Participants: Shelley Quinn (Host), Wayne and Sherri Labins
Series Code: IAA
Program Code: IAA000250
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00:30 Hello, I'm Shelley Quinn and welcome again to
00:33 Issues and Answers. Today we are going to be having 00:36 a testimony from someone who went from self-medication to 00:40 the Great Physician and I believe that this is something 00:43 that will move you. Let me share a scripture from I Peter 2:9, 00:47 one of my favorites and you will see the application 00:51 in a little bit and it says, You are a chosen race, 00:55 a royal priesthood, a dedicated nation, 00:58 God's own purchased special people, that 01:01 you may set forth the wonderful deeds and display the virtues 01:05 and perfections of him who called you out of darkness 01:09 and into his marvelous light. We have a couple with us today 01:13 who have been called out of darkness and into the light of 01:16 the Lord. They are very active in ministry and they are setting 01:21 forty his praise. I am pleased to introduce you to 01:25 Sherri and Wayne Labins. Sherri, I'm so glad that y'all 01:29 are back and Wayne. Thank you so much. The name of your ministry 01:33 is With Jesus' Strength. I love the story how you came up with 01:38 this name, so please share it. 01:40 Well, With Jesus' Strength is Wayne and Sherri and that's 01:47 where we have the W and the S and then Jesus in the middle. 01:51 When Wayne first came to see me on our very first date, he 01:55 brought three roses. There were two red ones and one white one 02:00 and the two red ones represented us and the white one was Jesus 02:04 Christ and so we always want to keep him in between us. 02:09 Amen, Glory to God! With such a name as With Jesus' Strength 02:14 I know that I can think of the perfect scripture that would tie 02:18 into this. Wayne, what is that scripture? 02:21 Well, it's Philippians 4:13: I can do all things through Christ 02:26 who strengthens me. And that's really the emphasis. 02:29 We sometimes think, especially as men, we can do things by 02:32 ourselves. But it's only through Christ that you can have 02:35 deliverance from the kinds of things we're talking about, 02:38 abuse addiction deliverance. 02:39 You were with us in a previous program and shared your 02:44 testimony, so this is something that is very special to you. 02:48 Now you go out and you were a convicted child molester, I 02:53 should say you are a convicted child molester. The Lord has 02:57 changed your life and you go out and teach others the same 03:01 principles of recovery and accountability. 03:04 Absolutely. Recovery and accountability, both are 03:06 important. Accountability to God but also accountability 03:09 horizontally to our brothers and sisters in the church and in our 03:14 family. Accountability does a lot. It is critical to over 03:18 coming habitual sin. 03:20 Amen, Amen. I'm thrilled at how God is leading you all but I 03:26 want to particularly thank you for coming to share such 03:30 delicate testimony. We've heard Wayne's, but Sherri we're going 03:35 to talk with you today and hear a little bit about what your 03:39 background was and then how the Lord joined the two of you 03:42 together. So tell us about your early childhood. 03:47 Well I was born not a normal child actually. I had a defect 03:55 in my heart. I had a 40% chance of reaching my first birthday. 03:59 Back in the 1960s they had to perform open heart surgery on 04:07 me. That was pretty rare in the '60s 04:09 Right and so they kind of made a big deal of it and so they had 04:12 (actually I do have a clip, I don't know if you want to go 04:15 to that). Sure, let's look at that picture 04:17 Some kids in the neighborhood heard about this and they wanted 04:23 to put on a little play for me. They raised $5.58 or something 04:29 and bought me a little stuffed animal and for my mom, because 04:32 she was real young at that time. My parents were together at that 04:36 time when I was two but my parents got a divorce when I was 04:41 three years old and my mother actually remarried when I was 04:47 three. Wait, let me go back a little bit. What I was thinking 04:51 though was here I was a goofy little three-year-old and these 04:55 people are wanting to put on a play for me and stuff. But you 04:57 know what? We're not goofy little kids, because every child 05:01 is precious to God. That's what he tells us. Let the little 05:05 children come unto me and forbid them not for of such is the 05:08 kingdom of heaven and he tells us that in Matthew. 05:11 So now were your parents Christian? 05:13 My mom hand been when she was first married to my father she 05:21 was Seventh-day Adventist, but when she got a divorce she 05:27 went out of the church. Then she met my stepfather and they were 05:31 not in the church. But when I was five years old my mom and 05:34 my stepdad both did become Seventh-day Adventists for which 05:37 I was very thankful that they both were practicing. My real 05:42 father and stepmother and my mom and my stepdad were both 05:47 Seventh-day Adventists. So when I went to either household, like 05:51 every other weekend I went to visit my dad it was the same 05:56 rules. Nowadays kids have to go through so much drama with 06:00 their parents, you know. Oh, we practice this way, we go to 06:03 church on Sunday, your dad goes to church on Saturday and so 06:08 it's really hard on kids I think when they have to be put in that 06:13 situation. So now you're being brought up 06:16 in a Christian home even though it was a split home and you've 06:19 got Christians on both sides... Good Christian values... 