Details of Testimony - Share your Testimony with the world

TESTIMONY:

From Addiction to Freedom: My Testimony of Deliverance I want to share my journey—not because I am proud of everything in my past, but because I am living proof that God can reach you in the darkest place, break chains that seem impossible to break, and restore what you thought was lost forever. For 24 years, I battled a methamphetamine addiction. An addiction that shaped so much of my life. An addiction that took me through chaos, pain, selfishness, destruction, and consequences I never imagined I would face. Meth became my escape. It became my crutch. And eventually, it became my prison. But my story is different than what many people might expect. I didn’t grow up in a broken home. In fact, I had the complete opposite. I had a mom and dad who were present, loving, supportive, and disciplined. As an evangelist and preacher’s daughter, I was raised in church. I grew up surrounded by faith, love, strong values, and the Word of God. I was taught about God’s grace. I was taught right from wrong. I was taught the importance of making good choices. Proverbs 22:6 says, “Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.” Yet despite the love and foundation I was given, I made horrible choices. I rebelled. And those choices eventually led me into addiction. At just 19 years old, I was married and pregnant with my first child. I gave birth to my first daughter exactly one year after graduating high school. Sixteen months later, I gave birth to another baby girl. By 2010, I was the mother of five children. But my life became complicated and painful. I went through divorce and entered a 5-6 year relationship with another lifelong addict who was physically, mentally, and emotionally abusive. Then God placed another man in my life. My husband, Rob. He stood beside me through every up and down. He stayed when I was at my lowest—when I was angry, lost, broken, and completely consumed by my addiction. He stayed when he didn’t have to. He stepped up to the plate that another man had walked away from. During one of the darkest seasons of my life, Rob became one of the few constants I had. How It Began My addiction didn’t begin with me thinking I would destroy my life. It began innocently enough. I was looking for a way to cope with the pressures of life. Then meth became a way to numb myself from the complete mess my life had become. At first, it felt like an answer. It gave me energy. It gave me a false sense of confidence. It gave me a temporary feeling of euphoria. It felt almost like a superpower. But that feeling was a lie. What I thought was an escape quickly became a nightmare. I lost my children. I strained nearly every relationship I had. I neglected my children, my family, and myself. I became a shell of the person I once was. There were years when I would look in the mirror and honestly couldn’t recognize the person staring back at me. I became consumed by cravings, lies, shame, guilt, and the constant need to feed my addiction. I was surrounded by people, yet I was completely alone. For years, I surrounded myself with people who were just as lost and broken as I was. 2 Peter 2:19 says, “They promise freedom, but they themselves are slaves to sin and corruption. For you are a slave to whatever controls you.” That verse describes exactly where I was. My life had become a cycle of fleeting highs followed by devastating lows. For the last 10 years of my addiction, I convinced myself I was in control. I wasn’t getting into trouble. I was back in my children’s lives. From the outside, things may have looked better. But the truth was, meth still had complete control over me. I would sit in my house day after day surrounded by the remnants of the life I had destroyed. Guilt. Self-hatred. Paraphernalia. Silence. And deep inside my soul was a desperate cry for something to change. I had lost so much—and what I had managed to regain was slowly slipping away. The Destruction Over the course of those 24 years, my addiction took me places I never imagined I would go. Some of the things I experienced included: Being in and out of jail. Being in and out of inpatient rehabilitation facilities. Being on and off probation. Practicing witchcraft. Years of battling DCFS. Out-of-control behavior and lifestyles, including exotic dancing, raves, bartending, biker groups, gangs, and delivering and using drugs with people involved in those lifestyles. Multiple county court cases. Felony possession charges. Attempting suicide. Multiple broken bones as a result of domestic abuse. A gambling addiction that devastated my family—I lost more than $80,000 in less than a year. A life-threatening health issue involving my heart. I was living a life that I never thought would be mine. Isaiah 1:5 says, “Why do you continue to invite punishment? Must you rebel forever? Your head is injured, your heart is sick.” My heart was sick. My life was broken. And eventually, I reached the place where I knew I could not save myself. When My Addiction Started Hurting My Son One of the hardest parts of my story is what my addiction did to my youngest son. He was the one child who was never taken from me. But he didn’t escape the consequences of my addiction. He walked through my addiction with me. He saw things no child should have to see. He lived through the instability, the chaos, and the consequences of choices that weren’t his. And in 2024, I began watching the effects of my lifestyle take a devastating toll on him. His behavior began changing drastically. He started acting out, and eventually he was admitted to two different youth mental-health facilities because of severe psychological and behavioral issues. After his second admission to a youth mental-health hospital, our family began to believe that what we were dealing with went beyond what we had initially understood. From our perspective and through our faith, we came to believe that he was dealing with spiritual oppression. When he came home from his second stay, my father—who is an evangelist—along with my son and some of his friends, prayed over him and ministered to him. We believe he was delivered from the spirits that had been tormenting him. But even after that, my son was still carrying the weight of years of my choices and my lifestyle. And that broke something inside of me. There is already a tremendous amount of pain and guilt that comes with addiction. But when you begin seeing the consequences of your addiction showing up in the life of your child, it takes that pain to an entirely different level. I could handle the consequences happening to me. But watching my son suffer because of choices I had made was almost unbearable. In July of 2025, my youngest son was sentenced to an indeterminate amount of time in the Illinois juvenile justice system. He remained there until December 22, 2025. I cannot adequately explain what that did to me. The guilt became overwhelming. The shame became overwhelming. The pain became overwhelming. And instead of turning toward God, I went deeper into my addiction than I ever had before. The Darkest Point of My Life When my son was sentenced, my addiction became worse than it had ever been. I began using fentanyl. I overdosed twice. I was no longer simply destroying my life—I was actively losing the desire to keep living it. I had reached a place where I believed that one final disappointment would be better than a lifetime of disappointments. I had convinced myself that because I couldn’t quit, I