How The Salvation Army helped one woman find God from prison

Justina Foster began selling meth as an answer to economic insecurity. She was “just doing what I needed to do to get by” and soon discovered she was good at it. 

She created a life for her and her young daughter, unknowingly becoming the biggest dealer in the Lewis Clark Valley, on the border of Idaho and Washington. This put her on the radar of multiple law enforcement agencies and later led to her arrest.

Years later, after a chance encounter with The Salvation Army while in prison, she found God, got clean, and reunited with her daughter. Now she’s using her skills as a thriving member of her local community.

Below is a transcript of the video edited for readability.

Justina Foster: I just wanted to party for the summer and have a good time, and then I would get serious about life in the fall. 

I’d lost a job that I’d had for 15 years. My marriage fell apart. 

“Well, I’ll just do a line real quick before work,” or, “I’ll do a line in the bathroom at work,” or when I got home, and then pretty soon I was smoking all the time.

And meth keeps you awake. I could stay up for four days straight. If you’re not high, you are out. There’s no waking you up. You’re awake all night long. Well, then you have to get high to go to work in the morning, because otherwise you can’t stay awake at work.

Then halfway through the day, you’re falling asleep, so you have to go get high on your lunch break. And it just spirals and spirals and spirals. So I would take my capsules, and that way I would stay awake. Little tiny doses, perfectly measured out. 

Eventually, I lost my job. I’d gotten pregnant. And so…I had 50 bucks. I had no gas in my car, and I had no idea how I was gonna get around or get by. 

And somebody called me up that I know and said, “Hey, do you have $20 worth of methamphetamine?” And I said, “No, but I can get one.” 

So then somebody else called me and they said, “Hey, I got 50 bucks.” And I went and bought another shirt. And then I sold it and I sold it and I sold it. And so I was making roughly five, six thousand dollars a day. I was doing good. 

So now I was able to be home with my baby, wake up in the morning, I’d take her to daycare. After she got dropped off, I’d call all my people, find out what they wanted. 

Within two and a half months, I went from that initial four ounces to a kilo. To have someone hand you a kilo of drugs and say, “Call me when you have my $12,000.” This is insane.

In my mind, I was just conducting business. I was just doing what I needed to do to get by. Just happened to be illegal. And I would say, “Don’t worry, Mommy’s always going to be here for you.” 

And I knew in my mind I was lying. God would tell me, “No, you’re going to prison.” And I would say, “No, I’m not God. I’m a good mom.” 

I didn’t know at the time, until they told me, but I was one of the biggest drug dealers in the Valley. I had no idea. I got pulled over. I had three grams on me. Instantly, I was surrounded by nine cop cars.

And it was the DEA, FBI, US Marshals, Lewiston Police Department, Nez Perce County Sheriff’s Department, Idaho State Police. They were all around me. 

And so I’m in this cell, and I’m sobbing and I’m hysterical. And the first time I met with the lawyer, he said, “Well, you’re looking at 15 to 20 years, so just get comfortable. You’re not going anywhere anytime soon.” 

And at this point, I’m praying every night, “Now I lay me down to sleep. I pray the Lord my soul to take. If I should die before I wake, please just don’t let me wake up, God.” I don’t want to be awake.

And then that next day, I got my bible study in the mail from The Salvation Army’s Prison Outreach. And I’d read in, like, the War Cry magazine, people who had stories like mine. And they were accepted, and they made their lives new, and they were able to kind of start over.

And then the chaplain walks in the unit and he said, “Your brother called, and your mom passed away yesterday.” I lost it. 

The next day, I called my lawyer, and he went to the prosecutor, and he went to the judge, and he asked if I could get a furlough for the day of her funeral. And the judge said, “Yes.” 

We get home, and I go to the church, and we’re having the memorial service. And I go and knock on the pastor’s door, cause there’s a parsonage there, and I ask if my daughter can use the bathroom. And the pastor goes, “I don’t think so. Why don’t you go around to the back door of the church and knock on that? Cause there should be someone in there that can let you in.” And I was like…

Now this is the church I grew up in. Sunday comes, and I decide we’re gonna go to The Salvation Army that day. And I walk into the corps with not just a chip on my shoulder, but a boulder on my shoulder. 

And Captain David walks up, first thing, right there in the foyer, and he says, “Welcome. Are you new here?” And I said, “Nope, I’m just home on furlough from federal prison for selling meth.” And he, without missing a beat, in Captain David fashion, goes, “Welcome! There’s coffee over here, and you can have a seat anywhere!” 

And after the service, of course, those old ladies come up and they’re like, “Oh, my gosh, your daughter’s so cute.” “We just love having her.” “We really hope you come back.” “This is just wonderful.” And I’m going…

And Captain David and Captain Joleen say, “We really hope when you come home that you’ll come back and you’ll join us.” “And our daughters could have play dates.” 

Every single person in that building accepted who I was. I went back to prison, and I spent 21 days reading the Bible from cover to cover.

And I said, “I don’t care if I don’t understand it, I don’t care if it doesn’t make sense. I’m just gonna read it.” And that’s when I came across Isaiah 48. 

He says, “I am here and I’m going to redeem you because I promised to, not because you deserve it.” I realized he was going to forgive me, and he wasn’t going to forgive me because of anything I had done, because I didn’t deserve to be forgiven. He was going to forgive me because he was that great. 

I don’t have to carry any more of the guilt. I don’t have to carry any more of the shame. I am not that person anymore. God has made me new.

As soon as I got permission to go to church, I went back to The Salvation Army. And Captain David and Captain Joleen were just like, “Wow, great, you’re back!” They have completely accepted me as, not just church members, but we’re a family. It’s the most amazing experience.

I started doing treatment, and at graduation, you invite your friends or your family to come. I had the most people ever at a graduation to be supporting the graduate, and all of them were from church. It was so amazing to feel so much love and so much support. 

And since I’ve been back, I lead Sunday School for the adults. And then I also have started the Life Recovery meeting at our local corps, and that’s something that really helps me feel fulfilled as well. 

I try to live my life every day by the example that Jesus gave us. I wish I could take just a piece of my faith and give it to people so they could feel how much joy and how much goodness and how much love God gives them.

When I have a craving, I open the Bible until I find something that makes sense to me that God is going to do and by the time I get done doing that, my cravings are gone. 

And I’m focused on some other aspect of how he’s been good in my life. And I try to reflect back every night when I go to bed at my day and look at the way God blessed me, and life is just great.

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