Dara's Story: Running for Hope


“I ran away from home when I was 14. I spent the next 10 years being a drug addict, an alcoholic, sexually promiscuous, and trying to find happiness in all of those things. I kept trying to stop, too, because I knew it wasn’t really making me happy. But I couldn’t really stop on my own, so I kept going back to it.

[Aaron] was my boyfriend … and he wasn’t really into all that stuff. … When I first met him, he really wasn’t [a Christian]. He was lukewarm. He was not really walking, and I don’t think I would have dated him if he had been, because as we were dating, we were living together. But [Aaron] wanted to bring God back onto the front burner. He wanted to go to church … I was not having it. I was really disgusted by it and said, ‘I don’t want God in my life.’

When I went [away] on vacation in December of 1999, I got back into the drugs, and I realized I had a problem. I cheated on [Aaron], and when I called him up and told him, he forgave me. … It wasn’t until I cheated on him, and I came to the point when he forgave me, that I fell down on the floor … I told him I would go to counseling or AA or wherever he wanted me to go, to not be this person anymore. He told me that, first and foremost, I needed God. I had tried everything else, and I really didn’t think it would work.

When I came back in January, I started going to church with him. I didn’t like it at first. I didn’t see the whole picture at the time. … I just thought, ‘I’ll do it for him because he forgave me.’ Now I know, looking back—that was a bigger picture of what Jesus did.

It was Easter of 2000 that we heard they were offering this class [at church] called Christianity 101 where they would just tell us the basics of Christianity, and there was no pressure or anything. You could just sit and learn. He nudged me and said, ‘You should go to that.’ And I nudged him back and said, ‘If you go, then I’ll go,’ and so we went together to that class.

About the fourth week [of the class], things were starting to make sense to me: that I was a sinner and that Jesus had died for me, for my sins, and He wanted to forgive me. If I repented and asked His forgiveness, I could turn my life over to Him. He could help me.

I thought, ‘This may be the one thing that I need. This might be true, and I think I might need this.’ So I prayed a simple prayer, thinking that it was no big deal.

Just two months later, I was really sick with flu-like symptoms and getting progressively worse. I just kept going on with my daily tasks, thinking, ‘I don’t have time to go to the doctor.’ Finally, it had been seven days, and I woke up one morning and couldn’t breathe. Aaron brought me to the emergency room. I was jaundiced from head to toe, and within about 24 hours they had to move me to another hospital.

By the time I walked into the emergency room, my liver had already failed. The toxins were going to my brain, and I lost my short-term memory. I have little bits of memory here and there. The next thing I remember is … I was honest with [the doctors]. They asked me if I had a past with drugs and alcohol, and I said that I had. ... According to the doctors, they told me I had five to seven days to live, and I had called my family out to say goodbye.

I had acquired Hepatitis B acutely. It hit my body really badly because I had already hurt my liver from the drugs I was taking. Ecstasy was the drug I did all the time. … The pathologist said there was a kick from the drugs to my liver. ...

Instead of denying me a transplant because of my history … the doctors decided to give me a liver transplant and found one within 48 hours of the diagnosis. For some reason God worked in their hearts, which is so amazing. [Years ago] a 17-year-old was denied a liver transplant because she did drugs. ... People were sending emails throughout the world to pray for me at that time.

Four days after I walked into the emergency room, I received the transplant.

When I woke up … I thought, ‘O my goodness. God is truly God!’ I could feel the Trinity. I never understand that [before], but I could feel God watching out for me, I could feel Jesus holding my hand, and I could feel the Holy Spirit moving in me. I was no longer what I used to be! I was a new creation, and the old was gone and the new had come. It was amazing. I felt like I got a whole new lease on life.

A lot of people aren’t given that kind of stop sign. God does different things for different people… It was [God’s] way of showing me that He loved me and cared for me and that He has a plan and a purpose for my life. [Later, Aaron] proposed to me.

It wasn’t until December of 2006 that I was going to the gym and trying to maintain a healthy lifestyle. I was walking on the treadmill; after a while I realized I could do a little short jog. Just a couple months later, I was running for a half an hour. I thought, ‘This is crazy. I can run!’ I never knew that I would like it … I was never athletic. … I was never into any of that stuff.

All of a sudden, I thought, ‘There’s something called the Transplant Games.’ It’s for people who have received an organ transplant and are on immunosuppressant medicine. I [went] online to check out the transplant games, and it tells me that the next one is in August of 2007 in Thailand! … I was just running like crazy. I thought, ‘I’m going to do all these running events, and just run for Jesus.’

… I want my cause to be for Jesus—to be able to share what God has done in my life with others, and also to be able to reach others with the Gospel so that other lives can be changed. In Thailand, I did all the running events and won two bronze medals. But this year [at the Transplant Games in Pittsburgh, Pa.,] my main event is the 5k-road race. That’s what I’m running for [BGEA's ministry] My Hope.

When I asked Jesus into my heart, I was a new person. What has continued to happen over the past eight years is that I want [God] daily in my life; I want to read the Bible on a daily basis and get to know Him more and more.

It’s like a treasure chest, and I have the key, and I want to give that key to everybody. My Hope is a ministry that is also doing that, sharing the key with people so that they can unlock the mysteries and wonders of Jesus and have Him enter their lives also.

I’m not perfect just because I had a liver transplant and solved all the obvious problems of my past. I still have sins. God is freeing me… I am now walking in His words. It’s an ongoing process, having a relationship with [God]. He’s the Great Physician and at the same time, my best friend.”

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