RAYMOND BERRY
When I was a sophomore in High School I didn't feel I needed to attend church anymore because I knew the whole story of Jesus (I thought).

I began to hang around a different crowd.  Some of my closest friends grew up unchurched so they had a different concept of God.  But that didn't matter to me because when you see other people who come from a good family and they wear nice clothes and their parents have an active part in their life you start to wonder "why me?"

I started to think that because I didn't have any nice things.  My father died when I was very young and I grew up poor and I lived on Illinois Street in the hotel or what they called it was the Coonrad Hilton or the Nigger Hotel.

My thought patterns started to change because I thought if I didn't have the nice life the other kids had that God must have hated me and wanted to see me fail.  Because if you grew up in a small rental house with 10 brothers and sisters.  My Father, who worked occasionally and drank everyday, plus the fact that we were receiving money and food stamps from the state, made me start to feel like a second class citizen.

Then I completely gave into peer pressure and began to drink alcohol and sell drugs.  I managed to graduate High School and join the Navy for 5 years during that time.  I started drinking very heavily and getting into fights.

I also remembered what I said when I was growing up that I would never drink like my father (funny how we think we can control our lives without God).

When I left the Navy a short time later I met a nice girl who at the time lived in a small apartment and had one son.

We began to like each other and have relations and I moved into her apartment with her but because of my alcohol and drug problems and also the fact I was a very angry young man I became abusive and we would get into fights and I would hit her and I always would feel so bad but I could not control my anger.

One day I had invited my sister and mom over to our apartment and I had a few beers.  My girlfriend and I got into a huge fight and I punched her.  She fell down and I could tell she was really hurt so I took her to the hospital and of course they called the police.

The police came and took me to jail where I stayed for 33 days.  They wanted to put me in prison for 3 years but my girlfriend would not let them.  But I got out of jail thinking that I would never do that again but I could not control my anger or my alcohol until a few months later my girl friend was on the phone talking to my sister in law about Jesus and got saved.  That was about a week before I gave my heart to the Lord.

My girlfriend asked me would I like to attend a crusade at Streator High.  My answer was "what else is there to do here?"

That night while I was sitting listening to Dave Roever share stories of Vietnam and what happened to him I started to think that God had to be real because of all the things that Dave went through.  So towards the end of the program he have an invitation to anyone who wanted to accept Jesus and have a changed life.  (For a moment I thought the only one he was talking to in that gym was me.)  I had tears in my eyes as I made my way down to the gym floor and do something I had not done in years.  I prayed and asked Jesus to forgive me and come into my life.

And as I was doing that a thought had come into my mind about when I was a youngster and hearing a minister say "Jesus can wash away all your sin."  I knew the Lord had protected me all of those years.

My girlfriend Cathy became my wife shortly after that.  We have two children, Mark and Malcolm and have been married for over nine years.

My addiction to alcohol was instantaneously taken away and I haven't had a drop to drink since that time.  Over time and with counseling I've become a lot less angry.  We joined a church and led the youth group together for 3 years and now I'm the worship leader for the past 4 years.  I've made great friends at church with people who really care about me.   I realized that all this time I was fighting myself, but now I'm fully surrendered to Jesus Christ.