Rock's Story

Rock was born in 1959 in Wisconsin. His father, who died when Rock was 12, left Rock's mother when she was pregnant with Rock. Rock never met him.

"My mother didn't beat me because she was drunk. She beat me because I looked like my father," Rock observes. It was the early 60s and as Rock says, "people had a tendency to mind their own business. I'd go to school black and blue, all scratched up. Today somebody would've stepped in sooner."

Finally, when he was 11 years old, someone did. Social services. And that began his roller coaster ride of life as a child in foster care.

"I was messed up..."

When social services removed Rock from his mother's home, they placed him in an area facility for children with emotional issues.

"It's like they finally got the idea, ‘Oh, this kid is coming to school every day with scratches, bruises and head injuries. Maybe we should do something about it,'" Rock recalls.

At first he didn't mind staying at the facility. He was still able to attend school and he got involved in activities like boxing. But that activity was taken away after awhile. "It started to feel like prison," Rock remembers. "I was messed up, but I kept saying I wanted out of there. Believe it or not, I still wanted to go home because I cared about my siblings."

In fact, for a time, Rock was allowed to go home on visits. But when he found out from his social worker that he would never be allowed to once again live permanently at home, he requested an end to the visits. "I figured if they weren't going to let me live there, why keep visiting and putting myself through that," he says.

When he was 12, Rock was placed in his first foster home. Again, at first the new home didn't seem like such a bad deal. However, after a few months Rock began to sense that his foster family was using him for work. So when he was 13, he called his social worker and threatened to run away.

"It didn't take them long to come get me and put me in a new home."

He was placed in the home of a 50-year-old woman, a "true Christian," Rock recalls.

"She was a wonderful lady," he says. "She glowed like she was filled with the Holy Ghost. There was something she had and I wanted it," he says.

But it was in the same home that Rock was first introduced to drugs by other teens living in the home.

"I went through the motions of accepting Jesus and going to church. At the same time, I was smoking pot and eventually dealing. I thought I'd found God, but I didn't think there was anything wrong with marijuana."

Eventually his drug use was discovered, and Rock was placed in a new home.

"It was just the same thing over and over..."

Rock was placed and removed and placed and removed several more times throughout his teenage years. He ran away a couple different times and spent months in hiding. And throughout it all, his drug use and dealing heightened.

In fact, in one of his foster homes, the guardian ended up becoming one of Rock's buyers. Finally, when Rock was 17, he left the foster care system for the last time, moving in with a girl. "I was with her a couple years, but between the drugs and alcohol, obviously it didn't work out."

As for school, Rock had dropped out by 10th grade. "I was dealing drugs and making so much money, I didn't think I needed an education."

Things continued to spiral downhill.

"As I got older, it was just the same thing over and over – girls, bars, drugs, selling. Then when I was 26, I got turned on to cocaine. It wasn't long before I started using that regularly and then I had to start selling it to support my habit."

That lasted from 1986 until 1989, he remembers. "In 1989 I sold to an undercover cop and went to prison."

"It only takes one..."

Throughout his adult years, Rock was arrested many times and landed in prison once. In Madison, Wisconsin, alone, he remarks, he was arrested more than 50 times. "Yeah, the cops know me there," he says.

A couple times he ended up on the run from the law as well, including once when he got into a fight at his job while on work release. Instead of returning to prison at the end of the day like he was supposed to, he took off.

"I was on the run for a couple months. But eventually I went back to the same neighborhood, started selling cocaine again. I thought I was so slick and that as soon as I got enough money, the girl I was with and I would vamoose. But a cop recognized me and I went back to jail," he recounts.

During those years, Rock also tried out a number of treatment and in-patient programs in an effort to curb his drug and alcohol problems.

"I tried a few 30 day programs, but they were never enough for me," he says.

It was the ending of an eight-year-long relationship with a woman that Rock says sent him "off the deep end."

"I'd been doing okay for awhile, but after the breakup, my drinking really escalated," he says. So he hooked up with a buddy named Wolf who was known for "riding the rails." Rock rode with Wolf as far as Minnesota before they were separated.

Eventually, Rock ended up in Des Moines, where he became connected to a local church which provided him a job and a place to live." I was baptized there. For a long time, I was doing good—for about six months, actually."

"But eventually I slipped back into alcohol. I ran into old friends," he adds. "It only takes one and you're right back into it."

"I was sick..."

During one of his many stretches without a home in Des Moines, a friend suggested Rock stay at Hope Ministries' Bethel Mission emergency men's shelter. And so he did. Several times, in fact. At one point, Rock even went so far as to enter the STEP program, the transitional evaluation period of our long-term men's recovery program.

But time after time staff at Bethel Mission would watch him walk out the door to return to his old lifestyle. Sometimes he would break the rules and program staff would have to ask him to leave.

"I was released a number of times, but I don't have any resentment," Rock says. "Each time I was in the wrong. Obviously I wasn't being a good example to the other guys. The rules are there for a reason."

Last year, Rock found himself living in a tent camp alongside a river in Des Moines. He'd been released, once again, from our Bethel Mission facility.

And the emptiness of his life ate at him more than ever before.

"I was sick of going to detox, sick of living that way. It was no way to live. It's a miserable life. Being an alcoholic is a worse life than you can imagine," he says. "So I went back to Bethel. And I decided this time it was going to be different."

"I've never felt this way before..."

The day Rock transitioned from our STEP program at Bethel Mission to our Door of Faith men's recovery center, program staff at Bethel cheered! Today he is several months into the recovery program—taking classes, learning life skills, receiving counsel and accountability and best of all, growing in his relationship with Christ.

"Something happened to me. Something inside, and I know it's God," he says. "I've never felt this way before. I've always been anxious, worried, but not anymore. For the first time, I have faith and trust. I don't know what God's will is for me, but whatever it is, I know it's good."

"Don't get me wrong," he adds. "I still want my own place someday. I want a job and maybe a good Christian wife. I want to settle down and live a normal life…a life for God. But for right now, I'm content where I'm at because I'm where God wants me."

As for alcohol, he hasn't had a drink since the day he left the tent camps and returned to Hope Ministries.

"The taste for alcohol has completely left me. The Lord took it away, that's the only explanation I can give. I have no desire for it anymore," he says. And he doesn't plan to ever go back to it. "If you give the devil a foothold, he'll take it. He has tools, alcohol being one of them. But I can honestly say I'm done. I'm living for the Lord now."

Looking back over his life, Rock says he "should've been dead time and time again."

"Coming to Hope Ministries saved my life. When nothing else was working, coming here did," he says. "It's like a sanctuary here. I'm in the Word; I have a relationship with Christ."

And the future? Well, Rock says it's looking good.

"I don't know what God's will is for me, but whatever it is, I know it's something good. He has a plan for me."

Rock's story begins on a low note, but ends with hope. You can be a part of giving hope to homeless men, women and children served by Hope Ministries by participating in our first annual walk-a-thon and "walking a mile in their shoes." Thank you for your support!

Click here to read more about Rock in our July/August Newsletter