PANAMA CITY — When Terry Lewis got out of prison last fall, he headed straight for what sent him there.
“I started drinking many years ago, and it got out of hand many years ago,” Lewis said. “The last time I got out of prison was Sept. 12 of last year, and I got all messed up again and stayed messed up for about three weeks.”
Upon awakening in a detox facility, he decided to make a change.
“On the sixth of October, God sent this man,” Lewis said, motioning toward Pastor Robert Flores, the founder and director of Right Way Ministries in Panama City. “I asked if they would give me a chance. ... He has, and I’m not the same man that I was.”
Right Way Ministries opened its doors last May as a men’s residential treatment facility, centered around a 14-course, Biblically-based curriculum. The center now has about 20 residents focused on getting their lives back on track.
“It doesn’t matter who you are; addiction is really killing people right now,” Flores said. “There’s got to be somewhere for them to go to get help, and that’s what we offer here.”
After 16 years of working in recovery ministries, Flores said he felt called to the vacant building on the corner of Everitt Avenue and East 11th Street, where he started Right Way Ministries last spring.
“It was a disaster when I walked in, but it was almost like the Lord said, ‘This is it; this is the place,’ ” he said. “I took every bit of my money, everything I had. ... God told me to give it all.”
The long-term program focuses on pinpointing the underlying causes of addiction, which Flores said sets it apart from other programs. Participants also are offered the opportunity to participate in a GED program and receive help with college prep courses, as well as one-on-one counseling and family counseling with the center’s pastors.
“It helps a man in more areas than just addiction,” Flores said. “We’re focused on the root causes, and as we focus on the root causes, the surface issues begin to vanish.”
With a capacity of 26 and a cost of $1,500 to house a student, the ministry now relies on sponsorships from local churches, organizations and students’ family members to get by, but Flores hopes to someday operate the center as a free facility to help answer the great need in the community.
“That’s how we’re able to fund this thing. It’s people that believe in what we’re doing,” Flores said. “It’s unbelievable, the need here in this community.”
For Lewis and several others enrolled in the program, the experience has been life changing.
Although he admits he still struggles with addiction every day, Lewis keeps busy working in the ministry’s kitchen and learning as a student and intern. He hopes to someday help keep men from going down the same dark path he took for many years.
“It’s a hard walk, but it’s well worth it,” Lewis said. “I will never be able to repay Right Way Ministries.”