‘Don’t come back’ he told his dad until…

Andrae Brooks, 16, didn’t recognize the man at his door.

“I’m your father,” said the man, who had been in jail for trafficking drugs for most of Andrae’s childhood.

“What do you want?” Andrae retorted.

Awkwardly, Andrae’s father attempted to talk to his estranged son for about 10 minutes before he gave up, saying, “All right, I’m going to come back later.”

“You don’t need to,” Andrae replied, coldly.

Cagey and closed off, Andrae was incredibly gifted at cutting people off and shutting off his feelings toward them.

Born in New Jersey, Andrae never went to church. Because Dad wasn’t in his life, his mom had two jobs to carry the household and leaned heavily on Andrae to take care of his little sister, younger by nine years.

“I didn’t get to play on the basketball team because I always had to pick her up and watch over her. I was the free baby sister,” Andrae says on a Virginia Beach Potter’s House podcast. “I loved basketball.”

When Andrae was 14, Dad tried calling him from prison. At 16, Andrae rebuffed Dad at the door. At 18, he didn’t come to the door when his father knocked.

He was guarded, suspicious of others’ motives and ready to fight at the slightest misunderstanding. By choice, he limited his friendships to three all throughout high school.

There were brushes with the supernatural when he was young. On one occasion when walking alone on ice in 14-degree weather, he broke through and should have drowned. But he “popped up” and managed to pull himself out. On another occasion, he hit his head and went unconscious in the pool but miraculously regained consciousness when dragged from the pool, spitting up water and blood and asking what happened.

Andrae avoided drugs because an uncle died from abusing them, and he swore he would never use.

Once he graduated, Andrae was wondering what to do with his life. He was sleeping on his mother’s couch being a “bum.” When his close friend got married and moved to Virginia, he moved in with them. He would do chores to show his appreciation for the free living arrangement.

But when the wife got saved, she invited Andrae to church. He had no intention of going. “If you don’t go, you’ll be on the street,” she replied. Sometimes the harshest of evangelisms work. Thus under the threat of ultimatum, Andrae went to a New Year’s concert and drama activity.

Those Southern folks were strange. He was used to not talking to strangers, not even looking at strangers – the custom of New Jersey. But the church folk from Virginia came up and introduced themselves in a friendly manner. They wouldn’t even let Andrae alone when he got his food. It was awkward.

The Christian rap was corny. But the dramas… Read the rest: Reconciliation with Dad.

Cuban freed from communism needed Jesus to get free from drugs

Without a father, Cuban-born Eddie Ramirez turned to fighting to vent his rage. He also sold drugs to high-net-worth clients.

“I was cheated. I was cheated because I needed a father in my life and he wasn’t there,” Eddie says on a CBN video. “People needed my merchandise, and I was ruthless, so I felt like I was in control.”

He not only sold cocaine, he also snorted it. It destroyed his nose and his life. He was so out of control that he got into a motorcycle accident and was run over by a truck.

Eddie Ramirez was part of the “Freedom Flights” rescuing people from communist Cuba in 1967. When his dad came to America a year later, the youngster hoped to enjoy his family and his new life in America, but it was not to be.

Dad was aggressive and angry, and Eddie never developed a close relationship with him. After a time, his parents divorced.

As an outlet for his resentments, he fought neighborhood kids. Older boys noticed his toughness and took him into their gang. He latched on the masculine approbation and began to thrive in the life of crime.

“I needed somebody to accept me because I was cheated. I needed somebody that was older than me to accept me and embrace me and say, ‘OK, you’re part of this.’”

The hole in his heart wasn’t filled by crime, however, so he sought satisfaction in drug use.

“What is the next thing? Well, let me get some drugs, let me start doing drugs,” he acknowledges.

He worked his way up in drug dealing and landed some high-profile clients. He felt an illusion of power. But he was helpless to stop his own spiraling addiction.

“You’re always chasing that first high,” he says. “It got me to the point of no return. I was like, I can’t stop. There’s no way of me stopping. I had power. I had money; people were looking for me.”

When he was almost killed by a truck it brought a wakeup call. When Eddie recovered, a friend who had become a Christian took him to church.

“Once I was there in church, I was like, ‘What’s here? There’s nothing here for me. I’m not making no money here. I need to go out there and make money.’”

His stubborn heart remained resistant. He didn’t get saved or repent.

After he survived gunshots to the head, he began to reexamine his lifestyle. “I felt disgusted the way that I would just stay up all night and do drugs,” he says. “My nose was like falling apart.”

