Father-son find freedom in Christ
God will show up for you. God can pull you out, no matter where you are and how bad your situation is!
– Matt, a Year 12 student with The Salvation Army Youth Outreach Service Brisbane (YOS)
Matt enjoyed an ideal childhood, full of weekend sports, family holidays, church and big family gatherings. “When I think about growing up, my memories are all very good,” he says. “I worked hard at school and kept myself out of trouble. My dad owned a plumbing business, and mum worked in the business, too. We had a beautiful house, owned a number of properties and Dad provided everything our family needed.”
However, around six years ago, life changed drastically for Matt after his parents’ marriage failed and the family lost everything. Matt and his four siblings went to live with their mother. His dad Tony was now on his own, and it was a shock. “Suddenly my kids were gone,” Tony recalls. “The fear of being alone had become a painful reality. It was pain like I had never felt before.”
Tony had never touched drugs, but he was at a low point in his life. All it took was a chance meeting with an old acquaintance, who introduced him to speed. “(Soon) speed, ice, heroin and alcohol had me fully,” Tony says. “I could not function without them. I had lost my home, my business, my friends, my reputation, my confidence and my self-control. I ended up in prison.”
Matt says at the same time his father was sinking into addiction, his own life was unravelling. “We’d had a lot of rules (growing up) and always gone to church,” he says. “All of a sudden we were pretty well allowed to do whatever we wanted. I was a good student and good kid, but I became full of disrespect and anger. I was eventually kicked out of school.”
Drugs also became part of Matt’s life. “The last straw for me was when I was up before the court again and the judge told me this was my last chance; the next time I'd be off to juvenile detention,” he says.
Matt was headed in the same direction as his father. Tony had been in and out of prison several times and knew something had to change. The turning point came in the form of The Salvation Army. Tony was offered the opportunity of long-term residential rehabilitation with The Salvation Army’s Brisbane Recovery Services Centre (Moonyah).
Matt says: “Dad was really serious about changing. He always believed in God, but at that time met God in really powerful ways. After Dad finished the program and got clean, I went to live with him. We started to go along to God's Sports Arena (a Salvation Army church) in Brisbane and met Bill Hunter, an amazing man who runs the church. I connected at church and with the youth group, and that gave me my life back.”
Matt and three of his four siblings now live with Tony and all have a deep faith in Jesus. “Dad is a wonderful role model now,” Matt says.
The experience of attending the Youth Outreach Service (YOS) has also been incredibly inspiring for Matt, who would like to work with disadvantaged youth in the future. Most of all, Matt is thankful to God. He says: “I definitely want God to be the centre of my story. I really want to give him the recognition for saving our lives and for saving our family!”
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