How and why it started

Chris and Trisha Creighton started “Recovery in a box” to help alcoholics and drug addicts around the world to break the bondage of addiction, and to guide them down a pathway that allows Jesus to work through their lives in a powerful way.

New Generation
A football tournament took place as part of an annual Christian Conference involving youth from whole Serbia held at the end of September. Twelve teams from various churches and organizations took part, including a team from Raskrsce Teen Challenge Serbia made up from young men who had completed of the rehabilitation program. Matches were very tight and competition very strong. The Raskrsce Teen Challenge Serbia team went through to the final undefeated. Their rivals in the final were a team from the Evangelical Church in Novi Sad. This was a closely fought match on the field and after a penalty shoot out the Evangelical Church team came out winners. However, Raskrsce Teen Challenge Serbia was very satisfied with their well deserved runners up prize.Despite the final defeat it was fantastic to see young people at the end of the rehabilitation program, who just a few years ago were completely destroyed, both physically and psychologically, compete full of enthusiasm and motivation. It was a strong testimony of how our God is capable of renewing and changing human lives.

http://www.raskrsce.org.yu/english/news.htm

I was a junky
My name is Branislava, and I am 33 years old. I thank God because my once insignificant life has gained meaning and purpose. I was a drug addict for twelve years and I tried to find my worth and identity in that. This way of life led me in the wrong direction, into oblivion, despair and suffering. At first glance my changed state of mind was giving me a false sense of fulfillment and identity. In the end, my only motivation was heroin… and my entire life lost its purpose. I tried to come off heroin in hospitals, with friend’s, at private psychiatrists; I was in Russia, but everything was in vain… Without heroin the emptiness and despair were destroying me from the inside. Alone and desperate I decided to do something. I heard about Raskrsce Teen Challenge Serbia and was able to enter the rehabilitation program. I met God and He started to change me and to renew me. I began to motivate myself, I started to read the Bible and I realized that there was a way out of the drug addict life that I was living before program. Through prayer and reading the Bible, my character was changed, as was my view on life, and my values. There is no emptiness and despair, now in their place live love and faith in God. At last I am content in who I really am. I was a drug addict… and now I am free, I have a new life, a new chance and a new beginning, which only Jesus could give me.

To my Roma Family
Greetings to you. This is Chris. How is the weather in Sarejevo? In California it is cold and windy. It is January 2007. In March it will be 7 years since I drank or used any drugs. How did I do it? I stayed close to other people who did not drink, and I asked God every day for help.

Over the past year I wrote to you and told you the steps of recovery, and what they did in my life. When I reached the end of the steps, it was not the end of my work...it was the beginning. Every day I do things to help others. Not because I am someone nice or special, but because if I don't do Gods work, and if I don't try to act as Jesus acted, I am afraid of what I will become. I will probably become the person that I was when I was drinking and using drugs. I was a liar, I was a cheater, I was a thief. Now I am a new creation in Christ.
Today I tried to do as God would have me do. That is how I continue to do the steps in my life every day. If I make a mistake I ask for forgiveness. This life I have with the Lord is far better than any life I ever had before!

Many things are happening here in my town. My kids are getting older, my wife is filled with the Holy Spirit, she is working with girls here that are hurting. Some of these girls are getting healed by God, they are giving up addictions like cutting themselves.

Our pastor of our church is leaving to become a missionary. He will train leaders all over the world.

Suzy and Corah visited. We had pizza. Reinhold was not with them so I ate his pizza.

They sell a coffee here called Cafe Roma, I order it and I think of you.

Love Chris

DEPEND

For so long while I lived in my addiction I depended on drugs and alcohol to fix me, make me feel better from life's hurts. Then it overtook my life and left me alone and scared. It no longer made me feel better it only caused more pain.

After I got sober I began to depend on Jesus. For me to fully understand how to do that I had to study the Bible to discover more about Him. Once my mind understood who He was and what He wanted to do for me in my life I began to BELIEVE the truth of His word. Abraham believed God, he left his home, he waited patiently for a son, and God NEVER FAILED HIM. God has never failed me! Jesus is the only one in my life that has NEVER LET ME DOWN. I study the Bible to learn more of God's promises so I can claim them in my life today. The only way to know God's promises is to study them, the only way to study them is to read His holy and perfect word found in the Bible.

I will leave you with this scripture:

"Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light." Matthew 11: 28-30

Do you need rest?
Are you burdened?
Who are you depending on?

