Unedited Life: Good morning. little over two weeks ago when Angie asked me if I was ready to give my testimony. but I think my response was something like, don't know how ready I am, but I'm willing. So we're gonna give it a shot. ⁓ What I'm gonna talk to you today about is the last year or so of my life. But before that, we're gonna go way back to the beginning of my story. My story starts in the womb. In the womb when I was being formed, ⁓ born without an upper lip or a roof in my mouth. These two birth defects are known as a cleft lip and a cleft palate. When I was born, I was born into a Mormon household. And ⁓ by a coincidence, there was a world renowned plastic surgeon out of San Diego. And he had given facelifts to Spanish royalty. He was sought after by European aristocrats. And it was very hard to schedule any time with him, and he was very expensive. But ⁓ he was also Mormon. ⁓ So I'm figuring, anyway, so the church decided to help out with my case and they offered to pay, they made a deal to pay the plastic surgeon. And then the plastic surgeon was gonna donate that money back to the church and get the tax write off. So that was first blessing. ⁓ Now there were four different surgeries that they had to schedule and one of them, when they looked at the roof of my mouth, there was no bone marrow forming. saw no bone was going to form naturally. So they were, they scheduled a ⁓ surgery where they were gonna... do a bone graft from one of my ribs. so before that surgery, the elders of the church, they gave me a blessing. And because my surgeon was also religious and of the same faith, he went ahead and checked, even though he knew, according to all he knew about plastic surgery and bones and whatever, that there wasn't gonna be any bone growth. But because of his beliefs in God, he went ahead and checked. some bone marrow had started to grow. And the roof in my mouth formed naturally-ish with a little help from surgery. But it wasn't supposed to happen. And it did. Anyway, so we'll move forward a little bit further. when I was, the Mormon church was always popping off with ⁓ with a. free agency, love to throw that one around. But I had to go and I didn't want to. So that didn't add up to me. And when I got old enough to be rebellious, I was about 14 when it started. I think that's when I smoked my first joint. By the time I was 17, I was drinking in front of my mother. And shortly thereafter, I was bigger than her and could rebel to the point of she ended up having to go to church without me. And from that point on, I gave up on what I believed in, her faith, whatever. So, about the age of 22, I went ahead, the marijuana and alcohol led to methamphetamine. At the age of 22, I got myself strung out on meth, and I was strung out on meth until last year. I'm 57 years old now. 30 some odd years. Anyway, I lived in Arizona and it was really hot. It 120 degrees in the summertime. We had to make our land and I had a friend that lived on our property for a while. And when she moved, she moved to Junction City. And when my family sold that property, I became homeless. I was living in a tent in 120 degree weather, getting older and older and just more fed up with the heat as I aged. And this friend of mine in Junction offered me a place to live in more tempered climates. But I didn't get along well with her. loved her, she was a friend, but I couldn't be in real close proximity with her. And so I hesitated on her offer, also hesitated on her offer because I would have to leave all my friends and family and of course I would have to leave my addiction behind, which was the point, but. So it took me a couple of years to actually make that decision. And when I finally did, friend bought me a bus ticket and I got on the bus. Next month will be a year. ⁓ Anyway, so I get here and ⁓ people, most of us have heard the definition of crazy being behave the same way and expect different results. Well, I came here to Junction and I wasn't doing drugs, but I was still behaving the same way with my decision making. I was still drinking heavily. and laying around doing nothing and waiting on the next drink for the most part. And so nothing was changing for me. I would just sit in the house. wouldn't go anywhere. didn't meet anybody. didn't know what the... And I was in close proximity of that friend of mine that I can't be in close proximity of. ⁓ Anyway, so I wanted to get away from her. ⁓ And so I got this plan in my head that I didn't want to be on the street. So I figured jail would be better. So I did something illegal. And then I called the cops on myself. And it worked like a charm. They arrested me and I went to jail. When I was in jail, ⁓ they did a search and found out the meds I was supposed to be on, the medication. And ⁓ in that medication, ⁓ there's mostly it's blood pressure, but there's one that I take for my dome, my head. And ⁓ it calms me down. I call it my anti-jerk pill. ⁓ Cause I have some issues with ⁓ getting frustrated and it... shows like anger and so I so I'm a jerk anyway ⁓ so they got me medicated and because I was medicated ⁓ I was calling and I was anyway when they released me they released me they dropped the charges and let me go so I called up my friend to see if I was still welcome to come back and she