Pubdate: Thu, 19 Apr 2007 Source: Regina Leader-Post (CN SN) Copyright: 2007 The Leader-Post Ltd. Contact: http://www.canada.com/regina/leaderpost/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/361 Author: Will Chabun, The Leader-Post CHRISTIANITY HELPED ADDICT REFORM Jesus Ran a Gang. "Hey, I had a Grade 5 education," Serge LeClerc said, a little apologetically, to the hundreds assembled Wednesday for the annual Saskatchewan Prayer Breakfast. "I had to put it into terms that I understood." What LeClerc understood back in 1985 was crime and surviving on the street. Born to a Cree mother who'd been raped in Toronto's seamy core, he grew up in that city's housing projects, was sent to a religious reform school (where he was cruelly beaten) and by 15 was carrying a gun. But there was something else. Somehow, he'd learned to read even before he started his five years of schooling, He had a mother who loved him, took him to church and judged him a worthwhile human being. These were somewhere in the back of his mind as he went from crime to jail, then back to crime. He entered a penitentiary (for the first of many times) at 19, was shot twice, once broke a guard's jaw and eventually headed a 70-person international drug-smuggling-and-distribution gang in Hamilton. What got him thinking were three men. There was a prison volunteer who spoke kindly to him, a young convict -- a user of LeClerc's drugs - -- who committed suicide in jail, and finally, there was a former hitman who was in jail for life but had found freedom through Christian faith. LeClerc said he came to realize he could cite all the excuses in the world -- poverty, racism, drugs, abuse -- but ultimately he was responsible for the lousy decisions he'd made. He also came to realize he was not "a two-legged animal," but someone who'd have to account for past sins when he met his maker. Could he do something to balance all the bad things he'd done? He also thought about Jesus's gang of 11: Yes, they went into hiding after Jesus was killed. But unlike LeClerc's own gang, they emerged and preached, even though this endangered their lives. Suckers -- or special men? LeClerc began changing, kept reading voraciously and soon was doing university classes by correspondence. He earned a BA, transformed his life and now is director of Teen Challenge Saskatchewan, a faith-based residential recovery program for substance abusers in Saskatoon. In this one-time drug addict's introduction (by the lieutenant-governor, no less) it was described as "one of the most successful long-term substance abuse programs in the world." LeClerc left his audience with this thought: Take stock of what you've got "and you'll find that God has blessed you abundantly." - --- MAP posted-by: Elaine