“Cocaine is a drug that once you start doing it there’s no turning back,” Eddie says. “I was desperate for a way out of this addiction.”

At the urging of his mom, Eddie checked into a rehab facility where he had a life-changing encounter with the Lord.

“I remember one night I’m there in my room and I get a visitation from what I believe was the Lord Jesus,” he says.

In the vision, Jesus imparted to him: You really want to change your life, all you have to do is walk through this door and if you walk through the door, your life will be changed.

Eddie saw a very narrow door, through which shined a bright light. Read the rest: Cuban freed from communism.

Nightmarish Christmas turned around

On the plate where little Greg Colon had left cookies and milk for Santa on Christmas Eve were empty syringes on Christmas morning, evidence that his dad had abused drugs — again.

The embittering experience of substance abusing, absentee parents pushed Greg into copying the cool, law-breaking kids in his New York neighborhood. When he dropped out of high school, he opened a barber shop as a front for trafficking drugs.

“I loved the way I was living, I loved what it could do for me. I loved how it made me feel,” Greg says on a CBN video. “It was all about me. It was about money; it was about greed and it was about self-indulgence.”

Greg Colon’s dad, a stone-hearted drug addict, was rarely home. His mom died of alcoholism.

At age 9, Greg moved in with his grandparents, who offered him precious little in terms of material things but gave him and his brother love. But the lack of acceptance from his parents’ neglect left him with a hole in his heart that he tried to fill with worldly possessions.

“What attracted me were the more violent kids, kids who always had the nice sneakers, the nice clothes,” he confesses.

When his grandfather died, Greg, at age 12, lost his own compass in life.

“He was somebody who really got me as a kid and actually cared for me,” Greg remembers. “Then he was gone. I was just empty inside.”

With no positive role models in his life, Greg fell into running the streets and selling drugs. At age 15, he dropped out of high school.

The one bright spot was when he was 15 and his dad, who tried to reform, gave him a professional barber’s clippers. Cutting hair was something Greg enjoyed.

“In my heart it meant the world,” Greg says. “It was like a real good pair like a professional pair of clippers.”

It certainly helped improve their relationship, but it didn’t undo a lifetime of neglect. Read the rest: Christmas nightmare turned around.

A father’s ‘curse of inheritance’ casts a long shadow over son, who only broke free through Jesus

As so often happens, Jason Rangel became the father he hated.

As a child, he once even called the cops on his drug-addicted, violent father.

“I seen my dad not in his right mind. I was scared,” he remembers on a 700 Club video. “My dad was in jail when I was going through puberty. I remember not having him there when I needed him.”

Jason’s aunt took him to church. He found stability, hope and sanity there. He even talked to God. But the demons of his childhood traumas pulled him away from God. In his 20s, he found self-value and meaning by pursuing girls.

“I really became sexual with females. I really just couldn’t get enough. I was having sex with my first girlfriend, and it progressed from there to the next girlfriend and the next girlfriend.”

After he got married, he continued having affairs and fathered two children. But because he was unfaithful to the mother of his children, she took the kids and left him, heading for California. He also was in and out of jail.

Back with his kids after getting right with Jesus.

“It was just a real tumultuous relationship. I was always unfaithful to her,” Jason says. “I just didn’t care about my children. I wasn’t a good father. I was caught up with the world, caught up with these guys that I was hanging out with.”

After he lost his kids, Jason got turned on to drugs by a coworker. “The loss of my kids affected me negatively,” he says. “I was struggling to cope. I was out of control.”

By now, he was married to another woman, which whom he had two addition children.

“I thought I was entitled to drinking and drugs and being unfaithful,” Jason says. “It was a chain reaction that got worse and worse through the years. When my kids were 9 or 10 years old, I remember them coming home, and I’d be high at the house.”

That’s when he… Read the rest: Father’s curse of inheritance

Fathers and sons win in Creed II

I cried for the villain in Creed II. His father didn’t abandon him.

Viktor Drago, the son of Rocky IV villain Ivan, challenges the world’s heavyweight champion Adonis Creed. Ivan was a terrifying boxing machine with an intimidating deep voice, the product of the Soviet athlete-production plan. When he lost to Rocky in the 1985 film, he lost fame, fortune and his wife.

He trains his son relentlessly. Inevitably, he’ll match up with Rocky’s “adopted” son, Creed.

Creed II follows a predictable come-back. What’s not predictable is the development of the father-son relationship theme that has much to teach Christians.

