In the 1970s, Phoenix Rescue Mission was largely run by volunteers serving meals to neighbors in need. One of those volunteers was a young woman named Peggy. She showed up faithfully, never imagining that decades later, her own daughter and granddaughter would walk through the Mission’s gates in desperate need of help.
At just 12 years old, Peggy’s daughter, Kim, began experimenting with weed and gin, introduced by neighbors and a family friend. Addiction took root, and with it came rebellion and a deep longing for love and acceptance. At 16, Kim became a mother.
Two weeks after giving birth to her daughter, Trina, she graduated from high school. At 18, she married a man she met at church, hoping for stability. But trauma struck early in their marriage, and meth addiction quickly overwhelmed them both.
Desperate for Transformation
“My parents were both addicts,” Trina recalls. “There was emotional and physical abuse. I found their mirror with a razor blade when I was 12. I didn’t know what it was, but I knew it was bad.”
By 14, Trina had tried meth, acid, alcohol, and weed. She also began seeking attention from men to fill the void inside. “I would pray, ‘Lord, please just take me so I don’t have to wake up and do all this again.’ Then I’d wake up and I’m like, ‘ugh, here we go. . .’ It’s a lot of shame, and shame keeps you stuck in that cycle.”
At their lowest, Trina and Kim used drugs together. “I thought I’d die an addict,” Kim says. “I had no hope for the future. I was merely surviving, but didn’t know how to change.”
Eventually, Trina was sentenced to six months of treatment and came to Phoenix Rescue Mission—the same place her grandmother had once served. She entered the year-long recovery program, unsure if she’d stay.
“God changed my heart when I got here,” Trina says.
She began a relationship with Jesus, processed her trauma, and graduated the program. When Kim had nowhere to live and was still in her addiction, Trina and her sister encouraged her to come to the Mission.
“Coming to the Mission (at 55 years old) changed my life completely,” Kim says. “It was a time for me to not worry about anything else but my recovery and my relationship with the Lord. For the first time in my life, it was no longer about what I couldn’t do but what God could do through me.”
Now 60, Kim is sober and thriving. Trina, now 43, is also in the best place of her life. Both work in behavioral health at Community Bridges, Inc., helping others overcome addiction, homelessness, and abuse.
Together, they are paying forward the overwhelming grace of God they have so abundantly received.
