S t o r i e s F r o m A l p h a

T h e A m e r i c a n C o l l e c t i o n

E d i t e d b y M a r k E l s d o n - D e w

Lives

The

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Copyright © 2002,Alpha International, Holy Trinity Brompton,Brompton Road, London SW7 1JA, UK

Published in NorthAmerica byAlpha NorthAmerica, 74 TrinityPlace, New York, NY 10006.

Cover design by Jeffrey P. BarnesCover photo: flag; © 2003 Getty Images; RubberballProductions

Additional cover photos by Amy Hoe

All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted inany form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, includingphotocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrievalsystem, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Scripture in this publication is from either the Good NewsVersion © 1976, Second Edition © 1994 by the American BibleSociety; or the New International Version, © 1973, 1978, 1984 bythe International Bible Society.

ISBN: 1-931808-791

2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Printing/Year 10 09 08 07 06

CONTENTS

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .9

1. The Story of MARJORIE FOOR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .11

2. The Stories of DAN COURTRIGHT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .25VERONICA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .35

3. The Story of JAMIE FURNEY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .43

4. The Stories of DOUGLAS and AUTUMN RIFFLE . . . . .53JERRY and PAT SWIMM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .63

5. The Story of FRANK COSTA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .73

6. The Stories of SANDY and TONY VENTURA . . . . . . . .81NIKKI PALMA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .91

7. The Stories of LISA MAUSOLF . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .101KAREN and BRIANWHALEY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .106

8. The Stories of PAULA CAPRIOTTI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .125MICHAEL KYLE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .135

9. The Stories of LISA BOEKE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .141MARIE JOSEPH . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .149

10. The Stories of VANESSAWENTZEL . . . . . . . . . . . . . .157BOB CAMPBELL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .167

11. The Story of RAY LEWANDOWSKI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .173

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“It was like living in a dark tunnel that had no light.I felt that God had let me down and betrayed me.”

1THE STORY OF MARJORIE FOOR

One terrible night in 1983,Marjorie Foor held her 15-year-old son, Anthony, in herarms as he died—the victim ofa knife attack in the familyhome. Tragically, his killer

was Marjorie’s 16-year-old foster son, Gregory. Theevents of that night were to have a grave impact uponall the family. But God was to intervene many yearslater.

Ourmother made us go to church as children.We weretaught that it was our duty to go and that we had to

do what God wanted in order to gain God’s love. Dadnever came. He was a police officer and always seemed tobe out taking care of other people instead of being home.

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When he was at home, he was very abusive and ordered usaround a lot. Mother was the nucleus of our family andkept us together. She used to say, “We all have crosses tobear and he’s our cross.”I was one of four sisters, and we have always been close.

We took refuge in each other’s rooms when we were hurt-ing. Jean was the first to marry, then Elaine, thenAnne, andfinally me.We all continued to go to church after we mar-ried. I married Jim who was from Pennsylvania. He was inthe Navy, and we met at the local bowling alley when I acci-dentally threw the ball at his lane.We were married in 1962 and had four children—three

boys and a girl: Timothy, Thomas, Anthony, and Tina. Istayed at home to look after the children and, around 1981,when they were all teenagers, I decided to go into fostercare. I went through a vigorous investigation from thepolice department, the fire department, and the healthdepartment. The only condition I gave them at the timewas that I didn’t want any children who had experienceddrug problems because I was afraid that they might hurtmy family.In the following few years, I took about ten children

in—some for only a month or two and others for a year ormore. One girl stayed with me for two years. By 1983, I hadjust one boy, Gregory, living with us. He was 16 and hadbeen living with us for seven months. At that time, ourother children were ages 18, 17, 15, and 10.One weekend during that year, we went to Pennsylvania

to see our relatives. When we got home, Anthony and

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THE STORY OF MARJORIE FOOR

Gregory wanted to go out to a party at a house nearby,while Thomas was going bowling with a friend. By thattime, Timmy had left home to join the Navy. Anthony andGregory walked to their party, which was about a mileaway I guess.They got home a few hours later and that waswhen I noticed that Anthony seemed a little unsteady onhis feet. I said, “Have you been drinking?”And he said, “Yes.”I followed him upstairs and said to the two of them,

“You guys have been drinking. We will not deal with thattonight. We’ll talk about it in the morning, when I’ve hadmore time to think this through.” So I went downstairs andsat down on the couch. I must have dozed off for about 15minutes when I heard the sound of running upstairs andthen the noise of what sounded like fighting. So I ranupstairs, and, all of a sudden, I saw my son lying on thefloor at the top. Gregory was standing over him and said,“Tony has cut his own throat.” I knew at once he was lying.I looked down and sawAnthony lying there with his throatwide open. So I started screaming and screaming andscreaming for my husband to wake up. Then I ran down-stairs and grabbed a cloth and put it to my son’s throat. Ikept on screaming and finally my husband appeared andsaid, “What the hell is going on?”I said, “Tony’s injured. His throat is cut.”He said, “My God, what has happened?” He ran

upstairs and I went to the phone to call for an ambulance.I dialed 911 and was screaming into the phone telling themto hurry up.As I dialed, Greg ran down the stairs and into

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“I didn’t care who I ran over. If people got in my way,that was too bad for them.”

