. And my sister, I treated her like garbage all the time. I treated her like she was an outcast, like she wasn't part of me, like I didn't know her or want anything to do with her. She was just always looking for something, she always looked up to us, she wanted love. She just wanted something and I didn't care. It didn't matter to me. My mom took me to see psychologists psychiatrists and they didn't have answers for me. They just swore at me and told me I had an anger problem when I swore back. They labeled me ODD - Oppositional Defiant Disorder. Basically I just needed a whipping, I was a punk. They gave me this pill called Dexedrine, basically like speed. I would take that and sell that too. I was selling drugs at the same time I was getting high. My life was going nowhere real quick and my cousins were getting in trouble. My uncle was in jail. Everybody in my family never graduated from high school and they're all ex-convicts or criminals. I had nothing really to look forward to, but I still thought life was a big game with no consequences. I wasn't ready to change yet.

Thank You for Your Support

Batin's Story

Batin was born into the gangs. It was the only life he know. Four years ago, his mother died and then his dad ended up in jail. With nowhere to turn, Batin found hope in a family friend and a local church who decided to help him get a fresh start in life. Three months ago, they brought Batin into the program.The faithful support of the church family has been supplemented by generous donors who have given Batin the chance to know Jesus. He has quickly gotten off to a great start and is one of the nicest young men you could ever meet.

Devin's Story

Devin never really knew his dad, and his mother didn’t want to have much to do with him. After being neglected most of his childhood, he turned to a life of mischief and crime.Before long, Devin found himself sitting in jail. A chaplain there saw hope in Devin and helped him enter the program. Without any support from his family, Devin entered the program. Nearly two years later, he has changed his life and become a leader in the boys dormitory. Because you gave, he has gotten a new life in Jesus Christ.

Christina's Story

Christina spent much of her teenage life in the system. Seven arrests and other behavioral problems left her bouncing from program to program and placement to placement. Finally, with nowhere left to turn, she came to Freedom Village. With no one able to provide much financial support, Christina just needed a second chance. Because of your faithful giving,she was able to come to Freedom Village and give her life to Christ. Now she is beginning to build a new future for herself - all because of you!

Edison's Story

Edison grew up in the Caribbean until his mom passed away. When he was 10, his father brought him theUnited States to live with him. Learning problems and bad behavior left the family looking for hope. Two years, ago, they brought Edison to Freedom Village. Unable to pay for Edison to be in the program, your faithful support has given Edison the chance to meet Jesus and change his life. Now, he is a big brother and is a member of a singing group, sharing his story with others who need to find hope.

When we opened our doors in 1981, we made one promise: that no young person or family would ever be turned away based on their ability to pay for their child to be in the program. For over 28 years, we have been able to keep that promise - because of you.

The reality is that our program costs just as much to operate. Today, the cost to run this program runs in excess of $4000 a month, per child. Obviously, that amount is out of the reach of most families. Especially in these difficult economic times, families are increasingly unable to pay to get their child the help that they desperately need.

We have been blessed that, for 28 years now, we have had a group of supporters like you who have answered the call and given sacrificially to Freedom Village USA.

What is Freedom Village USA?

What is Freedom Village USA? Someone asked me that question the other day and it made me think… what is Freedom Village USA? We all know that it is the North America’s Premier Home for Troubled Teens. We also know that it has helped thousands of troubled teens, given them new hope and faith in Jesus Christ and new lives as a result. So maybe the real question is not “What is Freedom Village USA” but rather how and why does Freedom Village work? The answer can be found in God’s perfect orchestration of blessings and miracles.

From the outside it is dormitories, administration buildings, chapel, cafeteria, Ruth house, a football field, basketball courts, on campus bed and breakfast and horse arena and barns. Sounds pretty normal, huh? Now nestle all of that on 150 acres of beautiful countryside overlooking Seneca Lake and surround it with God’s angels. It paints quite a picture, doesn’t it? God couldn’t have picked a better setting to do His work.

