About three and a half years ago, I headed to South Dakota. I had outstanding warrants and other issues in Arizona, so I was trying to start over. I spent two and a half years in South Dakota, but I did not escape my struggles as I brought my problems with alcohol along with me. I decided to hitchhike to another city, and along the way I caught a ride with a lady and her daughter.

The lady turned out to be a believer who prayed with me and I ended up traveling to Minnesota with her daughter. Once in Minnesota, the Salvation Army got me a ticket from Minnesota back to Arizona. I had been trying to escape and now I felt as if I was headed back into destruction. I had hoped to make it to San Diego or San Francisco because I heard there was a large homeless population in those cities. As an anarchist, I didn’t really believe in government or working. I also called myself a believer in Jesus, but a friend told me, ‘You don’t know Jesus, Landon. If you did you wouldn’t be doing this.’

When I was eighteen, my downward spiral took on a lot of speed as my mother passed away. I fell further into drinking alcohol and taking drugs. My father had heard about the rescue mission and the Life Recovery Program and talked to me about going for help. It seemed as if God had a plan for me even as I languished in drugs and alcohol, lived on the streets, and supported myself by playing guitar on the streets. One day, as I sat on a bench in the park, a friend of my dad saw me and came over. ‘Your dad has a lot of people praying for you,’ he said. He called my dad and he came to get me and take me home. It was then that I knew I was coming into the program. Soon after that, the chaplain and assistant chaplain were in Bullhead City and I was able to meet and talk with them.

I graduate from the Life Recovery Program soon. I’m not that man anymore. The assistant chaplain says that I am the man I am supposed to be. I’ve become a house leader, enjoy our ministry opportunities, and I’m not hopeless anymore. I tapped out the week before I came into Life Recovery Program, but there is surrendering and then there is surrendering. I’ve learned that this encounter with Jesus is a relationship. I deeply yearn for more of that relationship. I talked to an old friend recently. She said, ‘You sound really good.’ I knew that I could not really explain that sound, that new music in my life that only a relationship with Jesus could make.