Hi, my name is John Bartel. I am 20 years old, and I am from Houston Texas. I come from a Christian home where my parents are still married. When I was in seventh grade, some friends and I decided to smoke a cigarette. I would have to say, that at that age it made me feel accepted and cool. All the things my parents taught me didn’t matter because I had decided to go my own way and this was the beginning of my downhill spiral to the bottom of the pit.

By the time I started high school I was drinking and doing drugs. My life seemed to fall apart day by day; I would sneak out of my parents’ house to get drunk and smoke pot. When I was fifteen I got my first ticket, minor in possession of alcohol; the police brought me home to my parents. My dad searched my room and found pot. So, they decided they’d had enough of my disobedience. They told me about this boys home called Youth-Reach and I went. The problem was that I went for them and not because I was at the end of myself.

After seven months of living at Youth-Reach I decided that I’d had enough, and manipulated my mom into letting me go home. My dad was furious and wouldn’t even get in the car with me! I wasn’t ready to change; it was all a game to get home. It only took about a month and I was smoking pot and drinking again. This time it wasn’t just pot. The pills, sex and cocaine would all become addictions.

My mom would always try to sit me down and talk to me about God but I wanted nothing to do with it. I would curse God and make excuses for why I hated Him. I remember clear as day when I would say, “Can’t God fix my life?” mocking God. Things were only getting worse. I had begun to steal from family and friends to support my addictions. Sex was becoming part of my lifestyle. It’s sad how many girls’ lives I’ve messed up for my own pleasure.

I started to venture into pornography and it too became a heavy addiction in my life. My little brother and sister were exposed to many things that they should have never seen because of me. From the times they saw me drunk or on pills to the times that they saw me fighting with my parents. My parents loved me so much, and they still wanted to help me, so they paid for me to go to rehab out of their own pocket. But I didn’t want change; it was just part of the game. After rehab, things didn’t get any better. For about two years I would get kicked out my home only to be allowed to return after about two months over and over. They would let me back into the house only to be hurt by the way I acted and treated them.

I started to get into crystal meth, anything to make me temporarily feel ok. My parents would tell me that my friends and I would wind up dead or in prison, but I thought it would never happen to me. Well, it did. I lost a friend in a drunk driving accident and two others committed suicide. I finally got to the point where I realized that I couldn’t do it anymore, so I called Youth-Reach, got an application, filled it out and was accepted again.

Three days after I arrived at Youth-Reach I became angry with a staff member, Jimmy Garcia. Once again deciding that I knew what was best, I left Youth-Reach with no place to go. I got dropped off and was living in the woods. I had no money, only a box of pop-tarts and a can of tuna fish. It was then that I came to the end of myself. I cried out to God for something. I didn’t know what, but it was part of God’s plan to get me to see my need for Him. Three days later I called my dad and he said, “ John, I talked with Youth-Reach and they want to talk to you about coming back.” I finally broke. After everything I did to them they were willing to try again.

I graduated Youth-Reach in August of 2006 and I am now a studet at Christ for the nations Institute in Dallas. God has repaired my relationships with my family, and is constantly revealing things in my own life I never saw. It amazes me that my whole life I mocked God and now He is all I want. God is everything I need, my provider, my provision.