Dan Garber was hiding in a Ventura junkyard.

Seven months on the run, paranoid, hallucinating, and contemplating ending his life. In the middle of a meth binge, he cried out: “God, if you’re real, I need you to prove it. I need a sign.”

The next morning, a stranger walked into the yard looking for a truck part. His name was Ryan Wood, and he worked at Miracle Mountain, a Teen Challenge women’s center up on the hill. One day after praying for a sign, Dan couldn’t dismiss it. “At that moment, I knew God was real. I knew God heard my prayer.” Ryan handed him a Teen Challenge business card. Dan felt like God had just handed him the Golden Certificate.

The road to that yard had been long. Growing up in Ventura, weekend drinking led to weed, weed to cocaine, cocaine to dealing, then methamphetamine and another decade lost. In and out of jail, pawning everything, burning through relationships and hope. His own mother had finally looked him in the eye and said, “You’re breaking my heart. Don’t call me. You’re dead to me.”

The morning after Ryan’s visit, Dan smashed his glass pipe on the floor. He called his mother. The first words out of his mouth were: “Teen Challenge.”

He entered Teen Challenge at Shafter, nearly walked out more than once, but his brothers prayed for him and he stayed. He completed the program, did his apprenticeship, and went on to the Teen Challenge Ministry Institute. When he sent his resume to San Diego Teen Challenge, the director called him back that same morning. That was more than 24 years ago. Last year, Dan celebrated 20 years in ministry there.

Today, watching students walk past his office window, Dan reflects: “I spent 20-something years as a drug addict and dealer, helping ruin and corrupt lives. And now I’ve had the opportunity to help the hopeless find hope. Loving on the unlovable.”

He went from contemplating suicide in a junkyard to living out Jeremiah 29:11: “Plans to give you hope and a future.”

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