OUR STORY

How God works in the lives of his children never ceases to amaze; but how He worked in the lives of the three who formed After the Storm Ministries is a unique and amazing story that stretches over almost thirty years and across several states.

The story began when a young school teacher from Louisiana (M-A) moved with her family to Georgia and began teaching in middle school in a town just outside of Atlanta.  While teaching there, she had a student named Moses, a seventh grader who loved sports so much that he played football even during the morning break.

On a particular sunny day, Moses was tackled and fell to the ground hitting his head on a rock.  He immediately quit breathing, and the teacher, not long removed from working as a life guard in the summers, recognized he was in trouble and administered life saving first aid until the ambulance arrived.

Thus, a friendship began that would reach into the 21^st century.  They were not in touch often, in fact, there were years that passed when they did not talk at all.  They did speak occasionally and knew the major events in each other’s lives as time went by.

Moses joined the Marine Corps, M-A moved to Maryland, and then back to Louisiana.  She gave up teaching to become a counselor.  Her interest in addictive behaviors began to grow when her only sibling, a brother named Bill, and his wife were killed by a drunk driver.  Bill was only twenty-three.  She wanted to understand addiction, she sought knowledge from books and understanding from God.

Moses grew in faith, experiencing the growing pains of life and learning to trust God more than anything as he sought understanding of personal and family illness along with other disappointments.

Neither of them knew, yet, that on the streets of New Orleans, a young man, Nate, was struggling with addiction to crack cocaine and alcohol. They probably walked some of the same streets as he, as M-A spoke at conferences in New Orleans and Moses visited there with family and friends.  Perhaps they passed on the same streets, perhaps their eyes met for a second and dismissed the other as someone far removed from their own experience, but God was working.

Nate was arrested in 2003 and sentenced to five years in the Louisiana Department of Corrections.  M-A came to the Department of Corrections through another channel, taking a job there in 2007.  She met Nate, she heard his story.  Her heart was filled with compassions for someone who had surrendered his life - not said he believed- but surrendered his life, his hope, his future to the Will of God.  In knowing Nate, her own faith grew stronger.  Another friendship was forged.

M-A had lost a brother, but God had given her two amazing brothers in Christ!  In late summer of 2007, Moses’ mind was filled with thoughts of his friend, M-A, he tracked her down, left a message, and she called him back.  She told him about Nate, about Nate’s faith in God, and she learned that Moses had grown in faith since they had last talked.

M-A told him God had led her to write Nate’s story and mailed a typed copy to Moses.  When he called her back, he told her that the story had made a Marine cry!  He wrote to Nate in prison.  Another friendship formed.

Nate left prison, having paid the full price for his mistakes.  He left drug free, a man with a Godly purpose to help other addicts.  M-A and Nate traveled to Georgia to meet Moses and sitting on the porch at Moses’ farm, looking up at a star-filled sky on a warm Georgia night, After the Storm Ministries was born in the hearts of three believers.  The mission of the ministry is to glorify the Father , the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  (Scripture about the 3 strand cord: ECCLESIASTES 3:14- "Though one may be overpowered by another, two can withstand him.  And a threefold cord is not quickly broken")