Sticking it out

RECOVERY | TESTIMONY

While growing up poor in a rough area of inner–city Pittsburgh, Michael Shehand was incarcerated as a juvenile when he began stealing cars, skipping school, and drinking like his father.

“I was just a bad kid growing up,” he said. “It led me down a pretty bad road.”

Michael experimented with beer and marijuana, but that quickly escalated to heroin, cocaine, and other drugs. Several decades ago, he tried a Christian rehab program, but he relapsed.

“I was homeless in Pittsburgh for a number of years, panhandling and into jail a few times,” he said. “I had a bad relationship with my family.

“I was living in abandoned houses with no heat and no water. I was eating at rescue missions. I was trying to get money together on a daily basis. My circle was the people on the streets who weren’t too Christian–like. I wanted an end to this. I was tired and physically beat up.”

Then in January 2017, he heard about the Salvation Army’s Adult Rehabilitation Center (ARC) program and decided to give it a try. “The things I needed at the time; a shelter, a safe place, and clothing were provided at the ARC. I didn’t have that,” Michael said.

“I wasn’t showering. I was wearing the same clothes for days at a time. It was cold. I looked at my life and I didn’t want to die out there and have someone find me overdosed in some abandoned house. I thought that’s where I was headed and that I was going to be a nobody.

“I was at my wits end. I knew God was there and if God couldn’t help me, nobody could. I was a little shaky at first. I hung in there. There were church services and I just started praying and reading the Bible. I weathered through the detoxification in there.”

Michael admits that, a few times, he wanted to leave, “but I hung in there and started praying every day.”

“I just listened to the chaplains in charge, went to church, did my work therapy, and followed orders from staff and my counselor,” he said. “Little by little, I felt God working in my life.

“It wasn’t easy. But I knew God had a plan for me and I just continued to do what I needed to do there.”

Michael eventually accepted Christ and got involved in a Salvation Army church where he still attends.

“People prayed for me,” he recalled. “I kept going and participating in the worship and God started working in my life. I started feeling healthy and better. I repaired relationships in my family.”

Later in 2017, Michael graduated from the ARC program and was hired to be a truck driver. A year later, he landed a job doing maintenance for The Salvation Army and met his future wife, Cheryl.

Now 55, Michael sees a lot of changes when he looks within. “I’m not mad at the world,” he said.

“I’m not sad all the time. I’m not angry all the time. I have joy in my heart. I wake up praying and I’m more at peace at night. I lay my head down and I’m not worried about where I’m going to get my next fix. I have more peace and I know I’m on the right path. My life is just brighter. It was bleak before I went to the ARC.”

Michael said he was humbled when Lieutenant Jonathan Lewis, the former pastor at the Pittsburgh Temple, called and asked him to read Scripture in church. “That really touched me,” he said.

“Two years before that, no one was calling my phone to ask me to read Scripture. No one called me but drug dealers. It was all about drugs or alcohol. It’s amazing what God has done.”

WHAT MAKES THE ARC PROGRAM SO SUCCESSFUL?

“From the top, it’s God. I knew God was involved in this program. The program kind of caught my eye because I was going to church. Christians are good people and I knew I needed this in my life. I kind of gravitated toward the people in the church, the officers and the pastors, people who were doing the right thing. I’m now a senior soldier (member). I go to the Bible studies and I kind of draw my strength from that. The people in The Salvation Army encourage me and I can feel the love here as far as the staff and everyone is concerned. They want me to succeed.”

by ROBERT MITCHELL