How did a Jewish kid
from New York city
wind up as an Executive Vice-President of
the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association?
I remember coming home from school
and these Catholic kids would
chase me and then they'd start to
throw rocks at me.
"You killed Christ!"
I don't even know who Christ is!
I didn't kill anybody!
The first time I had heroin
it was in the bathroom
the men's bathroom at
Grand Central Station
in New York CIty.
What a horrible, degenerated kinda thing.
How did a nice Jewish boy like me
get into a place like this?
And that led to a string of drug use
and eventually got to where
my parents disowned me.
I was kicked out.
My father said,
"I never want to see you again"
"as long as I live".
Now I had been a heroin addict
for 7 years
and then some people from
a drug program came
and recruited me to go onto this
3 year residential treatment program.
God was my imaginary friend.
I said, "Please God,"
"if you get me out of this one"
"I'll never use drugs again."
I wound up being president of
this drug program!
The President of the United States
comes to visit their program.
Ronald Reagan shows up
at the front door of this building
and I'm hosting him.
I sit there for 2 hours
talking to the President,
telling him about this story
and what happened to me.
And then he spoke to the residents.
He asked me first, "Is it OK if I tell"
"the residents of the program"
"that your body"
"is the temple of your spirit?
I said, "You can tell them"
"whatever you want!"
"You're the President of the United States!"
The Chief of Staff, Jim Baker
he said, "We saw what you did"
"with drug addicts"
"we'd like you to join the campaign"
"because just think"
"what you could do with Republicans!"
I'm in Washington, here's my title:
"Dep Asst Secretary of Public Affairs /"
"/ Public Liaison for the US Dept"
"of Health and Human Services" {!}
HUGE title! I don't even know
how you fit it on a business card!
It was like a miracle! I mean
things kept falling into place.
Going to England,
being the guest of the Royal Family...
private visits with the Pope!
The Dalai Lama!
And I wound up becoming president of
Ronald MacDonald House charities
worldwide
When I started there, we had $300,000.
When I left in 2007, we had $1.6 billion.
I was doing well.
But my heart was all messed up.
I was like,
searching...
How am I ever going to get happy?
You could pay me all the money in the world,
give me nice cars,
a nice house,
all this success that I was having
didn't fill this emptiness in me.
If I could just find this answer
that this pain would go away.
This auto race came up
it was a one lap of America
a car and driver magazine
sponsored this, and we would
get pledges for miles driven,
and we arranged for people
to drive fancy cars, fast cars.
I had met a gentleman who owned
one MacDonald's restaurant
in Atlanta, Georgia.
It was Paul Sabre.
I arranged for him and his friend
to come up from Alberquerque
and drive a Ferrari.
And it was all logo-ed up, it looked like
one of those NASCAR cars
with all kinds of logos on it
and it had Ronald MacDonald Charities on it
I'm driving, and he says,
"Ken, go faster! Go faster!"
we're on a 2-lane highway
He says, "Go faster!"
and I said, "Paul! You don't act like"
"you're afraid to die!"
He says, "I'm not,"
"because I know where I'm going."
I said, "What does that mean?!"
And he said, "Now let me tell you"
"about my friend, Jesus."
Then he starts to talk to me about
his religion.
He said, "You need to accept Jesus Christ"
"into your life."
And I screech on the breaks
and pull over to the side and said,
"Look, I'm a Jew."
He said, "No,"
"you would be a completed Jew."
and I said, "What does that mean?"
He said, "That means that you've accepted Jesus"
"as your Savior, that you've accepted"
"that Jesus is the Messiah,"
"that Jesus went to the cross"
"and died for our sins"...
Well, that was a big, philosophical conversation.
I knew as a Jew that we weren't supposed
to read the New Testament.
It was taboo.
When I opened it up, I saw that
it was just an extension
of the Old Testament.
It completed the story for me.
If that's going to fill up this emptiness
then how do we do it?
I mean, do we need to go to a synagogue?
Do I need to, like, step on a glass?
Or build a chuppah or something?
He said, "No, just pray with me."
"God, forgive me for my sins,"
"I accept Jesus as my Savior."
"I repent for all the things I've done wrong."
"And I ask you to come into my heart"
"and into my soul."
"Clean this stuff out"
"and make me new again."
And I started sobbing,
and the tears were coming out of me
and it was like a fog came over me...
I couldn't stop sobbing.
But I felt like this whole weight
had been lifted off my shoulders
and I had been freed,
this emptiness was filled...
It was a physical reality.
You know, I've heard this word
"Born-again Christian" a whole lot of times,
I never, ever would have believed
that I would be one of them!
But I know, after that night,
what it's like to be born again!
So I called up my father,
and I figured, I'm getting disowned again,
but I might as well tell him
because I was so excited about it.
And I said, "Dad!" and he said, "Kenny!"
"How are you? What's going on?"
And I said, "I want to tell you something"
"that happened last night."
He said, "What is it?"
I said, "Last night I prayed to accept"
"Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior"
Didn't say a word.
He started to cry.
He started sobbing.
My mother gets on the other phone.
"What did you say to your father"
"to get him so upset?"
"You know he's not well!"
"He's 85 years old, he's in a wheelchair..."
Blah-blah-blah, typical Jewish mother.
So I told her.
There was dead silence.
Dead silence.
I figured, I'd better hang up now
so I don't have to hear about it.
Then she came back into the conversation,
and said, "He's not crying tears of sadness,"
"he's crying tears of joy, because"
"when we were looking for help for you"
"with your drug problem,"
"we found Jesus too."
How did I get from here to there?
It's all about Jesus.