God Is My ROCK In An Unstable World... My name is Josh; I am 18 years old from Buffalo, NY. Life for me has always been unstable. My parents were living together, unmarried, broke, and unstable. My parents separated before I can remember and had many custody battles. Eventually, I didn't see my Dad for the majority of my childhood. Most of my friends don’t know their fathers but for me it hurt more because I knew him and wasn’t able to see him. My mother had very little support in her life and was always working. I would stay back with my grandmother while she went to work to try and save enough money to send me to a “Christian” school. We didn’t live in the best parts of the neighborhood but my mother worked hard to provide a good home life. When I went to school most the other kids came for “money” and that didn’t help my self confidence when I came from a poor part of the neighborhood. I felt like the other kids would look down at me because of my situation at home or not having a Dad like the others did. Eventually, I became a bully always handling situations with violence and beating up the other kids. I used to watch video games like “Mortal Combat” and I would always get in trouble for trying out the different martial arts moves on other kids at school. I remember trying to present myself as somebody who was content and independent not needing others but the truth was I just wanted to be accepted and it hurt because I felt like I would never be accepted by others. As I got to meet different people I finally felt like I had found a group of guys that were like me. These guys were always feeling down, getting in trouble, came from nothing, and had nothing good in their life to turn to for help. I started hanging around the gangs and those who were selling drugs and guns. I started using different drugs. At first it was for the experience but the drugs became my escape from life. Soon I started to beat up my mother and I ended up on probation. When my anger problems started showing up in my home life I knew something had to change. I couldn’t take seeing my little sister scared of what I was going to do next or even my mother not knowing if I would ever come back home when I went out with my friends. I became very unpredictable. My mother began fasting and praying begging God to help her find a church for me to go to, so I wouldn’t die. One day when I went to school a guy invited me to church. I had gone to this church a couple of times and got saved on my second visit. Since that time I tried to run from God but fell flat on my face. I was saved but I was living life my own way and was not submitted to God as being Lord of my life. Well, finally God got my attention and he used Freedom Village to wake me up. Through the teaching; I learned and finally understood what being a Christian was about. I learned how to grow in Jesus Christ. I have learned many lessons here like how to be a Godly man, how to love and how to be a good testimony for what Christ had done for me and changed me. It’s not Freedom Village in and of itself that changed me but God. I do know His presence is most definately here. Today I am working on Jr. Staff and I am blessed with the opportunity to travel across America and share my story. I get to help others find Jesus, something that I do not take credit for I'm just a servent of God. All the honor and glory goes to God and His son Jesus Christ. | 
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