Dano's Story

DANO’S STORY

One of Us was Going to Die that Evening... ...and it wasn’t Going to be Me!

An emptiness and loneliness inside of me I was born in 1959 and raised in small-town USA by Christian parents. My dad was a workaholic, and my mother was in and out of mental institutions. These situations left me to care for my younger brother and sister most of the time.

When I was 12, we moved to Binghamton, NY, the 4th most dangerous city in New York State. As a teenager living in a bad part of the city, I started heading in the wrong direction. I moved out from my parent’s apartment when I was 16 to do my own thing. There was an emptiness and loneliness inside of me that I selfishly tried to fill with sex, drugs, rock ‘n’ roll and alcohol. I was in and out of trouble with the law and lived life on the edge. Deep down inside I knew there was a God, but I was separated from God by my own choice.

Shot him in self-defense In my later teens, I noticed that some of my friends and their friends were dying at early ages for various reasons, ranging from suicide, murder, drug overdoses and disease. I never thought that death would come near me because I felt I was immortal. That false sense of immortality quickly vanished when one of my drug-crazed friends kicked down my door and came at me with a big hunting knife. I was sitting on the floor as that giant knife in his hand was coming at my face. I shot him in self-defence. It was no joke that one of us was going to die that evening, and it wasn’t going to be me! The Lord really got my attention when I was arrested, jailed and faced a future of life in prison or the death sentence. This was my wake-up call.

Miraculously delivered from a pit of despair I was rescued from my pit of despair by the Bible verse that says, “For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.” I had escaped physical death, and now I called on Him. I made a vow that if He would deliver me from the charges, I would change my ways and follow Him. That day in my jail cell, I died to my old self so that Christ could live in me. The Lord heard my prayers, and I was miraculously given new life.