06:24 so were you baptized at an early age? 06:27 Right. We lived in Arkansas and I went through I think a series 06:32 of meetings, a baptismal class and I was baptized at 12 years 06:38 old. Then I came out to California to visit my father 06:41 and when I came back home I remember I looked in the 06:44 refrigerator and there was some beer in the refrigerator and I 06:47 was like why is there beer in our refrigerator? 06:50 Let me make sure I understand. You got baptized in California 06:54 with your father. No, with my parents here in 06:56 Arkansas. Harrison, Arkansas where we lived. I went to church 07:02 school. It was a little class room, 5th through 8th were in 07:05 one room. We worked half day, went to school half day. 07:09 I mean we had a soy bean field. I mean I was very Christian 07:15 educated, oriented, everything. Well my parents were going to 07:21 church and everything at that time, but this month that I'm 07:24 gone to California out to visit my dad I came home not realizing 07:29 that probably... because one of the things my mom and stepdad 07:31 did, if they ever had an argument or a fight they never 07:35 did it in front of us. They never argued; it was always 07:38 behind closed doors and stuff like that, which I'm thankful 07:41 for, too, in a way. But also I didn't know that there were 07:46 problems. Well when I came back there was beer in our 07:48 refrigerator. So I asked my mom, I'm like, Why is there beer in 07:51 our refrigerator? And their like Well that we your Uncle Jeff. 07:54 You know they had come out to visit and they left it here. 07:56 And I'm like, Well why is it still here? Well then come to 07:59 find out my parents had left the church. 08:00 Now you're recently baptized, now you find out your parents 08:04 have left the church. Right. How did that affect you? 08:05 I was really hurt and so at first I would still go to church 08:09 but then I would get grounded from going to church in 08:12 different situations. Well we ended up leaving Arkansas and 08:16 moving back to California within a year. I continued going to the 08:21 Bakersfield Academy there in Bakersfield, but my parents 08:25 didn't go to church and a lot of the people were like, What, 08:28 we heard your parents aren't in the church anymore. We don't 08:32 want our kids hanging out with you and they disassociated 08:36 unfortunately with my parents and it was very sad that they 08:40 were not welcomed back. People who were their old friends who 08:44 they thought would love them and embrace them still as friends 08:48 did not. So my parents even more especially my stepfather, those 08:52 hypocrites, you know. So he wanted nothing to do with the 08:57 church. So I basically wasted my grandmother's money that she 09:01 paid for me to go school my ninth grade year, because I was 09:07 cutting and just doing stuff after awhile. So my sophomore 09:11 I went ahead to go to public school for the first time. 09:16 That was just scary; it was huge and big and I did not like it at 09:20 all and I didn't appreciate the teachings because I was used to 09:26 Christian education. But the next year I went to alternative 09:31 school that I chose to go to with a lot of kids that were 09:34 like delinquents, kind of like the kids that were here with 09:37 Sherri. I could really relate to those kids because they were all 09:39 like in a troubled group and they were all going to that 09:43 school. And you chose to go there? But I chose to go there 09:46 because it was smaller and I was used to that setting, so I chose 09:50 to go there and I started getting good grades because I 09:55 started paying attention. Then I started getting into drugs and 09:59 alcohol. So now just a minute. You go to the alternative school 10:03 because it's smaller and your grades improved but the 10:07 influence of some of the people around you started taking you 10:12 down the wrong path. Right. Definitely. But I quit 10:14 getting high at school which I thought was a good thing because 10:18 I respected the teachers because they were showing me respect so 10:21 I'm like, Well I'll be respectful and not be high at 10:25 school. Because when I was going to the other school, the big 10:29 public school, we would all just kind of pool our money and get 10:33 high and do whatever we could put our money together and get. 10:37 Well, I ended up getting angry at my mom my senior year. 10:41 She was kind of going through her own battles because she had 10:44 gotten a divorce from my stepfather when I was 16 then 10:47 and that was after I'd gone to alternative school. So I called 10:50 my friend and said, Hey you want to move to L.A. tomorrow? 