"We Don’t Ever Have to Go Back!"

Imagine you meet a couple of homeless people on the street. You hand them a toolbox ... and the tools in that box totally change their lives.

      Sound far-fetched? It isn’t. It’s happening. The true story of Kelly and Keisha will show you how.

      They met a decade ago. Both were long-time drug abusers, and both had lost custody of their children due to their addictions. Neither could hold down a job; they dealt drugs for income.

      Life was miserable. They slept in parks, on rooftops, in trains — and sometimes, when they got caught, in jail cells. Even marriage, in 1995, failed to stabilize them. Various city-sponsored rehab programs failed them.

      They were trapped in a horrible, classic downward spiral.

      But unbeknownst to them, Keisha’s 12-year-old daughter had begun praying for her mom. God began to move. A flier in the lobby of their welfare hotel advertised free lunches at The Lamb’s Table, a church in the Times Square area. There they heard messages from the Bible. They also heard Patrick, a member of our Here’s Life Inner City staff, talking about Holistic Hardware.

      Holistic Hardware is the 10-session biblically based life skills course we produced several years ago. Through video classes, guided discussion and homework assignments, people in crisis are equipped with the tools to move toward independent lives.

      Kelly and Keisha began attending HH. Patrick, too, had come from a background of drug abuse; he urged them to believe that they could actually change. Eventually Kelly and Keisha both decided to throw away their drugs and get serious.

      They continued with HH and began attending The Lamb’s Church. Patrick incorporated plenty of Scripture into the HH sessions; Kelly and Keisha soon committed their lives to Christ. They became part of a Bible study conducted by Patrick after each HH session.

      The tools in the HH toolbox began bringing serious changes into their lives. The Association Tool, for example, alerted them to the dangers of continuing to hang out with their old friends. They even stopped going to their old neighborhoods. The Planning Tool gave them ways to look to the future and move forward. "Holistic Hardware was the first thing I ever completed," Keisha admits. "I would start a lot of things, but I would never finish." The Discipline Tool helped them add structure to their lives for the first time. Again and again, Kelly and Keisha found themselves saying, with amazement and joy: "We don’t ever have to go back. Now we can go forward!"

      They went from HH to vocational training. They invited Patrick to attend their recent graduation.

      God has also been at work in their family relationships. In spite of the damage they did over the course of many years, God is gradually redeeming their relationships with their children and the relatives who have been caring for them all this time.

      Along the way, both Keisha and Kelly have been volunteering at the church. They hand out fliers in the neighborhood advertising the feeding program; they help serve meals; they share their story to give hope to others. And they’re staying strong in the Word.

      Kelly and Keisha are still taking life one day at a time — but now they have a plan for the future. They want to work hard at jobs, save money and buy a house — maybe even establish their own business.

      They’re also praying that God will give them back their children. With the kind of start God has given them, who knows what He will do next!

Some Helpful Links:

Holistic Hardware