David Slone - November 2023

Consider God’s power to reconcile. As a child, David’s dad was in prison. His mother was an addict. He fell in line with his parents and began using meth when he was fourteen. By the time he was 21, he was in prison and would be sentenced 10 more times over the following twenty years. Hopeless, and believing he had burned every bridge, he considered suicide at his last incarceration. David didn’t understand the power of God’s desire to reconcile him. That power and desire met David in that jail cell and began a process of transforming him. Once his sentence was completed, he entered our Forge program. Here’s what he has to say now:

“This place saved my life. Forge is designed for the full rebuild of a man. First, we learn to submit to God and authority. Then to serve. Then we work on our mental and spiritual health—lots of study, and exercise, too, for our physical health. Finally, we get to work, start saving money, and get our finances in shape…

…God works in some really miraculously dumbfounding ways: I’m being rebuilt by the same town I once tore up. I get emotional about it and often ask the other Forge guys, ‘Do you get it? Do you really get it? How many people are putting their heart and soul and money into rebuilding us? All
because God loves us.’”

When you meet David, it’s obvious he’s dumbfounded by God’s amazing grace. Thank you for your support and being one of those who puts “their heart and souls and money into rebuilding” guys like David. To God be the glory. It’s worth considering that when David once called himself a “scourge,” God called him priceless. When David thought of himself as irreconcilable, God thought otherwise: …although you were at one time estranged and alienated and hostile-minded toward Him, participating in evil things, yet Christ has now reconciled you to God… Col 1:21.