After the Winter

By Lynne Larson

I really dislike winter. I despise the cold, the brownness, the general lack of life. I see winter as a necessary evil, but it gives me a deeper appreciation for the life and beauty that follow in spring.

Recently, as I walked to work, I slowed my pace to drink in the change of season. The way was lined with green trees, the air filled with the incredible scent of honeysuckle. I was so busy focusing on where I was going that I almost didn’t notice spring had arrived.

As I enjoyed the beautiful transformations around me, God brought to mind the men and women who enter Betel. Betel International is a church-planting ministry among drug addicts, alcoholics and other marginalized people. Most of the men and women are in the winter of their lives by the time they come to us. A lack of life and hope fills them as the years of drug and alcohol abuse have robbed their lives of anything beautiful. At Betel they find help and hope as God takes them into the spring of their lives.

Sisi grew up living with her grandmother in Bulgaria. Despite a difficult family life, she succeeded in school and sports. But she desperately sought something to fill her empty heart. She tried filling this emptiness with alcohol and attention from other women. She lost everything, including her place on the volleyball team and her reputation. In desperation she threw herself off the seventh floor of a building. Thankfully, God spared her. She says, “God had other plans for me.”

Christians in Sisi’s country befriended her and helped her enter Betel Madrid. She wrestled with God to let go of her desire for alcohol and affection for women. She recalls, “My life started over when I was born again in 2007. I learned a lot, but the most important thing is that without God I am no one. God has changed me completely. Now, thanks to the Lord, I am the woman that our heavenly Father has created me to be, with a precious husband whom I love with all my heart and our child that is now on the way.”

Juan Carlos is Sisi’s husband. He had his own difficult background. At the age of nine, he was drunk for the first time. By the time he was 14, he quit school. His life consisted of drinking and smoking pot. He began using and trafficking cocaine and at 18 started shooting up heroin. To pay for his habit, he started stealing from his family and then from others.

During one robbery he was caught. Then God started the process of his transformation. A judge allowed him to enter a Christian rehabilitation center instead of serving time in jail. Juan Carlos recalled of his early days in rehab, “Even though I thought they were crazy, I saw something in them that I wanted. They were happy, they laughed and the best part was that they weren’t doing drugs.”

As God changed his life, he began to recover the love and trust of his family. But a relapse nearly cost him everything. While trafficking drugs from Spain to Ecuador, he was caught again. He was bitter and didn’t care if he lived or died. But God in His great mercy rescued him. Literally! A Christian came to the prison to preach. God touched Juan Carlos’ heart, and he told the Christian about his life and asked if he could help him get out of prison. “This is where God showed me how great He is like never before. Half-an-hour later the guard came and set me free. How great is God!”

Juan Carlos returned to Spain and entered Betel. God has been molding and changing him. He married Sisi last May, and they are expecting a baby. They are involved with the drama ministry and evangelism campaigns. These two new persons in Christ added, “God has done so much for us, and we owe everything to him; therefore we simply want to be tools in His hands and allow Him to do with us what he wishes, which will be His best for us.”

Anastasia came to Betel Madrid from Siberia! Her life derailed at 18 when she and her boyfriend began using drugs. Until then she had a good relationship with her family and was studying at a tourism academy. She related, “Everything happened so fast. I lost my family, my friends and my studies. Nobody trusted me.”

She got pregnant and was clean her first six months. Then she used heroin again for a month. Her son Dani was born two months early. For four months she stole to pay for food and slept in a different place every night. One day she was caught stealing, and Social Services took Dani from her. Her mother presented her with her only two options: stay in Russia and lose custody of her son, or go to Betel in Spain with Dani. She chose Betel.

It’s never easy to detox from drugs. Anastasia’s struggle was worse because she had Dani to care for and did not speak the local language. But the love and care of the women in the house showed her what a relationship with Jesus Christ really meant. She became a believer and was baptized in August 2008.

Anastasia believes in the God of second chances. She is planning to marry another Betelito, Sergio, who is also from Russia. Only God could orchestrate a love story that brings together two young drug addicts from Siberia in a rehabilitation center in Spain! They desire to serve together in Betel to give to others what has freely been given to them. Anastasia says, “I don’t know what will happen in the future, but I know God has good plans for us.”

Carmen is another miracle in the women’s center. She said, “My life before wasn’t very different than others in Betel—drugs, bad living, sleeping in cardboard boxes, in abandoned cars and vans, etc.” Her life meant nothing to her. Even though she lived on the streets, she rarely felt fear. She begged during the day and stole at night. Her “routine” was stealing purses from bars and pubs.

One night she met a woman who told her about Betel. Carmen took a brochure but was not ready to change her life. However, the seed was planted. She couldn’t stop hearing what the woman said about getting help. “I think that I did not want to believe it,” she recalled.

Shortly after this conversation, she heard about a fellow drug addict who was brutally beaten, set on fire and murdered. She felt afraid and searched her purse for the Betel information. The brochure was barely legible, but “mysteriously” the phone number was intact.

She remembers well those first days in the center. She was overwhelmed by the love and care of the women in the house. She shared, “What impacted me wasn’t what they did, but the compassion and respect with which they treated us. And they were just like us! They were also in rehabilitation. How strange!”

In time she learned more about Jesus, and even though she didn’t understand much at first, she started asking questions, reading the Bible and seeing answers to prayers. “I saw His love and His kindness in those all around me. I wanted to be like that. If the example of these women was Jesus, I wanted to be the same.”

Carmen was baptized after eight months at Betel. She has been a Betelita for five years. She says, “My goal is to continue participating in the love of God, following Jesus’ steps and teaching others what and who saved my life.”

It’s an amazing privilege to work with Betel and witness how God restores lives here. To personally watch each Betelito bloom from his or her dead winter season to a spring season of life and growth and love is an incredible blessing. We are always in need of workers of all different professional backgrounds to come alongside our Betelitos to serve and be an example as they grow in Christ. If God is touching your heart, check out our Web site www.betel.org to consider how God might use you to reach these lost, precious individuals.

> More stories of how God is using Betel to transform people's lives.

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