SANDRA K. REABUCK
sreabuck@tribdem.com
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In a joyful and uplifting ceremony, 49 graduates of Peniel Drug and Alcohol Treatment Center and its family services program were greeted with loud cheers and applause Saturday as they began new steps in their lives to keep free of addiction and its often-devastating impact on their families.
The center graduates completed a 13-month, intensive inpatient, Bible-based treatment program at the West Taylor Township facility. It was the 29th graduating class for the center and the second for its outpatient family service program.
More than 300 people filled the sanctuary, joining in a hymn of praise of how the the “Walls Are Tumbling Down” with “chains falling off my feet.”
As Dr. Gene Rice of Cleveland, Tenn., chairman of the board of directors, put it in an interview prior to the graduation, the center’s work is “Operation Rescue – rescuing people who have fallen victim to drug and alcohol addiction.”
It serves clients not only from the local area but also from other states. While clients range in age from 18 to senior citizens, most are 18 to 30 years old, administrators said.
In moving testimony, Mike Simmons, a 33-year-old North Carolina native, said, “The structured environment (at Peniel) and God saved me and restored my family to me.”
Simmons said he had started using cocaine as an 18-year-old and had been in and out of prison several times. He said that although he “had been saved in 2003 when I found God,” he relapsed a few years later.
Realizing that he needed help, Simmons said that he turned to Peniel for help because “I knew couldn’t do it on my own.”
He said he had relocated to the Johns-town area and is striving to get his license back as a preacher in the Church of God.
A young man who was identified only as Dashawn said Peniel’s program has freed him from a life as a gang member who spent time in prison.
Instead of having “a tool belt for a .45 (caliber gun) and cocaine, I have a tool belt of integrity,” he told the audience.
He proudly said that his daughter, whom he had not seen for 31⁄2 years, was with him at the graduation.
“This is a miracle. I am a changed man,” Dashawn said.
