Testimonies from His Place

Steve's testimony...

"My name is Steve Diamond. I was born in 1965 in Boaz, Alabama to Helen and Lavaughn Diamond. I was raised by the best parents that a child could have. I was the first child – loving life. When I was about eleven years old, I had an encounter with God, when I went to the altar and got saved. I was a pretty decent kid; a boy being a boy, but a few weeks after I backslid. I started stealing my mother’s cigarettes and drank my dad’s beer in secret. This lead me down a path that caused me to experiment with ‘meth’ at age 15. This led to a life pure to hell till the age of 41. It took everything from me. I was up and down on drug money, living a drug type life, which caused me neither to pursue an education nor a career.

On May 17, 2006 I gave my life back to God in a meeting held by Neil McKinney at the First Baptist Church in Boaz. It was a divine appointment. Neil made a phone call to Pastor Rick Hagans at Harvest Evangelism after I told him that I wanted to change my life. I wanted to learn the skills to cope with everyday problems in life and not turn to drugs.

I was put up in a local motel room and spent the night there thinking: “The facility I am going to, is non smoking, it is this… and is that, but I can go through this. I can skate through this like I’ve done so many times in life”. The next morning sitting on the balcony smoking, I felt God said to me that I was a very selfish person and I replied, “I am NOT a selfish person, I gave a lot of things away in my life – my drugs, my money, my time, my friendship; use of everything that I had”. But He showed me a couple of instances when I got out of jail and miserably scrounged through the house and car for small change. Leaving to go to work the next morning, one of the two children (of the person) I was in an amoral relationship with, asked me if I had some extra change to get a snack after school. I replied,“‘no’, I have enough money to get cigarettes and something to eat”. God reiterated: “you are a selfish person”.

I threw my cigarette down and confessed “God, I’ve heard a lot of things in my life of how you can remove things, how you can heal people, you can just take things out of their lives”. There and then I begged God: “Lord, take crystal meth and the taste of tobacco from my mouth and I will give you a year at His Place, no matter how hard it gets – no matter how angry I get, I’ll stay”. I made a covenant with God.

Pastor Neil McKinney picked me up to take me to His Place. It was the longest, quietest ride I’d ever made. Deep in thought I arrived at His Place, where I met by Pastor Rick that morning opening the doors at 9 o’clock. I entered the program.

Within two months I was on a missions trip to Mexico where we built homes for those in need. People lived in houses made from palettes in the dirt. It was in a Canal. God showed me in a vision that people are all one in His Spirit. When I got up I was stunned at what I saw. He said: “Neither the meth nor the tobacco was your problem. Your problem was prejudice and anger”. I found myself standing in the midst of hundreds of people that at one time I despised. Now I had a heart to love them, cared about them, a heart that was concerned for them; I had a heart that hurt for them. God revealed to me in that very instance that I covered my anger and prejudice up with these other things. This opened my eyes and from that point on God began to move me and gave me a heart for people caught in a life dominated by a life controlling habits.

In the past four years God has blessed me with 12 trips to that same area in Mexico and form relationships. I’ve seen a whole neighborhood change where men became husbands, dads and fathers. They became involved; they became men of God.

Because of the burden that God has placed on Pastor Rick’s heart to change people’s lives, it also changed my life and opened doors for me to stay here and work at Harvest Evangelism. I now have the opportunity and it is a privilege to be house manager as God moved me into a place where I can care for the men that join our program for their first six months.

I continue to love God and thank Him for what He has done for me and how He blessed me."