Photo by Robin Nelson/ZUMA Press © Copyright 2005 by Robin Nelson

By Mark Kelly

Lynn Barnes was 19 when he took his first hit of crystal meth. The rush lasted only a few minutes, but it was intense—much more powerful than anything he’d tried before.

It was all downhill from there.

Barnes is just one of millions of Americans who have struggled with an addiction to methamphetamine, a drug commonly referred to as ice, meth and speed. More than 12 million Americans—the majority between 18 and 34 years old—have tried it at least once, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse. 

Meth is consuming lives all over the U.S. Middle-class teens, white-collar office workers, young urban professionals and even suburban soccer moms are succumbing to meth’s powerful allure—a cocktail of pleasant feelings associated with sex, food and sleep.

The crystalline white drug quickly seduces those who snort, smoke or inject it. Users experience a euphoric rush, heightened awareness, increased confidence and a sustained boost of energy that sometimes lingers for as long as 12 hours. And then it starts destroying lives.

The drug is “cooked” in crude labs that have spread from Hawaii and California into heartland states like Illinois, Texas and Georgia. Barely 10 years ago, Arkansas thought crystal meth was someone else’s problem. Today, it’s the state’s primary drug concern. Six labs were seized in 1994, according to Arkansas State Crime Laboratory statistics. By 2003, the number had soared to 714—an increase of almost 12,000 percent.

Destruction and redemption

Tiny Alicia, Arkansas, has seen more than its share of lives destroyed by meth.

A farming community of 145 nestled in the sparsely populated Mississippi Delta of northeast Arkansas, Alicia was home to no less than three meth labs. Drug makers are migrating into rural communities, where the isolation makes it easier to hide from police. Large quantities of cheap, easily available meth ravaged Alicia’s young lives even worse than the alcohol that plagued so many of its previous generations.

Lynn Barnes was one of those young lives—and one of the drug dealers who was ruining the town’s children.

He’d come home to Alicia in 2001, paroled from the Cummins Unit of the Arkansas Department of Correction. An old acquaintance gave him a job as a truck driver, but he lost it 18 months later because he was back on meth. His old drug partner was still cooking at the house they shared with Barnes’ girlfriend, Twayna (ta-WAH-na) Smith. When police raided the operation, Smith and the partner were arrested. Smith faced five felony charges.

Incarceration was the best thing that had ever happened to her.

“It was a wake-up call for me,” says Smith, a vivacious blonde whose countenance nonetheless bears witness to the toll 15 years of drug abuse can take.

“There was a lady from a church in Walnut Ridge who led Bible studies in the jail twice a week,” Smith says. “Her enthusiasm about Jesus intrigued me.”

Released from jail and on probation, Smith decided to visit Alicia Baptist Church to pay respects to Pastor Monroe Baldwin who’d tried to visit her in jail. The authorities wouldn’t allow male visitors in the women’s unit.
“When I heard him preach, it really got to me,” she says. “I knew Jesus was the only way I was going to change. I was saved that day.”

Repentance and deliverance

In that little church, however, were a handful of believers who desperately wanted God to rescue Alicia’s perishing souls.
“The church had never had more than 30 or 35 mem- bers,” Baldwin says. “They were accustomed to having student pastors, but they were tired of ritual religion and were craving change. They were praying when we got here, and within a few months we started prayerwalking through town. More families started coming to church, and we began running about 30 in attendance.”
Baldwin began to see more signs of life. Longtime church members shared their heartbreak over lost relatives. Two members dramatically reconciled after years of estrangement. Then, one Sunday morning, God’s spirit filled the little sanctuary and the entire congregation fell before the Lord at the altar.

“It was a time of collective repentance over all the issues that had held the people of Alicia in bondage for so many years,” he says. “God moved in our hearts, and we began to focus our prayers on removing alcohol and marijuana from the community.”
God was ready to answer their prayers.

Five people who struggled with alcohol addictions made professions of faith. Ten members of one extended family—related to one of the congregation’s most beloved matriarchs—were baptized in February 2005.

Then, one Sunday evening in March, Twayna Smith walked through the door. In mid-service she bolted to the altar. Another meth addict followed. Both opened their hearts to Christ.

“Twayna told us about the drug problem in Alicia, that we had three labs here making meth, and her fiancé had been cooking most of the meth in the area for years,” says Baldwin.

Smith tried to convince Barnes to accompany her to church.

“There was something different about her,” he says. “We’d been together for years, but I’d never met this woman. She was going to church all the time and would come in all excited and talking about it. She wanted me to go with her, but I resisted. I was watching her though. I thought, ‘I’m high, but she’s happy.’”

Free in Christ

Warm weather had finally come to the Arkansas Delta. On a Saturday evening in May, members of Alicia Baptist were cooking burgers for the community. A truck pulled up, and Lynn Barnes got out.

“Twayna’s mother made me take some clothes to her over at the church,” Barnes says. “When I got out of the truck, this big guy came over and hugged me. Now, I’d just spent three years in a place where you didn’t want a guy to hug you, but this hug made me feel welcome. I had no idea he was the preacher.”

Monroe Baldwin and Barnes ate burgers and threw horseshoes that evening. Barnes was in church the next morning. Three weeks later, he was there again—staying after the service, because he “just couldn’t leave.”

