Junior Berrios

I grew up a pastor's kid in East Chicago, Indiana. The earliest age I remember making a conscious decision about God was 13. I began to believe (what I know now to be a lie from the devil) that I was created to go to Hell. I heard countless sermons and testimonies from pastors and Christians detailing the lives they were delivered from and how they had been made clean.

These testimonies left me confused because all the drugs, sex, money, music, and so on that they left in the world were all the things I desired to have and to do. This made me feel very confused. I assumed that since I couldn't stop wanting that lifestyle that I was created to want that and so there was no hope for me to change. I concluded that there was no God.

I spent the next 11 years of my life living without any concern for God. I got involved in gangs and drugs very young. In my neighborhood, all of us knew it would be a miracle to live to see 21, so we spent every day like it was our last. I got into some serious trouble, and threats were made against my life. My parents asked me to leave town for their sakes, so I moved to Las Vegas with some friends of the family. I hated Las Vegas. I wanted to go home, but there was nothing for me to go home to. I started researching the military and enlisted in the US Air Force.

The Air Force was the best thing to happen in my life up to that moment. I saw for the first time, life outside the neighborhood. I became patriotic, and I took pride in wearing the uniform that I earned. It would be short-lived as I was kicked out 8 months later. 

Back home again, looking out my parents' living room window, a familiar lie crept into my subconscious again. "Why did you try to be anything other than what you were created to be?" I went back to drugs and alcohol, sinking deeper than I had ever been before. This is where I met my wife Jessica, from my perspective, it was love at first sight. We got together, and a few months later, she was pregnant with my son Noah. We got married, had my daughter Mikaela, and then divorced. Long story short, I could not love her and my children in my current state.

So if you are keeping track, I was enlisted in November 2007 at 18 years old, kicked out in June 2008, married with a child in February 2009, and divorced with 2 kids in 2013. By some miracle, my wife and I got back together in 2014, but it was more of the same. I was a problem. Everything began to change that year.

My wife got saved in 2014 and began praying for me. We got remarried, and I was happy for her, but still disinterested in church or God. Later that year, in July, I was completely lost, and I was ready to end it all. I wanted to be clean, but I tried so many times and failed. I would look at my wife, my kids, and I wanted to love them, but somehow I couldn't. I was ready to abandon everything. I decided to take one last swing. I went to church.

I couldn't tell you what songs were sung, what the sermon was on, but when the altar call was opened, I went down on my knees and asked Jesus Christ to save me. That is exactly what He did! From that moment, I was completely delivered, and so July 6th, 2014, became the last day I would ever touch another drug or have another drink!

Because of Jesus Christ saving my life, I have in turn devoted that life to Him and Him alone. This is my mission to serve Him by serving His people. There is so much else to say, but I would run out of space. Come and meet me at LCF, and I will tell you all about it.