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Motivational speaker Joshua Hatton and musician Josey Cruse will share their stories of overcoming lives of drugs and crime with the community Friday, Nov. 1 at 6:30 p.m. at Hebron Lakeside Church.

At 13, Hatton did his first hit. At 17, he had seven felonies behind him. What followed was a life of crime, drugs, dealers, swinging doors of jails and finally prison. He struggled to quit, to reform, vowing from one jail cell to the next that he had done his last drug and his last crime to get the drug. With no hope, he eventually resigned himself to a lifetime of drugs, crime and prison.

Hatton, who never attended church while in the prison, said he went to a service one day where “…a man just like me” spoke and that is when God came into his life and he became a changed man.

Orphaned after his mother went to prison, Cruse slowly but surely made his way to a life of drugs and crime. He learned to make money from drugs in grade school, learning quickly how many grams were in an ounce and how many ounces were in a pound. The 10 years before he landed himself in the Laurel County Detention Center he said he lived the street code mainly violence, “…running hard after the things of this world” only to find himself becoming “someone I never intended to be” and “no power to change.”

In jail, facing multiple felonies “with a lot of time over my head,” was when Cruse encountered Jesus, and he served out his time with his new friend, reading his Bible from front to back over and over again.

Cruse will be singing and playing guitar during the program.

As always, food and fellowship will follow.

Hebron Lakeside Church is the white church beside Cedar Creek Lake on U.S. 150 between Stanford and Crab Orchard. The address is 27 Boone Cutoff Road.