2THE STORY OF DAN COURTRIGHT

At the age of 21, DanCourtright became a bikertraveling around the U.S.with no helmet, no I.D.,and taking part in regulargang fights which thepolice would watch from a

safe distance—even when those involved were killedor maimed. Then, in September of 2000, he saw anadvertisement for a church course which said, “If youhave questions about Christianity, come and join us.”

Mydad was in the army and my mom was in the StateDepartment, so during my childhood we traveled all

over the world. At various times, we lived in Germany,France, Greece, Spain, and England as well as the U.S.. In

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THE GOD WHO CHANGES LIVES

1968, my older brother, David, was killed while serving inVietnam with the military.He was 18 and my mom and daddidn’t take it too well. A year later, when I was about ten,they got divorced and I stayed with my mom.We continuedto travel a lot. I had another brother, and we treated thebreak-up of our parents’ marriage as pretty normal.A sta-ble family isn’t something that’s common in either militaryor diplomatic life.I started drinking at age 12 or 13 and was soon drinking

a gallon of beer on party nights—sometimes a gallon and ahalf. I would also drink wine. By 1977, when I was 18, wewere living in Israel just north of TelAviv. I graduated fromthe American International school there. At that time, Icould speak four languages—English, French, German,and Hebrew.After graduation, I joined theAir Force, but three years

later I got out of that and went to Boston, where I startedwork on a degree in engineering. It was there that I learnedthat I had a son, Daniel—born to the girlfriend I left whenI walked out of the Air Force. After getting my degree, Istarted traveling around the country—constantly on themove. No matter where I went I’d just find a place, live andwork for a while, and then go somewhere else when I gottired of it. My brother lived with his wife and children—he’s the stable one—and I would check back with themevery couple of years. They were always around, and if Ineeded somewhere to go, I could always crash at theirhouse.I got my first bike, a Kawasaki KZ450, when I was 25—

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THE STORY OF DAN COURTRIGHT

about 1985. It was a bit of a basket case which I puttogether myself. That was how I got into the biking world.I enjoyed it immediately; you’ve got your drugs, yourwomen—whatever you want. It’s kind of like the gangs inL.A. or anywhere else, where you’ve got your colors thatyou fly, and everybody knows who you are.I became known as “Hoss” because my last name is

Courtright. Everybody thinks “Cart-right.” I’m a prettygood sized guy, so Hoss fit. Plus I’m pretty friendly usu-ally—just don’t get me mad! There are the bars that youhang out at, and as long as the cops aren’t around, you cando anything that you want. And even if they are, it reallydoesn’t matter. If you were in a cop car cruising by and sawa couple of guys doing something illegal—but with tenmore guys with nothing to lose hanging around—whatwould you do? If you’re a cop with a family, you don’t wantto walk over and say,“Hi, you’re busted,” when those otherguys may say, “No pal, you’re busted. We’ll bust you up.”When you’ve got nothing to lose, what does it matter toguys like that? Have you ever not had to answer to any-body—done what you wanted to do when you wanted todo it?As a biker, you basically just got to be a kid and do what

you wanted. All right, there were certain unofficial rulesyou had to follow. There’s things you don’t talk about, andthere’s things you don’t do.You don’t take somebody else’sstash. You don’t try to rip your own brother. If you dothings like that, you’d best just leave and don’t bother tocome back, because if you get a bad rep, sooner or later

The Addict:“Our breakfast was what we called ‘bacon and eggs.’ Baconwas Budweiser and eggs was cocaine.That’s how we started atfive o’clock each morning.”

The Biker:“A lot of friends lost legs, arms, eyes . . . One day I was lying onthe bed watchingTV and I said,‘This ain’t right.’”

The Mother:“It was like living in a dark tunnel that had no light. I feltthat God had let me down and betrayed me . . .”

In their own compelling words, a wide variety ofpeople tell the stories of their lives and how they havebeen transformed—often in dramatic circumstances—through an encounter with God. Some have beenhealed, some powerfully changed and others given thestrength to face troubled times.

This is a book for anyone interested in what God cando to changes people’s lives.

The Alpha course is an opportunity to explore the mean-ing of life and is running in churches all over the world.

© Alpha International, HolyTrinity BromptonBrompton Road, London SW7 1JA,UK

Published in North Americaby Alpha North America74Trinity Place, NewYork,NY 10006

www.alphausa.orgwww.alphacanada.org

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