redemption... the story of ron part 2

hurricane katrina roared ashore between mississippi and louisiana on the morning of august 29, 2005. all the years i'd lived in and around new orleans, i'd always heard the scenarios of what would happen if new orleans ever took a direct hit. at first, we all thought the city had dodged another bullet, but as the levees gave way, everyone's worst fears were beginning to be realized. i immediately started calling ron's cell phone, but it would be days before service would be restored to gulf coast mobile phone customers. when i finally reached him, he told me that they had made it to missouri, and all was well. we'd get back in touch once things settled down.

from time to time, i'd check in at the williams boulevard baptist church website just to keep up with how things were going in the aftermath of the storm. the church was housing and ministering to law enforcement and military from all over the country, and also giving updates on the progress of the recovery. as i was perusing the prayer request page one day, i saw this item: "anyone wishing to contact bro. ron may write to him at victory home...." and it gave a p.o. box in georgia. several thoughts raced through my mind... did ron decide not to return to new orleans, and instead find another ministry position? did some awful tragedy befall him and he was recovering in some nursing home? i googled "victory home" and discovered that it's a Christian drug and alcohol rehab facility for men. ron was always a youth minister at heart, and i just couldnt imagine that ministry to adults with addictions would have been his thing. i even wondered if, because of his deteriorated knees if he may have gotten addicted to pain pills. i placed a call to the church, and the secretary said, "you mean you never knew? ron is an alcoholic." she no doubt figured because ron and i were close that i was helping keep his secret, but i was dumbfounded when she told me...

have you ever had those moments when something is so totally out of place, yet it takes awhile for you to completely process the situation? like coming up on an overturned car, or a dead person in the middle of the street (i've done both of those)... that was the feeling that crept up on me as the secretary spoke those words... "ron is an alcoholic." i know cars, and i know upside down, but cars arent supposed to be upside down in the ditch. i've seen people, and i've seen dead people, but dead people arent supposed to be in the street right in front of your car at 2 a.m. well, i've been friends with ron for 13 years, and i've known alcoholics all my life, but ron isnt supposed to be an alcoholic! whatever i said in the rest of that conversation must have been feeble at best... i barely remember it. i do know i asked if i should write him or what... then i figured if his address was on the website, it wasnt much of a secret... but i decided pretty quickly that i was going to call rather than write.

i'm not sure how many days it took me to get up the nerve to pick up that phone... i didnt know if he'd refuse my call, or if he'd be angry or embarrassed that i got in touch. when i did call, a staff person answered and said ron was unavailable at the moment, but that he would give him my message when he saw him. i figured that was the big brush-off, although i was somewhat encouraged by the fact that they acknowledged that he was even there. it must have been a week or more, and i had pretty much decided he wasnt going to call me, but he did. he couldnt talk for long because there were other guys waiting to use the phone, but ron gave me permission to ask any question. the only thing that came to mind was "how long?" had he been an alcoholic for as long as i knew him (or longer)? did he just come by this dread disease fairly recently? the answer was, in the early 90's, not long after i had left williams blvd. to go to another church, ron started drinking at night to help him fall asleep. and although he was up to 20 oz. of whiskey per sitting, it never progressed beyond that reasoning... always at night, at home, in order to try and sleep. problem was, he didnt always make it to the bedroom. he'd often pass out in the kitchen floor, and his wife cheryl, a pediatric emergency room nurse who often worked the night shift, would come home and find him like that, and have to pick him up and get him to bed. for years it went this way, but no one was the wiser. our former pastor did know, and directed ron to counseling, but out of a desire to try and protect the church and (so he thought) ron's ministry and reputation, he never would allow ron to go before the church to confess and have some sort of accountability. and without that accountability, it wasnt long before counseling had gone by the wayside, and the drinking continued.

what i had been knowing was that ron had fallen behind in his doctoral work, but that was always chalked up to the added responsibilities he undertook at church when the pastor fell ill and subsequently died of cancer. what i didnt know for a long time was that ron had been dismissed from the doctoral program. his dream had been to teach youth ministry at the seminary level (his prior teaching experience had been in the under-grad program as a contract teacher), but the dream could not be realized without that degree. additionally, his knees were shot after multiple surgeries, and he could barely get around at times. physically, emotionally and spiritually, the wheels were coming off... then the storm of the century hit, and all hell was about to break loose...