God bless you my brothers and sisters.
Trisha

Dear Friends and Family
How are all of you? I am doing good. My children are well. My oldest son plays soccer all the time, he is very good. I do not spend much time on the Internet lately.

I would like to share with you how I asked for forgiveness from those people that I hurt when I was drinking alcohol and using drugs.There was a lot of people that I lied to, and I stole from, and I used them to get what I wanted. When I found recovery GOD FORGAVE ME FOR EVERYTHING, but I still had to live with the consequences of what I had been doing. The steps in recovery offer help to deal with our new life.

I had a list of people I hurt from the steps I had already done. I took this list and studied it to see how to ask for forgiveness. I was not to just ask for forgiveness, but I was to tell the person that I was working not to act this way again. I went to many people that I had stolen from and gave them their money back, I also went to my parents and my Friends parents and said I was sorry for not being honest. The only rule was that if my apology was going to hurt someone I was not to do it. My apology was to humble me, and to offer healing, IT WAS NOT TO BE DONE IF IT WOULD CAUSE PROBLEMS IN OTHER PEOPLES LIVES...

Also my apology was to not blame anyone but myself, even if the other person was wrong also. God can take care of the other persons part.

WHY WOULD I DO THIS?

It freed me. I now had freedom to walk in my neighborhood without hiding. It was a hard thing to do, but it was the best thing I ever did in recovery.

I love you all - Chris

Hello to my Roma Family
A lot has been happening in my life. I am a father to 3 children. I am trying to raise them and teach them about their Heavenly Father. I tell them that I love them because they are my children, but my love is human love and I am not perfect. I make mistakes all the time. Sometimes I am not patient. Sometimes I am selfish. Sometimes I do not listen. But our Heavenly Father is perfect! He never makes a mistake. He has a plan for our lives that is better than we can imagine! Our heavenly father is always patient with us. he waits for us through all of our mistakes. he is never ashamed of us. Our Heavenly Father is never selfish. He looks at us as His prize. I can see how God sees the Roma because even as I write to you my heart is filled with Love. I hear from Bosnia that some of you are not well. Some of you are drunk and on drugs. Some of you look really bad. I used to look really bad, God saw through me, God had a different plan for me. God took me away from my old life and to a new life that he had planned for me. I put my eyes were on Him and not my problems. I put my eyes on His grace and not my guilt. I am not guilty because of Jesus Christ. When I hear that my Roma family is hurting, I hurt. I know that you can recover, I know that you can be healed. I know that you have support from leaders around you. God sees through you, God has a different plan for you.
I was going to write more about the steps today, but I wanted to share my heart. My heart is that I love you, and if you have accepted Jesus as your savior than we will spend eternity together with Him. But while here on earth God has a plan for us that is healing and helping others. he wants us to bring more people to His kingdom.
The spirit of God feels your pains and your joys with you.

I would like to hear from you.
I think of all of you by name, too many names to write.
I would like you to write to me and tell me how you are. tell me your joys and pains.
Love Chris

Greetings to my Roma Family

I have written to you a few letters about recovery since camp. What I have written to you has been about the first steps we take in recovery. We ADMIT that we have a problem, then we BELIEVE that god can heal us, we ASK Him to fill us with His power because we cannot do this on our own.

After we ask Him to fill us with His power, we find someone that we trust to talk to. I met with someone every week, for months and talked with Him. It was important that since I was a man, that I met with a man not a woman. This man that I met with had experience with recovery. If you do not know anyone with recovery, it would be fine to meet with a leader that walks with Jesus every day. When I met with this man I prayed and told him my feelings. I was honest with him about my sins. I wrote down all the people that I was angry at and all the people who hurt me. I wrote down all of my feelings. It was important that I was honest. I did not leave anything out. I shared everything with this person. He shared with me. After he shared, I realized that I was not different than him, also that there is many others like me.

After I shared, I looked at what I wrote down, and I looked at the places where I was wrong, the places where I sinned against others. I wrote these sins down and prayed that God would give me the STRENGTH to ask these people for forgiveness.

The next steps I will share with you later. These first steps took me time. When I met with people at meetings, and met with this man, I did not drink. Every day I did these things, I had one more day without a drink or drug. IT WORKS.

I hope that my letters are reaching you. My E-mail is trishacreighton@sbcglobal.net

God Bless you, Chris