Man Gives his Life to Christ at New York City's Bowery Mission Chapel

Thursday, November 26, 2009
By Lauren Green

James Foresteire made good money trading diamonds. He had money, cars and a nice home.

"I wanted for nothing," he says.

But after a family tragedy, he soothed his pain with drugs and alcohol. Eventually, he lost everything.

"I ended up on a friend’s couch with 50 cents in my pocket, too afraid to spend it," Foresteire says.

James Macklin tells of a life of searching for excitement that his successful business didn’t provide.

"I began to smoke that crack cocaine," he says. "Boy, I tell you. That was the beginning of my end."

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Though Foresteire and Macklin came from very different cultures, they fell victim to the same addictions. But for both of them, the end turned out to be another beginning.

They found redemption at the same place on New York’s Lower East Side: the Bowery Mission Chapel.

Now celebrating its 100th anniversary, the Bowery Mission Chapel has changed little in the last century. Hymn-singing, a sermon and a free meal provide food for the body and nourishment for the soul.

"It really started out as a prayer movement on Wall Street," says Pastor Reggie Stutzman, who works full time at the Mission and gives several sermons a week at the chapel. "A hundred years later, their work through prayer and seeking God … we’re still doing it."

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