Mike and Lexie Bon were lost and facing personal demons. Addicted to drugs. Unmarried. And, because of their lifestyle choices, their daughter was living with her grandmother.
All of this began to change three years ago when Arty VanGeloof (Eastside’s director of global compassion) came into their lives.
Arty introduced the Bon’s to Eastside, and began to gently walk them through life and show them how, through the power and intervention of the Holy Spirit, your life can be transformed.
It wasn’t long before the their life began to look remarkably different: they won their battle with drug addiction, they were able to get their daughter back into their home, and Arty even married them.
The Bon’s began volunteering in the parking lot during the weekend services, but this was just a taste of what was to come. Next, they signed up for a serve day at a local center for at risk kids & their lives were about to be transformed again. Serving at risk kids was like looking at a mirror image of their old selves. They couldn’t help but be moved at the idea of showing those kids how they were once like them before God gave their life a new purpose.
Mike and Lexie knew more than most people ever will know that God does not forget about anyone, and it doesn’t matter what circumstance you are in—your life can be transformed when you surrender to Christ and let the Spirit work through you.
Earlier this week, Eastside was contacted by Social Service because there was a family set to lose their 5-month old grandson, and they knew Eastside had a track record for caring for those in need. The family could offer the child the love that it needed, but their home was deemed unfit; they didn’t have the means or skill to fix it, and Social Services was forced to set a date to remove the child from the home.
Eastside’s assistant director of local compassion, Erica, knew who to contact.
Through their own struggle of getting their daughter back, Mike and Lexie knew the process of Social Service inspections. They met with Erica, did a walkthrough of the home and met with the family. Mike has taken on the bathroom as his personal project to fix up because this is exactly the kind of work he does.
The Bon’s went from rock bottom to transforming not only their own lives, but the lives of others facing similar circumstances; they realize now that their story is never complete—God is going to continue to use them and open new opportunities to serve.