A Former Drug Client Converted

Last October I was standing in my garage in our suburban home packing boxes getting ready to move to Philadelphia. I received a call from my brother John who had recently moved back into the city. He told me someone wanted to speak with me. The voice on the other end said, "Do you remember Peter R"?  John met Peter after moving into Powelton Village, a West Philadelphia neighborhood. He told Peter where our family was originally from in the city and gave Peter a business card. When Peter saw the name "Davis" he asked John if he knew a Stevie Davis (yeh, I was little Stevie Davis). When John told him I was his brother, Peter said (and here I paraphrase his language), "You're kidding me. Your brother really messed me up." John asked Peter what he meant by "messed him up." Peter related that I used to sell him heroin and one day he came to my house to buy. I told him that I wasn’t dealing anymore because as Peter remembers it, "I found Jesus."

 

That day on the phone I came to tears. To imagine that God had brought back into my life this man to whom I had done evil over 35 years ago, that God had moved my brother John on the very block where Peter lived in a boarding house – I was blown away. The day following that phone call I met Peter in the city. Peter began attending services when we started the church in March of this year, heard the gospel,asked questions, and a little over a month ago my brother had the privilege of leading him to Christ. I see Peter often. I see a man who bears the scars of years of drug addiction. Yet now I see also a trophy of God's grace. I see how God works in ways we can never imagine, does things that we could never plan. All for His glory! Church planting has ups, downs, and sideways. But when God gives you a glimpse of His power, the joy of seeing Him do a work that only He can do, you stand back with amazement at God's amazing grace that saved a wretch like you, like me, and like Peter, and brought us back together at this time in life. Pray for Peter, that he would grow in the grace knowledge of the Lord Jesus. Pray for other “Peters” out there who desperately need the good news, the life-changing gospel of Jesus Christ. 

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