Curtis' STORY OF HOPE | Powerful Christian Testimonies

hi my name is Curtis Barnes I'm 55 years old my parents had had divorced when I was 2 years old and at a very young age was introduced to drugs and alcohol I had a loving mother who attended church and I remember growing up sleeping in the pews of a church but as I grew older influences older kids in my life just lack of parental guidance because my mother had leukemia and she was single and she had four kids struggled to to make ends meet so through that pretty much became a wild child and was smoking pot at 10 years old drinking and by the time I was 12 years old my mother had passed away from the leukemia that she suffered from and my dad who was in prison at the time came to the funeral wearing handcuffs and that's really the biggest memory I have of my mother's funeral was seeing my dad in handcuffs me and a couple of my siblings went to live with my uncle who happened to be a pastor and he himself was a drug addict that got saved in prison and became a pastor which in hindsight looking at that was a blessing to me in disguise because at the age of 13 sitting in the back row of his church on a Wednesday night as I usually did waiting for the service to be over he gave an altar call that night and I'm sitting in the back of the church and the next thing you know I'm dealing with myself and argue having this argument in my head part of me wanted to go down to the altar the other part of me is like no he don't what are you doing why even thinking about that and so the next minute next thing I know I all I'm seeing is these windows passed by it feels like I'm on one of those moving sidewalks at an airport and the stained glass windows are passing me by as I'm heading down to the altar I gave my life to the Lord that night at the age of 13 and I would love to sit here and tell you that everything's been glorious every since but I didn't go on to live with the Lord I didn't commit my life to him in a serious way I'm ashamed to say but but it something happened throughout my life well let me first my dad got out of prison right after that and we moved out of my uncle's house and in into my dad's house who had no clue what it meant to be a father much less a loving father so there was a lot of verbal abuse a lot of name-calling and stuff like that come to find out my dad was a was still using drugs and me and my brother found his stash and so we were using drugs that my dad kept in the house as well as the drugs we already used out on the street by the time I was 16 the cat was out of the bag dad we know you get high he knew I was getting high so it just became a family affair we got high together we partied we sold drugs my house was a 24/7 dope house Trap House I remember getting ready for school walking into the front room there'd be a house full of strangers no big deal I'd head out to school that didn't last long either ninth grade I spent more time skipping school then I was in school so I dropped out ended up moving in with a prostitute and basically she took care of me and provided the drugs and everything that I thought would make me happy that didn't last long either like nothing ever did in those days drugs were the driving force and I was an IV drug user by the time I was 13 I was shooting drugs heroin meth cocaine on a daily basis it was what my life revolved around and all during that those years I I remember feeling this uncomfortable feeling because I remembered that day when I was 13 years old and I gave my life to the Lord and I had this eerie feeling that I'm out here in this drug world doing the drugs and living that lifestyle knowing if I died I could spend eternity in hell and it was an eerie feeling but it didn't stop me and it began to just be this whole pretender thing like I don't belong in this drug culture because of that day but I kept doing it and it kept getting worse and worse and worse pretty soon I began to manufacture methamphetamines I began to forge checks and and credit cards and I began to get in serious trouble in and out of jail routinely and at that period of time in 1996 my dad found out my dad had cancer the same dad that was in the at the funeral in handcuffs was dying but the good news about that is he had gone to prison two times since then and got saved so this time he was sick he was dying of cancer but he knew who Jesus was and that was a comfort to me even though I didn't know Jesus and wasn't going to be in heaven when I died my dad died in 1996 I went to his funeral I knew he was in heaven and that was comforting but it was also a turning point in my life where I began to twist off and get even more involved in the manufacturing side of of drugs and forging checks and things like that and myself going to jail five times in one year by 1998 I was pretty much hitting the rock bottom the last arrest was in April of 1998 bounty hunters caught me I was running I knew they were cut and they were after me I had five felony can warrants out on me and a1 one of them was a felony acceleration warrant for a five year sentence that I'd got for a heroin arrest that day in April the Bounty Hunter's pulled up behind me as I was leaving the house I had a feeling something was going on and I began to look around I seen a white Bronco coming up the street full blast pulled in behind me and two big guys jumped out came to either side of my car open the doors said are you Curtis Barnes of course I said no and they bailed in snatched me up and took me to jail upon arriving to jail I've pretty much knew this was it and about two weeks of sleeping all day every day I began to wake up in jail if you've ever been after so long you just start reading and I just began to read whatever was in the cell one day I believe it was in April of 1998 no it was May May of 1998 I'd been in jail a couple of months I opened a magazine and read this article