I used to have a good job. I used to make good money. I used to have what I thought was a good life. But then Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, and I lost everything.
Turns out, that’s the best thing that ever happened to me.
Now, don’t get me wrong. It didn’t seem that way at the time. I ended up living on the street. I slept on sidewalks, on park benches, and in abandoned houses. I was constantly in and out of jail, and I ended up addicted to drugs and alcohol. All the ambulance drivers in town eventually knew me by name because I was constantly getting picked up for heat exhaustion and alcohol poisoning.
The only thing I lived for was, “Where can I get my next drink?” I had no hope that my life would ever become more than what it had turned into. But Psalm 30:3 says, “O Lord, you have brought up my soul from Sheol; you restored me to life from among those who go down to the pit.” I literally was dying, and nobody who would’ve seen me back then would’ve ever thought I could be brought back to life—nobody except Kay Bennett.
Now, 20 years after we first met, she says, “I knew what was in you before you did.”
Kay ran the Baptist Friendship House in New Orleans. I showed up at her front door one day looking for a hot shower and some clean clothes, and I noticed right away there was something different about her. We got to talking, and I just felt like Kay Bennett was someone I could trust. That was really strange for me because, back then, I didn’t trust anybody. Kay really took me under her wing, and we started spending a lot of time together.
You hang out with the right people, and good things will happen.
I wasn’t raised in church. But Kay told me about a God who loves me no matter what, and eventually, I gave my life to Him. Now, Jesus is everything to me. I talk to Him all the time, and I’m so grateful He’s my best friend.
Kay and her friends helped me earn my GED and graduate from college, and now God has given me a life that’s so much better than anything I could’ve ever dreamed of before Katrina.
I tell everybody that Kay saved my life, and that’s what makes her my Annie Armstrong. Annie pointed all kinds of people to Jesus, and that’s what Kay did for me. Now, I hope to be that same kind of gospel light for others. I want to be like Kay, so that one day someone will say about me, “Yvonne Schaad was my Annie Armstrong.”