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Elisabeth
Gena |
Gena and Elisabeth are in their 20s. They met in
a drug and alcohol rehab. program, and have so much hope for the future they
feel compelled to share it. But while leading to the same end, their stories
are very different.
In May, Gena and Elisabeth graduated from Teen Challenge, a yearlong
Christian-based drug and alcohol rehabilitation program for women ages 18
and older. Now they work at the Higher Ground coffee shop in the parking lot
of the Providence Center off North Orange Street. Higher Ground is owned and
operated by Teen Challenge.
Gena and Elisabeth are both quick on their feet, taking turns waiting on
customers at the drive-through window. Gena, 24, has a long black wavy
ponytail. It swayed from side to side as she went from one thing to the
next, preparing orders, looking over her shoulder laughing with Elisabeth,
both of them always smiling. Gena has four brothers and three sisters, but
she lost an older sister to an Oxycontin overdose two years ago this Easter.
Her parents have been awesome through their children’s tribulations with
drugs, she said.
Gena grew up in Ronan. She started using meth-amphetamine when she was 15,
she said. At first, no one suspected what was going on with her. She dropped
out of Ronan High School a year later, and went to a psychiatric ward,
treatment center and a halfway house in fairly rapid succession.
“They didn’t help, obviously,” she said. At first, Gena remembers, she
wanted to quit using meth. But after awhile, she stopped wanting to quit. “I
was so broken, so deep,” she said. When she turned 18, Gena left the halfway
house and went out on her own. Her parents had no way to reach her, no idea
where she was and no way to know whether she was dead or alive.
“I really hurt my family a lot,” she said. After being arrested with meth-amphetamine
in her possession, she was court-ordered to Teen Challenge. “I totally
surrendered to God,” she said. There, Gena met Elisabeth. “We found out
we’re cousins,” Gena said. Elisabeth, 21, quietly looked off, trying to find
the right words to tell her story.
She grew up in Arlee. Her parents were good, she said. They didn’t drink or
abuse her, but there was a long line of alcohol and physical abuse in the
family In Arlee, when you get to the seventh or eighth grade, Elisabeth
said, you either drop out or go to Two Eagle River School in Pablo. She
wanted to go to Two Eagle, but her parents wanted her to go to Valley
Christian in Missoula. She got good grades and did really well for awhile,
she said. She even got a full scholarship to the college of her choosing.
She graduated and went to Central Washington University. But after a year
and a quarter, Elisabeth flunked out. She had started drinking before she
graduated from high school, but things got pretty bad when she started
college. She got into an abusive relationship, and that didn’t help.
“I thought that was the way it was supposed to be,” she said. She started
having financial problems and didn’t have goals or any hope, she said. She
was living “irresponsibly”. After she got a DUI, her dad helped her get into
Teen Challenge.
Last year, a rash of deaths hit the Flathead Reservation. Four young boys
died from drug and alcohol overdoses in the span of six months. “It really
made us angry,” Gena said. So when Gena and Elisabeth found hope in the Teen
Challenge program, they wanted to share it with their own people – with
people their own age.
“You don’t have to live like that. You can be happy without drugs,” Gena
said. Now the two young women are planning a four-day evangelistic outreach
at the Arlee powwow grounds.
They were inspired by the Rev. Fubara Ibama, who organizes a similar
outreach effort in Nigeria. It’s a good way to release your frustrations and
worries, rather than to keep them bottled up, he told them. Last year, Ibama
asked the young women when they were doing their outreach. “I opened my big
mouth,” Elisabeth said, shaking her head. “I said, ‘Next summer! |
