Highlights from Billy, JamieLea, and Jeremy. Amazing stories of darkness turning to light and despair turning into hope! God is sovereign and loves us more than we could ever know!
Highlights from Billy, JamieLea, and Jeremy. Amazing stories of darkness turning to light and despair turning into hope! God is sovereign and loves us more than we could ever know!
HellO, and welcome to Renew, Restore, Rejoice, the Safe House Ministries podcast, where we share stories of the power of God to change lives through Safe House Ministries. Safe House Ministries is based out of Columbus, Georgia, and we are a ministry that exists to love and serve people who have been affected by addiction, homelessness, and incarceration. I'm your host, Phil Shuler, the Director of Development for Safe House Ministries here in Columbus, Georgia. Safe House serves over 1, 100 people each month as they transition back into our community. Safe House provides an abundance of services including 213 beds for homeless individuals and families, case management for obtaining job skills and long term employment. Over 300 hot meals every day, free clothing, and so much more. One of the most incredible services that Safe House provides is our free 9 12 month intensive outpatient substance abuse program, which is state licensed, CARF accredited, and has no wait list. Almost 100 percent of individuals staying in our shelters who follow our three phase program become fully employed within a few months. And 68 percent of individuals who stay at least one night with us End up finding work and moving into their own home. Thank you for being with us today and listening to our podcast. We hope you enjoy this week's episode.
Phil:Good morning. This morning on the podcast, we're going to do something a little bit different. We are going to put together kind of a montage or just a compilation of various little segments and snippets from podcasts, and pull out some highlights, some wisdom nuggets, and just some neat little stories so that you can get a snapshot of the podcast as a whole and of what we do every week here. God has done some amazing things in people's lives and The stories that people share on this podcast are absolutely incredible. The mercy of God, the grace of God, the love of God, the greatness of God and the providence of God, there are some miracles that you'll hear of how God was just always there and guiding and in control and raised people back to life who should have been dead and brought people together who would never have been. Otherwise brought together, how God opened doors, how God did amazing things. You'll also hear some lessons, some wisdom, some things that others are sharing as to the keys to how they turn that corner, how they yielded to the Lord and how the Lord just then changed their lives and the trajectory of their lives brought them out of darkness into light, out of bondage and into victory. I hope you are blessed and enjoy this week's podcast.
Billy:you know, I used to wonder why God would ever answer my prayers And why you know, why I always put me in jail It's only recently. I realized that every time I went to jail. He did answer my prayer it all started with alcohol. Probably 99 percent of the trouble I ever got in was because I was drunk or on drugs. If it wasn't for drugs and alcohol, I probably wouldn't have gotten much trouble on my end or somebody else's in, but, I just made some poor choices in life. I like to drink and then when I drink, I thought I was tough and we probably did a lot of things we shouldn't have done and but all of that was to seek approval from people or to try to fit in is all it was ever about and insecurities, whatever you want to call it. me and my girlfriend at the time. We had a daughter. she was 19. I was 21. She's what, 33 now. And, that's something else I messed up bad in. something's got to be pretty strong that, take you from keep you raising your daughter. I've just about done everything under the sun. I said I would never do heroin and I ended up on heroin.
Phil:There was
Billy:a period of my life where the only thing that mattered to me was getting high. Long period of my life. Yeah. And, I've embarrassed myself, my family, and I used to get mad and think, man, all my friends abandoned me and you... I got lucky to get to where I'm at now, and I know they didn't abandon me, I abandoned them. I abandoned everything. even though I messed up and went to jail jails were jails, not rock bottom. It was before you get there, jails Not rock bottom anymore. It's like the first run on the ladder. Yeah. And,
Phil:so rock bottom was on the streets in the midst of the addictions. Yeah.
