“I look back on my experience at the Mission as a rebirth…” Everything good happened for me when I walked into Rockford Rescue Mission and made the decision to change my life. I had been in drug addiction for five years, bouncing back and forth between...
From Sherry Pitney, CEO Our dear friend, Nora Sandahl, died Dec. 3, 2021. Let me tell you a story of how God used Nora and her family. In early 1996, the Mission had outgrown our Madison Street location and we were forming plans for the facility you...
If you don't have a friend in the world, you can find one here. That sign used to hang outside Rockford Rescue Mission, and it was a big reason I came here for help. I'm a military brat. We bounced around a lot when I...
I was the woman people would look at and say, “She has everything.” Nice home, great Christian family. But I had a secret. I was a victim of sexual abuse between the ages 4 and 8. I carried that secret for 40 years — but...
When I went to prison for armed robbery, certain people caught my attention because I knew them from the streets. They had changed. Now they were talking to me about God and about the Bible. “Whatever,” I told them. But to myself, I wondered: I...
Several years ago, I looked around the cheap hotel room where I was living and thought: This is my life? Really? I thought my full story was already written — a rough childhood, a prison term, broken relationships and decades of heavy drinking. I wanted help,...
Everything good happened for me when I walked into Rockford Rescue Mission and made the decision to change my life. I had been in drug addiction for five years, bouncing back and forth between Rockford and Beloit. As long as I had a few dollars to...
I used to be one of those Christian kids who could recite Bible verse after Bible verse. I learned them to earn points in my Christian school … but I didn’t really know them as God’s truth in my life. When times got scary, I...
“Dad, you’re nothing but a crackhead. I don't ever want to see you again.” My son was 15, and he was right. He and my ex-wife had come to my apartment and found me getting high, again. I’d been a functional addict for more than two decades,...
I used to think everyone’s book was already written. Mine was always going to be about a rough childhood, a prison term, broken relationships and decades of heavy drinking. One night I looked around the cheap hotel room where I was living and thought: This...
