Sherry ran away from home at 15, married at 16, and had two babies by the time she was 18. An attack of Guillain-Barre Syndrome on her nerve and immune systems and an aneurism left her in leg braces to her knees, with the use of her left side. At 41, she entered the Educational Options CASP at the Neil Squire Foundation. Now, at 47, she believes for an open door in ministry and volunteers with“Bridges of Canada,” a program of Monty Lewis Ministries.

Nothing in my life happened just normal. I was one of fourteen children, the sickly child, growing up in a hard, difficult life. There was nothing special if you were a girl. I got up in the morning and got on the school bus, not smelling the best. You got a bath on Saturday night. We didn’t get clothing from a store. We got whatever was dropped off at our gateway. We were unkempt. Ten girls and one comb in the house, and it was pretty hard to find it. My parents didn’t manicure our hair. We weren’t allowed to cut it for religious beliefs. (I’m pleased with my hair today. I take good care of it. I enjoy my bath.)

As babies, we were given tea in a bottle. I think my mother thought we would enjoy it because she did and it was warm. I hardly slept during my childhood. I still can’t handle caffeine. We never went hungry but we didn’t have nutritional food. Many of us have serious health effects from not enough calcium or nutrients in our body.

We were very poor and cramped in a tiny two-bedroom home. You went out, tasting the snow and freezing to death, just to escape. Mactaquac bought our tiny home because of a mistake digging our door-yard to pieces, so we had to move to the city and bought a big, old, cold house. My dad had to leave many times to get work and my mother continued to try to raise us.

School and my childhood were a blur. Kids made fun and hollered, “Miller, killer, eat dirt and die.” I had low self-esteem. I care not to look back. It’s painful. Marriage was a way out. He took excellent care of me and he still does. I am separated after 26 years because I was so unhappy. He was diagnosed with autism. He would be my best friend.

When I came to God myself, in 1981, my life changed. It’s like the song, “He didn’t pick you up, to push you down. He didn’t teach you to swim, to watch you drown...” I made good friends in the church.