FORMER METH MAKERS FIND FREEDOM IN THE SPIRIT OF THE LORD

After four jail stints, Timmy Farmer wants to save others from the
torture of drug addiction.

Timmy Farmer broke law after law when he was younger, almost losing his
family, freedom, even life itself. He stole to buy methamphetamine, the
drug he was addicted to. He made meth, went to prison. When he got out, he
made more, got caught and went back.

It wasn't until his fourth slammer stint, in 2001, he found true salvation
in faith - and freedom from meth.

"In the world of drugs, everything is taken from you," said Farmer, a
28-year-old married father of four.

"But in the world of the Lord," he added, "everything is restored."

His goal to save others brought the Arkansas man with a church group to a
"Freedom from Meth" rally in Springfield Saturday afternoon.

It was an event, at the Salvation Army office in the 1700 block of West
Chestnut Expressway, that mixed music and theatrics in a revivalist church
service that resembled an addiction intervention.

Former addicts and their families joined members of various churches who
want to spread the Gospel to help rescue people from a drug that was
demonized variously as the product of sorcery and witchcraft.

"Methamphetamine is a direct hook-up to the demonic world," declared Steve
Box, a former addict of Pierce City who said he's been clean for five years
and who also organizes such rallies.

The rallies have in recent years become more common as a method to deal
with the social fallout of a drug so prevalent in the Ozarks, organizers said.

Another rally is planned for 7 p.m. Tuesday in Branson. And Farmer, for
example, said he's seen more rallies in recent years, and his church group
is working on a rally of its own.

The gathering in Springfield on Saturday was intended to let addicts know
"there is a way out" and "they don't have to suffer and they don't have to
die," said Leann McLemore, a member of the Free Life Outreach Ministries
who helped organize the rally and who had her own bout with meth.

Dale Lacey, 43, has never used meth but said it's his responsibility to
help others break free from addiction and enjoy life again.

"I've seen what meth can do to people," said Lacey, a member of the Unity
Free World Baptist Church, in West Fork, Ark., the same church Farmer came
with. "As a Christian, you're supposed to help whoever you can."

Farmer, a funeral coordinator, said he helps bury too many people whose
lives meth cut short.

"I'm tired of seeing people on it," he said. "I'm tired of seeing families
being destroyed."