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“It is for freedom that Christ has set us free.” Gal 5:1 THE HISTORY OF CONNECTION TO FREEDOM
I continued to use drugs in jail and went through horrendous withdrawals when I did not have access to them. The one thing about VIRCC was that I felt as if I belonged. Behind bars, I seemed to achieve success but on the outside, that was a different story. Including human relationships and expressing my true feelings, I was a failure at everything I put my hands to. I had nothing to hold onto as I spun rapidly into suicidal despair. I wanted out of this world! My addictions had finally pulled me into the pit of hell. However, the closer I came to ending my life, the more I thought about God. This was not a conscious decision to remember Him, as I had been a Christian for ten years. Because the Lord had not miraculously cleaned up my life and given me great wonders like sobriety and riches, I chose to deny Christ. Nothing had ever changed for me so I had no reason to have any faith that I was a Christian. Ten years was too long for me to wait for a miracle, so in a fog of self I had tried to live life on my terms. I continued to remember all that my addictions had taken from me, and the years I wasted. Behind my false bravado, was a terribly wounded child with my tears falling and my whole body trembling. I called out “God, if you are real I need your help! I’ve destroyed my life and I’ve done it by myself!” In that instant, God revealed Himself to me as Jesus Christ. My broken- life was transformed to a person of the Lord’s compassion with purpose and the driving need to help my fellow inmates. The Holy Spirit began to move me. At the suggestion of a Biker two cells down from me, a name suggested by a French Canadian weightlifter awaiting transfer to William Head Institution, and participation from 20 fellow inmates, through Christ, I founded the Connection to Freedom meeting. There was such a wide response from inmates that after a number of meetings, the Program Director came to me with a proposition. “There is so much demand from other areas of the jail to attend your group, that the officers feel threatened by the risk of a security breach. You can continue the Connection to Freedom meeting but only in your Unit D. I cannot allow inmates from other Units to come. What is your decision?” My reply, “If other inmates were denied the group we would stop the meeting.” The founding of the Connection to Freedom group was Sept 7/1987. There were, including me as facilitator, 12 in attendance. I began to read my Bible and pray in the quiet of my cell. God had closed one door but with regard to helping youth at risk, He was about to open another. A First Nations youth suggested that we could still help each other by creating a book with our stories of recovery in it. With contributions from some 18 fellow inmates, typing by the French-Canadian inmate, we wrote a book and called it ‘Connection to Freedom.’ Somebody said, “one day you will be talking in schools Steve', and you can let the kids know what it is like for all of us with alcohol and drugs!” I thought this to be a ridiculous statement. No school would ever allow me to talk with their students. A community volunteer named Janet, compiled our book, the John Howard Society photocopied fifty books for us, and VIRCC’s Program Director allowed inmates in the Connection to Freedom group, a book. I included my testimony of Jesus Christ and His miracle in my life. Upon my release, the inmates in the group, asked me to continue the Connection to Freedom meeting and book. We held Connection to Freedom meetings in downtown coffee shops, skid row hotel rooms, street shelters, and on the Pandora Street boulevard area. Two group members, ex-cons from the States, suggested I go to the Mustard Seed and ask for proper meeting space. Meanwhile I had been meeting with Janet for the past year and we had compiled a much bigger Connection to Freedom book. It was 1989 when the Mustard Seed granted Connection to Freedom meeting space. The Mustard Seed and our group, worked alongside each other. On Feb 12, 2001, our former jail and street meeting became the registered non-profit organization which we named Connection to Freedom Jail and Street Outreach Society. Our Connection to Freedom meeting is not associated with the Mustard Seed Street Church, or any other organization, ministry, or church, but we work alongside many. Through prayer and the word of God (Bible) and attendance at Connection to Freedom meetings as the facilitator, and belonging to the Mustard Seed Street Church, the last cigarette I smoked was Feb 16, 1988. The last drink of alcohol I took was June 26, 1987, and the last fix of heroin was Sept 1, 1987. The miracle is that Jesus Christ TOOK my desire for these poisons. With the years in His word, which is the answer behind every positive milestone in my life, the Lord has granted me His wisdom to understand it is TODAY my sobriety counts. Matthew 6:34 tells me so. During my time with the Mustard Seed I have worked as a volunteer outreach worker for Food Bank clients, served on the Church Council, received an award for faithful ministry (on behalf of Connection to Freedom), facilitated a brief program at the Hope Farm Healing Centre, and in 2004, I sensed the Lord moving me to become a Community Chaplain. I prayed for God’s will and through the support of the Mustard Seed Council, and a period of internship, in 2005, CBWC (the Baptist Union of Western Canada and the Yukon) credentialed me as Chaplain. The BC Government then issued me with a marriage number for the privilege of performing weddings. My sixth ceremony was 2009.
Please see HOW YOU CAN HELP.
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It was 1987 and I was 41 years old. After eighteen years of heroin addiction, nine years longer an alcoholic with a four packs a day cigarette habit, I thought about my life. I was in a cell at Vancouver Island Regional Correctional Centre, very fortunate to be only serving eighteen months as I had attempted to rob a pharmacy.