My name is Rob Metcalf. I am the Assistant Director for the Orange County Teen Challenge Men's Induction Center. I abused drugs for 13 years. I started smoking cigarettes and marijuana and drinking my dads beer when I was 11 years old. I told myself I would never do hard drugs, but, by the time I was 13 I was doing anything I could get my hands on.

Cocaine, Crystal Meth, LSD, PCP, Opium, Mushrooms and so on, and drinking any and everything that had alcohol in it (including cough medicine). I was in and out of institutions and programs my whole life. My parents spent thousands of dollars on trying to figure out what made Rob tick. At the age of thirteen, they had me committed to a psychiatric hospital (probably because they didn't know I needed to be committed to Christ). I've been arrested for many different things ranging from petty theft to burglary. Before coming into Teen Challenge, my life was so unmanageable I couldn't even take care of a simple fix-it ticket and ended up with several Failure to Appears and a $5,000 warrant out for my arrest.

Before I ever did drugs I was active in sports and had a lot going for me. I had parents who loved me. I grew up in an upper middle-class neighborhood. But I still felt empty inside. Like I didn't know what life was all about. My first step toward filling that emptiness was getting involved in secular rock-n-roll. And soon the lyrics of songs about sinful life-style's involving sex, drugs, and rebellion toward society, parents, and education became my very own way of living. At first it seemed to work because it was so much fun. That is, until I dropped out of sports, began loosing friends, got kicked out of my house, started getting arrested, and dropped out of high school.

It wasn't until I started sleeping under the bushes at the parks I used to play at as a kid that I began to entertain the thought that maybe I was headed in the wrong direction. My whole family was instrumental in helping me find purpose and direction in life. My parents didn't know what to do with me. They thought I would be dead before I was 21. Some of their friends convinced them to start going to church and they in turn made it mandatory for me to go when ever I was living at home. My sister used to wrap up a Bible every year for Christmas hoping that I might just read it. Well, I decided to read the Bible my sister gave me (when she wasn't looking, of course) and God's Word began to change the way I thought about life.

It challenged my belief of sex, drugs and rock-n-roll being the way the truth and the life. When I was at my worst, I would take my stolen guitar, a six-pack of beer, and my pipe and hike up Saddleback Mountain and ask God to give me a reason to live (because everything I ever put my hope in to give me a better life had failed).

He did! His Word pierced my heart and I was born again! God did something in me I can't quite explain. It was as if a light had turned on and it was clear to see how much God loved me and that He wanted me to have this thing called life and have it abundantly. I wanted to know this God who had changed my life, the best I possibly could. So I got into Teen Challenge and learned a new way of living. I developed good habits, self control and the discipline I needed to live a successful, meaningful life.

God called me to be on staff here in Orange County during the five months I was on the waiting list to get into the program. So here I am after graduating from the Teen Challenge Christian Life School and the Teen Challenge Ministry Institute. I have been on staff here for a little more than six years and have seen Teen Challenge bring this same hope to a lot of hurting and empty people. Today, I'm married to a Godly woman, have two great kids, own a home in the community where I used to be homeless, have a great job, own 2 nice cars, have one major credit card, and the bills are paid. Most importantly that emptiness is gone, I have a purpose in life and I have a personal relationship with The Creator of the Universe.