A Story of Deliverance - Part IX

The journey has been long and it has at times been very hard. The journey is definitely not over. It is in a new phase, a phase full of hope and promise. Thank you so much for sharing the journey with Kevin and me. The writing of the journey has been good for both of us. Kevin told me last night that writing his journey has made him realize how different he is from many other people, how much God has brought him through, how much purpose he has because of God's grace and salvation and protection. Thank you for the encouragement many of you have given us to publish our story. We would love to do that, and will definitely do some research to see if we can make that happen. We trust our story has touched hearts of those who may have "happened" upon it that we know nothing about.

Please go HERE for Kev's Chapter 9, then return for my point of view. If you have just found our story and are interested in reading the rest, we are both linked on my sidebar.

Kevin came home from the hospital after many days on I.V. antibiotics of the highest strength possible, after two surgeries on his elbow, after much soul searching on his part. As I mentioned in Part VIII, everyone who came into his room seemed to be sent by God to uplift him and encourage him, as well as to aid in his physical healing. I met with the after-care coordinator, who was wonderful. She did a lot of research on places he could go. I was doing research on the Internet at the same time. It was difficult to find a good program. We'd already tried one that didn't work. We couldn't afford to do another expensive program, especially when the first one didn't work out.

But the first order of business was to get Kevin completely well. The elbow was still oozing some infection. He went back to the surgeon several times, and the only option was to re-open the wound and do more surgery - not a viable option with the cost and lack of great insurance. Kev was really emaciated when he went to the hospital - he weighed around 150 pounds on his 6 foot + frame. He spent days on the couch, recuperating, eating Mom's food, getting stronger and better every day. After a couple of weeks, we packed up his things and headed to the program we'd been in touch with. It was very close to home, and in retrospect, would have not worked well - even if it had been a good program. It was supposed to be a Christian based program. When we got there, I got a really bad feeling. I've learned to rely a lot on my "gut" feelings. I believe it is often discernment from God. We took his things to a dark, dank basement of a house. There was no room for anything that he brought. There was no heat down there. The beds were scrunched together. We insisted that he stay, but I didn't feel good about it. The young man who was to be his "mentor" could not answer our questions about the focus and structure of the program. In fact, he told us he'd gone home the week-end before to visit his mom and had "scored" while he was there. Relapse was part of recovery. That was also the philosophy of the expensive place we had sent him previously.

The next day, Kev was brought back down to our hospital emergency room because of his elbow. He called me from there and asked me to pick him up. It went against what I wanted to do, but could not deny the bad feeling I had about that place. I picked him up, went up to get his things, was given a lecture about "rescuing" from the above mentioned young man. Nobody ever called to find out why he left. I felt good about "rescuing" him from this situation.

So we began again. Shortly after that I called him from work one day and asked him to call my friend (well, he was a former boyfriend who had broken my heart - I talk about this in my 100th Post, #97), whose son had completed Tēēn Challenge (henceforth referred to as TC) and was a changed person. He actually did it right away - R called his son at the Chicago airport and asked him to call Kevin right away. They were immediate kindred spirits - in fact T, the young man, told his dad that Kev's story was his story. He began encouraging Kev to get busy on getting well and to get far away from home.

It was Christmas time, there were some legal things to take care of, nobody was in their offices, and things came to a standstill. But God was not taking a vacation, and He was working things out. Kev continued to heal, continued to gain weight (he gained 25 pounds during that six weeks at home), and continued to realize his need of getting to TC as soon as possible.

If I had time to tell you all of the barriers that fell in this process, it would be several more posts. Suffice it to say that T was able to find him a bed in New Haven, Connecticut. It was a longer program than others, and very intense. As Kev mentioned, we went to Denver to meet with the director there, who had been asked by New Haven to interview Kev and ascertain if he was really ready to do this - they didn't want him coming that far and bolting for home at the first tough moment. In the midst of this process, Kev decided he'd like to go to Florida instead. There were tense moments as he awaited a call from the director down there. It never came. But Sunday evening, before he was to leave on Monday, God came to him and he relinquished his will and made up his mind to follow through with the plan to leave for Connecticut the next morning.

