THE TESTIMONY OF A PRAYING WIFE – In 1984 Kathy Heredia’s life was on the road to nowhere. Having grown up on the mean streets of Los Angeles she had many heartaches and tragedies in her life. She experienced friends dying from gang violence and drug overdoses, a father bound to alcohol, and dealt with years of neglect from her mother abandoning the family. All this was hard to handle. Kathy was bound to alcohol herself, and having been married to a heroin addict for five years, she really was living first hand the life of a junkie’s wife. Kathy was truly “tired of being sick and tired”. Kathy began to look for happiness in different places – a job, an aerobics class, she even had Jehovah’s Witnesses coming to her home at one time hoping they had the answer to her misery. Raised as a Catholic she began to attend more masses and even gave up smoking at an Ash Wednesday service. She partied with her husband Johnny whenever she got the chance, consuming as much alcohol as her body would allow. Nothing seemed to give her the peace she was looking for. Then in April of 1984, Kathy’s life would be radically changed forever. On April 1, 1984 Kathy and her husband received news that their two-year old son, Thomas, had cancer. But it was during these four months of hospitalization, before Thomas passed away, that another man came into Kathy’s life. His name is Jesus Christ. She asked him into her heart and he began to fill her. Kathy immediately began to tell others of the love of Christ and many of her friends and family began to get saved. But one who refused was the closest one to her – her husband Johnny. After their son’s death he began injecting more and more heroin, eventually moving out and leaving her alone with their four-year old Johnny Jr., but Kathy would not give up. She had received a promise from God that her husband would be saved, so she began to intercede for him. Johnny’s life seemed to get worse; getting arrested a couple of times and catching Hepatitis, he moved back home and began to notice a change in his wife. She began to bribe him into going to church and bible-study by allowing him to go and party with his friends without an argument from her, believing that sooner or later God would do something like touch him in some way, but it just seemed hopeless. She began to waiver and asked the Pastor’s wife if she could get a divorce. She was told to be patient and trust the Lord for a Miracle, so she prayed. After conniving her husband to go to a bible-study meeting, she was blessed to see him afterwards ask for prayer, that God would deliver him from drug-addiction. Everyone was excited, but Kathy and Johnny still left the bible-study in separate cars. Johnny got home about an hour after Kathy with an excuse and immediately went into the restroom. Kathy, knowing that her husband was going in there to fix heroin began to pray once again for her husband. After what seemed to be about an hour, Kathy became concerned when she discovered that Johnny had never left the restroom. She went cautiously to the door calling out to him. Fear gripped her when there was no response she immediately burst through the door finding her husband slumped over the toilet overdosed, his head swollen, his face blue and his lips were an eerie white. Frantically she grabbed him and even though eight months pregnant, she dragged him into their living room where she began to pound on his chest and then tried a form of CPR – all to no avail. He was not breathing! In desperation she phoned the Pastor from the church she attended, Mitchell Peterson. After hanging up panic-struck, she ran out of the house screaming. Coming to her senses she once again hit her knees on the front porch of the house afraid to go inside and began to lay hands on him and Pray. The paramedics, Pastor Mitchell Peterson, and the sheriffs Department showed up and Johnny was SAVED that day in more ways than one. Today, Johnny and Kathy have five children, two grandchildren, and are now Pastors of Victory Outreach Church of Seattle in Washington. Pastor Johnny and Kathy came to Seattle 15 years ago and opened up their home to men and women to start a Church, which is now thriving where miracles take place. People from all walks of life now come to worship and give God praise. Look what the Lord has done! ~Kathy Heredia (First Lady of Victory Outreach Seattle, and Pastor’s wife)

Ann Marie Reed’s Testimony This was who I was: My life had no meaning and no purpose. It wan’t until I was older that a family member introduced me to Meth. I was addicted from the beginning, but I was unaware of the destruction my life was about to face. I was using daily and seeing my kids less and less. I was in and out of jail and I went to prison three times. I was in an abusive relationship, putting myself in very dangerous situations with people who would snap at any moment. Always running, looking over my shoulders, never sleeping or eating. I felt trapped by my addiction and the lifestyle that came with it. Days turned into months and months turned into years. Separated from my children for so long, the guilt of my  addiction led me to use even more, now using the needle to satisfy the monster that was inside me. I didn’t care if I lived or died, I welcomed death.  But Jesus had other plans for me. On my third trip to the Washington State Correctional Facility for women, where I was sentenced to 60 months, I attended a church service one night at the prison and the Volunteers that came to the prison told me that I could have forgiveness for everything that I had done. I carried so much guilt and shame for what i had allowed my life to become and the harm that it caused my family, I needed forgiveness. It was the hope that I needed to start my life with God. I went into the Victory Outreach Women’s home shortly after my release from prison and it was there that I learned about Jesus and how He loves us. I learned to pray and read the Bible. God restored my family. My children are saved and they love God and we as a family are a part of the Victory Outreach Seattle family. I have been serving God for 5 years now with my children and Grand-children along side of me. God never gave up on me ~ there is hope. Don’t give up, Jesus is the answer. Hi, my name is Nhial Gach (pronounced “Nay-Hall, or Nahal”) and this is my testimony: “I am from Sudan, and I am one of the Lost Boys from Sudan (the so-called term ‘Lost Boys’ comes from thousands of child refugees who fled the Second Sudanese Civil War in Africa where roughly 2 million people died and about 4 million people in southern Sudan were displaced). My journey to get out of the horrible civil war in my country was difficult and extraordinary, but God gave me the victory. I witnessed many terrible things and really bad hardship of my people. My path to freedom took me from Sudan to refugee camps in Ethiopia, and from Ethiopia, I was able to find a way to America, thank God. After I got to America (Seattle), I started running the streets and got into some trouble right away. I got arrested, and then in June 2010, and the Lord delivered me to Victory Outreach to God’s people. Jesus gave me a counselor and good man, Frankie Cortez and his wife Sister Rochelle (Men’s Home Directors) and Pastor Johnny and his wife Sister Kathy (Pastors of VO Seattle). I went to the Men’s Home and then graduated in 2012. I then went through Phase Two of the program and landed a good job. Now I am in a Discipleship Home with one of the Pastors in the church where I am becoming stable and secure with my new job and new life, and I am learning to become faithful outside of the Men’s Home. I am actively involved in the Usher ministry in the church and enjoy being a person of hospitality in the House of the Lord. I ONCE WAS LOST BUT NOW I AM FOUND. Hallelujah!”