Spring/Summer 2018 Open Doors MARY'S SONG Restoration & Healing in a Broken World

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2 We Love our Volunteers Laurie Giangrosso takes the Mary's Song students to appointments and cooks for them weekly. Ana Dal Corso and Mimi Crabtree counsel at Mary's Song. Joy Jones and Rachel Mendez teaches every week. Janel Brooks and Linda Edwards cook for Mary's Song every Tuesday! Jane Lapeyrouse cooks for Mary's Song every Thursday! We are thankful for all our volunteers time and dedication given to serving Mary's Song.

3 What's Happening at Mary's Song? 1 Vanessa Bratko has a new job at Hobby Lobby! 2 Ashley Duncan has a new job at Smoothie King and was promoted to a manager position. She has been blessed with a new car! 3 Miley Carter has a new job working with children in aftercare at Victory Christian Academy. She too has been blessed with a new car!

4 A Year of Open Doors Marianne Terry has a new job working as a Teacher's Assistant at Victory Christian Academy. She has been blessed with a new car! 4 Marianne Terry and Miley Carter both have moved into a one year Discipleship Training School (DTS). 5

5 Making Full to Overflowing How the girls experience Christ! May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully. Then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God (EPH. 3:19) The world shows up empty everyday. Doctor offices are filled with patients getting subscribe opioids that lead to addiction, prisons are over crowded while mental patients await for a bed, our courts are jammed with lawsuits, and heinous crimes never stop. Young America continues to spend thousands of dollars to get taught by professors bombastically teaching them on whatever hip current idea that comes into their heads. Thank God there is another way! Christ lived in the same way we do; He comes with abundance and makes the crooked path straight. Yes, it can be that simple. By the end of this year, Frank and I will have pastored 40 years, ran a school for 30 years, fed the poor for 25 years, put on a drama to teens for 20 years, and now ran a rehab for 10 years. In each of these situations we have been personally hands on and watched Christ come in the worst case scenario. He doesn't show up unprepared, put out or out of touch. If a person is hungry and desperate, Christ comes and brings HIS FULLNESS and overflows abundantly to our issues. Christ comes to fill us up because we have been running on empty for far too long and we have tasted its emptiness. His love comes in encumbered unabridged. Christ has the uncanny ability to prepare expand strengthen our capacity to receive more of his love. He imparts to us His own character and glory, taking out of us the old character and canceling out the stain of the past. In LUTHER S words he says, He alone completely rules and works in us and are filled in every way that He can make full. We remain no more in defect but instead He imparts His perfection to the church, making us a partaker of His Divine Nature! We become a sign and a wonder that judges, doctors and scientists stand in awe. Another author named ALFORD says, All the fulness of the Godhead abides in Christ, Col. 2:9, Christ then abiding in your hearts, ye, being raised up to the comprehension of God s mercy in Him and of His love, will be filled, even as God is full each in your degree, but all to your utmost capacity, with Divine wisdom, might and love. If you need a word picture; imagine ships are filled with freight, merchandise, sailors, oarsmen, and soldiers. Or the animals filling up Noah s Ark, or a city filled with inhabitants, houses and towering buildings. A gap that is filled or baskets that are overflowing. Do you get the picture yet? God comes to fill you up! Wholly, flooded and filled! Everyday at Marysong, we have the privilege of watching redemption unfold in the lives of the girls. While their stories are yet untold, we see the first shoots of life again. We depend deeply on your generous donations because the need is very great and the expenses are skyrocketing. Please pray for us! We know without a shadow of a doubt we are making a impact. Our Bethesda Community is housing 8 graduates as we speak. I would say 20 graduates now attend our church. Can you place a value on a soul? We are wholly filled and flooded!

6 "As we are committed to God, He commits to changing us inwardly" My name is Kelly Baca. My journey before Mary s Song Restoration Center was filled with drugs, alcohol, depression, and every sort of debauchery. I was released from a psych ward on the condition that I would attend a drug rehab program. You see, I had taken a mass quantity of narcotics to end my life. I had no idea of what great plans God had for me because I believed the lie that life just what it was, and I would always be a drug addict with no hope or future. I entered Mary s Song with skepticism. Little did I know that this place would be the entrance to relationship with the Living God! One day during worship at the old wooden cross the Lord spoke to me as I had finally lifted my hands in surrender. This was my invite to salvation. Can you believe it? The One True Living God of the universe picked me to save! From this moment, my life changed forever. My outlook, my countenance, my very person became a new creation. To fast forward a bit, I graduated Mary s Song, dated an amazing man of God from my Co-Ed Care Group, and fell completely head over heels in love! It wasn t long before we would be married. So, I married my best friend Brandon, and two weeks later moved to El Dorado, Arkansas for Brandon s job. Exodus 33:14 He said, My Presence, will go with you and I will give you rest. We followed the Presence of the Lord to El Dorado Frist Assembly to our new church family where I would become their Administrative Assistant! All my skills I had learned from my internship with Mary s Song are being put to great use. First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes, well you all know what comes next. A baby! Let me just tell you of my miracle. I wasn t even sure if I could have babies considering I had endometriosis very badly and doctors said, You may not be able to have children because of this condition. Ha! They must not know my Great Physician. We were able to conceive and on April 7, 2017 we had our little boy Damian Gray Baca. It was prophesied over us that our household would be one of CELEBRATION and let me tell you my Damian is the sweetest, happiest, most joyful baby I have ever seen. God is so infinitely good! My husband and I serve our church with gladness in the EFA Kids Corner and security team. Jesus said, Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belong to such as these. Matt 19:14. We pray that we can reach these little ones and teach them their value, their worth, and tell them of their inheritance, JESUS! As we are committed to God, He commits to changing us inwardly. He who began a good work will be faithful to complete the work He started in us. Mary s Song was just the beginning! I may not know why I had so many obstacles in life, but I sure am glad God knew what He was doing! Forever grateful for the Blood of the Lamb. I continue to grow, because growth doesn t and shouldn t stop for a follower of Jesus, He speaks to my spirit repeatedly. Like Moses hidden in the cleft of the rock, I will pass by you again and again and show you my glory!

