My mother went to prison when I was 15 and I moved out on my own,” says Sheena.
Sheena grew up in a houseful of people who abused substances. The impact on her as a child was horrific. “I experienced sexual abuse, physical abuse, and neglect. I think by the age of 11, I was smoking pot and drinking. And then by the age of 14, I was using hard drugs.”
After her mother went to prison, Sheena tried to work and continue going to school, but as a teenager on her own, things didn’t work out well. For the next several years, though still using, she worked and “still took care of my responsibilities,” she says. By her late twenties, Sheena had an apartment, a car, and two children. “And in 2015,” she says, “I lost 17 friends to overdoses in one year. And from there, my addiction spiraled out of control.” That year, Sheena lost her job, her apartment, and her children.
Living on the streets
The loss of her children brought with it a loss of self-worth for Sheena as well. She found herself living in the Jungle in downtown Seattle, where she began using heavy drugs for several years. “I literally ended up to the point of being that crazy homeless woman,” she says, “pushing the shopping cart down the road, talking to herself.”
It was while living on the streets that Sheena was introduced to the Mission in 2018, through the Search + Rescue vans which came to her encampment numerous times. She recalls fondly how the Mission’s Richard McAdams poured love out to her.
“I call him my guardian angel because he never gave up,” she says. “No matter how many times I blew off the chance to get into the Mission, which is what he kept recommending ... he never gave up on me. He just kept watering that seed.”
Take me out of this hell
That same year, Sheena says, “My heart stopped. I physically died more times than I can remember.” By January 2019, she’d had enough. “I remember being in a bathroom stall with a needle in my arm and crying and begging a God that I didn’t know anything about to take me out of the hell that I was in or to just take me off this earth.”
About a week later, Sheena found herself in an in-patient treatment center. After graduating, though, she was on her own, with no idea what to do with herself. “I started going and volunteering with Search + Rescue because they had done so much for me.” Sheena’s van driver echoed Richard’s words from before, telling Sheena that the Mission was the place for her.
Starting the road to recovery
As only God could orchestrate, while in a Narcotics Anonymous meeting, Sheena met a woman who happened to be the Intake Coordinator for Hope Place, the Mission’s Women and Children’s shelter. “By that Friday, I had done my phone screening and done my interview,” Sheena says. “And that’s how I ended up (at Hope Place).”
Sheena recalls being “kind of terrified” before moving into Hope Place. Still, when she arrived, she says, “I was welcomed with open arms by so many people. I can remember everybody, the guests and staff were just pouring love out onto me and hugging me and telling me ‘welcome home.’ And by the end of the first day being here, I was okay.”
"A stronger faith in God"
Sheena credits a retreat she went on while at Hope Place for changing her life. “It really altered my view and gave me so much of a stronger faith in God,” she says.
Before coming to the Mission, God was simply the One Sheena cried out to when she was in trouble. “Since I’ve come to the Mission,” she says, “that’s completely changed. I know that on July 28th (2019), I asked the Lord into my heart and on August 4th I was baptized, and my life has been so much different since I’ve been able to accept the love of Jesus into my heart.”
Sheena sees her future with limitless possibilities. “I now work full time as an Advocate for Catholic Community Services and I volunteer regularly with REACH Ministries,” she says. “God’s really put it on my heart to do for others what’s been done for me, to help the still suffering addict and people who are suffering from homelessness and domestic violence.” Sheena says she wants her career to give her the opportunity to “just pour the love of God out onto other people.”
