Allen Appling

Hi my name is Elder Appling im a 54 year old Truck Driver Married with six adult childern three from a previous marriage and three step i first gave my life unto the Lord in 1976 a year after getting out of the marines corps on a hardship discharge after getting out of the marines i tried getting a job in my feild as a fire fighter but no success i ended up working in a gas station until i got robbed one weekend shortly afterwards everything started going down hill i went for job to job got devorced and became a drunk i droped out of church  could’nt keep a place to stay and by 1980 i was using drugs  in1986 i started useing crack and going in and out of jail in the mist of all this when i was sane enough i tried to be a dad because i had my two boys and my daughter with me i fanally get a good job but the bulk of the money went on drugs. then i decided to quit working and sale drugs of which i was my biggest customer and then i got involved with some drug dealers from out of town and ended up being taken off and beaten and disfigured because they belived i was in on them being robbed. about six mounths latter i moved back in with my mother God rest her soul. lost my childern moved in with a lady who ended up sending me to the hosptial to get 48 stitches. through all this i still keep using shooting up and smoking crack. i finally begged my last employer to give me my job back i slowed down using as much and managed to make it to work everyday, and in the spring of 92 after getting paid after spending all my money that i grabed a small ax and began to treaten my mother to give me some money my daughter was there also witnessing all of this whe i heard the voice of God say if you dont stop now im going to take my spirit from you. i became instantly sober ask my daughjter who was nine to call and get me some help she got in touch with the va hospital they told me if i got there they would admit me so my mother paid the neighbor to take me to va hospital in cleveland. From there they transported about three of us to the breaksville facility where i spent the next 120 day getting treatment durning that time there was a van that came and picked up people that wanted to come to church on this particular evening the african childerns chior was singing after service i went up for alter call and gave my life back to christ.i was sober saved and had a lot of skelingtons to deal one of them was that i had been on the run from the law the past five years, andreturning back to the center with the same neighbor that took me the first time we got stoped and i was carted off to jail for the next two weeks and relased until my hearing came up. i stayed sober and clean my only prayer was for Gods protection when i got sentenced which finally came up five mounths later. on the day of my hearing there was 11 people called up before me with the same charges or close to them and each ones sentence got longer and longer i was the last one called, and when i went up .the Judge had me turn around and face the courtroom . but glory to God he said to the people that because i got help on my own without the courts involvement that i should be commended.He then had me face him ask me how did i pled ,i said guilty he then read off my sentence and then suspended them put me on probation and counted my time spent in the county jail as time served. i left the court room and moved to ashtabula for extended treatment got my GED and a certificate from Great lakes institute after that a better paying jod and reastablished a real relationship with my childern and my mother before she passed. In 1994 i became a lincense minister and ordained in 1998 and still serving God with all i got. the one thing i forgot to mention is that in between the high and lows i would pray and ask God to take the drugs away to rake the desire out of my mouth and give me a secound chance.And that He has done. Im a witness if you give it over to Him He will deliver you out of what ever it is Bless is Holy Name