7 "Eternity has become my main focus and purpose in life" My name is Brandy Veasey. Mary s Song was the place where I experienced complete restoration and freedom from addiction. It was most importantly the place where I completely surrendered my will and plans to God. I had no agenda when I graduated Mary s Song but to fall more in love with Jesus and follow his steps each day. I was content with myself for the first time and happy with my new life in Christ. My worst day in Christ is better than my best day in the world! He satisfies my soul like no other substance, soul mate, success, or anything else this world looks for to find true happiness. Psalms 40:2, He brought me up out of the pit of destruction, out of the miry clay, and He set my feet upon a rock making my footsteps firm. Psalms 27:4, One thing I have asked from the Lord, that I shall seek; that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to meditate in His temple. When I express my current life compared with before my time at Mary s Song, I tell people it feels like a lifetime ago. I have been reborn, and given a new life in Christ. I m living out the scripture John 3:3 when it says a man must be born again to enter the Kingdom of God. I have experienced for myself that God is true to His word. He s a faithful and good God. My life has a whole new meaning because I ve been born again. Eternity has become my main focus and purpose in life. Before Mary s Song I lost all hope and purpose but now I ve found everything I was searching for in Christ. I m blessed with an amazing church and spiritual family. God has restored my relationship with my family. I m a testimony of the Lord s faithfulness to them. I ve been married to the most amazing man, Chandler Veasey, for two years now. He grew up at Victory Fellowship and currently is the Worship and Young Adults Director. He loves me with Christ s love and leads by example. I m currently serving in the worship and young adults ministry with him and having a blast. It s so fulfilling to be able to pour out the love, forgiveness, and freedom that I ve experienced to other people. He truly does make all things new! I work in the office at St. Anthony s Nursing Home where I m also able to minister to people. Each day I encounter precious souls that are close to the end of their race on earth. It s amazing being able to love on them at work and lead them to Christ! Everyday is a gift from God! He has used Mary s Song and Victory Fellowship to help shake the dust off from my past and move me forward. Pastor Parris would always say when I was in the program that we attain progress by baby steps. This is how I live my life now! Every day I practice the basic principles of the bible: devotions, prayer, worship, and connecting to the local church. I have been taking baby steps since day one of Mary s Song. Looking back God has done so much in my life. We go from glory to glory!

8 Mary s Song taught me who I am in Christ and that is why I am sober today! It has been 6 years since I walked into the doors of Mary s Song. I never thought I would have the life I have today. He saved me from myself! There is so much God has done for me, it s totally surreal. I ve been sober for 6 years and graduated from the program! I ve been working at Victory Fellowship for 4 ½ years. I m getting ready to graduate Bethesda College this year! I m married to the most amazing man EVER for 2 years now. Now we are expecting our first baby girl! When I walked into Mary s Song I was only going to appease the judge and follow through with my probation. Ultimately I wanted to learn to control my habit but God had a different plan. Proverbs 16:9 (NKJV), A man s heart plans his way, But the Lord directs his steps. THANK YOU JESUS!!!! My journey is not about the things that God has done for me or the things that I have accomplished since the program. This just shows how amazing God is and how much He loves us. Romans 5:8, Even while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. There wasn t anything I could do or couldn t do to earn His love. He simply just loves me! I look back now and I am totally amazed at the journey, and I know that it can only get better from here. I am so grateful for Mary s Song! It isn t a 12-step program that taught me to be sober, Mary s Song taught me who I am in Christ and THAT is why I am sober today!

9 "At that moment I cried out to Jesus" My name is Angela Willis. Before Mary s Song, I had a life full of sin, drugs and men. I was angry enough that I almost killed someone. On March 27th, I was arrested for 2nd degree attempted murder. I was in jail for 6-7 months and was looking at years. At that moment I cried out to Jesus, even though I didn t even know who He was. I cried for help and Jesus helped me way more then I asked for that day. He brought me to Mary s Song! The Sheriff in Plaquemines Parish knew about Mary s Song and told the Judge. The Judge looked at me and said, I m going to do you a favor and send you to Mary s Song. I m not angry anymore, I love Jesus! I love reading my Bible and worshipping! I love church and the people! My leaders have helped me get to know and come close to God. Look at all the things He has done in my life. I have my prayer language. I can read and understand my Bible. I get to see my oldest son, Avery, after 7 months. My dad and son are saved. They got saved at Beyond the Grave! My mom is seeing a change in me and wants to attend Beyond the Grave too. After a year or two, I will finally get to see my youngest son, Zeek. Thank you Jesus! He Turned by Angela Willis Father God! You turned my dark into light. My black to white. My wrongs to right! You mold me into the most beautiful tree on the land. When the others takes me one step back You take me two steps forward By your grace and mercy Lord You turn my dark into light My black to white My wrongs to right You held me so tight in your arms You love me even when the other side intervenes Your flame never dies Your stream never runs dry You turn my dark into light My black into white My wrongs to right For all the days of my life

10 6 Month Graduations Ashley Landry Miley Carter Alyssa Womack

11 12 Month Graduations Marianne Terry Tanya Dubroc Dale Rockefeller

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