Student #3

I'm sixteen years old and from Southern California. I've been at Lighthouse for exactly a year now, and I know it's the best thing that has ever happened to me. I grew up in a Christian home, got saved when I was four, and went to a good Christian school when I was in kindergarten, all the way until 8th grade. I never grew in God that entire time, and was satisfied with how I was spiritually. My parents decided to send me to a public high school after 8th grade. I was involved in a city competition cheer squad, so that kept me busy and out of trouble for a while. I knew only a few people at my new school, and they were pretty good influences, but I was never satisfied.

I began to attract the wrong kinds of friends, and would do anything to please them. I became involved with a junior (when I was a freshman) who had a girlfriend.When she found out I had been with her boyfriend, she and her friends did anything they could to make my life miserable and ruin my reputation. I became depressed, started getting in frequent violent fights with my mom, drinking, and cutting my arms with a switchblade a friend gave me. My mom found out about my cutting problems and we got in a fight. It ended with the police taking me to a behavior hospital for 8 days.

Things just got worse after that. Eventually I got arrested for shoplifting, kicked off the cheer squad, and put on probation. With all my new free time I started hanging out with a lot of older guys, doing drugs, and not