Billy:Rock bottom when You sit in there crying, trying to flush and dope down the toilet and you can't let it go. or all the people in the world, you can't even pick a Phone up and get somebody to answer. Or if they do, they stutter. I got another call and so they just avoiding you sleeping in the bushes, walking around till you got blisters on the bottom of your feet.'cause you got nowhere to go. And he just trying to find some money to get high. And, and I, and I guess. I don't know how many times I've done that and, growing up, I used to laugh. We had a big ol house on 3rd Avenue the big white house with the columns. Back then it was it was homeless people now. Back then they called them winos. And we'd wake up and there'd be people asleep on the porch and stuff like that. And we were kids. We'd laugh and, cause they'd have bad feet or Whatever and it's ironic I'm sitting out there and. doing the same thing they were years later and with bad feet and everything and, and, a lot of things I said would never happen to me happened to me or I would never do. I did. And, growing up with the child that I had, I would have never dreamed I would have saw the, Inside of a jail cell. I'm a little, I'm not so quick to laugh at anybody as I used to be because I've walked in their shoes a little bit or close to them. Yeah. I could dwell on my past, and I've tried to, I've tried to do a good job not Dwelling on the past. Forgetting it. Glancing in the rear view mirror kind of thing. Yeah. cause it's really disgusting. And I don't find Any glory in my past and what I've done. There's I think people think nowadays sometimes that, they can use drug addiction as an excuse of why they broke in a house or why they stole from their mama or and there's no excuse for it. You still did it. It was a choice. And, just like right now, it's my choice to sit here and do this interview and not go get high or go to work every day and not go get High on the choice. Just like it's a choice to choose to do the drugs. I used to laugh at that saying back in the 80's. just say no, but it's just that simple. Yeah. It's As simple as yes and no. Simple,
Phil:but not easy. Yeah. What started to happen that Pointed you in a different direction that the Lord used to begin to bring you out of that darkness
Billy:I went to the safe house ministries and, for one weekend and they picked me up on probation warrants in Alabama and I did 20 months in Alabama and Russell County. Russell County Jail was some of the best people you ever meet in your life and yeah. They really gave me a chance to, get my life together. Chaplain Richardson told me he would hold my bed. Until I got out, and then we would try again, and I I didn't know it was going to take 20 months, but 20 months later I still had a bed. I went and did 20 months in Russell County and then went to tomorrow's hope, went through that program and Just really a lot of things worked out real good. I stayed at I stayed at the Gray's house, what, four or five months. Okay. And then, after you're there so long, if you don't have a place to live, then you, they think they have a thing through the United Way where they do housing vouchers. Yeah. So if you don't have a place to go, you can get either partial or full funding to get your own place. That's what ultimately they're trying to get you in your own. I had a place to go and, I didn't have to use that to get where I was going. But
Phil:but you were still in the tomorrow's hope program
Billy:for a year. Yeah. And, I did that I was living on my own. We went to night classes. I Worked during the day and, there got to be a point there where. I finally, I didn't have a driver's license for 17 years and, since 2000 2001 or 2002, I got my driver's license. And, and that was probably the biggest game changer Wow. Of everything, because I didn't have to depend on other people anymore. that was pretty good feeling. that program just really gave me a chance to just sit down and Just figure it out. It just, to be somewhere that you didn't have to worry about eating, you didn't have to worry about if you don't have clothes you're taken care of. I completed the Program. I applied myself to the program. and just what I'm sitting here three, three years out of the program. I got off. I was on probation. in Georgia and Alabama and I'm off Probation in both states now. I don't have anything over my head anymore. And it all came from doing the right thing. it's so much more worth it than living like I used to live. Yeah. These are good, I take my worst experiences right now any day over some of my best ones when I was high.