10:54 She had already taken her GED. She was 17, she was 11 months 10:59 younger than me. And she's like, Sure. So we caught a Greyhound 11:03 Bus and went down to my friend's house and she looked in the 11:07 newspaper and there was somebody hiring; they needed a secretary 11:11 and it was actually a porno producer. He made pornographic 11:17 movies. So she got a job as a secretary assistant or whatever 11:22 for this man. So I looked in the area for another job. So I went 11:27 to work at a Straw Hat pizza parlor and another restaurant, 11:31 Victoria's Station as a hostess. There was always a temptation 11:35 Oh Sherri, you're going to be my next star. You want to be in one 11:40 of the movies. There were a couple times that we were extras 11:44 in the movies, but never with our clothes off or we were never 11:48 there when they were filming the risqué parts of the movies. 11:53 But now Sherri, you're telling this amazing transformation here 11:58 of someone who's brought up in a Christian school. Really, you 12:02 got baptized; you were excited about the Lord but with all 12:07 these family dynamics things are changing. Did you just put God 12:11 on a shelf and this great love you felt for God, did you put it 12:15 on the shelf or how did you feel when you started getting 12:17 involved in all this? You know what, I think I did. 12:19 I just kept saying, You know, I'm going to come back to this. 12:23 I loved God and I always knew there was like this love that I 12:27 wanted to come back to. But right now I was living for my 12:31 self and for what I wanted at that time. But what was 12:35 interesting is actually at that time in L.A. was the first time 12:39 I was dating this one guy and he had this poster on his wall. 12:42 I'm like, What is that? And he goes, Well Sherri, that's 12:47 evolution, that's where we came from. He goes, see that smudge 12:50 down here and we came up... and I go, What?! I go I cannot 12:54 believe in evolution. I go, I believe in God. God created me. 12:58 You know. I go, You don't believe in God. He goes, Oh no, 13:02 We just evolved; it was a big bang. You know, we broke up. 13:08 It was like I still had this underlying value and there were 13:13 like some things I still couldn't do. I knew that someday 13:17 if I ever get married or whatever I did, I wanted to have 13:22 this and they were going to have to measure up: They were going 13:26 have to believe in God. I would want them to laugh at my jokes 13:32 and think I was kind of cute, you know, but at that time I was 13:37 in a world of drugs and alcohol and just getting high at the 13:42 time and going out with whoever. 13:45 Now were you really just doing this to rebel or was this 13:49 something you were self medicating for all the pain 13:51 that you were feeling in your family? 13:53 This is another thing that I told Wayne, it's really bizarre. 13:57 We have very different back grounds. It was like after I was 14:02 hurt by the first guy, I was like, you know what, guys can 14:07 get away with... They can have as much sex, they can put up 14:12 pictures; you know, you go over to their house and they have all 14:15 these women on the walls and stuff like that. I did the same 14:19 thing, except for with men. It's like I had men on my walls; the 14:23 pictures from the Playgirl calendar. I dated this one guy 14:28 only for two weeks, but it was enough to intimidate other men 14:32 because he was the Incredible Hulk double at Universal Studios 14:36 so I put his picture on the wall. Guys would say, Oh who's 14:41 that? Oh, that's my ex-boyfriend You know, but just to intimidate 14:45 this intimidating thing, I think back on men. You know what? 14:51 I think it's a control thing, that kind of to men. 14:55 It's so interesting, you know. You're sitting here talking 14:59 about that you can't believe in evolution, and she won't date 15:03 anybody that believes in evolution, yet you have stepped 15:06 off first with smoking and you started on this wrong direction 15:11 and here you are walking down this path. Now you've smoked, 15:16 you've done drugs, you've even considered being in porno movies 15:20 Sherri, everything about your life changed and how did God 15:25 reach out to you again? I mean did you finally get to that 15:30 point where you're feeling empty or were you just getting numb 15:34 to what you'd been brought up in? 15:38 Well, I'd quit doing the meth. I moved away from Bakersfield over 15:44 to Pismo Beach area and I only drank, which is still a drug, 15:49 but you know you're thinking you're doing a better drug type 15:55 thing. But then I moved down to San Diego and we were living in 16:00 a place called basically Crack Ally where I could have my dog, 16:05 because I needed to live in an area where I could afford. 16:08 There were always helicopters flying over and what not and we 16:13 were burglarized. The person stole a T-shirt of mine that 16:17 said, GET REAL. I always thought that was what God was probably 16:20 trying to tell me, Sherri, Get Real. Later I looked in my 16:24 closet when I was going through stuff and I found their T-shirt. 