would never quit. And if I couldn’t escape my addiction, I thought the only way out was to escape life itself. I had already made up my mind. I had obtained fentanyl and rented a hotel room in Evansville, Indiana, intending to spend the weekend there and end my life. My mindset was essentially: “Whoever finds me, finds me. I’m done.” I had everything prepared. But God had other plans. That Wednesday night, before I ever made it to that hotel room, I was arrested in Wayne County on a forgery charge related to selling a chainsaw. I ended up in jail. And that night, in that jail cell, something happened that changed everything. I heard an audible voice say: “Get up. I have never left you.” I knew exactly who I believed was speaking to me. God. After 24 years of addiction. After everything I had done. After everything I had lost. After hurting people I loved. After hurting myself. After running from God. After believing I was too far gone. He was still there. He had never left me. And from that night forward, everything changed. Delivered I don’t have the words to completely explain what happened next. But I know this: I was delivered. The cravings disappeared. The desire disappeared. The wants disappeared. The obsession disappeared. I didn’t want meth. I didn’t want fentanyl. I didn’t want drugs. I didn’t want alcohol. I didn’t want the lifestyle I had lived for 24 years. It was as though I had never lived that life at all. For 24 years, I had been fighting something I couldn’t seem to defeat. And then God stepped in. Not because I suddenly became strong enough. Not because I finally figured it all out. But because God was faithful. The woman who once couldn’t imagine getting through a day without drugs suddenly didn’t want them anymore. The woman who had spent years running from God suddenly wanted nothing more than to run toward Him. The woman who thought she was going to die in addiction discovered that God had a purpose for her life. July 2024—and the Journey That Followed My first major turning point came in the summer of 2024, when I gathered up everything connected to my addiction and got rid of it before leaving for Branson, Missouri, with my parents, my husband, and my son. At the time, I didn’t fully understand what God was doing. I didn’t realize how much He was preparing me. I didn’t realize that there would still be battles ahead. I didn’t realize how much pain would still come. But God knew. He knew about my son’s struggles. He knew about the juvenile justice system. He knew about the fentanyl. He knew about the overdoses. He knew about the hotel room. He knew about the jail cell. And He knew about the moment I would finally hear: “Get up. I have never left you.” Looking back, I can see that God was preparing me step by step. Restoration 1 Peter 5:10 says: “In His kindness God called you to share in His eternal glory by means of Christ Jesus. So after you have suffered a little while, He will restore, support, and strengthen you, and He will place you on a firm foundation.” That Scripture became real to me. At 43 years old, after growing up knowing about God, I finally began to understand what it meant to have a personal relationship with God. I finally began to experience freedom. Not the temporary freedom meth promised me. Not the freedom the world promised me. But real freedom through Jesus Christ. Looking back now, I can see God’s hand throughout my entire story. Even when I couldn’t see Him. Even when I was running from Him. Even when I was destroying myself. Even when I felt completely abandoned. God was there. There were signs of His presence guiding me toward the moment when I would finally surrender everything to Him. He was working through the people around me. He was working through circumstances. He was preparing me for something greater—even when I couldn’t understand what He was doing. What Is Grace? Do you want to talk about grace? Because I know something about grace now. God’s grace is absolutely amazing. God loves us unconditionally. Not because of what we’ve done. Not because we deserve it. Not because our past is perfect. But because He is God. Addiction does not define us. Our mistakes do not define us. Our worst decisions do not define us. Our past is a chapter. It is not the entire story. God was present in my brokenness. He was present in my pain. He was present in my rebellion. And He knew the exact moment when I would finally reach the point where I could no longer go on without Him. From the Altar to the Pits—and Back I won’t pretend that the road from the altar to freedom is easy. For some of us, the journey is filled with challenges that are life-altering. Healing takes time. Restoration takes time. Learning how to live without the thing that once controlled you takes time. But the road is also paved with grace. And because I have received grace, I am called to give grace. We are called to love people who are struggling. We are called to support those who feel lost. We are called to reach out to people who have wandered away from God. We are called to remind people that they are not alone. James 5:19-20 reminds us that when someone wanders from the truth and another person brings them back, that person helps save a soul and covers a multitude of sins. So let us be the hands and feet of Jesus. Let us show unconditional love. Let us show compassion. Let us show understanding. Let us stop looking at people only for what they have done and start seeing them for who God created them to be. Because I know what it feels like to be judged by my past. I know what it feels like to be ashamed. I know what it feels like to believe that I’ve gone too far. And I also know what it feels like to finally realize: God wasn’t finished with me. If God could reach me after 22 years of meth addiction, He can reach anyone. If He could restore me, He can restore anyone. If He could break my chains, He can break yours. And if He could bring me out of the darkness, He can bring you out too. Today, I don’t share my testimony because I am proud of the life I lived. I share it because I am proud of the God who brought me out of it. I am not the woman I used to be. I am becoming who God created me to be. And I believe my story didn’t end when addiction took hold of my life. That was only a chapter. My story began again when I surrendered it to Jesus. And now I have another reason to share it. For my children. For my son. For the people still trapped in addiction. For the families watching someone they love disappear into drugs. For the person sitting alone tonight believing there is no way out. I want you to know what I know now: There is a way out. There is hope. There is restoration. There is forgiveness. There is freedom. And there is a God who will pursue you even when you have spent years running from Him. So wherever you are today—whether you are in a season of healing, a season of struggle, or somewhere in between—please remember this: The God who called you is faithful. He will not abandon you in your pain. He will walk with you through the fire. He will hold your hand when you are too weak to stand. He will make a way when you cannot see one. He will lead you home. There is freedom on the other side of surrender. There is restoration on the other side of brokenness. There is purpose on the other side of your pain. And there is grace waiting for you. Jesus saved me. Jesus restored me. Jesus broke my chains. And Jesus gave me my life back. And if He can do it for me after 24 years, He can do it for you.