And the sounds of Freedom Village are in perfect sync. Birds singing in the morning, kids chattering during mealtime, prayer during morning chapel, staff members sharing stories, voices of the choir practicing in the afternoon, lawn mowers, basketballs bouncing, kids playing on the playground and horses making themselves known. All of these make up the “spiritual music” that is Freedom Village USA.

And God’s wisdom didn’t stop when He chose the people to work at Freedom Village… Mr. Siegfried leading morning chapel, Mr. Fisher meeting with deans, all of the deans who help the teens by sharing their past experiences, Ms. Ginger juggling a million things at once, Ms. Danny tuning up all the new voices in the choir and at the head of it all… Pastor Brothers, the man with a vision as big as his heart, shouting “Good Morning”. The family of God working together towards one goal… spreading the Gospel of Jesus Christ and redeeming these broken lives through the only hope there is.

Put all of those components together and it adds up to one miracle after another. It’s the atmosphere and attitude… the Spirit that is in and amongst all these things. The knowledge that when you come here, you don’t have a history, just a future. Your disabilities are invisible and your abilities appreciated. There are no races, creeds and colors, just a collection of hearts and souls. And above all, the opportunity to take broken souls and make them whole.

Ira's Freedom Village Story

My name is Ira and I am 21 years old. I was born in the Ukraine. When I was just a year and a half old, I was taken away from my family, who were all alcoholics. I was placed in an orphanage for babies and later, when I turned two years old, was put into another orphanage for older kids. I lived there for ten years.

When I was ten years old, these people we never saw before started visiting our orphanages. ‘Papa Fletcher’ (as he was known to us) and his friends came and brought us all these things we never had before – food, clothes and medicine. They made it possible for us to have heat and other comforts that most people had.

Pastor Brothers and other staff and supporters from Freedom Village USA visited our orphanage several times over the next two years. We celebrated Christmas together each year, and each of us received our own box of gifts – clothes and toys like we had never seen before. It was a big blessing for all of us.

After a couple of visits, one of the families began to talk to me and seemed to take a special liking to me. A couple weeks later, my director came to me and asked me if I wanted to be adopted by an American family. Of course I said, “Yes!” I wanted to have a family that loved me and were not alcoholics. A couple of months later, my new family came from Freedom Village USA and took me home with them.

For a while, everything was fine between my family and me. I had some struggles adjusting and learning a new language, but it was very exciting to be in America. Five or six months later, my mom and I started to not get along. That’s when everything started going in the wrong direction. I started to rebel against my family and tried to get everything to go my way, but that never worked for me. My family knew what I was trying to do and I knew they were only doing what was best for me. Things slowly started getting worse. My dad came to me explained to me that I would have to straighten up and that if I didn’t turn my attitude around, I would have to move out by the time I was eighteen. I had two months left.

For a few weeks I just didn’t care. Then one night, I was just lying on my bed. I said to myself “Wow, I really don’t have any hope left in me.” I had been given this incredible opportunity, but now I was screwing everything up. I didn’t know what to do with all of the hurt that I had been holding inside. So when the time came to move out, I made the best decision I could – I decided to go into the program at Freedom Village USA.

I struggled for a long time after entering the program. I could make it look like things were going well, but on the inside, nothing was changing.

Finally, God broke through everything that was going on in my heart. He showed me His love - that He chose me - and helped me understand how much my family loved me, in choosing me to be a part of their family. He healed the wounds of my past and helped me put my life back together.

All of a sudden, things changed. I started moving up in levels. Soon, I was given the opportunity to be part of a singing group. I started traveling and singing, sharing my story with others.

This past June, I finally graduated from high school. I was given the level of Junior Staff, and I am able to work at Freedom Village USA and help give back to the program that helped me so much.

I can’t say ‘Thank you’ enough to the people who support Freedom Village USA and to those who came to the Ukraine and supported orphans like me. Most importantly, I thank Jesus Christ, for it is through his grace and love that I was able to forgive and let go of all the hurt inside.