16:28 They had taken off their shirt and put on my shirt and left 16:32 their shirt behind. It was back when the first desert war was 16:36 going on, the gulf war, and it said DESERT SHIELD, and it was 16:38 before the Desert Storm which are the storms we get in our 16:42 life whenever we're not allowing God to lead. It was DESERT 16:45 SHIELD and thinking back now, I mean, I can just see God working 16:49 in my life. My mom had called me and she has just started going 16:53 back to church at our home church in Bakersfield, which is 16:56 Bakersfield Central Church. She said, Sherri, you know, I'm just 17:00 not paying attention to what people say or what they're doing 17:04 I'm just having a relationship with God. You know, I'm wearing 17:07 my jewelry, I'm wearing my makeup and I'm loving it and 17:11 people, you know what Sherri, they're loving me now. I like 17:15 really? She gave me a book called Living on the Ragged Edge 17:19 which is what I felt like I was doing at that time. I mean, I 17:22 would pray to God, Let me get to the liquor store to get some 17:24 beer while the helicopters and gunfire are going off in Crack 17:29 Ally area, you know, and he would protect me. Anyway, long 17:34 story short, when we were burglarized I felt insecure. 17:38 I mean, you feel unsafe and you were already violated. Yes you 17:42 felt very violated and you're in this bad area anyway. So I moved 17:47 back to Bakersfield and I'm like all right, you say this church 17:51 has changed. I already know how they treated you when we moved 17:55 back from Arkansas. They did not accept you and Dad. Well I'm 17:59 wearing my heavy eye makeup, I'm wearing my bright pink lipstick, 18:03 I've got my cigarettes in my purse and I'm coming to church 18:07 and I had a hangover every week. You know what? That church loved 18:11 me to death. I'm telling you, they were so awesome. They did 18:16 not judge me. They loved me and you know what? Nobody said 18:21 anything. All they did was love me and in a year I was 18:25 rebaptized. Then I started going with them once a month to feed 18:31 the homeless and they would go sing at the old folks' home. 18:36 and do stuff. So the more you got involved the more your life 18:41 grows. One of the things at first was, Man I want to get as 18:45 this one girl, Denise. She was really on fire for God and I'm 18:49 like why can't I be as excited as her, look at her fire. 18:53 I remember one time I went to her Bible study and there had 18:58 been a crime where a man had really violated an older woman 19:02 and a child. I thought, that mean person, he was just so 19:07 horrible. She said, Sherri, we need to tell that man about 19:12 Jesus and I said, What, tell him about Jesus? Then I said, you're 19:18 right. But it hadn't crossed my mind that we needed to tell the 19:24 person, the perpetrator, and then that was probably the 19:27 beginning of my wanting prison ministries. I had taken a class 19:31 at Central for prison ministry but I never utilized it. Then 19:35 over here at the coast we've gotten into prison ministry. 19:40 Well I put an ad in the news paper, the Adventist singles 19:46 newspaper, an Adventist news paper and I had an ad to meet 19:52 somebody and I met Wayne, that's where Wayne comes into the scene 19:58 and that I wanted to meet somebody and he wrote me a 20:02 four page letter, he's an engineer. Most of the guys do 20:07 not do anything like that. They'd all been kind of 20:09 scribbled and whatever. Well I got a four page letter from 20:13 Wayne and I told my mom, I go, Mom, look at this. What do you 20:17 think about this letter. And she says, Wow, he seems like a nice 20:20 guy. Well, I called him and then we exchanged pictures and 20:26 decided we wanted to meet each other. I went over to the coast 20:31 where he lived over in Paso Robles and that first weekend 20:37 that we met Wayne told me that... Well, I came over on a 20:42 a Thursday or Friday, Thursday evening and then Friday we went 20:46 and did some stuff on the beach and what not racket ball and 20:51 stuff and then Sabbath we sent to church and when we were at 20:57 church he had told people, I want you to pray for us because 21:00 I'm going to tell Sherri my testimony tonight. 21:03 Now hold on just a second because in your church you have 21:06 been very direct with your church and anywhere you go 21:10 letting them know your testimony part of your accountability 21:14 program for the child molestation. It's almost self 21:18 imposed. You know this is what works. Now you're going to tell 21:21 her; how do you even approach telling her. You're obviously 21:25 interested in her. How do you approach telling Sherri what 21:29 your background is? 21:30 Well what I have found is start at the beginning and when you 21:34 get to the end stop. You know, be very clear, be very direct. 21:38 People appreciate honesty. It seems to be a rare thing these 21:42 days and I think she responded to that. 21:45 What did you say to initiate this? 21:47 Well, I told her you know before you get to know me with your 21:51 heart and get attached to me emotionally, because we had 21:54 a very good weekend and we had been communicating on the phone. 