“This all happened within a week. The FBI was looking for me. My human trafficker went to prison. I was back on the street. I had been raped and beat up by a drug dealer. The day after that, I went to jail. I almost died that night from an overdose of heroin. I knew I was in a vicious cycle and that I was never going to get out of it. I knew that I had to change. They got us out of jail to go to church. That’s when I started thinking that there has to be another way. You always hear about these stories of God. I started reading and tearing out pages of pamphlets that they were giving us and putting them on the wall. I would read them over and over. When I started thinking about using, I would refer back to one that said to tell the enemy to go to the cross and deal with our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. I would do that constantly and it worked. It’s pretty amazing. The thoughts would go away and I was able to start sleeping. Family started reaching out to me. That was 3 years ago. I went into the Homestead Ministry program that helped me get my life back. They really influenced my life. God settles my heart, eases my mind, and keeps me at peace. I surrender my life to God. My name is Pepper and I surrender.”
(Pepper, Detroit, Michigan)