God's Word in Testimony

Delia's Journey Continued:

 So I got clean, I got my son back. I started raising him.  By the time I was finished the child Protective services program they put me in the methadone treatment program where the legal limit is 40 (milligrams) and I was on 120 milligrams. Because of such abuse I did to my body, I was going to this program Monday thru Saturday. I added drugs to the methadone to medicate the pain from the childhood I had suffered.

I found a bus one day, the white NYC relief bus, across the street from where I live. Free food and chocolate, new clothing with tags! Who are these people giving food and clothes away? Every week I kept coming back. The love of Christ was drawing me there, giving me love and understanding. The smiles wouldn't  go away. Finally I was 2 ½ years going for the soup, the sandwiches, the hot chocolate, and I would stay to the end and help them close. I would go early to the program and stand early and let no one park in that parking place because the bus would arrive at 10 o'clock. God was working on me. I was a very hard person to deal with because I “m from the streets. I don't have an education but now I have the Holy Ghost education. I didn't have a diploma or anything. So I just lived a hard life. They started bringing it out of me.

One day I met a volunteer…her name was Monica…and a woman named Johanna who came from Finland. She was very, very young, eighteen years old. This young girl had an impact on my life.  Today I stand before you whole and free and with a new heart with all the glory to God humbly, but God puts people in your life that lead you to that way, and Johanna from Finland was one of them and Monica was one of them. In those 2 ½ years it took me a year to open up to them. Groups like Pastor Mason brought would smile at me and I would smile back but  I would look for those two because of that trust. I couldn't trust nobody. As I talked to them weekly they would pray for me and I would ask them questions.  “You are crazy to leave your home and come to my neighborhood where there is no future here…we have nothing: drug addiction,  inner city kids being molested, domestic violence, drugs, a hard life. You don't fit here, belong here.

They were telling me “It is the love of Christ in us. We need to come out here and reach out to you because you need to know about Jesus.” When they would leave I would be sad because I need to wait another week. That infectious love was getting to me and God was touching me already. One day I went home and thought, “Maybe you could get clean. Maybe Jesus does love me.” I would go home with such peace that some weekends I would not use for the whole weekend. That week I said, I feel like different; something is going on inside of me.

“We need to pray for you but you need to accept the Lord. You need to clean your heart. You need to give the Lord your sins. You are a new creature in God. The old has passed and the new has come. Do you want to accept the Lord?”  I said yes.

That was the beginning of my life right there. When they put their hands on me, I felt the Lord touch me that day, a gentle touch went through me. I started shaking.

“Something is happening to me” I said. They just kept praying. I started confessing. “Lord, come into my life. Make me new.” I felt so different. A peace took over me, a peace that left me in shock. Monica gave me her number.

“You belong to the Lord now,” they told me. “You need to seek the Lord because you are His child and you need to pray, ask the Lord to give you understanding and knowledge of His word. But I don't have a Bible” so they gave me a little New Testament with the Psalms and Proverbs. I thought, let me look in the computer and find what this is all about. I looked in Yahoo: How many books in the Bible? How many Fruits in the Spirit? What are the virtues and wisdom of God? I was so eager to learn. God is awesome! I took the Bible and read the book of John. I read that Jesus began ministering at the age of 30. What should I do? I am an old person at 45. What can I do? All I know is drugs. I will go to the bus because I know how that operates. Before all these blessings came I had prayed to God in my own language, “Lord I don't know much about you but today I want you to help me get clean.” The weekend Monica gave me a Bible with the Old and New Testament I brought over 25 questions from reading my new Bible.

Pastor Steve said, “Delia, this is the bus. We need to work.”  

I said, “what if we just do five each week? Because there's so much things I need to know. I'm reading but I'm not understanding.”

Pastor Steve said, “I”ll give you Monica and she will help.“ Monica, I just love her. She said call me, but not after 10 o'clock in the evening "because you have already called me 7 times today.”

She would just listen and answer the questions. After a week I said, Pastor Steve I am ready. I went to the program and they will help you to go to detox because they want you just on methadone. God puts us in the highest places. Like right now being in the country. I had to be in detox seven days. They were terrible because I had never been to alcohol detox. I had self-medicated thirty years just so I could feel high. Alcohol detox is the only program where you can die from it. I went through DTs and held my knees because I was shaking so bad. Every day I didn't know how to pray. “Help me, please; you know I want to get clean. Your promise is that you will save me and take me away from this.”

I told the people from the bus that they had to be there at the door of the hospital when I got out. I told them if they were not there I would go back to the drink and there was Pastor Steve when I got out. So then I said, what are you going to do now…I'm leaving with you…

“He said, “with ME?  You can't leave with me. Delia, I'm a man and I do ministry!”

I said, “You”ve got to find some lady to take me in.” He called Monica and we stayed together two weeks. It was so good and we fellowshipped. She put on worship music. I was attracted to the gospel music because the music sounds like the street but the words are ministering to my spirit.

I came out and was back to the bus. I said after two weeks, “Pastor Steve, I'm ready to go through the next detox.”  I was a little confused because when you leave alcohol for over thirty years, it's like slow at grasping things. I would read the Bible and read it again, trying to get something out of it. They sent me to Beth Israel to stay 2 weeks to get off heroin, cocaine, and pills. That detox was hard but I asked for the chaplain from the hospital to come and encourage and pray for me because I was a new believer. He would come every day and pray with me. When I got out I stayed with Monica again. So then all I had to get off of was methadone.

God was already blessing me. I was already volunteering but I was weak and would interpret for Pastor Steve and he would send me on errands.  One day he said, “Delia, you could become a good receptionist.”

