My name is Mike. I am 27 years old and was born and raised in Kelowna, BC. I was born into a wonderful family, to parents who loved me dearly. When I was a young boy, my father battled drug addiction and alcohol abuse and my mother decided to take me and my younger brother away with her to a safe place. My mother came to know Christ here, and shortly after, my father did too, and was delivered of his alcohol and drug abuse, and was transformed into the family man he was destined to be.
I grew up knowing God, but chose to find my comfort in the arms of the world and all it had to offer. I quickly got involved with the wrong crowd and was introduced to marijuana. This path of destruction only led me further into the world of cocaine. From the time I was 16 to 20, I was losing jobs and friends to this drug. I went to Calgary in hopes to figure things out, but ended up homeless.
I began to sell drugs in order to support my addiction which landed me to a 3.5 year prison sentence; I only ended up doing 33 months of time, though. I knew in early 2007 that I needed to get right with God and that Teen Challenge would be a great means for that to happen. I know from my past that the only way out is to have Christ be the center of my life. In Psalm 40:2 it reads, “You pulled me from a lowly pit full of mud and mire. You let me stand on a rock with my feet firm.” I am so thrilled to say today that my life is new and that slowly, but surely, Christ is transforming every aspect of my life to make me the man He destined me to be; a man living abundantly in His love and bringing glory to His name in all I do.