My name is Chuck and I live in Long Beach, CA.  I have been a Christian 29 years now and am blessed today to share my testimony of salvation through Christ with you. 

To the best of my recollection, from the age of 13 to 23, I was arrested 40 some times.  I was in at least 26 different jails, institutions and prisons.  I started using drugs at a young age.  I literally loved being high and everything else in life became secondary.  I became a daily abuser of barbiturates and soon moved on to heroin.  I also sniffed glue & gasoline.  Through the years of drug taking & partying, I hung with a crowd of guys who were of the same mindset.  I did a lot of fighting through the years with rivalries or drug deals gone bad.  To support my growing addictions, I committed burglaries, armed robberies and petty thefts daily.  Through these times I was often arrested for fighting, stealing or drug charges.  At first, especially as a juvenile, the lockups became longer and the times spent out of jail became shorter. 

Me and a friend went to Oregon for a few months to hide out after a crime spree.  He had been in church before and his friends up there were Christians.  I was finally coerced into going to church with him.   I could see by the moving of the Sprit, (which at the time I did not understand) that there really was a God.  One of the members gave me the book : “The Cross and the Switchblade”.  I soon came back to Long Beach and right back to my old lifestyle. Shortly I went to prison on drug charges.  Heroin addiction and doing time was now all my life consisted of. 

During these times God was moving on my behalf even though I was not aware and I could not get God, heaven and hell out of my mind.  God spoke to me in my heart and told me He would help me if I took steps to help myself.  I committed myself to a hospital and kicked my heroin habit, getting out on Christmas eve 1973.  During this stay, God gave me a vision of what life could be like with Him and without all of the drugs, jail and stealing. 

I have now been saved 29 years and have never turned back to drugs or a life of crime or even a life where God was not first.  I was set free not by any power of my own.  I have been blessed with a wonderful Savior, Christian children, grandchildren and a wonderful wife.  My older daughter was miraculously healed of cystic fibrosis when she was a baby.  God has been able to turn my life into something of worth, which I don’t believe I would have ever been able to accomplish without Him.  I watch my old friends that are still caught up in the old lifestyle & most have died by overdose.  God is bringing some new changes in my life & I ask for your prayers, Mel & those who get your newsletters that God will lead my wife & I into a new ministry in Tennessee.  Janiece & I always enjoyed doing the praise & worship for you when you preached at the Long Beach Rescue Mission.  We will miss you.  May God bless you & keep you. We love you.