Cody's LifeChange Story

HUNGER. REGRET. PAIN. SHAME. REMORSE.

Those are the feelings that Cody was always trying to escape. Meth and fentanyl helped for a little while, but the hunger and all the rest of those feelings would always come back. He was homeless for four years, living in his car, scraping by just to eat and get his next fix.

“For the first time in four years, I looked up and instead of cursing God and being mad at Him, I asked Him for help,” he says. The next morning, he called the Mission. A few hours later, he was walking through our doors. For Cody, even coming here was a big challenge. He remembers walking past other people on the streets who were shooting up and smoking.

He remembers feeling drawn back to the drugs, almost stopping a few times. “It was scary fighting through the gauntlet of people out there, but when I got through the doors, I was home and I knew it,” he says. “It was a good place. It was a safe place to come.”

It took Cody about a month to detox. During that time, the meals friends like you provided helped nourish him. As he watched the other men in the LifeChange Recovery Program, he began to imagine a new life for himself. “I was looking at these guys and I’ve never seen somebody ever do anything so brave in my life,” Cody says. Now, six months in, Cody is the brave one. He’s opened up to people and to God in ways he never imagined. “All I needed was a relationship with Christ to get repaired, and this place gave me a safe place to do that, to dig into the word and find out who God is,” says Cody.

“Here, they support restoring relationships . . . It’s what makes you feel human.” Today Cody isn’t just feeling human, he’s feeling fully alive. “Every step that I’ve made towards recovery is what Christ has given me,” he says. The Lord, working through friends like you, has given Cody hot meals at the Mission, a bed to sleep in, time in our LifeChange program, the gift of sobriety, and the joy of being around people. In fact, last Thanksgiving all he wanted was to be alone. This Thanksgiving, he can’t wait to eat and celebrate with others.

Friends like you are the only reason Cody was able to discover that Life Changes Here. Thank you for helping him when no one else would. Thank you for giving him the chance to live a new life.