For the woman who is fighting a relapse, Kachia Phillips is a sign of hope.
For the speaker who is a recovered addict, she's a testimony and an inspiration.
For her sister, she's the one person who never gave up on her.
Phillips, 45, is a survivor of years of time in prison, prostitution and addiction. She's been clean for almost five years, but still finds herself behind bars -- every Tuesday night, to be exact.
Phillips goes every week with a group of women from various churches to the Northwest Arkansas Community Correction Center to tell inmates how following God can save their lives, just like it did hers. Through The Way, The Truth, The Life prison ministry, Phillips is able to minister with the same women who taught her about God while she was incarcerated. Since she was released from prison in 2016, Phillips has helped numerous people in her community recover from the demons with which she struggled for years: drugs, prostitution and incarceration.
"I have to extend grace where grace has been given," Phillips said. "Somebody has given me that grace, and I need to be able to do the same thing and allow them to know that this isn't the end."
Jan. 23, 2015, was the beginning of the end for Phillips -- an end to the things that held her captive for 22 years. It was the day she sat angry and alone in a county jail, waiting for arraignment on two delivery charges of methamphetamine. It was the same day a friend of hers, Mary Corona, called the jail offering her freedom. With the help of Corona, Phillips was released and later taken to a church retreat where she devoted her life to Christ and chose to flee from the lifestyle that held her captive for years -- drugs, drinking, all of it.
"I didn't want to hang onto any of that junk, because it was just going to hold me back from what God has for me," Phillips said. "So I had to let it all go."
Phillips' freedom wasn't just freedom from being behind bars. In fact, she served her sentence for delivering methamphetamine by spending another seven months in prison -- a one-on-one time with God, she called it -- where she went to every Bible study and service the prison offered.
"She wasn't worried because she knew her God had her," said Phillips' sister, Carolanna Phillips. "She went to jail to turn herself in. I took her up there, and I cried, but she walked in there with the power of God on her."
Phillips was able to walk into prison as a person freed from addiction after she devoted her life to God, and she has chosen to help others do the same. She looks into the eyes of people who are just like she was -- and even some who did drugs with her. She works as a detox specialist to teach patients how to cope and stay sober through programs like Reformers Unanimous, a faith-based recovery program in Springdale.
Every Monday people file into a room where they hear Brian Stockslager, a recovered methamphetamine addict of 26 years, preach about life without addiction and with a relationship with God.
"I'm so proud of this girl," he said, patting Phillips' back. "She is the real deal. She is a testimony to what God can do in somebody's life, an inspiration to a lot of us."
He and others occasionally share their stories. They tell of times when they felt lost and without hope, just like Phillips felt before she devoted her life to God.
One middle-aged man from northeastern Arkansas stepped up to the front of the room and set his Bible on the podium.
"I shot up and was awake for four or five days, then crashed while I was driving," he said. "I woke up without a scratch on my body. But my little girl, when I found her, her neck was broken. I sat there for about an hour and a half on the side of the road, thinking about what I did."
Phillips sat listening in the front row, the three people she brought sitting behind her, the list of prayer requests for the women at the program that night laying on the table next to a Bible.
On Phillips' list is a prayer request for Anita Mann, a woman who also dealt with drug addiction, sexual exploitation and incarceration.
Phillips acts as a mentor to Mann, who dealt with opiate abuse, and takes her to Reformers Unanimous every Monday and to church every Sunday.
"We know a lot of the same people from the streets and so we ran with the same crowd, just not at the same time," said Mann. "When I was in prison she volunteered up there, and so she got me through that, too. It's really inspiring to see how much she's changed."
Phillips jotted down Mann's prayer request to, with God's help, stop smoking. It's a thing of the past for Phillips; she hasn't touched a cigarette since the day she chose to follow God.
"My son walked up to me and he was like, 'Can I have a cigarette?'And I was like, 'As a matter of fact, you can have the whole pack. I'm done.'"
Phillips is done with smoking, drinking and selling drugs, she said. But she isn't done with the people who haven't made that same choice. She surrounds herself every day with people who are just like she used to be. Every Tuesday she ministers to them, every Monday night she worships with them, and every work day she treats them.
"Lord clean up my mess, because I don't know how to," Phillips cried nearly five years ago. Now she's helping others do exactly that.
NAN Religion on 05/16/2020