EFC FAITH DISCIPLESHIP CENTER

I always felt like I didn’t fit in anywhere in life.  My dad was an alcoholic and my oldest brother was, too.  Around the age of 10 I found beer hid in our basement and got drunk.  I liked it way too much!  By the time I was 13 or 14 I was an alcoholic, and a pot smoker. By the time I was 15, my drug use advanced drastically.  At the age of 17, I broke my mother’s heart when she came home unexpectedly and found a hypodermic needle on my bed stand.  I had just moved back in home from living wherever I found a place to sleep and needless to say moved back out that morning.  I had dropped out of school at the age of 15 and lied about my age so I could get a job at a gas station.   I worked this job for about 6 months.  Then my dad got me a job where he worked, he had a good reputation there because by this time he had been sober many years.  I missed work a lot and lived only to party- do drugs, drink.  By the time I was 18 I got my first OWI.  I should have had many more by then. I’m not glorifying my drug and alcohol use by any means.  I am speaking about this because I want you to know how drastically God has changed my life. 

At the age of 21 my dad died and it really impacted my family.  I guess it didn’t register in my brain.  I felt empty most of my life.  Something was missing and I had to go find it, and hopefully moving would help my drug and alcohol habits.  For the next 12 years or so I moved around the country, working here and there, but never holding a job for very long.  In the 80’s I lived in Colorado and met a girl I liked a lot.  She went to church and had a very nice family who treated me in a special way I never knew since leaving my family.  Her and her family invited me to church all the time and I knew there was something there I was missing out on, something but passed it up for my sinful lifestyle. 

As the years flew by my sin list grew and by the time I was 30 I was in terrible shape physically and mentally, and was desperately seeking something I couldn’t grasp.  Like I said, I went to church in my early years and knew what sin was but only asked for help when I was in trouble.  I knew something had to give.   I couldn’t go on this way forever.  Through the years I kept moving to different states.  I even went out on a 3 month contract off the Aleutian Islands with no contact with dealers or friends.  All that did was give me money to party with.  I sought help at many secular inpatient treatment centers, to no avail.  The answers to my struggles were right in arms reach but I didn’t reach in the right direction.  I know today the Lord has saved my life many times but I won’t go into those details.  Probably more than I realize.

I eventually returned to Iowa, started a relationship with a woman I knew from my early teenage years.  We shared around 20 years together but never married because I never changed at all.  Though I feel in my heart that I love her, I put her through so much heart ache that she didn’t deserve.  Even after all I put her through she stuck by my side and tried to help me.  But love is an action word, and what I was showing her through my addictions was not love.  The Bible says:  Love is patient, Love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.  It’s not rude or self-seeking, not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.  Love does not delight in evil, but rejoices with the truth.  It always protects, always trusts, always hopes and perseveres.  No this is not what I showed her and so I now broke her heart and mine.  Through all this and all these years you can imagine my family was disowning me and avoiding me like the plague.  I broke their hearts also. 

Remember all this time through all these years I had an empty spot in me that I knew I was missing something but couldn’t figure it out.  Or wasn’t trying to.  Through more years of alcohol/drug abuse more treatment centers, ambulance rides, hospitals, and mental health evaluations, my better half had enough of me and my dysfunction.  In 2011 I was found unconscious in my yard in the middle of the night and was taken to Allen Hospital in Waterloo.  My family was called and told to come there.  The doctors didn’t think I would pull through this time.  By the Grace of God I did and my ex-girlfriend was asked if I believed in God.  She said they thought I did, but wasn’t sure.  One of the nurses there told her of a religious treatment center in Cresco IA.  They gave us the number and I called.  I talked to the Overseer of the Midwest Mission Bible Training Center.  She told me to call back 8 times in two days.  Finally she told me she had some time to talk with me.  I told her a quick version of my life story and that I was under a doctor’s care because of my liver.  She told me, “Dennis, you don’t need a doctor, you need Jesus Christ in your life.  He can heal all things.  At that very moment I knew she was crazy and this must be some kind of cult.  So what the heck, maybe I would fit in. 

Just walking through the Mission doors, I felt something I knew was good.  It took countless hours, days, weeks, and months of Christian counseling, mentoring, and bible classes to make me realize I was not in a treatment center.  I was in a discipleship training center.  After seeing all the love, joy, peace, happiness, and contentment the people around me had, I told my counselor I wanted what they had.  He told me to meditate on Matthew 6:33, “But seek first His kingdom and His Righteousness and all these things will be given to you as well.”

At 4 months into the program I asked the Lord to come into my heart.  I prayed the sinner’s prayer and believed.  That’s when I was saved!  I had peace and joy.  My life seemed to be going great.  At a little over 6 months in the program, I had all the answers to life, (so I thought).  I decided it was time I came home and got back to work.  House payments had to be made, and we were running out of money.  So I did.  After being back to work for 2 months I was hit by a forklift and needed surgery.  I couldn’t go back to work for almost a year. 

During this time I started getting discouraged. I was abusing my pain medication; I was drinking more than ever before and was in far worse shape than I have ever been.  I stopped going to church and praying.  I fell back to my old ways and ended up after a year or so, in the hospital.  The doctors told me this time I had cirrhosis of the liver and a lump on the side of my liver.  They told me if I stopped now I had a chance of recovery.  I called my old counselor from the Mission, who then came and got me and took me back to the Mission. 

This time I stayed put! God had me where He wanted me and wouldn't let me go!  Believe me I tried several times!!  I graduated the program and stayed on for staff training.  I left God at one point in my life, but He never left me; although I felt He did many times.  But today I realize He gives us choices.  Today I choose Him!  After graduating staff training, God arranged for me to come to Oelwein, to help at the Faith Discipleship Center.  Though I lost a lot of things in my life including a 20 year relationship with someone I love, today I do have a peace in my heart that I can’t explain. 

Being with FDC is an amazing experience.  I get to see a lot of things happening there that you don’t.  Watching God move in someone’s life is an extremely awesome reward.  Our Father in Heaven gets all the Glory and Honor in my testimony.  I could never be where I’m at today without Him.  I want to thank all of you for your support of The Faith Discipleship Center. 

It’s only through our Lord putting it on your hearts to support and pray for us.  Thank you all so much for being obedient to His calling in His ministry here in Oelwein.  We now have about 15 teachers that bless the residents with their knowledge of the scriptures.    But again, above all, I thank our Father in Heaven and give Him all the Glory and honor for making Faith Discipleship Center a reality!  And I personally thank Him for changing my life and blessing me with the opportunity to serve Him through the Faith Discipleship Center, and my Testimony…..For We Overcome by the Blood of the Lamb, the word of our testimony, and laying our lives down to serve Him!                 

   God Bless You All!