Gerald had a crack cocaine habit. It ruined his life and dumped him on the streets with only the clothes on his back. For over two years he struggled valiantly against his addiction until he finally beat it. He said the key to overcoming a crack addiction is to hate what it does to your life more than you love the high it gives you. We met him about six months after he quit using.
Over the next few months, I watched several youth groups interact with Gerald. He loved the attention they gave him and delighted in regaling them with stories and teaching them life lessons he learned the hard way.
During those months, the good news kept coming. Gerald got a job making a decent income. It wasn’t the greatest job, but that was OK. It gave him another life lesson to teach the youth. He said you will succeed if you have a good work ethic whether you like your job or not.
Two months after Gerald started working, he told us he had enough money saved up to get an apartment. He asked us if we could help him equip the kitchen, get linens, and other little things he needed. I put everything together and took it to him about a week after he moved in.
Gerald greeted me with his contagious smile and showed me around his new home. It was a sparsely, but comfortably, furnished one-bedroom apartment. There still weren’t many clothes hanging in the closet. When you’re homeless you don’t have much to store.
As we walked into the dining area, I noticed a foot-high stack of booklets on the floor. Gerald noticed that I saw them and said, “That’s my collection. Wanna see it?” His collection consisted of dozens of Gospel tracts. He had “The Four Spiritual Laws”, “This Was Your Life” and a whole bunch of tracts I had never seen before. Gerald, then launched into a ten minute dissertation on which ones were his favorites and why.
“Where did you get all these?” I asked him.
“People come through the park and hand ‘em out. Most of the time they don’t say anything to you. They just hand you a tract and keep walkin’.”
”So did one of these tracts lead you in your decision to follow Jesus?”
“They taught me the facts, but that wasn’t enough to convince me to make a commitment. It wasn’t until I saw these kids care about me, and listen to me…” His voice trailed off as he searched for the right words.
“I knew they were there because of Jesus. They were so different from the other kids who turn away from us or drive by and throw things at us. If He can make that big a difference, I figured He must be real.”