In the meantime, Sema had returned from her Christmas trip to Germany to be with her sister who lives there and her parents, who were able to get to Germany when they were not allowed into America. She had been able to distance herself from the situation and her anger had mellowed. They were able to spend that Sunday night together and mend some things before he left. She moved in with us and stayed the entire time he was gone, working full time and earning a second degree. I hope someday she'll write her side of this story.

We borrowed the church van and made a huge event of taking Kev to the airport with the whole family going along. It was a great moment, and a poignant one, when we stood above the security line and watched him head down the concourse by himself - off to start life anew. (For an idea of what he was facing, you can go to this post for information.)

TC is not for the faint of heart. It is hard work. Kev spent countless hours in study and days in fund raising outside of stores all over the East Coast. He sang in choir on the week-ends - that was such a kick for me, because he hadn't had any interest in singing since the 6th grade when they had a really pretty music teacher the boys called "Barbie." He was not allowed to call us for 30 days, and then could call once a week. It wasn't a smooth road - there were some detours along the way that required some discipline. His elbow was still infected when he went - we prayed diligently that it would heal, because he could not afford to leave that place once he was there. God heard our prayers - in a week-end retreat with guys from all over New England TC, they prayed for healing for him. God answered those prayers - the next morning the infection was totally gone. What a wonderful miracle to bolster Kev's fledgling faith!

I don't remember the exact timing, but it was in this time period that God reached down and grabbed Kevin's heart. He finally saw his need of the Saviour. He repented, accepted Christ's forgiveness and love, and has never been the same. He likes to say that what he experienced was not rehab, not recovery, not even restoration, but DELIVERANCE.

I believe it was in April that he took a huge step. We would have loved to be there, but had to settle for this picture.

This was taken in upper New York, early spring, and the water was very cold! But what a thrill for Kevin to make this public profession of his newfound faith.

We began to get requests for larger clothes. He was gaining so much weight and was so healthy that nothing fit him any more. The guys would "bless" each other with things they could not wear any more, and he did this with his outgrown clothes. I was so excited to see how good he looked.

This was taken in front of the church they attended when they were in town for the week-end. Most week-ends they were traveling, sharing their testimonies and singing for churches all over the Eastern seaboard.

The program in New Haven required the guys to go to a different location for a few months. Kev went to the Boston area for awhile. It was during that time that we were privileged to visit him. Sema had been able to go while he was still in New Haven, and another time when he was in Brockton. We went for the Harvest Festival. We told Kevin later that as long as he had to get into this situation, it was sure nice of him to go to a place we hadn't visited before so we could see something brand new. We had an awesome day going up the coast to the tip of the U.S.A., up Cape Cod and back until we could get together with him that evening for the banquet. We had a great time with him and met so many wonderful young guys whose lives were being transformed. We were amazed to see how many really sharp young guys could get so snarled up in such a destructive lifestyle. But the glory of God was evident in their faces. What a blessing to see before and after pictures at the banquet presentation. Their eyes were so devoid of life before Christ came into their hearts - the transformation was absolutely breathtaking.

As he indicated in his latest post, Kevin left much of his heart in New Haven, Connecticut. This is a city of contrasts - wealthy Yale students on one side of the city, and abject poverty on the other. TC is in the poorer part of town. They need somebody to give them a lot of money for improvements! But it was not the buildings that made New Haven TC what it was. Here is a look at some of the facilities that Kevin worked and lived in.

The facilities in Massachusetts were much nicer, but Kev was very happy to get back to Connecticut for the last few weeks of his time in TC.

On June 14, almost a year ago, our prodigal son returned home. What a glorious day that was for us.

It was just at this time that I "met" Diane at Partners in Prayer for Our Prodigals. Kristen, my daughter, introduced us, because she felt we had so much in common and absolutely had to be in touch. What a wonderful friendship it has become. Even before I started blogging in late June, Diane hosted a "Welcome Home" event for Kevin. You can read those HERE, HERE, and HERE. What fun it was! I became acquainted with many of you because of Diane's excitement.

