A New Purpose for Harold.

Across the country, Christian shelters and recovery programs like Wayside Cross Ministries offer transformational support for homeless and broken individuals, including former military veterans, with life-changing success. Even those overcoming PTSD. Instilling a routine, value, and self-worth by encouraging each other in their daily walk with Christ, they find tremendous success as they work their way off drugs and alcohol. It’s a winning combination that replaces destructive coping tools with prayer, fellowship, and a church-wide support system that helps each person find new meaning in life. People just like Harold.

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For nearly 68-years, this military veteran faced and fought many demons and won. Drugs. Alcohol. Most recently, he overcame a bout with COVID-19. But Harold says: “Nothing can stop you with God on your side!”

Harold’s journey began in 1981 when he enlisted in the military. In Korea, they prepare him for many things. As a weapons expert, they recruited him as a sniper and trained him as a Medevac, patching up and airlifting wounded soldiers to safety.

But nothing could prepare him for life as a civilian . . .

At first, he found success as a Hardware store owner, thanks to the help of a VA loan. But a few bad habits he picked up during deployment a half-a-world-away eventually caught up with him. Haunted by what he had witnessed in war and now in civilian life, Harold was on a path of destruction at home. Drugs and alcohol eventually overcame him. They took away his business and his property.

Depression. Living in isolation at home now with his parents also wore them thin. Harold eventually decided to leave home. So with what little money he had left, he convinced his father to give him the family van and some savings his parents had set aside, and set out to rebuild his life.

But he squandered it all away.

Unable to return home now, he sought help from the Veterans clinic in Hines, IL. Going through their counseling program, he learned three important lessons.  If you want to change your life, you have to change three things: people, places, and things. That’s when he heard about Wayside Cross Ministries.

“They told me if I needed a place to stay, Wayside would take me in. Eventually, you can get a new job, save your money and get a place of your own. The VA told me they would pay me a weekly stipend of a few dollars a week if I went down to Wayside and join their recovery program. It seemed like a good opportunity for me. I could start off and get things going again, but I didn’t know when I got here, I would be working in a warehouse too. They put me on a bus. I didn’t know where I was going, and they dropped me off at Wayside and entered their recovery program. It wasn’t easy.”

“I even tried to leave a couple of times too. I went East, South, West, but it seemed like something kept stopping me. It was funny too. I could find my way around anywhere in the world, but here I didn’t know where I was. You got to understand, in the military, I’d been all around the world. I could find my way out of a jungle or a barren desert, but here, I was utterly lost.”

Saul got up from the ground, but when he opened his eyes, he could see nothing. So they led him by the hand into Damascus. For three days, he was blind and did not eat or drink anything ~ Acts 9:8

“Little did I know there was a train station only a few blocks away to the north. One day I walked there by accident, and there it was. A train station. Buses. Cabs. Everything. I couldn’t believe it… Then I finally got it. I remember saying,”

“Oh. Oh, I understand now. This is where You want me to be!”

“That’s when I decided this is where I need to be. I’d been all around the world, but I couldn’t find my way out of this little place? There must be something keeping me here, and I finally got it. You see, God will put the blinders on you and keep you in one place to give you a little time to get on the same page with him.”

“Not as I will. But as You will!” ~ Matthew 26:39

“Surrender is not a word we use in the military. But for your own salvation, you have to learn to surrender to God’s will.

Today, people asked me when I found Christ? I tell them, I found Him here, at Wayside! They brought me to Christ when I started off here. They had us reading the Bible as part of our classwork, and that was really the first time I had ever heard about God or even opened up a Bible. I’d never even been in the church! I started reading that thing, and I don’t know, it just seemed like it was talking to me or talking about me.”

“That’s when I heard about the prodigal son… God showed me that I was the prodigal. You see, I took all the money I had left, and the van my father gave me, and squandered it all away on drugs and alcohol. Just like the prodigal!”

“After I got that, things started happening to me!”

“In time, I overcame everything, the drugs, the alcohol, fear, and the nightmares in the rice paddies overseas. I witnessed so much death and destruction. But God brought me back and gave me hope. I realize now He was with me all the way.”

Harold graduated and found a place of his own just a few blocks away. His willingness to help others and his leadership skills also caught the Director of our Master’s Touch Men’s Recovery Center’s attention, and he was recommended for a staff position in the warehouse.

Today, he works as both the transportation manager and the senior warehouse manager at Wayside. In his spare time, Harold has coached baseball for 16 years in our Urban Youth Ministry and volunteers as a weekend umpire calling the games for 125 kids to play on their free baseball league every weekend during the summer.

“These days, most of my time involves moving things around in the warehouse to create more space. Coordinating pick up and deliveries for people to make purchases, managing and maintaining a fleet of vehicles, and of course, there are invoices and receipts. Lots of paperwork, but I also work with volunteers and residents in recovery to staff and operate the warehouse and a fleet of trucks that manage the pickup and deliveries of all Wayside Furniture and Clothing Donations.”

Our work program, “Hope Outreach,” has been designed to engage residents in recovery by putting them to work in some area of the ministry. Here they develop a route for service and accountability. By giving back to the community, they learn the value of working for others and serving God. That provides a sense of responsibility and value that can only come through serving others. It breaks down walls in the recovery process.

That’s where Harold’s leadership skills and team-building experience in the military really pay off, especially in conflict-resolution.

Inevitably, guys come here having to unlearn years of living for themselves and undoing destructive behavior patterns. Our Church mentors do an incredible job of teaching men alternative communication skills and learning how to come under biblical authority. As a supervisor, mentoring and encouragement are part of that process that Harold employs.

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.” ~ Proverbs 3:5-6

“At first, I really didn’t know what I was doing . . . but this worked!”

Over the years, Harold has witnessed many changes here at Wayside — the addition of the Lifespring Center for Women and Children, Urban Youth Ministry, and the Elgin Wayside Center. He’s played an internal part in launching our graduates into their new lives, employed, and standing firm in their foundation of faith in Jesus.

Whenever he meets a new guy, inevitably there’s a conversation. “Most guys just can’t wait to get out of here and put Wayside behind them.”

He says to them:

“Why on earth would you do that. Wayside is a badge of honor! It means something to the companies around here looking to hire our people as employees. When you tell people you graduated from Wayside, they know what’s involved. What our recovery programs look like. They know when you come to work for them that you are ready to work.”  

“I tell them if they changed my life, they can change your life too. But the first thing you have to do is open up your Bible. It will get into your heart.”

“Many are the plans in a person’s heart, but it is the LORD’s purpose that prevails.” ~ Proverbs 19:21

These days, if you ask him what the best part of his job is, he says:

“Getting up in the morning and knowing I have someplace to go. I have something important to do. These days I’m working for God, not for myself.”

Last year, Harold was recognized for his leadership and celebrated as one of the longest-serving employees on Wayside staff throughout our 100-year history.

“I thank God every day for Wayside Cross, the opportunities He has given me, and I know none of it would be possible without the help of donors and supporters who come alongside this ministry over the many years, just to support it.”

“Today I have hope. The nightmares left a long time ago, I have peace I never knew I could have when I left the military.”

“I found it all at Wayside.”

Help others like Harold find their way home at Wayside.

GIVE A GIFT OF HOPE TODAY!

If you enjoyed this story and want to learn about other lives that were changed, click: Stories of Hope & Recovery

If you know someone in need of a safe place to recover and rebuild their lives call Wayside Cross Ministries’ Lifespring Center for Women or Master’s Touch for Men at (630) 892-4239.