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The Miracle Reporter

In Part...

I was born in Monrovia, Liberia, West Africa, while my mother taught at the University of Liberia for 2 years. I was 2 years old when I came to the United States. As a baby, I tried to crawl out of a hotel window but, thankfully, at the last minute the nanny turned and looked to see me crawling onto the ledge. This is just one of the instances that shows evil was after me and wanted me dead from the time I was a baby.

I grew up in Macomb, Illinois, where I began playing cello at the age of 6. I went to the Episcopalian Church and was an acolyte (altar boy) for a long time, but I had no spiritual connection with God. There was always a void in me. As a child I tried to fill it with whatever I thought would bring people closer to me. One time when I was about 10 years old, I packed a bag and ran away from home. I purposely stayed away for 7 hours so that my parents would be frightened and worried, therefore, I was the focus of their attention.

I also had a recurring dream as a child. I would come out of a dense forest and see an abandoned cabin with a tin roof that had animal skins hanging from the eves, which made me think a hunter lived there. When I walked into the desolate cabin, I found myself in my parents' home. When I looked in the mirror my eyes were an intense red instead of brown, and my reflection moved separately from me; though it was me and looked like me, I knew it was evil. It always tried to come through the mirror to kill me. I would run out of the house and back into the forest. Yet, the evil never followed me. This dream terrified me as a child; however, I never understood it until I was an adult.

I was 23 when I tried cocaine for the first time with my Hollywood friends who were stars in soap operas and sitcoms. I wanted to fit in, and I thought his lifestyle would fill the vast emptiness inside me, but I was wrong. When the fun was done and my new-found friends had gone home, I was still hollow inside.

I came back to Illinois and played guitar in a secular band for 4 years. I began using cocaine again at the age of 25, and by I was 30 I was an addict trying to function. I went through 6 secular rehabilitation centers, 5 jails, 3 prisons and 1 halfway house. Yet, I never found peace or a way to separate myself from who I had become—the wickedness I saw in the mirror of my dream as a child.

I finally surrendered my life to Christ in February 2000 when I was in a jail cell in Rockford, Illinois. My focus became God's word, and I was blessed with the Berean studies by a pastor who saw God's call on my life. I soon began holding Bible studies in the cell and spent the next 18 months doing so. However, the last 6 months were spent in U.S. immigration detention facing deportation from the only home I've ever known. But then a miracle happened in August 2001. In December 2000, my Pastor had told me about a Christian drug/alcohol discipleship program called Teen Challenge. I told him that I wasn't going to have anything to do with that program. But my mother never gave up on me and spoke to me about Teen Challenge again in August 2001. Following that discussion, I made the decision to contact the center in Chicago. I was mandated into custody, meaning I was stuck in detention for the duration of the deportation process. I prayed on a Tuesday night that if Teen Challenge was where God wanted me then I would go if He made a way. On the following Wednesday morning a guard came to my cell and said, "Pack your things because we have to release you." My name had amazingly vanished from the computers and immigration had no record of me. I was released from custody that day, and 2 days later I walked through the doors of the Chicago Teen Challenge center, and this is my life 5 years later. By the power of Christ I was able to face the man in the mirror and understand that “When I was a child I spoke like a child, I understood like a child, I thought like a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known” (1 Cor. 13:11-12).

As a child, I only saw "in part." I tried to run from the evil image in the mirror. God knew that for the child to become the man I am today I had to face, confront, and conquer the fears I had as a child. The fear of confronting the image in the mirror terrified me. It wasn't by my might or strength but by His Spirit.