ESTHER PROJECT OFFERS HOPE

As a meth addict, Toni, the daughter of a Pentecostal minister, ended
up in jail after a failed drug test. Shala, the wife of a minister,
got thrown in jail for prescription-drug fraud. Gidget abused crack
cocaine, among a variety of other pills and powders, and ended up in
a drug overdose. Gwen basically lived on the streets most of her life
and was introduced to drugs before she hit puberty.

"I was 9 when I was first in the streets. The first time I saw
cocaine I was holding a belt around my grandmother's arm while she
shot up," 24-year-old Gwen recalled.

But now all these women are on the road to recovery as participants
of the Esther Project, a free, faith-based, drug-abuse recovery
program sponsored by the Hope Center and Carpenter's House church.

"We are truly free. We are truly here to see people's lives be free
(of drugs and alcohol). A lot of people can't get help because they
can't afford it," Esther Project Director Angie Creasy said.

The Esther Project is a minimum 12-month live-in program that
operates solely on donations, and it was opened for enrollment in
April 2006. Women attend classes daily but live in a secure, off-site
location. Classes cover topics such as spiritual development,
social/character development, anger management, substance abuse and
education. They do not work outside the program; instead, they do
community service around the church. But the last three months, they
eventually learn to transition back into society.

For Gwen, enrollment in the Esther Project has given her the
stability and structure in life she's never had. For her, life has
never been easy street.

"By the time I was 12, my sister and my brother and I were in the
streets," Gwen said as she grabbed a tissue.

Her mother and grandmother were prostitutes, so Gwen often had to
fend for herself and her siblings. Sometimes that meant stealing food
to keep them from going hungry.

"By the time I was 15, I was in the street selling drugs. ... Then I
got pregnant, and everybody turned their backs on me," Gwen recalled,
tears welling up in her eyes.

Then she became involved with a drug dealer who beat her regularly.
The hardest pain from that situation, however, was knowing her little
boy was watching it all. But between the drugs, abuse and neglect
she'd endured all her life, she couldn't seem to break the cycle.

Eventually she lost custody of her son, a devastating blow.

"I really lost all hope. I'd lost everything. I let the only person I
had in life down," Gwen said as tears streamed down her face. "I was
pretty much suicidal."

From drug charges to arson, Gwen finally ended up in jail once
again. But during her last time behind bars, "God really started
working on me," she explained.

She attended church services that were brought in to the female inmates.

"These women that would come see me every other Sunday, they told me
about the (Esther Project) program. I filled out the application. I
waited a long time to come," Gwen said and smiled through her tears.
"I knew I needed to change the inside, not the outside."

While the other women enrolled in the Esther Project didn't grow up
in the streets, the road to recovery hasn't been easy for them, either.

Although Toni grew up in a religious household with a "good, solid
foundation," crystal methamphetamine tore her life apart. But at an
early age, she dabbled in drinking and other recreational products.

"I chose to rebel," Toni admitted. But those rebellious days mixed
her with the wrong crowds and dangerous narcotics.

For Shala, health problems sent her scrambling for pain medication.
After six surgeries in three years, she'd bounced around from one
pain pill to another. She was hooked, too. She first sought help in a
26-day rehabilitation, which still wasn't a solution, she said.

"Even though I was clean, I didn't have any joy," Shala explained as
she recalled her childhood, filled with tales of an alcoholic father
and an abusive stepfather. "I wasn't in my heart where I wanted to be."

Yet another surgery sent her back to the pain pills, although her
husband "kept up with the medication" this time, she noted. She found
a way to get her pain pills through prescription fraud, however. And
eventually, Shala found her way to the Esther Project.

Gidget, whose mother died not long after giving birth to her, spent
most of her childhood fending for herself. Before her teenage years
were over, she'd had three children and a penchant for pills --
especially the anti-anxiety drug Xanax.

Then she was introduced to crack cocaine, which sent her world spiraling.

"It does talk to you. You shoplift, you steal, your family loses all
hope in you," Gidget explained. Crack was just the beginning. "You
name it, I've been on it."

But drugs sent Gidget into an overdose one night and she "woke up and
realized what God was saying."

"I started looking for programs on my own. I knew it was the only
thing that would save me was God," Gidget said.

For all these women, the Esther Project is "like a spiritual
hospital," explained Creasy, program director.

The program provides the tools and support, but the women do the
work, said Creasy.

"I believe God can set you free. I don't believe once an addict,
always an addict," Creasy said.

The story of Esther

King Xerxes was in search of a new wife, so he took all the single
virgins of the entire kingdom and sent them to be pampered for a year
in preparation for him.

From that group, Esther was chosen as queen. But she was a Jew,
something she hid from the king.

Then Esther's cousin, Mordecai, who had raised her, refused to pray
to the king's nobleman Haman. In retaliation, Haman got the king to
agree to an edict that would kill all the Jews in the land.

As a Jew, Esther was scared that she, too, would be included.
Mordecai encouraged her to beg the king not to kill the Jews, and he
told her, "For if you remain silent at this time, relief and
deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place, but you and
your father's family will perish. And who knows but that you have
come to royal position for such a time as this?" (Esther 4:14)

The Esther Project derives its name from the premise of the story of
Esther. Much like the women in King Xerxes' kingdom, the ladies in
recovery are preparing for the kingdom of God for a year, Esther
Project Director Angie Creasy said.

"They are here to spend a year for the Lord. What they get (from the
program) they'll be able to take back (into the world)," Creasy
explained. They will be taking the light (the word of God) into the
dark places where they came from."

Maybe the reason why they have gone through such struggles in life is
because they were eventually led to God's service, Creasy added.