Warrior Getaway: A Full Family Immersion of Healing
“Lord, my God, I called to you for help, and you healed me.”
Psalm 30:2
“Everybody experiences combat differently,” says Matt, who sacrificially served our country in the Army for five years. Two deployments in Iraq as a nuclear biological chemical specialist left him with muscular myopathy and post-traumatic stress (PTSD).
“I went on patrol with soldiers looking for bombs. Every day I’d wonder, ‘Am I going to get blown up tonight?’ My eyes were opened to what war really is. When the first person gets killed… I just didn’t know how that would feel. You can’t be prepared for that kind of hurt.”
Matt
Though undiagnosed, the Army acknowledges that Matt’s muscular disease resulted directly from toxic exposure in Iraq. “Matt wears braces on both legs to help with his progressive muscle atrophy,” says his wife Kristi.
“I’m getting weaker. But we can’t really treat this disease because we don’t know the actual cause.”
Matt
Matt’s physical disability is challenging enough, yet it doesn’t seem to compare to his invisible disability, PTSD.
“Since coming back in 2008, I have a hard time finding joy in anything. War changed me. I’m not the same person.”
Matt
“He became cold, withdrawn, and closed off. He had no compassion. He was not the man I knew. Matt went to war and came back broken,” Kristi added.
At Joni and Friends Warrior Getaway, things began to change.
“When we came to Warrior Getaway, we started on our path to healing. Warrior Getaway is a full family immersion of healing. The staff and volunteers love us the way Jesus does, and now I have the ability to be more joyful and worry less. Now I can have fun with my kids.
There was a point in my life when I no longer wanted to be alive, but because of Warrior Getaway, I want to be here to be my wife’s husband and my kids’ father. I don’t want to think about where we’d be without Warrior Getaway.”
Matt
Kristi agrees wholeheartedly. She shared about her experience at Warrior Getaway: “There’s no place on earth that feels closer to heaven. Nobody else understands us the way the people here do. At Warrior Getaway you can process and connect on a level that doesn’t exist anywhere else.
We feel alone a lot of times. But here we know we’re cared for, and we see God working in every avenue of Warrior Getaway. Walls come down quickly, and there’s no explanation for it other than it’s God moving. It stuns me to be loved in such an incredible way. Four or five days at Warrior Getaway does more than years and years in therapy.”
Matt and Kristi have a special message for those who volunteer at Warrior Getaway and provide scholarships for the military families who sacrifice so much for our freedoms.
“Thank you – from our family and on behalf of the other Warrior families. This has allowed us all to heal.”
You can provide the gift of healing to Veterans and their families by providing sponsorship to a Joni and Friends Warrior Getaway.
Support Families Going to Warrior Getaway!
Honor and support Veterans and their families by providing sponsorship to a Joni and Friends Warrior Getaway.