06-21-23 SAFEHOUSE-CH2:once I got married, we had two beautiful kids. Um, you know, the stress of marriage and life and military life. really took a toll on me personally. I definitely started to, abuse alcohol and prescription drugs. when my marriage started to fail. we went to counseling and I never really was able to admit that I had a problem. that was just how I dealt with it. It wasn't until I lost everything when we got divorced, I left and, I left under the assumption I'm just gonna go stay with a friend until I get on my feet. And, I, I didn't have any good coping skills. I, I didn't know how to cope with the loss of my marriage and moving out, we were married for 14 years, that was a really hard time in my life and that's when, I was introduced to meth and, the streets. And, and I just lost myself at that point. I lost who I was. I didn't have any hope I was out there in the streets with literally nowhere to go, every day waking up, not knowing where I'm gonna sleep the next night or how I'm going to eat. I knew that the road that I was going down was not what I needed to be doing, but I didn't know how to stop, you know? I remember feeling towards the end there. I remember feeling hopeless, I, I remember asking God to help me. I feel like every time I did that, I ended up going to jail. what began to change in your life or what happened that maybe brought you to a turning point? So the last time that I ended up in Muscogee County Jail, I met Neil Richardson and he was the chaplain there. I. Remember talking to my public defender and, and telling her I didn't wanna go to prison. I don't belong in prison. I'm a good person. I, I just don't know how to stop living the way that I was living. and she said, well, let's see if we can't get you into a treatment program. so I got sentenced to tomorrow's hope. And I remember vividly like it was yesterday, being transported by Neil Richardson to the Trinity House. And, I did not stay for the first go round. it took, you know, I, I got to the Trinity House and I was supposed to be going to treatment, in about a week. And I, I remember calling my ex-husband to, I wanted to talk to the kids, you know, Hey, I'm, I'm clean and I'm out, and I just got into this program and I'm gonna be doing something good with my life. And it, it was that phone call where he told me that I wasn't worth anything. I wasn't gonna, it didn't matter what I did, you know, the kids weren't gonna love me. And, That sent me back out. That sent me back out, and I ran from the program and from probation for a year. And I remember the next day waking up and not being at the program and, and just feeling like, here we go again. Where am I gonna stay? What am I gonna do? How am I going to eat? I knew that my focus was not on. Getting high anymore. It was, I, I need to know how to live, you know? And so I was, I was already done at that point. using at that point was just a means to get by through the next day to hide the emotions, and the hopelessness that I was dealing with, it's another year. You were of hiding from the law. Mm-hmm. Just. Struggling through in the same kind of position that you had been before? Yeah. you had, I guess, given up and not accepted the offer to stay at the women's shelter, which was Trinity House at the time and, and the Tomorrow Hope Program. So after that year, what happened? So I ended up with a warrant. I was in the, in a vehicle with somebody that got pulled over and they ran my name and, and they said, well, you're going back. So I went back to jail and, I was afforded a second opportunity to do tomorrow's hope. And, I just remember crying, like, thank God, because, I knew, I knew I needed the help and I hadn't really heard much about the program. I didn't really give it a chance, but I knew, what I did know was I didn't wanna live the way that I, I had been living for that last year. I didn't wanna run anymore. and it didn't matter what it took. I, I was gonna take suggestions and do what I needed to do to get better for me. Yeah. So, so this time you took it more seriously and you were ready To do the hard work. To make the change. Yeah. So tell us about that. Tell us that process. so surrender, I had to surrender every part of my life. not picking up was the easiest part for me. going to tomorrow's hope, I was introduced to the 12 steps. And I still use those steps today. my, my clean date is May 21st, 2020. So this month I'll be three years clean. And, not picking up was the easy part for me. I, I had to learn and work hard and I, and I still work hard every day on how to, how to live clean, you know? abstaining and living clean are two different things. I fell into a church family that I absolutely love. I fell into a support system, a network of people that are living clean, that are working steps in their life. my higher power is what I rely on every day, I wouldn't have made it through all of these things if it wasn't for God being there, he never turned his back on me. I, I definitely turned away from him a number of times. but he never turned his back on me. He, and he always welcomed me with open arms. and I, I talk to him every day, every day I work on my relationship with him cuz he's important and, You mentioned purpose. So I, I never in my life have understood what people meant when they said that they had a calling on their life, until after graduating the program. Tomorrow's Hope, after 12 months and, getting a job and working and saving money and moving out of the women's shelter, and being on my own Safe House Ministries called me and asked me, If I wanted a job, if I wanted to work in the women's shelter, and I was reluctant to say yes, it took me two months to say yes to that. I prayed and prayed and prayed. I was working at Wade Cleaners at that time, and I just remember at their great company. they're great people. but I remember going to work every day saying, this is, this can't be it. I'm living clean now. My thinking has changed. I, I want to grow in every way. so I accepted the job at Safe House and I started as a house manager at the women's shelter that I had just left. And, I did that for a few months and then, I moved into case management and. After a couple months of that, the director position came open and they offered me the position. God has used my past and my mistakes, to put me somewhere where I have purpose every day. I get to be a part of other people getting into recovery. I work with public defenders, I work with probation, a lot of different agencies locally. getting people off the street and affording them the same opportunity that was given to me twice. And it's, it's, it's really, it's wonderful. Through the 12 steps, I found that relationship with God. in aa we say, you know, a higher, my higher power of, of my own understanding. And for me, that's, that's Jesus, you know? he has walked with me through everything and, I used to pray early in recovery. I used to pray that, you know, God, just gimme my kids back, you know, gimme my kids back. I want, I wanna be a mother again. through having a relationship with God and, and really trusting him with everything, it's made it a lot easier for me to. Have faith that he has a purpose for my life. And even if it's not to be a mother in this season, it, it's something else, something bigger. And he's working all of these things for his good and for mine and for other people's. my, my prayer these days is much different. I pray that God will prepare me. For when my children are ready to come back into my life, and I just keep going every day.
