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“Basically, I was trying to kill myself,” he recalls.

“I had given up. I was done.”

Because his father was a TV director, Dustin grew up assuming you had to be “the star” or you hadn’t succeeded. So he tried restaurant management. Started his own taxi business. Played in a band. But each time, drugs became his undoing.

One morning he was sleeping outside a Presbyterian church in Santa Ana when he woke up with a quarter in his hand, and a note that said “Call Doug,” along with a phone number.

Though he didn’t know who had given him the quarter (or who Doug was!) he was so tired of the life he’d been living that he took the quarter and made the call to Doug, the Admissions manager at the Orange County Rescue Mission.

Through your giving, the Rescue Mission helped him see God’s Kingdom — and his own life — in a whole new way. Finally, he surrendered. “Okay, God, let’s do this!” he remembers thinking.

Today, he works as a dishwasher at the Village of Hope, a job that would have once been demeaning to him . . . but not anymore.

“I feel like I squandered the first 40 years of my life,” Dustin says. “Now I believe God will give me another 40. If He says stay here and be a dishwasher, that’s what I’ll do.”

Dustin has learned, who needs to be “the star” when you’ve got God?

When Amanda discovered her husband of seven years was doing meth, she gave him an ultimatum.

“You have to go or the drugs have to go,” she told him firmly.

Much to her amazement, he chose his drug habit over his marriage.

“OK, I’ll just go start a new family,” he said casually — and walked out on Amanda and their two children.

Amanda was stunned. She hadn’t worked in years, having always depended on her husband to pay the bills. She was terrified by the thought of having to make it on her own.

In fact, the very thought made her burst into tears. So you can imagine her relief when a spot opened up at the Orange County Rescue Mission, thanks to friends like you.

“This place doesn’t feel like a homeless shelter,” she says. “It feels more like home. I have so much support. My kids have made new friends. I feel very blessed to be here.”

Since coming to the Rescue Mission last November, Amanda says she’s learned a lot about relationships, boundaries, and perhaps most important, about how much God loves her.

“When I was down, the Rescue Mission gave me hope,” she says.

“I’ve since learned the only thing you can depend on is God. As long as I focus on Him, I can still have joy — no matter what’s happening.”

As for her future, she says she pictures herself as a school counselor.

“That’s where my heart is,” she says. “I know the Lord will provide.”

Your gifts pull people out of all sorts of dire situations, and set their feet on the path to new life.

Thank you for giving Amanda and others the chance to make a fresh start.

Whether it was the fact that they met when they were both drug addicts, living on the street . . . or they weren’t prepared when baby Ava came along … or that they refused to let God into their lives . . . this was one relationship that seemed beyond repair.

“We fought constantly,” Summer admits. “Sometimes we were holding the baby in our arms while we were pushing and shoving each other.”

Richard and Summer knew they needed God to heal their marriage. They just didn’t know where to begin — until they were directed to Orange County Rescue Mission.

Richard credits the patient guidance of one of the Rescue Mission’s case managers with turning his life around.

“My counselor was really good at showing me the biblical perspective of marriage,” Richard recalls. “He told me how I needed to be a man, how I needed to follow the Lord and take responsibility for the things I was doing wrong.”

Richard took his counselor’s advice. He got a job, has gone back to school to become an electrician and now realizes he is blessed to have a wife who loves him unconditionally. He continues, “Looking back, I don’t even think about the person I used to be. I’m a new person through God.”

And because he is, Summer has fallen in love with her husband all over again. “Now I get really excited when my husband comes home from work. That’s our time to be a family.”

Summer credits God, and the Rescue Mission, for breaking the bondage they carried with them from doing drugs — just like their parents had done. “That’s why we needed the Mission,” she says. “They got us to sober up, got our minds clean and got our focus back on what we needed to do to be successful. “This place didn’t just save our marriage . . . it saved our lives!” she says.

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Sunni knows what it’s like to be homeless.

When she was smoking meth, she bounced from one cheap motel to another. When the money ran out, she would walk all night because “it was safer to keep moving than to stay in one place.” Occasionally, she remembers finding an out-of-the- way stairwell that she’d curl up under to grab a  few winks. But for the most part, her secret to survival was forcing herself to stay up and, “even when I was really tired.”

When you’re living on the streets, everything is difficult: where to sleep, where to clean up, where you have given them security to find your next meal. Sometimes, you’d go to a friend’s house for a quick meal, until that got old. Then maybe rustle up a few coins and slip into a fast food restaurant to buy something off the dollar menu. Or, if things got really desperate, grab one of those deli made chicken dinners from the local supermarket and just walk out the door without paying for it (which, thankfully, didn’t happen very often).

“During that period, I was so angry at God,” Sunni remembers. “I didn’t understand what I had done to make my life so messed up.” Yes, she had made the decision to first use meth, mostly to numb the feeling of rejection after she was booted out of her parents’ house. And yes, she got married and divorced after her husband decided he loved the money that comes from selling drugs more than he loved her.

But now she had a young daughter to care for, a child who became the reason behind her desperate search for recovery. That’s how she ended up at the Rescue Mission’s Village of Hope. Did that change her life? Man, did it ever! First, she went back to school and completed 19 units at Irvine Valley College in 4 months-graduating with a 3.7 grade point average (after getting D’s and F’s when she was growing up). After that, she went through our job readiness workshop, which not only taught her how to get a good job, but also how to keep it.

“I feel like I now have a chance,” she says. “I’m sober, I have my daughter, and the Rescue Mission is providing me with everything I need to get back on my feet.”

Even more important, God has gone from being her adversary to being her friend. ”My old life- the addiction, the homelessness­ I’ve learned it wasn’t God’s fault. I’m now taking responsibility for my actions,” she adds. The Rescue Mission is a place where people are transformed … where they learn to put their pasts behind them on the way to a brand-new life.

That’s what’s happening to Sunni, and dozens of others, because of your generous support.

Thank you for your generous gifts to this ministry. And helping to change the heart of our
community, one precious life at a time!

1. Case Manager

2.  Children’s Education Manager

3. Part time driver

4. Accounts Payable Clerk

Use these instructions to send your application and résumé.

May God bless you in your current career decisions.

To apply by e-mail: Right-click (Mac users: Control + click), select “Save Target As” and save the Microsoft Word™ document below to your computer. Then fill it out on your computer and return it by email to: hr@rescuemission.org.

Download application here (MS Word).
(To use this option, you will need Microsoft Word.™)

To apply by mail: Download and print the form below; When it is completed, mail it, along with your résumé, cover letter and salary expectations to:

Orange County Rescue Mission, Attn: HR
One Hope Drive, Tustin, CA 92782

Download application here (PDF).
(To use this option, you will need the free Adobe Acrobat Reader.)

Back to employment opportunities…

That would be stressful enough. But then she started having flashbacks of being continually molested as a child. On top of remembering being raped as a teenager. Financially broke, and now emotionally devastated, Shelley went looking for a place where she could find healing and make a fresh start. And she found it . . . at the Rescue Mission!

“I know it sounds funny . . . but I’m glad I’m here. At a Rescue Mission!” she chuckles. Thanks to your gifts to the Rescue Mission, we’ve been able to provide Shelley with daily meals and shelter so she can concentrate on her healing — and growing closer to God.

“I don’t know how He (God) is going to make this happen,” Shelley says. “But I’m listening to
Him.”

Thank you for helping people like Shelley find healing, even in the midst of hard times. Your giving really does make a difference!