Women learn about God at Teen Challenge

WILLARD – Anna Angel didn’t want to be at Teen Challenge. But, after a few months at the Christian-based program, she was thankful she was put in the program to learn and serve God. She learned more about God than she ever had. “Now, I want to get my life back on track,” she wrote. “I live for the Lord.” Angel started rebelling and acting out as a teenager and started drinking and smoking marijuana at a young age, landing a felony charge by the time she was 20 and completing a sixth-month rehabilitation program before she started having children. Angel found herself at Teen Challenge after being served three drug trafficking charges through Seneca County Common Pleas Court. Those came after a trailer fire claimed the lives of her five children and fiance Sept. 15, 2013. Saturday, the day before the fire, Tiara, her oldest, asked if they could go to church Sunday, and Angel told her she had to go to work. She reported to work at 3 a.m. Sunday and learned of the fire that claimed her family about four and a half hours later. Angel lost her job because she stopped going to work and acknowledged she didn’t care about anything anymore. “So from this point, I started doing whatever drugs I could get,” she wrote in a statement. Angel was drinking heavily and selling drugs and got arrested on heroin trafficking charges. She went to court Jan. 20, 2015, was sent to Teen Challenge and had to turn herself in Jan. 28, 2015. Angel said she has her ups and downs at Teen Challenge. She said she fell a little and has to stay an extra three to six months. She said she is close to all the girls at the facility and knows how to pray better. She said she leans on God when she is going through a problem. “(I’ve learned) that I can trust God,” she said. In her testimony, Angel acknowledged she went downhill. “But what would all of you do if you lost your whole family,” she wrote. Angel wrote she is thankful she didn’t kill herself. Now, when she thinks bad things, she asks herself what her children would want her to do. Angel wrote that instead of being lost, angry and broken, she is found and joyful. She wrote she is able to let her children go, and even though she still misses them, she knows they’re safe. “I’m so thankful for Teen Challenge, but even more for God,” she wrote. ‘Everything to fit in’ Caroline Bauwens, who was born in Belgium and said she had a good life as a child, is helping at Teen Challenge. When she was 10, her mother moved her and her brother to Florida, leaving behind family in Belgium. She said she felt angry and lost. “(I was) doing everything I could to fit in,” she said. Bauwens took pills and smoked marijuana, and she started doing heroin by the time she was 19 years old. “I kept getting in trouble,” she said. Bauwens would be clean but always went back. With jail, “you came out, and nothing’s changed,” she said. She said being an addict is terrible and said a person doesn’t choose to be one. When addicts wake up, she said, the first thing they think about is what they need to do that day to get money to support the habit. An addict would be sick if he or she doesn’t have the drug, she said. Bauwens, whose drugs of choice were pills and heroin, took money from family, sold stolen merchandise and transported drugs to and from Michigan. She had been shooting heroin 15 times a day and has been struggling with addiction for 15 or 16 years. She was told she’d either die a heroin addict or get serious help. She became Teen Challenge of the Firelands’ first graduate at the end of December and said it felt amazing to graduate. When one is an addict, she said, he or she doesn’t complete many things in life. “I feel free (being clean). I feel amazing,” she said. Bauwens said the last year wasn’t easy. “You go through a lot of hard times,” she said. She said she not only completed Teen Challenge, but overcame her addiction. She stayed at the facility as an intern. “(I) basically just work on the floor with the girls. Whatever needs to be done, I do,” she said. $200-a-day habit Alicia Vargo, a native of Weirton, West Virginia, is enrolled at Teen Challenge. She recalled growing up in a good Catholic home, playing in sports and being on the homecoming court in high school, and earning a bachelor’s degree in physical education and health. She said she drank and smoked marijuana in high school. She joined a sorority at West Virginia University during her freshman year and started doing cocaine and drinking. After she graduated from college, she moved back home to Weirton and worked. “(I) started doing methadone,” she said. Vargo got addicted to OxyContin and turned to heroin, which is less expensive. “I snorted heroin for about two years,” she said. Vargo spent five years addicted to heroin and was spending $100-$200 per day. She said she got arrested, faked her way through a mental health outpatient program and lost her job due to failing a random drug test. She said she was selling Percocet on the street – the prescription was written by a family friend who is a doctor – to support her habit and was making $4,000 a month. All of that money went to drugs, she said. Vargo was arrested on three charges and spent eight days in jail, where she went through detoxification. She went through an interview for Teen Challenge while in jail and said she wanted to go because she wanted out of jail. She arrived in Willard April 9. “It’s so good not to wake up sick every day,” she said. Vargo said Teen Challenge is making her aware of who she is, and she is learning to set boundaries and learning why she did the things she did. She said it is helping her anxiety, with focusing on herself and with not worrying what others think of her. “I’ve gained relationships,” she said. “I have friends now that care.” Life of partying Brandi Domkowksi of Youngstown, who also is enrolled at Teen Challenge of the Firelands, recalled a life of partying in college. She smoked marijuana and was kicked out of the house when her parents found out she was taking Adderall. She said she felt empty inside. Her parents stopped supporting her and paying for school, and she was living with her cousin. “Eventually, I had nowhere else to live,” she said. Domkowski said she’d either be homeless or go to Teen Challenge. Her year anniversary was Wednesday. Domkowski, who stopped going to church in high school, said Jesus has renewed all her relationships, and she knows now she can have a relationship with Jesus. She said she wants to work in ministry. “In the summer, I already have a job opportunity,” she said. Chronic pain Amanda Mulvane from Richland County, another woman who is enrolled at Teen Challenge, recalled having her first surgery 15 years ago and having to have 15 surgeries over the next nine and a half years. She was taking Percocet the entire time, increasing from 5 mg to 30 mg and using a bottle a day. She was off medication for about two years, was working 84 hours a week and couldn’t stand up because her knees were swelling. She was shot up with heroin and also did crack. Mulvane said she was ashamed about being a heroin addict. Before it happened, she never had smoked marijuana before. She was arrested Jan. 22, 2015. Her parents found out about Teen Challenge and she arrived almost a year ago. “It’s not easy,” she said about the program. Mulvane, who wants to become a corrections officer, said she is learning to lean on God. “I am learning to trust. I’m learning to forgive,” she said.