I was born in Madrid Spain—my father was in the Air Force. We moved back to the states when I was three, to San Bernardino. I grew up right down the street from St. Bernadine’s hospital. My mother had five children from her first marriage, but they were all grown and I didn’t know them that much, so I was raised pretty much as an only child. Me and my parents went to Church once in a while, but not that often. I had a pretty normal childhood. I got average grades, played baseball and joined the cub scouts. By the time I was in Junior High I started experimented with pot and alcohol. When I got to High School I was introduced to harder drugs like acid, pills and finally methamphetamine. By the time I graduated high school was so strung out on meth, I got kicked out of my parents house. I was ostracized from my family and spent the next thirty years using and selling meth. It totally destroyed my life before it had even started. I made a lot of money but I also did a lot of the profit. I was in and out of jail and I finally went to prison for selling drugs. While I was in prison I started reading my Bible and was baptized. I paroled in 2008 but I kept using until about 2012, I finally decided I had enough. I was tired of being a burden to my family and friends and I didn’t want to die in my sin. I heard about Set Free and went to the ranch in Phelan/ I did my sixty days and blessed out to a second phase home and stayed for about two years. I went back out for a couple of years but I came back into to the ministry in 2016. I haven’t used meth in about three years. I have tried AA and NA but I had to get Jesus involved before I achieved any length of sobriety. I’ve been in the ministry ever since and I have no desire to go back to my old way of life. I have traded the darkness of drugs for the light of Jesus. With Jesus I have a hope for the future and eternity. Without Him there is no future.

–Russell Broomhall