Stories of Hope from Goodwill Rescue Mission

A Reason to Give Thanks — Saiqah Shabazz

This Thanksgiving, Saiqah Shabazz will give God thanks for his family, home and job—a miracle when you consider what Saiqah’s Thanksgivings were like before he came to Goodwill Rescue Mission. Back then, he says, “My life was a living hell.”

Raised by an alcoholic mom who spent the rent money on alcohol, Saiqah became street savvy at a young age.

“I was a street hustler,” he explains. “I was stealing and selling things, conning people.”

But when he robbed a bank and a lottery ticket booth, he landed in prison.

“By the time I went to Goodwill in my early 30s, I was smoking cocaine like a California brushfire,” he says.

Saiqah joined our Project Emmanuel Recovery Program, but was asked to leave after being caught with drugs.

Back on the streets, he went from bad to worse. “I knew I was dying,” Saiqah recounts. “I sent God a
foxhole prayer, then came back to GRM.”

This time, things were different. “I realized I’m a new creature in Christ, and the old one didn’t matter to God. Nothing else could help me—coke, psychologists—God is bigger, and He understands me.”

After he graduated from our program, Saiqah joined our staff for three years. He left to marry and take a job with the Community Food Bank of New Jersey. After three years with the food bank, he worked in a group home for underprivileged kids.

Today, Saiqah and his wife live in Charlotte, N.C., where he manages a group home for teen boys, teaching them the skills he learned while in our program.

“Goodwill was a turning point in my life,” he shares. “All the people who come through a mission
are at the bottom side of the planet. Goodwill is a gate—when you come through that gate, it’s like
an oasis. You see there is a light there, and that light is Christ. It’s phenomenal.”

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