Giving thanks for YOU Donald shares how your support changed his life!

“I should’ve been dead.”

All Donald wanted was a relationship with his father. It wasn’t until he was an adult with three children that he got that validation from him. “He told me he was proud of me and that he loved me,” he recalls. Just when Donald thought he was going to have a relationship with him, his dad died in an accident. “That really hurt,” he says, “I was pretty angry, especially at God.”

It wasn’t until after his father passed that Donald felt the full impact of his dad’s influence on his life. He started drinking more – just like he’d seen his dad do growing up. “I realized I turned out just like him,” he shares.

Donald struggled with addiction for most of his life. It ended his 32-year marriage. He sank into depression and “drowned the pain and loneliness away” with alcohol.

One day, while drinking, he fell down the stairs. “I was a fraction of an inch from snapping my neck. I should’ve been dead,” Donald shares.

His daughter eventually brought him to the Reno-Sparks Gospel Mission where he had an eye-opening conversation with a staff member. “‘This was God’s way of waking you up,’” Donald recalls him saying.

He completed the Reno Sparks Gospel Mission C.A.R.E. program and now volunteers at our electronics donation site. “Before the Mission, I had no purpose. I’ve learned that I do make a difference. I never got that appreciation from my father, but I get it here,” he says.

“The Mission has helped me see that I do make a difference.”

He is grateful to the Mission for helping him overcome isolation, for the care and love he has received and for the resources provided. “They give you everything you need,” he says.

Donald says he has also come to “know God’s work, that He does care. He does hear me.”

This fall, Donald gives thanks for YOU and your incredible generosity. Your prayers and support have helped change his life. “Before I came to the Mission, I was hopeless, lonely and felt like I had no purpose. Now, I have hope and the tools to move on. I’m at peace.”

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