Barnes had accepted Christ several years earlier during a stint in county jail, but this time he threw himself at the Savior’s feet, and word spread like wildfire through Alicia. He shut down his meth lab—and so did two other cookers who also got saved in the next few weeks. Twelve other meth users gave their lives to Christ. Suddenly, Alicia didn’t have any meth labs at all, and only one person in town was still using.

Barnes says he’s free from addiction only because members of Alicia Baptist cared enough to let the love of Christ flow through them to their community’s lost souls.

“I give full credit to Jesus Christ, but I could never give back enough for everything these people have done for me,” he says. “They took me in and made me feel so welcome that it scared me. I was poisoning their kids and grandkids, but they loved me.”

‘Freely you have received ...’

The church has given beyond their ability to help recovering addicts begin new lives. When a former customer—angry that his drug connection was gone—burned Barnes’ house to the ground, church members responded generously, finding him a place to live and collecting clothes. “In one week, I had more material things than I’d ever had in my life,” he says, his eyes moistening at the memory.

Arkansas Baptists also stepped up to help with a $1,200 grant from their Dixie Jackson State Missions Offering. That money not only bought Bibles for new believers, it also helped repair houses—fixing problems created by the addicts’ preoccupation with getting high, says Bill Howse, the Arkansas Baptist State Convention’s consultant for Church and Community Ministries. The convention also recruited a dentist, who with the help of volunteers from Alicia Baptist staffed a dental clinic for recovering meth users—extended meth use causes an addict’s teeth to turn gray and deteriorate.

“Christ’s love through Pastor Baldwin and the church has done more than change lives, it has saved lives,” says Dr. Emil Turner, executive director of the Arkansas Baptist Convention. The state convention has established a task force to assist churches with drug recovery programs—providing a means for ministry evangelism.

Alicia’s 27 sister churches in the Black River Baptist Association also have encouraged the effort to help people rescued from substance abuse, says Brent Powell, Black River’s director of missions. The association, which helped match Baldwin to the pastorless congregation in Alicia, opened its offices for “Highway To Recovery,” a Christ-centered 12-step program that Baldwin now leads. GED classes also are offered to help former addicts make themselves more employable. Baldwin’s wife, Tammy, who is a registered nurse, helps them deal with their health problems.

Powell doesn’t think Alicia is such an unlikely place for God’s spirit to move in a dramatic way.

“God can begin revival wherever he wants,” Powell says. “Many of the great revivals throughout history have begun in out-of-the-way places that would have been considered insignificant. The next Great Awakening could start right here in Alicia.”

One key is God’s people humbling themselves and acknowledging to others that they also know sin’s power firsthand, he says.
“Monroe is open about the fact that he struggled with alcoholism and was delivered from it,” Powell says. “He understands being in bondage to substance abuse. He has a heart for people who are struggling with addiction. He knows how to approach them.

“There was no vision here, and people were perishing,” he adds. “God sent Monroe here with a vision and compassion, and 52 people have been saved. They baptized 36 people last year—that’s more than twice their original attendance!”

God’s people, God’s love

Smith is grateful for the members of Alicia Baptist Church who cared enough to reach out to an addict like her. She wishes more churches were as concerned.

“I don’t care where you live, you have a drug problem in your community,” she says. “And it doesn’t go away just because you shut the church door and turn your back. If you don’t face it, you won’t reach lost people in your community. We want help, but we don’t know where to get it.”

Because God’s people cared enough to help her find freedom in Christ, Smith is on a bona fide mission from God—especially when it comes to her two daughters.

“For 15 years, drugs controlled every movement I made,” she says. “I spent my money on drugs instead of my kids. I had to send my girls to live with my mother so they’d be in a safer environment. I can’t get back the time we’ve lost, but we can capture the time we have. My daughter Destiny is 10. She saw something change in me drastically, and she said, ‘I want what my mother’s got.’ To be able to teach my daughters about God, that’s so precious to me.”

As director of the Woman’s Missionary Union at Alicia Baptist, Smith cherishes the opportunity to help younger women understand how the choices they make can change the entire course of their lives. As co-director of the congregation’s Brotherhood men’s group, Barnes is grateful to have an opportunity to share his testimony of deliverance with people who struggle with substance abuse.

“Not one of our original 12 who got saved are back on meth,” Pastor Baldwin says. “We’re seeing layers of consequences from drug addiction just peel away. People are getting their lives back on track. Families are being reunited. People are dealing with outstanding warrants; we’ve spent a lot of hours with them in court. One man turned himself in and is in jail on old charges.”

A new craving

“We’ve had a phenomenal time watching God’s hand at work in people’s lives,” Baldwin says. “The members of this church took 2 Chronicles 7:14 literally. We got on our knees and begged God to open heaven—and he did it.

“Now we’re seeing 70 to 75 people in church each week. One Sunday recently, we had 90. We’ve got four waiting for baptism. We’re just rejoicing in the Lord! God is so good!”

The experience of God’s working in such a powerful manner is addicting in its own way. “When we humbled ourselves and got on our knees, God touched us,” Baldwin says. “We want more of it.”

Mark Kelly
is a writer
living in
Madison,
Tennessee.