Now That Hes Gone

years later, she again got pregnant. She was so hopelessly addicted to drugs and alcohol that she kept using during her pregnancy. Her second son, Daniel, was born with cerebral palsy and weighed just over one pound. With her son dying in her arms, Terri got on a bus and went home to Kalamazoo and asked her mother to help. Her mother immediately put both Terri and the child into her car and took them to Borgess Hospital. After examining Daniel, the doctors at Borgess realized he needed immediate help that they were not prepared to give. So Terri and her son were rushed by ambulance the 150 miles to Detroit, where specialists at Children's Hospital performed an emergency tracheotomy and saved Daniel's life. They stayed at the Ronald McDonald house for two months and when the boy's condition improved they moved back in with Terri's mother in Kalamazoo.
    “Having been through all that,” Terri recalls, “you'd think I would have learned my lesson. But no. The visiting nurses would come to my Mom's house on Fridays and when they did, I used that time to go to the bar and drink. After a while, I left my kids with Mom and went back to my pimp in Florida. One night, I got sloppy drunk and made the mistake of getting in a car with two guys. I realized the spot I was in and pleaded with these men to take me home because I had a sick child. Well, they did drive me back to the apartment, but not before they both raped me.
    “That was it. I finally had had enough. I moved out of the apartment and went back to Michigan, where I got on welfare and started receiving food stamps. I was done with prostitution, but not with booze and drugs. I spent my food stamp money on crack cocaine.”
    Slowly, things began to improve somewhat. When Valadd was five, he started kindergarten and Daniel went to a school for the handicapped. Terri went back to school and got her GED—her high school equivalency certificate. But at night, she still went to a nearby motorcycle club to drink and take drugs. It was there that she met the man who would become her husband. They began dating and soon moved into her great-grandmother's house with her two children.
A Spiritual Awakening
    One night, while she was at the motorcycle club, she went into the bathroom and happened to look in the mirror. “I looked horrible,” she says. “Old and sick and washed up. I could not stand to look at myself. Not a minute longer. So I told my boyfriend that I was done with this and I wanted out. He supported me in this decision and urged me to go to Narcotics Anonymous. That was the start of my recovery.
    “After I had been in NA for a while, my boyfriend's mother, my future mother-in-law, took me with her to church. There my spirit awoke. It was as if I had been crying out to God, and even though He was answering me, I didn't hear. Now, at last, I did hear. I gave myself up to God and got baptized. When I did, my boyfriend asked me to marry him. After we were married, I got a job as a cashier, the first “real job” I could remember having. By that time Valadd was seven and Daniel was five. I needed more income, so I got a job in a factory, where I worked for 11 years.”
    While she was working in the factory, people began to notice that Terri had a special air about her. They heard that she had developed “a relationship with God” and so they went to her with their problems. Not being trained as a minister or counselor, she had no idea what to tell them. So she would just sit with them and pray. They would come away feeling better.
    One weekend, she went on a retreat with a Christian women's group. While sitting and talking, she began to feel sad that the women on the retreat were hurting. She heard God telling her to help these people and her efforts did pay off. A woman from the Deacon's Council saw the effect Terri was having on people and mentioned that a position was opening up for someone with her abilities. She took a job there and began an entirely new life.
    Today, besides her work at the Deacon's Council, Terri hosts a local cable television show called “Testimony TV.” On this show, people tell their stories, some even worse than hers, and testify as to how turning to God has saved their lives.
    “I tell my story on TV, and when someone hears where I have been, what I have done and where I am now they know that there's hope. There is an answer, and that answer rests in the hands of God. I love my work and the important role I play with my show.