Note: The following story appeared recently in the Tonganoxie (Kansas) Mirror newspaper. Back on Track
(Tonganoxie Mirror) Sherry Alterman's addictions go way back.
"I really started drinking pretty heavily at 13," Alterman said. She'd obtain her alcohol through friends.
"I'd ask them to get me a bottle of wine or a six-pack of beer or I would go drinking with them," Alterman said.
Despite her growing problem, she remained in high school.
"Basically, back then I just drank on the weekends," said Alterman, who is 44. "But I drank to get drunk, not just to drink."
She had her first hangover at 15 - after a graduation party for her brother. Twenty-five kegs of beer on tap.
"I got rip-roaring drunk," Alterman said. By then, illegal substances were also quickly becoming a part of her life.
"I started smoking marijuana when I was probably 14," Alterman said. "I smoked it pretty much every day."
She started working at 15. She completed high school while holding down a full-time job as a cashier.
But the drug use continued.
Cocaine?
"Not 'till I was 20," Alterman said.
At 21, she became addicted to crack.
It was expensive.
"A rock was $25, but once you have that one, you've got to have it all night long," Alterman said. "It can cost you up to $700 in one night to stay high."
And, she was addicted to meth.
She knew right away downers, such as Quaaludes, weren't for her.
"I never got addicted to downers," Alterman said. "It would just make me fall asleep."
Season of change
In 1994, Sherry and her husband, Phil Alterman, moved to McLouth, Kansas.
Life went on as usual. Drinking, drugs, the occasional wild party. As she said, the usual out-of-control lifestyle.
Amazingly during her years of addiction, Alterman was never arrested.
"Never, never," Alterman said. "It's a miracle because I deserved to be in jail."
And she never had a DUI.
"And that's a miracle," Alterman said.
Her life began to change in 1996 when a friend invited her to attend worship service at the McLouth, Kansas Church of the Nazarene.
What she heard struck a nerve.
"I would hear the preacher preach about Jesus and how He made us to be a certain way - and I knew I wasn't that way," Alterman said. "I'd leave and just cry all the way home because the Lord was speaking to me telling me 'You're not living the way I created you to live.'"
For a year, Alterman went to church every now and then.
Old habits are hard to change.
"I knew that I wasn't living the way I should have been living and I wasn't ready to give up yet," Alterman said.
In June 1997, friends asked her to help with a Vacation Bible School.
Alterman agreed, and later realized that on one of those evenings the other teacher wouldn't be there.
She'd have to teach the children alone.
"I thought to myself, I don't even know the Bible stories," Alterman said. "I hadn't read the Bible since I was 12 years old."
That evening would change her life.
"Here I was teaching these little tiny kids that Jesus died for them and that if you have any sin that Jesus can cleanse that sin and remove it," Alterman said. "I felt the Lord speak to me and ask me 'How can you tell the little kids this when you're not living for me?'"
Alterman clapped her hands together.
"At that very moment I asked the Lord to change me inside out, to remove anything and everything that wasn't pleasing to Him," Alterman said. "And let me tell you, He had a lot of work to do. But from that moment on, I haven't touched alcohol or drugs or anything that's not pleasing to the Lord."
Anyone can change for the better.
"If Jesus can do that for me," Alterman said, "Jesus can do that for anybody, because I'm not any more special than anybody else."
Alterman has since been the director of "Celebrate Recovery," a faith-based program held at the McLouth Church of the Nazarene, but open to people from all denominations. The program, which uses eight recovery principals based on Jesus' Sermon on the Mount and twelve Christ-centered steps, is now three years old. It is also not just for people who have addictions. The program helps people deal with bereavement, anger, divorce, fear and other situations.
The program is now in need of a new director as Alterman, who is also serving as the church's administrative assistant, will be moving to Missouri to be with her husband. She is hoping one of the program's current participants will take over, but none may be ready quite yet.
"If none of them take over, I'm going to disband it, unfortunately," Alterman said. "Unless the right person comes along and proves to me they can do it by Nov. 10."
No wages accompany the responsibility.
"It is a huge commitment and you don't get paid," Alterman said with a fresh smile. "My payment is when I get to heaven."
--L. Scheller, Tonganoxie Mirror (Kansas)
Kansas City-The Board of General Superintendents has announced the appointment of former Africa Regional Director J. Frederick Huff to the office of superintendent of the New Mexico District. The action was taken by Jurisdictional General Superintendent Nina G. Gunter with approval by the Board of General Superintendents and in consultation with the New Mexico District Advisory Council. The appointment will be effective January 1, 2007.
Wilmore, Kentucky-Jeff Greenway has resigned as president of Asbury Theological Seminary, effective October 17, 2006. President Greenway began his presidency in July 2004 after having served as a pastor and district superintendent of the Pittsburgh East District of the Western Pennsylvania Conference of the United Methodist Church since 1999. He earned a doctorate in ministry degree from Wesley Theological Seminary. He received his master of divinity from Asbury Seminary in 1985 and has served on the Board of Asbury for a number of years.
Nina G. Gunter is the first woman to serve as a member of the Board of General Superintendents in the history of the Church of the Nazarene. 
M7, the mid-quadrennial conference on mission and evangelism, will be held in Kansas City February 19-21, 2007. For more information, see