Hello, my name is Troy Bryant. I am from Houston, Texas and I am 20 years old. When I was five years old I was in a car accident along with my mother and father. My mother died in the car and my father went into a coma because of his injuries. Fortunately, I was not hurt. I lived with my father after he came out of the coma.

My dad remarried and became a minister at our church, but when I turned fourteen he got arrested for aggravated assault. This turned my heart cold. I was already in the gothic scene, and his getting arrested made me think that Jesus wasn’t the person I wanted to be like. So, I clung to being gothic. Then I moved to Southwest Houston where I got more into a ghetto lifestyle. I found that for acceptance, I would conform to whomever I was hanging out with. I never got into drugs and never drank alcohol. I smoked (marijuana) twice and did not like it but I would always go out and party.

I had run away from home and was staying with some friends when a deacon from my church came and talked to me about getting my life together. He told me about Youth-Reach and after God softened my heart, I went. At Youth-Reach God worked on my heart. It was there where I really got to know who God was and we developed a loving relationship there.

I soon experienced love I had never felt before. I have been a resident at Youth-Reach for a year and a half. I’ve had my ups and downs on where God wanted me to go, but I persevered and God has developed character in me by taking me through the fire. I stopped living the life that I wanted and I am now living the Christ life choosing to be like Him.

I no longer live in fear and depression because God has not given me a spirit of fear but He has given me joy and the desire to have Him use me in any way He chooses to show people Jesus by living my life. I no longer want to be quick to get angry so, now I am choosing to be quick to love. Now I see the world differently, and recognize that God cries for the souls of His people and we have to go out and be instruments that God can use. Youth-Reach is only a season for me but it will be a season that I will never forget. God used Youth-Reach and the counselors there to speak to me. Now I look to the future with no fear because I trust the one who died for my soul.