The View from Debbie’s Desk Debbie Champagne

The View from Debbie’s Desk

Our oldest son was lost. Spiritually. He had no direction after high school. He’s had issues all of his life. He was born with a chemical imbalance in his brain. He had terrible ADD and learning disabilities. For a while he was hallucinating and at 10 years old he ended up in a psychiatric hospital for a few months. It wasn’t until he was in his late 30’s that we found out he had Asperger’s syndrome. (which after we read about it we realized that he had his entire life.) When he was 12, I took him to get a physical for camp and they noticed something wasn’t quite right with his eyes and sent us to an ophthalmologist. Me, Don and Josh (our younger son) were waiting for the doctor to finish when all of sudden the door opened and the doctor came out and said “Is this your son?” pointing at Josh and we said “Yes.” He said, “I need to exam him right now.” We said ” What’s going on?” The doctor said, “Just give me a few minutes.” So, we let him take Josh and a few minutes later he came out and said. “This son is Ok.” “But Michael has double vision. He sees 2 of everything.” We were in shock and I asked. “ how long do you think he’s had it and the doctor said. “From birth.” I then asked. ”Why didn’t he tell us?” The Doctor said. “He thought that’s the way everybody sees.” Then we started thinking back to all the times Michael would try and catch a ball and would just miss it or when we would be talking to him and he never looked at us. He looked beside us. We would even say to him. “Look us in the eyes” and he couldn’t do it. (We thought he was just being obstinate.) He started vision therapy and now sees one of everything.

We took him to church every Sunday. We tried and tried to show him the truth about Christ, to give the Lord a chance to come into his heart. He fought even the mention of God.

He went through a lot from ages 18 – 22 just trying to find himself which I feel he was really just avoiding God. One time I kicked him out of the house, and he went and lived under a bridge in our town for a couple of months, he stole some things from us, he used drugs. He went to Indiana to visit a friend and they had a falling out and threw him out on the street. He went to New Orleans with “friends” and they left him. He was homeless there for at least 6 months maybe more. It was hard on me and Don, but we felt we had to be tough. But it was so extremely hard. We had everyone we knew praying for him. He would call collect every couple of weeks just to let us know that he was alive. Then somehow, he made it to Los Angeles. That time it was six weeks before I heard from him, I was so worried. I know I …

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… The View from Debbie’s Desk Cont.

I shouldn’t have been, but I was. When he finally called, I told him that he had to call once a month, or I would hire a private investigator to find him. (I had been saving all our telephone bills with the collect calls on them. The bills showed what telephone booth he made the call from). He was living in abandoned buildings or on the streets, begging food from people or eating out of garbage cans. He didn’t want to be found. So he called but he was running hard from the Lord.

At the end of church one Sunday about 8 – 10 months after Michael started living in L.A., Don felt convicted. He had to get some help. He went up front, opened his heart and told everyone what was going on with Michael and asked for prayer. Everyone came forward and prayed with us. We both felt the burden lift from us.

Three weeks later we receive a collect call from

Michael. A church mission group (Hope for Homeless Youth) picked him up off the street, gave him food, clothes, a place to stay and

Debbie Champagne

Secretary debbie@bensonbaptist.org EXT. 21 shared the love of Christ with him. He was saved. He is one of the Lord’s children. His transformation was complete. He loves the Lord with all his heart to this day. Thank you,

For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Jeremiah 29:11

Debbie

Lord!