Kevin's life was spared at least 5 times in two years. He was kept from incarceration through miraculous circumstances. There is a reason God has kept him alive and, as I told him when he came home from the hospital that Saturday, it is his job to find out what that purpose is and get busy doing it.

Kevin is currently a junior in social work, in the very program where I work with the grad level students. He is excited about the possibilities of international social work. Please continue to pray for him and Sema as their future unfolds.

A Story of Deliverance - Part VIII

It is the end of Mother's Day 2007. My children, grandchildren, and parents were with me today for dinner after church. It was especially wonderful because Kevin was with us - he has missed the last two Mother's Day celebrations. Please go to his wife's site to read his latest chapter, then come back and read my response. If you have not read our story to this point, you will find all of the chapters linked on my sidebar.

Last night after Feisty's birthday party, Kev and Sema, DC and I went for a refreshing, enjoyable walk through their neighborhood. We had a great time together and it was such a blessing. On the way home, DC and I were listening to a Dallas Holm c.d., which we've had for years. There are many songs on this c.d. that I have always loved, but this one had not struck me until hearing it last night. The song is called "I've Never Been Out of His Care." It is written by Phil Johnson. The words that came alive last night are a perfect explanation of why Kevin is still alive today. The first verse and chorus say this:

The eyes of God are upon me, He sees everything I do.

The arms of God are around me, He keeps me safe and secure.

And He knows where I am every hour of every day

He knows each thought I think,

He knows each word that I might say.

And although there’ve been times I’ve been out of His will,

I’ve never been out of His care.

If you have read Kev's latest chapter before coming over here, you know what I mean. He is a walking miracle. I mentioned in Chapter VIII that our friends took him back for the 5th time as a welder. He talks about "using" one night and getting caught the next day. Apparently, this was a fairly common occurrence back in the manufacturing plant, but he pushed it a bit farther than normal and got caught. I am glad he did. But this firing was such a blow, because these friends bend over backward to rehabilitate and restore people to their jobs, and give them chance after chance. He felt like such a failure to be fired from this company.

In typical form, which I did not want to believe, Kev asked to borrow my car to go look for a job in a town a few miles away. Against my better judgment, I trusted him once again and let him take it. When he wasn't home by dinnertime, I was alarmed. The little town was only 5 miles away. The call we got hours later was very mixed up and nonsensical. He was somewhere in the depths of Denver, lying through his teeth about everything that had happened that day and everything that was happening at that moment. Bottom line, my car was wrecked. He was able to drive it to the halfway point between Denver and home, so we headed down there to help him get it home. At a point a few miles north, it was no longer driveable, so somehow we called a tow truck to meet us there on the dark, cold interstate highway. DC sat in the car waiting for the tow truck while I sat in the truck with Kev. It was then that I truly knew something was way off. He was making no sense whatsoever. It was past 2:00 a.m. when the tow truck finally arrived and insisted on taking the car back south again instead of to our town. It would be over two weeks before we'd get it back because the repairs were so extensive.

When we got back to our town, Kev wanted to stop at Taco Bell because he was starving. I said no, I just wanted to get home, and I had dinner left that I could heat up for him. I heated it and took it up to his room, said good-night, and collapsed exhausted into bed.

At 5:30, when I got up to get ready for work, I noticed that the light was still on in his room. I knocked, opened the door, and found the food, untouched, on his bed. I thought maybe he had fallen asleep downstairs - I had found him slumped over the computer one morning, sound asleep, and hoped that had happened again. When he wasn't anywhere in the house, my heart began to beat in my stomach. I looked out the kitchen window and screamed for DC to call 911. There was Kev, sitting up in a lawn chair in the back yard. I thought sure he was dead, but didn't know how he could still be sitting up. I ran out there and found him stiff as a board, not dead, but unconscious, and very, very cold. Somehow I got him out of the chair onto the ground. The paramedics arrived in the fire truck, and the police came as well. We live on a culdesac, so it created quite a stir in the neighborhood.