- Former Freedom Village USA student

This is How it Feels to be Free

"My name is Jonathan and I am 19 years old. I have been at Freedom Village USA for a little more than a year now. As a child, if you asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I would not have been able to give you a straight answer. But I would never have imagined that I would grow up to be a drug addict.

I guess that the first few years of my life were pretty normal; the usual family issues, struggles and growing pains. There wasn’t a close connection with my siblings - kind of a silent, sad separation between us. However, as I got older, I found out that I had an older brother that I had never met - a brother that had committed suicide when I was only eight months old. Now I started to understand why my family was so distant and detached.

Despite the circumstances, my family tried to raise me right. They took me to church, and I learned all the Bible stories and heard about how great God is. Unfortunately, He didn’t seem too great in my life. At the age of seven, as a confused and vulnerable little kid, I was sexually abused. Since I didn’t have a close relationship with my family, I didn’t know who to turn to. Instead, it just continued – for about three years. I was broken. My self-worth was absolutely destroyed. And I became extremely bitter: bitter towards my parents for not caring about me enough, bitter towards everyone else who seemed to have such a perfect life, and most of all, bitter at God for allowing this all to happen to me.

Finally, my parents moved and the abuse stopped. We all seemed to become more of a family. I figured that this was the break that I had been hoping for all of these years. I made new friends and had a fresh start. Of course, there was not much about my past to be proud of, so I began to lie about who I was. No one knew the real me. And that’s the way I wanted it to be. Unfortunately, I couldn’t keep faking it, and the problems of my past came back to haunt me.

Before long, I felt worse about myself than I did before we moved. Everything came flooding back, and I fell into deep depression. Around that time, I was introduced to drugs and alcohol. Basically, this was the devil’s attempt at sealing my fate once and for all, as things got so bad that I tried taking my own life.

Things were out of control and I was sick of my life. And after feeling like I hit rock bottom, I knew I needed to change. That’s when my parents presented me with the opportunity to go to Freedom Village USA – and I accepted their offer.

When I came to Freedom Village USA, I experienced what I should have known all along: God loves me. He knew all along that my life would be better than I could have ever imagined. No matter how much I tried to run from Him, He was always there, chasing after me. But God never forced me to serve Him – He waited patiently for me to make that decision on my own.

I have come a long way since I have been at Freedom Village USA. I finally understand how it feels to be free of the guilt and shame of the past. The Lord has blessed me with a solid family at Freedom Village USA. I have had the opportunity to travel all over the United States and Canada, sharing testimony about what God has done in my life. And I have the privilege of being a leader in the dormitory. I also am one of the chore bosses at the horse barn, and have learned a lot of things that I never knew before. Most importantly, I get to be an example – a light to other young people who are coming through the program. I get to show them what Christ can do in a life.

It took going through all of this to get to where I am today. And it took being in the valley for most of my young life for God to show me what I really am worth to Him. Now I know that I have in me what it takes to be somebody special. And while I have only begun my walk along the straight and narrow, I know one thing for sure – I will never look back."

- Former Freedom Village USA student

Annisa's Freedom Village USA Story

My name is Annissa. I grew up in a Christian home, went to church and a Christian st.:huul. I obviously did not full ow that road. I became addicted to pills at the age of 14 and at 16 started injecting heroin which became my life. I lost everything and quit school. I was arrested for theft and stealing a gun and attempting to sell it. I had a choice between going to jail or going to Freedom Village USA. I chose Freedom Village and when I first came here I did not want to be here but the Lord got a hold of my heart and I was saved in April 2011. My life has changed so much. J have so much joy and peace in my heart and I am so much happier now. I also now have a magnificent relationship with my family
and God has blessed me so much here at Freedom Village USA. 1 am so thankful and would not be the young lady that I am today without Christ in my heart.

"Transforming Troubled Youth Through Christ" - Freedom Village USA