Wayne and Sarah had never been able to have children. They had a big farm, a great life but longed to have a family. Their faith in God and their belief that God calls Christians to care for Orphans led them to seek a child through the foster care system. That is where they found Chris. They started foster parenting him and before long they officially adopted him.
Before coming to live with Wayne and Sarah, Chris had very little knowledge of the love of God. His biological family had been strict Catholics but there was no relationship with Jesus in the practice of their religion. It was all about rituals, rules and regulations at their church in particular. Now that he was with his new parents, he began to understand what it meant to be loved by his father in Heaven. He started attending the Baptist church with them, where he was told about having a relationship with Jesus. He also met Nathan at church. Nathan was the son of the lead pastor of the Baptist Church on the Indian reservation. Nathan and Chris became fast friends. They did everything together. They both loved to play football, go biking, run, go wakeboarding and camping. Nathan loved God and Chris saw the light of Jesus in him. Nathan was positive peer pressure for Chris and now Chris was happy. He had a great new family and a best friend. Life was good.
But sadly for Chris, Nathan’s father was transferred to another church and Nathan had to move away. Chris was devastated again. He had lost that special friend that didn’t think he was weird, liked all the same things, loved God and completely loved and accepted Chris. With out Nathan by his side at school, Chris felt lost and confused. He wanted another best friend but all he found were the “bad” kids at school. He soon started smoking pot and getting into trouble and life quickly went down hill.
By the time Chris was 18 he had quit high school, moved out of his new parents house and in with his biological cousin. Living with his drug addicted cousin and friends only worsened Chris’s spiral out of control. He started doing heavy drugs, stealing cars and selling them to chop shops, breaking and entering and all kinds of illegal activity. Life was bad and was getting worse, now he also had people wanting to kill him for bad deals he had made.
The car stealing finally caught up with him and he was arrested and spent two months in jail. His aunt bailed him out and he decided he was going to get his life straight. Jail had scared him. His aunt helped him graduate from High School with honors, and enrolled him in Community College and quickly had a 4.0 grade point average. By some miracle of God, his car theft charges were dropped and he was accepted into Old Dominion University. Things were looking up again for Chris. He finished his first year of college with a 3.8 GPA.
But the call of the wild was too strong to resist for long and soon Chris was back smoking pot and hanging out with Surfers who had no interest in school. Chris’s GPA dropped to a 1.2 and he found himself on probation. Then his girlfriend broke up with him for his roommate so now he was without a girlfriend and a roommate. Then he met Paul. Paul was a cool surfer dude. He was also a Jesus follower. He was hyper, outgoing, fun and very involved in the college Christian group, Varsity. And he was now Chris’ roommate. He invited Chris to a Varsity church service and Chris committed his life to God there. He had seen in Paul a real picture of Jesus. Paul didn’t preach at Chris, he befriended Chris. They would talk about Jesus, about their lives and struggles. Over time Chris started to see that he had blamed God for all the bad that had happened to him. He realized he had to completely surrender his live to Jesus and follow Him with his entire heart. In the fall of 2003 this all came to a head one night, Chris broke down and cried out to the lord. He let go of all of it, placed it at the feet of Jesus and before long he felt the call to the mission field on his life and went on a short term mission’s trip to China. Chris felt he had found his calling in life.
When Chris returned from China he reconnected with his former step father. Chris decided to move to Baton Rouge Louisiana with his step father so he could help him take care of his mentally impaired younger brother. The baby brother he had loved and lost when he was a small child. But being away from a strong Christian environment caused Chris to once again lose faith.
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