21:58 We had a good feeling about this relationship already. I wanted 22:02 to say you need to know some things with your head first and 22:06 so I went through the whole story and I also gave her my 22:12 jail journal to read over. That was the end of our visit 22:17 together and she had some time to go think back at her home and 22:22 process this. I wanted her to really think. 22:24 Now at the same time, Sherri, he has just told you his whole 22:30 story. We've heard Wayne's story and he got his restoring hand 22:35 and he's looking for a Christian wife. Did you share your story 22:40 of your background and some of the tawdry things you were 22:44 involved with at that same time? 22:46 You know, I don't remember. Well what was interesting I 22:51 remember when Wayne was first sharing his story, I thought 22:55 well he's going to tell me he had an affair. God, you know 22:59 I would really have a hard time with somebody that had an affair 23:01 because I don't deal well with cheaters. So whenever it 23:09 finished, I was like wow. This is like really, really big, you 23:14 know. I don't know that I can handle this. It was just neat to 23:19 see how God worked with me and processed it and my biggest 23:24 thing was to watch how they act and their actions and see how 23:29 they handle themselves in situations. But, you know, I 23:34 remember that I told Wayne all of my story. I'm sure I had told 23:39 him some of my story and I think Wayne still hears some of my 23:45 story. Do you recall when she first 23:48 told you? I think it was over the time 23:50 that we were courting together and there were some things that 23:54 I have never done. I have never gotten drunk, I have never taken 23:57 drugs, I've never smoked any thing. Our backgrounds were so 24:01 different from that regard. It's amazing how God brought us 24:04 together and has kept us together. But what I have seen 24:08 him do is use our respective experiences to reach a wide 24:11 variety of people caught up in the world's hurts and 24:15 destructive behaviors. It occurs to me as I'm listening 24:19 to both of your testimonies, you were taking a risk. Any time you 24:24 marry someone who has a history in something, there's a risk of 24:30 this being repeated. But at the same time you were taking a 24:34 risk because anytime somebody's been a drug addict or been a 24:39 heavy drinker or alcoholic, there's always that chance that 24:43 they can fall back into it. But yet God had set you both on a 24:48 new path. You're both now in love with the Lord and he has 24:52 put the two of you together and I'm sure the accountability that 24:56 you bring to one another has been an incredible source of 25:00 strength. It has. In fact, we have shared 25:03 some things between us as husband and wife that we haven't 25:06 shared with anyone else and that level of accountability here is 25:10 the highest on the planet between anyone and it really 25:15 helps build trust instead of tear it down. 25:18 I'm sure that the scripture that comes to mind for you 25:25 is Proverbs 6:22 or 4:22, 22:6, I've got that backwards: Train 25:30 up a child in the way he should go and when he is old or when 25:36 she is old they will not depart from it. So it was always in 25:40 your heart that you knew you were going to come back to God. 25:45 Yes, it was, it was always there and it was kind of like when I'm 25:50 30 I'm going to straighten up and that was kind of a picture 25:55 that we have of a friend of ours He was saying that, When I turn 26:00 30 I'm going to straighten up. 26:02 You have that picture? We'll put it up. 26:04 Jay, right here, a friend of ours. He left behind a wife 26:09 and three beautiful children. He died of a drug overdose 26:15 because he did not give it up. He loved the Lord. They found 26:21 so much information in his house I mean, he would be high and 26:26 drunk and talking with people about God but he did not give 26:31 it up. That was him at the Men's Retreat and it's just so sad. 26:36 We got permission from his wife to share that picture today. 26:40 The reason we're mentioning that is because we want people 26:45 to realize you don't have tomorrow. You need to get help 26:49 today. Right now call someone. Addiction is so destructive: 26:53 Drugs, abuse, smoking, sex, food. You know sometimes we 26:58 think, food, what, that's not a bid deal. If it's destructive, 27:02 it's against God and you need to get help right away. 27:04 I can't believe how quickly the time flies when you all are here 27:08 Thank you so much for being here. I'm glad that you'll be 27:12 coming back. We're going to have Wayne and Sherri come back and 27:14 they're going to be talking on recovery and ways that the Lord 27:20 led, particularly in Wayne's instance, how he recovered from 27:25 the snare that Satan had him in. But more importantly he's going 27:30 to be sharing the accountability program that God has helped 27:34 construct around him and how God has led him because it is so 27:39 important for our churches to recognize this problem and when 27:44 it has been identified to hold people accountable even after 27:49 recovery. So join us again. |
Revised 2014-12-17