Rolando’s Story

I grew up never knowing who I was supposed to be. I didn’t feel valuable to anyone. My name is Rolando, and when I was born, my mother was incarcerated in the Shakopee Women’s Prison. From the beginning, I felt like a burden—like people only tolerated me. I felt like a chore more than a child.

Before I ever found sports, I found hustling. Drugs. Chaos. My family only knew unhealthy ways of coping, so that’s what they taught me. If I was sad, I was handed a drink. If I was frustrated, someone passed me a joint. That became normal for me. When I realized I could make money selling drugs, suddenly people “cared” about me—where I was, what I was doing. It gave me a false sense of love and belonging. Every hit I took made me hurt a little less, or so I thought.

When family offered to take me in—new house, new school, a chance at a better life—I jumped at it. I thought a geographical change would solve everything. But I brought my problems with me. I didn’t know the culture, didn’t know who I was, and I tried to be someone different everywhere I went. I’ll never forget carrying a Jimmy Neutron backpack with a gun and Pokémon cards inside—two completely different identities clashing in one moment. I didn’t fit in anywhere.

So I did what I knew best: I self-destructed. My addiction spiraled. The drugs that once numbed me stopped working, so I chased stronger ones. Everything escalated until jail became a revolving door.

Coming to Teen Challenge was just supposed to be a strategy to avoid prison. I planned to get out and go back to the streets. But God had other plans. In short term, I felt things I hadn’t felt in years. The staff told me, “We see something in you that you don’t see in yourself.” One day, I dropped to my knees, sobbing, and said, “God, if You’re real—I surrender.”

From there, everything changed.

Teen Challenge gave me tools to talk about my emotions, cope with sadness, fight urges, and build a real relationship with the Holy Spirit. God gave me a new identity, a new family, a new home.

And today—after everything—I have a four-year full-ride scholarship to North Central University.

Teen Challenge is where I found who I am.
And who I am is a new creation in Jesus Christ.