“My past is full of mistakes but somehow I always managed to avoid the consequences,” Justice admits. “I was doing every drug imaginable at 11 years old, running with gangs, robbing drug dealers… by all rights, I should be in prison or dead.”
Justice’s luck finally ran out last summer when a bout with heroin cost him his living arrangements, his transportation, even the custody of his children. He suddenly found himself homeless in Phoenix in the blistering July heat, a situation that has been a death sentence to so many in our city. But God was about to arrange a better plan.
Instead of finally finding the justice he deserved – hope found him first.
“It still gives me chills to think about it.”
“I was telling him about my situation and he was pleading with me to find the same kind of help he did,” Justice remembers. “He said there was a rescue mission in almost every major city. I was hot, I was frustrated and I told him that was all well and good for Nashville, but there wasn’t anything like that here.”Sweating in the desert sun and standing on the corner of 27th Ave and Northern, Justice was reaching out to his older brother in Nashville. His brother had been in and out of penitentiaries his whole life, culminating in an attempted suicide just a month earlier. But then, something unbelievable happened. Justice heard his brother had checked into a homeless shelter, the Nashville Rescue Mission, where he managed to kick his drug habits and establish a newfound relationship with Jesus Christ.
Right after Justice hung up the phone, Chaplain Cliff pulled up in front of him in the Phoenix Rescue Mission Hope Coach.
“I couldn’t believe it. It said Phoenix Rescue Mission on the side, plain as day. The door opened up and people got out offering me cold water and a sack lunch.”
Like so many caught out in the summer heat, the full gravity of his situation hadn’t hit Justice. The dry air and excessively hot temperatures can cause heat stroke to occur in as little as 10-15 minutes of exposure, causing permanent damage to the brain, heart and kidneys. Chaplain Cliff quickly put his situation into perspective.
Today Justice has found his own relationship with Christ and is working through the first stage of recovery. He was fortunate to find hope right when he needed it.
“He told me, ‘This is July, it’s hot and it’s only going to get hotter. And it’s not the kind of heat that is just uncomfortable, it can get deadly real quick. Right now is the time to get off the streets.’ I took the warning to heart, gathered up my stuff and three days later Cliff picked me up and brought me to the Mission.”
