Sasha’s Story is an 8 part series running until December 24. To listen to the audio backgrounder from CHRI radio, click Episode #8 My Christmas Wish
My Christmas wish for Ottawa Ministries is for them to have lots of help. Because they do needs. They do help a lot of needs for people. They helped me out a lot, in so many different ways. I mean at the end I even got my discipline. And I mean, it took a long time for that discipline.
Self discipline – to be able to go and wash yourself and be able to care for yourself and actually try to love yourself again. I mean, I didn’t have that in me. I always had rage or anger or hate or…there was always something. That’s not good, that’s not healthy.
I’ve had more love from Ottawa Ministries than I had from my own family. I mean, my mother loves me, she thinks the world of me, but I also was damaged. And there’s this damage in the back of my brain that I don’t ever forget. There’s sometimes that when I think about certain things that happened in my history and my whole life, I get sharp pains in my chest.
For people on the Streets: Well, we all buried our pain with drugs. We all buried our pain with alcohol. We all buried our pains with sex or different things on the streets, so if we can turn around and loop ourself back there, we can loop ourself out. It doesn’t take a scientist to change. I mean, there’s a lot of working miracles out there.
Once, we found this man down by the river. He was quiet guy and all that and we went down there at Christmas time and had Christmas with him, too. We had a tree and they had all those needles on it. It was a junkie tree. Like a Christmas tree. All drugs, it was all in the tree. It was all we had. We had nothing else.
Sasha continues to grow in her relationship with God and us at what she calls, Ottawa Ministries. We walk with her – sometimes the journey is hard. Her life constantly reminds us of important values and her generous, selfless spirit is an inspiration to us all.
On behalf of Sasha and all her friends, the volunteers and staff at OIM, have a very Merry Christmas!
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