the article was about the Big Bang Theory and the possibility of the Big Bang Theory being accurate and I remember the article read if you took a wristwatch busted it up with a hammer threw it up in the air and it lands on the girl on the ground a working wristwatch that's the probability of the Big Bang Theory being accurate and upon reading that I remember feeling this Awakening in my spirit of that day when I was 13 years old and I gave my life to the Lord Jesus Christ and I knew right then at that moment that I needed Jesus in my life I have failed in every area I knew that I would spend either of my life the rest of my life in prison or that I would be dead and that day I in my jail cell I remember the same the sinner's prayer I remembered it from the time with my uncle and I said the sinner's prayer and I said God I know you're real I know that you died for me that you hung on a cross for me and I repent of my sins and I ask you to be the Lord of my life and lightning didn't strike or clouds and thunder but I remember feeling a of relief and the Gideon's Bibles that laid around the the jail cells that I was rolling cigarettes with became my new reading material and I it was a month later I believe my grandmother sent me an application to a place called Teen Challenge and this place was team chow its adult and teen challenge of the Midlands now but team challenge it was in Colfax Iowa and it's a discipleship program of sorts and this was all foreign to me I'm sitting here looking at this application and reading the guidelines and my cellmate was sitting there and we were talking about it and he said man are you sure you don't want to just go to prison and I had to think about it and I thought for a minute and I said yeah I'm sure I want to change this time I don't want to be the same this is where I'm gonna end up for the rest of my life if something don't change so that day I made a commitment to God I said Lord if you want to send me to this place called Teen Challenge or or you want to send me to prison I'll serve you and either way it goes and I'll give it a hundred percent I said I've never completed anything in my life I've always quit everything good jobs good relationships schools whatever and I said if you send me to prison I'll serve you 100 percent there if you send me to Teen Challenge I'll serve you 100 percent there and I presented this to my public defender and he looked at it and basically laughed in my face and said he'll never go to this place you're too big of a flight risk and your charges would would not allow you to leave much less leave the state and go to this place called Teen Challenge and he began to offer me other deals like we have this new drug court Grahame that the the courts are really big on right now and I remember telling him thanks for the offer but I don't want to go there because I don't want to be the same when I get out because the people that are going to this drug court probably have no intention of changing they're probably still using as they're in there and there's there's probably not going to be very much changed in my life I want to be different and I said I want to go to Teen Challenge and he shook his head and in disbelief because he didn't think I was going to go and it with his reaction it kind of cast some doubt myself but I had a praying grandmother and a church for full of praying grandmother's her friends and they began to pray and through court case after court case different counties the judges sometimes even relentlessly because they had no choice said all right we'll let him go here they said show back up 15 months later and prove that you went through this program and do it successfully and then we'll hear your case when that happens it's funny because they looked at me and said you won't finish this you won't be back we'll be back with another charge and it won't happen see they didn't realize that Teen Challenge is a biblically based program with a success rate of over 70% of its graduates and that true freedom is through the Lord Jesus Christ and through my identity and the surrender that I learned in this program it changed my life forever I completed the program in February of 2000 I walked out of the doors with two bags of clothes to my name I walked in with one I had two when I left there's a place called the blessing room which was awesome to me God's good he's a giver I came to Omaha got a job at a very good company met my wife in 2000 we married and now we have five kids eighteen grandkids I've since owned my own business had a wonderful life over the last 20 years and now currently I am the director of the Omaha reentry house and I share the directorship with the Beatrice Women's Center with my wife Teresa Barnes it's been a full circle my passion for this ministry is deep I've seen what God can do I've seen the men come out of this program and go on and do great things astronomical things that they could never have done on their own you're never too far gone you're never too low you're never too hopeless there's always hope and that's what Teen Challenge provides hope for the hopeless and we we love people and we love to see attics set free and if you or someone you love needs help please call us or go to our website at TC mid dot org visit us on Facebook like us on facebook visit us on instagram we have YouTube channels we'd love to hear from you

Channel: SheepGate

Views: 2,813

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: Teen Challenge, Teen Challenge Iowa, Teen Challenge Nebraska, Teen Challenge of the Midlands, Teen Challenge Midlands, Desperate True Stories, Powerful Christian Testimonies, addict, drug addict, cure for addiction, drug addicting, Christian rehab, Christian drug addiction, Christian drug addict, Curtis Barnes, powerful testimony

Id: Eh85EeZmCIw

Length: 17min 17sec (1037 seconds)

Published: Mon Feb 18 2019