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Dear Friends, As we begin a new season of weekly E-letters I want to take the following two weeks to bring you up to date on what has been going on in the ministry especially as it sees the visible direct effects of coming clean. Towards the end of April I met a dear lady, who works for one of my board members and a dear friend, who informed me that she had kids who were in their early twenties and had come off a hard life of drug abuse, and other addictions and desperately needed to talk to someone who understood them and would not judge them. I looked at her and told her that I would pray about it, but in reality at that moment I thought that was all I could do, pray! Like many of us I was burdened with many commitments; I was too busy to get involved in a new group! I went back to work and I remembered what my dear friend, Manny Mill, preached to me at Angola, "Paisa, do not tell me how busy you are. Tell me what decisions you are making." My Lord did this convict me! There I was, believing that somehow God had called me to change the world for Him as I ministered to young people and when a very present need surfaced I was to busy. I called Charlotte and informed her that I would meet with her kids. Monday night we met! My friend, I want to tell you that I have never been so blessed as when I sat in my living room that Monday night with four of the most amazing kids I have ever met. I shared my heart about Coming Clean and our ministry vision to create a safe and real place where kids can come clean with their parents as parents come clean with them. I told them my story of how an amazing God reached out to me in the depths of my hellish and heinous world and gave me a new life. I told them that although things did not immediately get better for me, I knew that I had a purpose. When I finished coming clean with them, Angee, Charlotte's daughter, came clean with the group. Angee told us how God had delivered her family from a cult, how she was raped over and over again and no one noticed, and how she became so addicted to drugs she was willing to give her body and life for those drugs. We all cried! As one kid after another came clean we experienced an amazing God ever so present heal us all. One of the most powerful stories came from Brian who looked at one of the girls and said, "My pain is greater than yours. You see I have never done drugs. I am an Eagle Scout. I have been a Christian all my life. But, you know, I sat next to you in school and saw you go down hill and I did not care. I could have made a difference, but I did not!" Whoa! God is awesome. You see my friend, as my dear brother Max Paul would say, "We all have a story to tell. It just depends on what story we want to tell each other." Coming clean with others hurts. It is not an easy thing to do. But, until we do, God will not begin His work on us. Until we strip ourselves of all the external things in our lives that keep us from enjoying His presence and until we show a contrite heart that is transparent before the world, and confess our sins one to another, all we will do is to keep on living in bondage. Coming Clean is not easy. It hurts and in many instances it has immense consequences, but so does living in bondage to our hidden sins. Today, two of those amazing kids I met that night as I made the choice to be available to them, Angee and Cassie, have joined Coming Clean Ministries to help change the world. The Lord has revealed to me that I am not going to be the one to change the world for Him. (1 Chronicles 28) I have shed much blood through all the cocaine I brought into this country. My job is to empower these amazing young kids to be the instruments that God will use to change the world. They are amazing! They are broken! They have seen Christ's face up close! My friend, what choices are you making today? Are you choosing to come clean? Or, are you choosing to stay bound? I love you and it is my prayer that you allow the power of a contrite and transparent heart to come clean with Jesus and those whom you have love and have hurt! God bless, Jorge
Jorge Valdes, Ph.D.
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