11 Aug Cameron is counting his blessings this fall.
“Before, I was lost and scared.”
Growing up in Morristown, Cameron had seen the “Jesus Saves” sign above the entrance to the Market Street Mission many times. It was familiar, but meaningless – until the day his own life unraveled and those words became a turning point, inviting him to experience that life-saving power for himself.
As a child, Cameron experienced trauma and had no way to process or heal from it. He felt like his emotions didn’t matter, so he turned to drugs as a coping mechanism. But rather than find comfort, he developed an addiction that took over his life.
“I ended up on the verge of homelessness, staying in hotels and selling my car so I could have money to live on,” he remembers. “In that moment, I realized I needed help.”
After completing a 30-day program, he knew he needed more time to work on himself, so a counselor recommended the Market Street Mission. He had thought the Mission was just a homeless shelter, but when he learned about our Life Change Addiction Recovery Program, he decided to give it a try.
When he arrived on day one, he was nervous: “I wasn’t sure if I needed to be here or not. I wasn’t sold,” he says.
He was on the fence for months, not yet fully committed – but God started speaking to him in a way he couldn’t ignore. In chapel, church, and recovery meetings, he encountered the same Bible story again and again and again.
“We heard this sermon about the man at the pool who was seeking to be helped. Jesus asked him, ‘Do you want to be made whole?’ And He told him to pick up his mat and walk. That stuck out to me because I was struggling to decide definitively if I wanted to be healed all the way, or if I wanted to go back to my old ways. That was a turning point to me.”
Cameron decided then that he truly wanted to be made whole. And though the process wasn’t perfect, he felt things begin to change.
Through counseling, he found a safe space to process the emotions he never had the freedom to feel as a child. “I still get angry and sad, but they’re moments – they no longer consume my day and I don’t act out on them,” he says. “If I hadn’t come to the Mission, I think I’d still be running away from things when life gets hard. But I have coping skills and a support system now, so I don’t stay in those bad places anymore.”
The consistency of daily chapel helped him grow spiritually, too. “Even on the days you don’t want to be here, you’re still being fed the Word, and eventually that Word will change your heart.”
Over time, your faithful kindness supported Cameron through our program and helped him discover new leadership skills and compassion for others. Your generosity changed Cameron’s life and set him on a path to a brighter future!
Since graduating, he completed a chaplaincy program, received his ServSafe food handler certification, took a Certified Peer Recovery Specialist class, and even started a catering company with some of his fellow Mission graduates – all of which provide skills to support his role as our Morristown Kitchen Supervisor, where he can share the hope of life change with other men in our program.
“I’m thankful to the Market Street Mission for deepening my relationship with Christ and seeing things in me that I didn’t see in myself. Before I came to the Mission, I was lost and scared – but now, I found my identity as a child of God.”
To read the rest of this issue of Market Street Mission Messenger, click here.
Help other people like Cameron…
Cameron’s story of hope and healing is inspiring. Our long-term recovery program exists to help other men find healing. Will you provide this help to others?