Adonis, the protagonist, gets adopted for training and mentoring by Rocky in the first movie. He’s the illegitimate son of Rocky’s old nemesis Apollo Creed and never knew his real father. While Rocky prepares Adonis for the big fight, Adonis helps Rocky fight cancer behind the scenes.

In Creed II, the father-son theme gets developed. Rocky abandons Adonis for the first matchup, which he loses. He reconciles for a second matchup, which Adonis wins. Meanwhile, Adonis has a deaf daughter, and Rocky re-starts his relationship with his real son and grandson.

But the biggest sensation is when Viktor loses. When his dad, Ivan, lost 28 years ago, his wife abandoned him. Ivan trains Viktor with a revenge drive. Viktor is destined to regain respect for the family.

Then he loses the bout.

A super short scene of father and son jogging together is the most touching of the movie. The heartless abandonment that happened to Ivan did not happen to Victor. It’s a strange twist in which the antagonist becomes the protagonist. Fathers and sons win.

Creed II can help America with its failing fathers.

Remi Adeleke, movie star, Navy SEAL and trafficker

Before Remi Adeleke was a famous actor, he was a Navy SEAL. And before he was a Navy SEAL, he was a drug dealer in the Bronx.

God brought about an incredible transformation in the life of the “Transformers” star.

Remi’s life spiraled downward after his father died in 1987. He had immigrated to New York from Nigeria with his family when he was five. Without a father’s love and guidance, he was left to himself. He liked movies, but the message to black men was mostly negative.

“It said you’re a young African American young male you need to be a hustler, or you need to be a thug or a player,” he says on an “I am Second” video.

Accordingly, he fell into stealing, running scams and dealing drugs as a young person in the Bronx.

But if movies hastened his journey into the “valley of the shadow of death,” movies also brought him through. When he watched “Bad Boys,” he saw black men who were heroes, not thugs. He began to re-imagine his self-image.

Then he watched “The Rock” by Michael Bay about Navy SEALs that lived heroic lives, running, gunning and saving the day.

“I was just blown away at this portrayal of men who were coming out of the water and going into this place to go sacrifice themselves and save others,” he says. “It really resonated and I thought if I was to ever turn my life around, that’s what I would do.”

A drug deal that went bad provided the spark to turn his life around. At age 19, he joined the military with the goal of becoming a Navy SEAL. There was one snag to his freshly forged ambition: he didn’t know how to swim.

He worked his bum off through boot camp, learned to swim, and qualified for SEAL training.

“When I wanted something, I would literally run through walls to get it,” he says.

He had reinvented himself, and he loved Remi 2.0.

“There’s not many jobs where you can get paid to jump out of planes and go after bad guys and protect those who couldn’t protect themselves — essentially be that guy who stood in the face of bullies and said not on my watch.”

During cold weather survival training in Alaska in 2008, he found a measure of solitude that caused him to think about his journey. Read the rest of Remi Adeleke Christian.

She not only survived, she smiled

By Kayla Armstrong, LCA sophomore

Growing up I always seen kids with a mom and dad and always going out to eat and having a good time. Well believe it or not, I didn’t have that. My mom was my mother and father, and it was always just me and her.

My father was really never in the picture, wasn’t at my games, awards, or plays, etc. As a little girl, I had so many questions and wanted the feeling of what it was like to have a full-time father.

I saw my dad a few times but not often. I remember the times where I would wait for him to pick me up but he never came. My dad and I were never close and even when he did pick me up, I would just be in my room for the whole weekend just watching TV and my dad and I wouldn’t really talk. It would be small talk like, “Are you hungry?”

It was embarrassing and made me very sad because I felt unwanted and felt like my dad didn’t love me or didn’t want me. But as I got older I was thankful he wasn’t in my life because my mom and I had a close relationship.

As time went by, my mother got married. I was happy because I had a father in my life, and he didn’t single me out because I was his “stepdaughter.” He treated me as if I was his own. We had a close relationship, and I got attached to him as if he were my biological father.

I was happy because I had someone to come to my volleyball games, there for my school recitals and if I got rewards and someone who can be there for me as a father.

In the middle of the year, things twisted, and the home wasn’t a “happy” home. There were lots of arguments, and next thing I know he was out of the house. I rebelled against everyone, especially God because I felt like God didn’t want me to be happy.

I felt like if He really loved me or was “real,” He would let our home be a happy home. Go to this link to find the happy ending and I invite you to comment there.