Jeremy:I was waking up in the morning and before my feet hit the floor, I was popping a couple of Vicodin in my mouth. Because if not, my body was starting to withdraw. others started noticing first that I started to get very thin and, I was probably 200 pound muscular guy, so I got down to 140 or 150 pounds. Took a job with Wells Fargo. It was one of my clients and I maybe stopped for a couple of weeks got hired back started making some more money So I'm back in the active addiction again. All eyes are on me at that point My wife's it's not I can't hide it anymore She knew I'd got terminated for that reason and it was you know, she's about to leave me and I'm about to lose everything So I probably did the stupidest thing that I've ever done And I gave access to a credit card at Wells Fargo to a person who could get me pain pills. And they didn't go very far and I maybe got away with it a couple times, thinking in my rationale at the time was, oh, the customer's not losing any money. They're going to get their money back before they ever see that it's gone, but it's a federal crime. So this was a customer's credit card you gave to
Phil:someone else to use to get
Jeremy:you... Yep, to buy pain pills. And that's what I was ultimately arrested on for financial card crime. And I obviously pled guilty to it, full disclosure, didn't try to hide it, or any of that type of stuff. I knew in that moment that, not that I didn't have the signs for the past 10 to 12 years leading up to that. It was like, this is it. Now you've really done it. So I get incarcerated and I don't have a bond. Because, unbeknownst to me at the time, one of the cards that I had given to someone was an elderly person. And any crime. on an elderly person. They don't give you a bond for it, but I didn't know. I never logged into the account. I would have never done that. Women and children and kids and elderly. So you had taken multiple cards of the correct customers, not knowing who they were, what age they were, anything. Did you, was this
Phil:always to one person or did you see
Jeremy:Different? Different people. Okay. Yeah. Having had a pretty high position at the bank, I could go in there and say, Hey, I've seen fraud on the account, they get their money back and then the bank has to write it off. So then the bank found that. So you,
Phil:you would do that yourself. So you would self create the fraud and then you would say, Hey, I saw this and you would. Yeah.
Jeremy:Okay. Yeah. Crazy scheme, huh? But that's how sick I was. At the time it was. I, didn't want my wife to find out again. I didn't want my friends to find out again. They thought that I had, gotten back on my feet after leaving T SYS and now I've got a job at a bank. Hey, you're not going to mess this up. You said she noticed.
Phil:She understood. And then so was she unsurprised when you got arrested?