 “Not me! I don't know about this stuff!" I said. Now I'm not a pro on a computer but the Lord has given me the knowledge and I know I'm good on the computer now.  I don't use it for anything else but for his kingdom that I use the computer, doing letters for Pastor Steve and I felt special and my confidence is building now. I was falling in love with God praying, “Oh God, you are like my father, my dad never gave me love because there were too many kids and he was tired when he got home from work. But God, you are my father, you love me and anything I ask you give me; whatever I need you provide for me.”

 I went to the program and I told them I am 120 milligrams and want to get off methadone. How do I do this? By state law you are above the limits. You can't leave the program unless you are under 40 milligrams. We don't think this is going to work. You've been many years here. Your going to die. You're not going to be able to do it.”

“I know I am not going to die because I have found the Lord,” I told her.

““Who is the Lord?” she asked.

I knew He saved me. I knew God was doing something. The lady from the program went into the office and I ran out of that place; she was running after me saying, “Keep running from your problems.”

But I said back, “I”m not running from problems, I'm running toward the Lord.” Pastor Steve was on the bus and he saw me and thought I was having a problem with somebody. He called out” Delia, Delia!”

 I said “I”ll be right there!” and you know where the metro train is? I ran in there into the bathroom and got down on my knees and said, “God, these people don't want me off this program and these people are not letting me, but I will do this on my own with you.”

I went to the bus and told Pastor Steve what happened. He thought I was fighting with somebody. But I told him “The enemy wants to keep a stronghold on me but today God is going to deliver me and break that chain and break that bondage.”

 It takes months to get off methadone..I cut back some milligrams each month and went down to 50 milligrams. When he called the hospital I know that God did that. They said they had a bed.  “Delia, they have a bed today!".

“Yeah I want to go.”

“You don't have a suitcase.”

“They have toothpaste and nightgowns. That's all I need.” I had to go to New Jersey, to the Hope Center. The Hope Center help with a food pantry and people who are hopeless and people on drugs.

“You are going to have to stay in Trinitas Hospital in Elisabeth NJ,” Pastor Steve said. When I went in it was a private room with cable. Oh I could do this! The hospitals where I live is 8 to a room and we wait 12 hours to get in the emergency room just to be seen. God was putting me in a high place.  A nurse went to do an assessment and she said, “Are you a Christian?” and  I said that I had just accepted the Lord four months ago and the nurse said, “I am too.“ I knew it was a sign!  God, I know You are taking care of me!

On the  4^th day I got really sick. I couldn't read anymore;  diarrhea, and dehydration.  My nervous system was waking up. When you are on methadone it numbs your nervous system and puts it to sleep. My limbs were flying everywhere. They had to knock me out. I would  weep and weep. The night nurse, Teresa, saw I was a Christian (my Bible was there but I couldn't read it) so she started reading to me at night the Psalms, the book of healing. And I would weep and weep. She brought a little radio so I could listen to Christian radio round the clock. The next day I felt a little better and when I opened my bible it was Philippians 4, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” I kept repeating that ..what did that mean. I was so confused with the drugs. Oh, I see:  If I love him and am connected to Him, He will strengthen me.

When I came back to the bus they couldn't believe it. They wanted me to stay home and rest and Monica and Johanna made soup for me. Sometimes we need to rest and God puts people in front of us to take care of us. I said “God I surrender to you. You saved me from the bottom of the pit. When I thought I was dirty, unclean, unrighteous, you came and took me out and then when  you did, I said, Lord, I need you to make me well because I want to do something for you and I don't know what it is. You saved me for a reason. I kept going to the bus.

Some people would say “I”m going to Africa,” and I would say, “Man, they are going to do these things but what am I going to do?” And I kept praying, the Lord told me that he wanted me right in the middle of where I was. And I said to myself, “ How can I do this…I'm trying to forget my past and He's trying to put me right in the midst of it. And then I remember that He said that those who wait on the Lord will renew their strength, and I said I would submit to this. I went back to my old neighborhood and I started to help with the relief bus and I started taking home fliers telling people that if they need anything, come to the bus. All the people from the methadone treatment program… its right across the street. The enemy lied to me and said, “All those people will hate me,” but I prayed, “Lord whatever, I'm in your hands.” Those people gave me respect! In my life I never had respect from no one but it was according to me because I was always drugged up. I noticed they would tell me, Delia, I can't believe you did it!” and I would say, “It”s not me, it's Christ and what he did for me he can do for you.” And they just weep with me. We were buddies. Most were very kind to me. “Lord," I prayed, "I want to be a listener. Give me a compassionate heart. You had a compassionate heart toward me. Give me compassion for these people.”

I couldn't read a map. I never left the corner of my neighborhood. I'm going to be 48 in January, but all of my life I sat on that corner and thought I was cool …I owned that corner and when I looked back I thought lord how did I waste my life there when I could have been doing work for your kingdom? I just took a burning desire to be there and was faithful in serving the Lord. And today I know how to read a map. I know how to get to places on my own. The lord has recently saved my son. I know when he says he will save my household he means that. God says that he plans to prosper me, he does not have plans to harm me. He has plans for a hope and a future that is open to each one of us today. Each one of us will be blessed by the Lord today. And no matter what you go through, anything you are struggling with, we have a promise.

Delia does floating receptionist work. Her son has accepted the Lord. Delia found out that she earned 826 Amtrack miles coming from Harlem to Buffalo and when she reaches 1,000 she can take another trip. She would like to bring her son with her to an adult camp next year.