Billings, Montana – Billings Adult & Teen Challenge, which aids males in overcoming drug addiction, launched in the Heights in November 2020.
The program has had many triumphs during the last two years.
“All my life I struggle with addiction, methamphetamine, and alcohol,” said Jason Santiago, a senior student in the program. “I have five children of my own. I just wanted to have a better life. I was just running from the law, running from myself, you know, just not living a good life.”
When Santiago was a child, he struggled with drug use. He has spent the previous ten months in the program trying to kick his addiction.
“I’ve never had a personal relationship with Christ,” Santiago said. “And I’ve never had this many loving people around me and just nurturing me to become a better person. A better father.”
The Pacific Northwest chapter of the Adult & Teen Challenge includes the Billings program.
Similar difficulties and victories have also been encountered by others in the faith-based program.
Because it is supported by private donations, Adult & Teen Challenge does not turn away anybody who cannot afford to pay or do not have insurance.
The Billings Adult and Teen Challenge’s outreach coordinator is Christopher Greer.
Soon after the home opened its first Christmas tree lot in 2020, he began receiving assistance.
He claimed that the course helped him beat his addiction.
“It’s not a fight,” Greer said. “It’s not a struggle. Sobriety is easy. The struggle is gone and I owe all that to God and the teen challenge.”
Others at the facility, like Pastor Randall Wilber, the executive director of the Billings home that he founded, have also undergone therapy.
“I knew that there were men in Montana, that if they had access to what I had access to, they could change, just like I did,” Wilber said.
“Give the next person a hand up as well, and show them how we made it,” Santiago said.
Trees For Hope, which Billings Adult & Teen Challenge will launch soon, is gathering trees to give to families.
Along with its soft opening on November 22–23, it will also sell trees.
Both the Faith Chapel parking lot at 517 Shiloh Road and the lots at 24th Street West and Lewis Avenue will be available.
There are 220 residential Adult & Teen Challenge programs across the country.
