Texas Hunger Offering opens a new
door for New York drug addicts
___By Ken Camp
___Texas Baptist Communications
___NEW YORK--Marta Serrano warmly welcomes a drug addict who comes to the door of a three-story house in the South Bronx, seeking help in kicking her habit.
___She tells the newest new arrival at the Casa Lydia drug rehabilitation ministry how faith in Christ can help to conquer addictions. And she speaks with the authority of personal experience.
___Serrano arrived more than 18 months ago at Casa Lydia, a drug rehab ministry sponsored by Baptist churches in New York and supported in part through gifts of Texas Baptists. The Texas Baptist Offering for World Hunger provides three meals a day for women in the resid
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A RESIDENT of Lydia House participates in worship.
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ential program.
___"I met Jesus Christ here," Serrano explained. "I didn't know anything about him when I came. I was all tied up, taking all kinds of drugs--heroin, crack, whatever--and I had run a prostitution house.
___"I met the people at Casa Lydia through a girl who used to do drugs with me. She had changed, and there was something about her I wanted."
___When she arrived at Casa Lydia asking for help, she experienced a loving acceptance she never had known before. "I felt something here," she said. "I was hugged. And I felt a peace in my heart I had never felt before."
___Serrano completed the nine-month program at Casa Lydia. Then she decided to continue working at Casa Lydia, helping other women.
___"Now I'm a new person, totally free from drugs," Serrano said. "God has given back what addiction took away. My family came looking for me. Now, they want to be with me. They like having me around."
___Ana Ayala directs Casa Lydia, a 12-bed residential facility for women ages 18 to 60 years.
___"Fifteen years ago, I was a narco-trafficker, an alcoholic and a prostitute on the streets of Queens," Ayala said. But the Christian witness of a Baptist minister led her to faith in Christ. "It's been 15 years since I was washed in the blood of Jesus and five years since I became director of Casa Lydia."
___In five years, 28 women have graduated from the nine-month program. One is a schoolteacher, another is a truck driver, several have been reunited with family, and a few, like Serrano, continue to work with the ministry.
___The program has drawn women from a variety of ethnic backgrounds--including a recent arrival from West Africa--but is based in Spanish. Many of the residents are undocumented aliens.
___The approach is simple. Casa Lydia introduces structure, routine and discipline into fragmented and undisciplined lives. "We wake up at a certain time, go to bed at a certain time and eat at a certain time," Ayala said. "And we study the word of God."
___Spiritual disciplines are the major part of Casa Lydia's curriculum. Residents learn to read the Bible daily, and every Thursday is devoted to fasting and prayer. Any drug use--including tobacco and alcohol--is strictly prohibited. Residents are allowed to leave the facility only for off-campus parenting classes.
___Gifts to the Texas Baptist Offering for World Hunger help provide transportation to those classes, as well as supplying meals, medicine and some rent assistance.
___These gifts are "so important," Ayala said. "If it were not for the help we receive, we would have had to close the door a long time ago."
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