Kev was taken to our hospital and I went on to work, so angry that I didn't care to talk to him at any point in that day. The feelings that writing this bring back are chilling. I had finally reached a point of total loss. This was the 3rd overdose in a few months, and the first of 3 wrecked cars. DC and I decided after work that we should visit him at the hospital. He was not there and nobody could or would (thanks to HIPAA) tell us where he might be. My thoughts were that he had bolted from the hospital and was dead in a ditch somewhere.

That night, we had a get-together with a 4x4 group from church and we went, pretending nothing was wrong. We certainly were not going to share this with these people in a social gathering. There was nothing we could do about Kev that night, and we needed something to take our minds off of the trauma. We did leave much earlier than anyone else, though, and headed home to receive a phone call a short time later. They had taken him to a mental health facility in a town 30 miles east of us. They can only hold them for a few days. We went to visit him one time, and then went to bring him home. He was there without any shoes or change of clothes.

Sema was on her way back here about this time, and arrived shortly after this episode, in time for all of us to go to some family counseling at the facility. He was able to go for a minimal cost for a few weeks. I don't know how much it helped Kev, but I did gain some help from these sessions in beginning to understand the physical and psychological grip these substances had on our son. I don't know if more time there would have helped or not. But once again I had hope.

Kev and Sema rented a cute little house downtown, close enough to his new job at the bronze sculpture company that he could ride a bike. Things started out with great anticipation for a clean, normal life. But it wasn't long before it was obvious that he was still not well. Sema would call and ask if we knew where Kev was. That always made me sick to my stomach. She ended up in the hospital with surgery on a non-existent appendicitis - long story - but Kev acted so strange. I was with her all night and day. He took the day off to be with her, but only came in and out sporadically. It was very strange.

Kev and I did spend quite a bit of time in the waiting room in the middle of the night talking to one of his pastors, who came when he was called after midnight. I realize now that Kev was most likely under the influence at that moment. But he was telling the pastor things I'd never heard before and I was horrified.

Thanksgiving Day they came to my folks' house for dinner - very late. Kev was again acting so strange. He went back and slept the afternoon away in my mom and dad's room. He had swelling in his arm and he was telling Sema all sorts of stories about why this was happening. We were all worried, but just could not believe that he was still doing this to himself. We still didn't really understand, I guess.

The day he bolted from his work place and locked himself in his house (you can read more about this in his post) was the same day that Sema found out her parents were not going to be allowed to leave Kenya to come and visit her for Christmas. The American Embassy would not grant them a visitor visa. In retrospect, I am very glad they weren't here, but at the time, it was a huge blow to her. (Sema eventually was able to work out a trip to Germany to visit her sister, and her parents were able to get there too, for Christmas). She had just learned this news when she got the call at work from the police that Kev was barricaded in their house. Her boss took her home and called me. I couldn't leave at that moment, so DC went home to be with her.

I again did not want to talk to him. It was two days later that he called and asked if anybody was ever going to call or visit him. I told him that frankly I didn't have a clue what to say to him any more. It was then I learned how seriously ill he was and that, again, he could have died if God had not had His hand on his life. He eventually had two surgeries on his terribly infected elbow (see Kev's story), and was on the most potent antibiotic there is, intravenously, for 10 days because of a blood infection.

I finally went up to visit him. I found him lucid and repentant. Different from every other time. Every single person who came into his room when I was there - nurses, nurse aids, social workers - had a special love for him that was supernatural. I ran into a nursing student who had grown up in our church and had begun a very troubled life when her parents divorced. She had found her way and was about to finish her nursing degree. She was not able to care for Kev because she knew him, but she told me she was praying for him. I just bawled and thanked her. But everyone that went into his room those many days was sent by God. They loved and cared him back to health.

Sema would not see him, and I don't blame her. I couldn't not see him because he was my son. But the trust issue was huge. He could not go home to his wife and we told him he could only stay with us until he was healthy and had found a place to go to get the help he so desperately needed. The search for that place was much harder than we anticipated.

TO BE CONTINUED.