Lives Changed: Recovery Testimonies from Savannah MBTC
Renita grew up in church, raised by two God-fearing parents. She knew who Jesus was and what He could do, but she had never known Him personally. She came to the Mission in August 2018, and though she had been through both secular and faith-based rehabs before, she came to see that this time was ordained by the Lord. Here she learned to surrender her life to Him and to discover who she is in Christ.
The hardest part was leaving her young son at home, yet she trusted that it was God’s will and holds fast to His promise in Matthew 19:29, that everyone who has forsaken family for Christ’s name will receive a hundredfold and inherit everlasting life. She is quick to give the credit not to a program or a ministry, but to the Lord who is at work in this place.
Ronald grew up in church and knew it was the right way to live, but as a teenager and into his twenties he wanted to do what everyone else was doing. That choice took a toll on his whole life, and for many years he was enslaved to drugs and alcohol, hurting the family and people he loved the most. At 40, through family affiliated with the ministry, he first heard about Mission Teens and completed an eight month program. But he fell back into old behavior and old company, and the years that followed brought jail, drug court, and probation. Nothing worked.
Finally coming to the end of himself again, Ronald returned to the Mission, this time at the Savannah Mission Bible Training Center. Here he is learning who he is again, learning that God loves him and forgives him, and seeking what God would have him do with the rest of his life. He is grateful for his family and for the staff who are helping him, as he puts it, finally learn how to live again.
peace where there was only grief
Jamie grew up in a small town in northwest Georgia, working alongside his father in the family’s construction business and asking for nothing more than his father’s company. He joined the Marine Corps at eighteen, learned early to bury his emotions rather than face them, and carried that same silence into marriage and fatherhood. When his father was diagnosed with lung cancer, Jamie buried the pain in drink and work instead of grief. Then his father died suddenly after a family lunch, and only months later his mother passed as well. Jamie went numb, isolated himself, and could not see a way forward.
Yet almost every night Jamie found himself looking up at the sky, asking God why. Eventually his prayer changed: he cried out to God and admitted he could not handle life on his own. His sister brought him to Savannah Mission Bible Training Center, and there God began to draw him to Himself. Jamie has since found the hope and purpose he once could not see, and he rests in the promise of Psalm 34:18, that the Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit.