"I gotta go now or I'm going to die here," I said that early November day, when snow started falling.
I grabbed the few clothes I had. I didn't have winter boots or any warm clothes to wear. I started walking down the road, and I thought of my uncle in Roblin. He was a "wino-alcoholic," but that was my only option for a place to go.
I am originally from Camperville, near Pine Creek, Manitoba, on the western shore of Lake Winnipegosis. I had lived there all of my 18 years, and my first memories were of growing up in my granny's house. My brother and my mom were also there, as well as other grandchildren my granny took in.
As a kid, I remember having fun playing in the bush. We had lots of berries to eat, and we'd go swimming in the summer. My grandpa lived several miles away in Roblin, and sometimes I would get to visit him. The hardest thing about life was not having a dad.
I remember a very traumatic day when I was five years old. It was the day my cousins' dad killed himself right in my granny's house. So I was taken over to the neighbor's house. and I remember sitting at their kitchen table. The people there said, "If he wasn't drunk, he would have never shot himself."
Soon after, my family went into a hurtful state. My cousins, my brother, and I fell victim to abuse, both physical and emotional. I can see now, as an adult, that they were extremely hurt themselves, both the abuser and the abused.
About that time, my mom began to drink a lot. Another factor making life difficult was that my brother and I were bullied a lot in the community. We both had curly hair and, growing up on a reserve where everyone has the same look, we were the odd guys out.
I remember seeing drugs and alcohol as a common thing at home. My mom would ask me to go to the drug dealers for her, so I'd get on my bike and do that. We knew it made our mom happy, but as I got older and learned what I was actually doing, I thought, I don't want anything to do with drugs and alcohol. I don't want to smoke, and I don't want to drink.
As I got into my teen years, I had a lot of questions, like, "Why isn't my dad in my life? Why is my mom addicted to drugs? Why was I abused as a boy? Why was I bullied?"
I began to cry out to God. I remember walking by the lake where no one could hear me, and I'd scream out, "God, where are You? If You are real, show Yourself to me!"
I think I was actually expecting something to happen, but it never did.
Some new guys came to our community and pressured me into using marijuana. I remember when I first smoked it, it was the best feeling ever. All the stress and sadness, and all the questions of why my life was so hard, just vanished. The reason I need to share about this is because I know there are a lot of young people right now in my community who are just like I was then. There are guys I went to school with who are now dead because of drug use. So I need to tell my story as real as possible.
After a while, weed wasn't doing it for me anymore, so I started to take pills. Then I was mixing pills with alcohol. Apparently, I became too much to handle at home, so my mom kicked me out.
There was one positive influence in my life-my Uncle Jack. In my younger years, he took me around to gospel tent meetings. He played the guitar and he'd sing the song, "Amazing Grace."
We had a church in our town, and sometimes the tent meetings were held right in town. There would be preaching and people getting prayed for. But mostly I remember my uncle coming to our house. One specific time he had a glow on his face and love in his eyes. I remember being amazed and taken aback by that-I think now that it was God in his life.
As I got into harder drugs, my family disowned me. I would go from house to house, from cousin to cousin, stealing from them to get a fix. Even the friends who I got high with pushed me aside. I had nowhere to go. I was living in the bush, sometimes sleeping in abandoned cars and abandoned houses. I was just really low and hungry.
About this time, Uncle Jack passed away, and his house was offered to me to stay in. I remember being there all alone. The house didn't have any plumbing or heat, so I'd chop wood to try to stay warm. I remember one night I was lying down. My mom had given me a Bible, and I started reading it.
Then the words to the song my uncle used to sing started playing in my head: "Amazing Grace . . . I once was lost but now I'm found." I remember looking out the window and thinking, "If I don't leave this town, I'm going to die."
So I started hitchhiking that day in a big snowstorm. I don't think the cars could even see me in the snow, so I gave up sticking out my thumb and just kept walking. As I walked, I felt so lost and alone. But the words kept going in my head, "I once was lost, but now I'm found."
A few drivers stopped and gave me rides partway to Roblin. One guy who stopped yelled at me, "What's the matter with you? Don't you know someone could run you over?" Then he said that something had told him to turn around and pick me up. He seemed pretty mad about that, but he took me all the way to Roblin.
I showed up at my uncle's house, and he was passed out, so I just went to sleep on a bed. I think it was a couple of months before he even realized that I was staying there-his house was just a party house, with people coming and going, and I wasn't the only one living there.
I got a job picking up garbage. I tried to quit smoking, drinking, and using weed. The same song kept playing in my head. I began to read the Bible more, but again, I felt so lost and alone.
There was usually no food in my uncle's house, so I'd go to the food bank. I was just barely scraping by. I went into the town office to apply for welfare, but got denied because I lacked ID and a physical address. As I sat there talking with the lady from the town office, she told me that I didn't need to live the way I was living, that I had so much potential to be something better.
That was the first time anyone had said that to me. I don't think I even knew what the word "potential" meant. During that time, two others told me that I had potential. One was a RCMP officer whom I had several run-ins with, and another was a probation officer. It surprised me that these people I didn't even know saw something in me that I didn't even feel was real.
One day, someone invited me to church for a youth night. I remember walking in the door and seeing all these young people playing guitars and drums and singing about Jesus. I said to myself, Man, I want what those guys have.
I always thought that God was far away and distant, looking down with judgment, but these people were excited and passionate about God.
The speaker told about Jesus dying on the cross; how He suffered and bled for me and my sins. He said, "If anyone wants to receive God, come to the front."
I went to the front and knelt down. Everyone was kneeling, but I began talking to God out loud, quietly at first, then louder as I began yelling out, "Yes, God, come into my life!"
The minister and some others came over. I thought maybe they were going to kick me out for my yelling. But they prayed for me, and I remember one young guy saying, "You know, God has a plan for your life. I can see you telling your story to others."
I had finally found hope for my life. But it was hard to change, and I was still drinking for a while. I kept coming regularly to church, and slowly I quit drinking and swearing and lying. I was 19 years old then, and it's almost 15 years now. I haven't gone back.
Growing up around Metis people, I recognized a different culture in the church that was mostly white people, but I never experienced any racism. Only one other Metis guy was in the church. They were happy to have me join them, and a guy who mentored me even took me to Mexico with a team on a mission trip.
I had a criminal record, but somehow we made it to Mexico and back. We built houses for poor people there, and that was my first construction experience. People from the church helped pay my trip costs. I remember looking at the extra cash that had been given to me and thinking, "Just a few months ago I was passed out in a ditch somewhere. Now, here I am with money, on a trip and building houses for poor people!"
The church people continued to bless me and gave me opportunities to share my story. I didn't mind my job picking up garbage, but my new Christian friends encouraged me to consider something else. I hadn't finished high school, so I earned my GED. Then I joined some young guys from the church doing roof shingling, and then, I slowly started building my own business.
I went to Ottawa for a few months to be part of a ministry there and then came back to my roofing business. I had about four guys working for me, but one Sunday at church, I saw this young good-looking Métis girl. I wondered how I could get to know her, so I found out her name and phoned her parents' house, pretending that I needed more workers for my company.
Strangely enough, she said, "Yeah, I'll come work for you." There had been a hail storm, and together we shingled a lot of buildings.
Eventually I told her how I felt about her, and about a year later we were married. Now Lovejoy and I have six children and two foster children. We have a successful construction company and own multiple rental properties in town.
I became an elder in our church, one of the first to be aboriginal, and am slowly becoming a leader in our community. There have been many people in Roblin and surrounding communities who have heard me tell my story on Tribal Trails TV and told me how they were blessed.
My life was nothing, and now it's become so much more. God picked me out of a bad situation and gave me more than I could ever imagine. I think back to when I was a kid yelling at God, "Where are you?" God has given me everything I needed and wanted.
Adapted from our video interview with Dwayne. A more detailed edition of Dwayne's life story can be read at http://www.tribaltrails.org (look under "Spiritual Help ... Real Life Stories") and is also available in printed format (contact Tribal Trails). You can learn more about Dwayne's testimony through his book, How I Found Hope. He also speaks at churches and other gatherings. Contact him at flamandconstruction@outlook.com.
