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