had been evicted so now I am a thousand miles from anybody I know She moved to another town, so she wasn't even in town, so I couldn't go hang out with her in her car. I was on the street, Didn't know my way around, couldn't see. A little scared, nervous, because I didn't know what I was going to do. Anyway, the police department gave me a map to the shelter, and I went to the shelter, and it was closed until the next morning. So by another coincidence, I... I walked into the Catholic Church that was right across the street and they happened to be open until one o'clock in the morning. The only day of the week that they're open that late. It happened to be the day I walked in. I was in there to kill time until the next day. Somebody handed me a book. It was a small enough book that I thought I could read it. ⁓ challenged myself to read the thing so I could leave it and give it back. And I made all but the last few chapters, but in reading it, it inspired me to ⁓ look into Catholicism. And that inspiration, I think, was the Spirit speaking to me. Anyway, so I started. going to the Catholic church, the Catholic mass, and I met all the priests. And somewhere along the line there during all that time, was a few weeks running or whatever, I asked the priests and some of the other people at the shelter and at the church, I gave my decision-making paradigm to them. So I used to have this adage when people would offer me advice. I would look at their life and they weren't in any position to be offering anybody any advice. And I would tell them that. What makes you think you're qualified to offer me or make decisions for me? Look how messed up your life is. I'm not going to listen to you. Took me till sometime last year to turn that logic on myself. And so I gave up my own decision, gave the reins to somebody else that would help me make better decisions. And, ⁓ and it was working. My life was starting to get better. And then I changed it to, ⁓ cause I was seeing little signs every day, ⁓ blessings and things that could have went wrong and didn't or. Or I would get negative feelings about something or someone, but I wouldn't act on them. And then something would happen that would make me reevaluate how it's feeling about it. And I felt grateful to God. I was patient in my frustration and waited. And then it worked itself out. And I felt blessed. So I decided to give the range to God and ever since then, God has put my feet on a path that has led me here. I was living in a tent outside the shelter. They allowed it. They wouldn't trespass us if we lived on the premises. there was a lot of homeless people that I was meeting because of the shelter and And I had food stamps and the shelter was feeding me so I didn't really need the food stamps. So I would keep food at my tent for other people that didn't have food stamps and people would come by and if they were hungry I would feed them. ⁓ And one day this lady came by. And I had met her one other time before, and she was hungry and had missed lunch at the shelter. She'd gotten there too late. And she was also looking for some clothes. ⁓ And this particular time, I hadn't been shopping in a week or so, and so I didn't have anything that I could feed her. ⁓ But by another coincidence, some of the people from the shelter had been down here to Unedited Life a couple of weeks prior, and they were talking about the mercantile and the free coffee and the snacks. And I had had the opportunity to eat some of the banana bread, which is good, by the way. And so I'd heard about the place. And by coincidence, that day, that day I happened to get word, I hadn't been here yet, but I happened to get word that on this particular day they were gonna have chili. And so I walked down here for my first time because that lady that came by the shelter needed some clothes and was hungry. And that motivated me to go ahead and, I couldn't see because I didn't have glasses at the time. So I didn't go places, but since I had somebody that could see the flag and the landmarks that I needed to get there, so I decided to walk and get her fed and get her some clothes. And that's when I came in to Ended Life for the first time and met Angie and Robin for the first time, and by extension, their husbands. Jeff and John. ⁓ I've been kind of a fixture around here ever since. ⁓ I guess people, they use the term fate. And I'm not a man of faith. I think that faith implies a possibility for doubt or an argument for doubt. because of the term blind faith. Now you can have faith that something's gonna happen and it might. But ⁓ my belief in God has nothing to do with faith because walking in or choosing to come to Johnson City was an act of God. was my choice, but I was inspired by the Spirit. ⁓ Choosing to go to jail, telling on myself so I'd go to jail. Walking into that Catholic church, reading that book, meeting people, putting decisions in the hands of the Lord rather than myself. All these things were coincidence if you want to call it, but I call it God revealing himself to me. So I am not a man of faith because God reveals himself to me time and time again. So between the healings at my birth and all the amazing things that have happened to me in the past year, that's my testimony of my belief. Thanks for listening.