Rescued From the Mire

Jenni’s car was everything to her, and now it was gone. Stolen, she knew. Now she was homeless and out on the streets with nothing—everything ripped away.

She knew who had done it. In fact, when she saw the thief, that was also the first time she met Connie.

An Unlikely Friendship

“She found me chasing the thief around the Salvation Army parking lot. As I yelled at him, Connie ran after me, shouting for me to stop,” Jenni tells me. “Finally she caught me, and we had a good talk. She said, ‘OK. I get it. I know how you feel. You’ve got a lot of anger right now, but there are ways we can deal with this.’ ”

Their relationship began there in the Salvation Army parking lot, Jenni shouting furiously and Connie listening. It continued a week later when Jenni came back, found Connie, shook her hand, introduced herself properly, and poured out her life story—a story that sounded a lot like Connie’s own.

Connie listened, threw a blanket of love over Jenni, and prayed.

“I wish she could have plucked me off the streets in that moment, but I still had many years to go,” Jenni says, tears gathering. “I didn’t know how to separate myself from the people I was out there with. The longer you’re with them, the more you bond. Most of the time our stuff is wet, cold, and moldy. We don’t have changes of clothes. We don’t have blankets. So we work together as a team, keeping each other safe and warm and fed . . . and drugged. It’s a network, and I hate to say it, but I was part of it.”

Connie kept her eyes open for Jenni, encouraging her and hoping that the moment would come when Jenni was “ready” to change. Jenni became a regular at the supper kitchen, helping serve food and receiving extra food in return. She swept floors and helped where she could. Time passed, and though hope flickered, recovery was still far away.

A Cry for Help on a Cold Night

Jenni describes the winter of 2017 with a shiver. “I was fighting, trying to get clean from the drugs, but I just couldn’t. Then one night we were in a foot of snow. I was trying to sleep in a tent that wasn’t winterized, and the water was pouring in. I was so very cold! I tied my backpack and my bicycle to myself and slept with my shoes on so they wouldn’t get stolen. I was in pain, hopeless, mad at the whole situation! How did I get here? Why am I still here?”

That night Jenni burst out of her tent, determined to check into the hospital’s drug detox unit where it would be warm and where they would give her fruit snacks, coffee, and a blanket. She didn’t have any plan beyond that, nor did she think about finding someone to help her with the hard conversations once she got sober. She just wanted to be warm and dry.

“I came barreling out of my tent, nothing in my way, and fell to my knees in the snow, screaming at God.

“ ‘God, please, all I want is to be warm, to be clean, and I just want my family back!’ ”

Jenni managed to get on her bicycle and ride frantically toward the hospital. But when she reached the Jack in the Box parking lot, her bike chain slipped off. As she knelt to fix it, a police officer pulled up and asked what she was doing there, in deep snow, at 3:00 a.m., in the parking lot.

“I’m going to check in at detox!” Jenni shouted angrily.

“Sure you are,” the officer responded.

Jenni looked up—and recognized her. This was the same officer who had cited her for sleeping in the park, and the same one who could arrest her now for missing her court date and not paying the fine.

“I really am.” Jenni tried to sound believable. “I’m done. I stink. I’m going!”

“Do you need some help?” the officer asked.

“Yeah.”

The officer got out of her patrol car, used her flashlight to help Jenni fix the chain, and asked, “What are you doing after detox?”

Jenni had no answer.

“How about this?” the officer said. “What if I take you to jail right now? You’ll get five days of hot showers, dry clothes, and blankets. You’ll be in drug court, so they’ll help you really get your life together.”

Fifteen minutes later Jenni was in the loosest set of handcuffs she had ever worn. At the jail the guards noticed immediately that something was different about Jenni this time. Change had begun.

‘I can’t change my past, but God has promised to change my today and my tomorrow.’

The “Emergency Christian”

“One day in the jail”—Jenni smiles when she tells this part of her story—“an ‘emergency Christian’ with a pocket Bible came up to me and tried to tell me that my story was in her Bible. I laughed and told her my story wouldn’t be in her book. No way!”

The “emergency Christian” opened to Psalm 69 and read aloud.

“Save me, O God!
For the waters have come up to my neck.
I sink in deep mire,
Where there is no standing;
I have come into deep waters,
Where the floods overflow me.

“I am weary with my crying;
My throat is dry;
My eyes fail while I wait for my God.

“Those who hate me without a cause
Are more than the hairs of my head;
They are mighty who would destroy me. . . .

“But as for me, my prayer is to You,
O Lord, in the acceptable time;
O God, in the multitude of Your mercy,
Hear me in the truth of Your salvation.

“Deliver me out of the mire” (Ps. 69:1-14).

Jenni memorized Psalm 69 during the 21 days she spent in jail. When she was released, she began a rehab program and quickly reconnected with Connie and the supper kitchen.

“I was well known on the streets,” Jenni says. “I was friendly. I wasn’t a thief or anything like that. I was part of the team. But when I got clean, that didn’t mean they wanted me to stay that way. I had to set boundaries so I could live my new life. Connie’s wisdom and support were crucial.”

Seventy-seven Days of Hope

Then, on the night of hertwenty-eighth day clean, she had the dream.

“I dreamed I was standing on a street corner, telling everyone how many clean days I’d had,” Jenni remembers. “So on mythirtieth day of being clean from all drugs, I ran to my old soggy tent, grabbed the cardboard that was still there under my bed, and wrote on it: I HAVE 30 DAYS CLEAN!”

Jenni took her new cardboard sign and ran to a busy street corner in Port Angeles, Washington. She stood there for nine hours that day, waving her sign and shouting hope, just as she had in her dream.

About two hours in, a police officer drove slowly through the intersection, stopped, got out, handed her a black Sharpie, and said, “This is the coolest thing I’ve seen in my entire life! Let’s make it easier to read.” He even added a police sticker to the sign.

Jenni updated that cardboard sign every day through day 77.

“Something awesome happened every day on that street corner, not only for me but for our entire community,” she says. “People needed to see success. They would drive by, honk, pull over, and give me a hug. Some tried to give me money, but I told them I wasn’t panhandling. I just needed to share my testimony, my special story. I can’t change my past, but God has promised to change my today and my tomorrow. I pray that my testimony will be loud enough to save another person’s life.”

If you visit Port Angeles today, you can meet Jenni, now an active leader in the outreach ministry of the Port Angeles, Washington, Seventh-day Adventist Church. She and her husband were baptized on June 7, 2025. You would also meet her daughter Kati, the church’s 12-step recovery group, Pastor Jay, and the volunteers who lead PA Hot Meals. Though Connie has passed, her smile continues to glow through Jenni’s life of generous love and acceptance.

Jenni and some of the feeding crew at PA Hot Meals