Jeremy:It was an epic arrest. I'll tell you that. Oh, wow. Yeah I knew something was about to happen. I said I needed to get away from this. This is not who I was. I worked at a financial card in the financial industry for 20 years. I was over the fraud department for years, well before my addiction, so I knew it was something I would have never done. So I'm like, okay, this is bad. I gotta get away from this because I don't know that I can stop because of my addiction. So I left Wells Fargo and I'm going to interview for a regional vice president position at Publix. I was going to be over the one on Macon Road, Phenix City and Bradley Park at the time. Going through my second interview, the one on, I'm not sure if that publish is still there, on Macon Road. They were flying a guy in from Oklahoma to meet with me, tell me what stores I'm going to be over, go over my final package. I had fake urine in my pants at the time because I was still using and I didn't know if they were going to drug test me. They never mentioned anything about it, but I was ready. I go in the bathroom, straighten my tie up, say, hey, he's going to be a few minutes late. Feel free to sit here. So I'm like, okay, let me go in there and straighten the tie. I'll make sure I'm looking presentable. I open the door and it's Mr. Pritchett, get on the ground. FBI, GBI, federal agents. Wow. Everything. Arrested me in the middle of publics on Macon Road. And. My wife works down the road. She works right across the street. Half light. I called her. Long story, but the arresting agent used to work for me at T SYS. Oh, wow. Yeah. Never knew in a million years. She's there's no way. This guy's not, this is my old boss. Like he was, he's not involved in drugs and all that kind of stuff. Sunny, they thought I was a dealer because I was making good money and doing all this. No, I was the buyer. I was the one buying them. And so anyway, she they called her up there. I'm sitting in the back of the car and I, the look on her face, I'll never forget. It was like, yeah, you've disappointed me in the past. And we've gone through this addiction, but you're in the back of a car with handcuffs. For the first time in your life, really, this is what it's come to she luckily still stayed with me and having the phone conversations that we had through the jail, I probably told her even more that I had not disclosed in the past and really let my guard down and just said, and I surrendered and said, Hey and it was, I promise I'm going to get out of this. This is not going to happen again. You've promised me that a hundred times over. I've never. Okay. I've never been to jail. I've never hit rock bottom. So now I'm without a job, almost without a wife. I'm not going to be able to afford. I'm going to have to probably lose my truck, probably lose our house because, I made most of the money and I'm like, this is but we made it we made it through she'd come and see me twice a week and I had to wait six months and I found out about the Tomorrow's Hope program set up a meeting with chap. He came to see me and got me out of the cell one day. And that's when I had requested the Bible. And I know he's probably heard that story so many times over with what he's done, but he felt like I was genuine. And I said, no, that you, so he even spoke to my mom and my wife and I'm like, no, he is he's not really a criminal, even though he did criminal activity. He was lost in his addiction. And that's where my reset started. And when I say reset, meaning I'm in jail. I'm in a place that I never will go back again. I can say that. Look you in the eyes and say that. And I surrendered. To the only God, to myself, and I'm gonna get through this. Whatever my fate is. They didn't know if I was going to prison. I had never been arrested before. They gave me 15 years probation. And in the six months and then I got into the treatment program and that's where the resets start. I'm in this wonderful program. Chap's a wonderful person. Dr. McCoy was able to get a job at a local move company. I'm in class every night. He can probably tell you this. I know I'm one of hundreds if not thousands that's gone through that program. Never missed a day. Never missed an aftercare. Never missed a drug test. Clean on all of them. And it finally worked. It was, I'm living the life of sobriety. I'm happy again. So anyway, long story short, it's come full circle to where I'm doing things that I never thought that were possible. It would not have been possible had I not had been afforded the opportunity to go through the Tomorrow's Hope program, Safe House Ministries, get my life back.
A ministry of reconciliation. That's what we are here at Safe House Ministries. A ministry of love, a ministry of reconciliation, a ministry to help those who are broken hearted, those who are captive, those who are blind, those who are bruised, to help them be free. Be victorious, be reconciled, and to have an abundant life in this world and to have hope of eternal life hereafter as well.
Phil Shuler:We look forward to being with you again next week as we share another testimony about the power and the goodness of God to change lives through Safe House Ministries. if you are someone listening to this podcast that loves to hear these stories of the great things that God is doing in changing people's lives for the better, and if you would like to be a part of that work, please reach out to us You can reach us at 2101 Hamilton Road, Columbus, Georgia, 31,904. You can call us at seven oh six three two two. 3 7, 7 3, or you can email us at info@safehouse-ministries.com.
Microphone (Samson Q2U Microphone)-2:Thank you so much for being with us this week for the renew restore and rejoice podcast of safe house ministries, we pray that God will bless you this week. And we look forward to having you back with us again next week for a new episode.