TESTIMONY VERIFICATION STATUS: Unverified

TESTIFIER:

Joanna Lane

PASTOR:

Short sledge

LOCATION:

United States

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Understanding your rights

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Right to be informed

This Privacy Policy ensures that you are informed about how we will process your personal data. You might also see messages on some of our forms (or otherwise when we collect personal data from you) that explain why we ask for specific pieces of information from you.

Right of access

You have the right to access a copy of your personal data and receive certain information about what the data is and how and why we are processing it. Please note that we will require you to prove your identity before we disclose any information.

Right to rectification

If you feel that any of the information that we hold about you is incorrect, do let us know so that we can look into it.

Right to object

You have the right to object to the processing that we have outlined in this policy.

Right to erasure / to be forgotten

You have the right to request that we delete your information and can discuss this with us at any time. You should know that there are some circumstances where we may need to keep your details, for example, if it is necessary to comply with a legal obligation on us. If this situation occurs, then we will explain and discuss these circumstances with you.

Right to restrict processing

You can request that we restrict processing of your data, as an alternative to deleting it – this means that we will keep the data but stop processing for most purposes. You may want to exercise this right if you feel that the data is inaccurate, that our processing of it is unlawful, whilst we progress a request from you to object to processing, or if we have no further need of the data, but you require us to keep it in relation to the establishment, exercise or defence of a legal claim.

Rights related to automated decision making

You have rights to avoid being subject to decisions based solely on automated processing (including profiling) which has a significant effect on you. We do not carry out any such processing.

Right to data portability

You have the right to request a copy of certain personal data to have it transferred to another organisation in certain circumstances.

You should know that there are some circumstances where these rights may not apply, but where this is the case we will always explain this to you. Please do contact us if you have any questions or concerns on how we collect and use your personal data, or on your rights, as we are always happy to speak to you.

You also have the right to make a complaint direct to the appropriate privacy body such as your State’s Attorney General.

Why we collect and use personal data

We collect personal data to help us to process your requests, keep in touch with you and to help us to interact with you in the most effective way.

Examples of why we process your personal data include:

To keep you updated on our work and the impact of your support;
To make sure you know about events that you can participate in as a
supporter;
To invite you to participate in campaigns;
To send you fundraising appeals;
To support you as a volunteer;
To process donations or other payments, and verify financial transactions to protect you from fraud;
To process Aid donations and Aid Declarations with the tax authorities;
To process a legacy or gift that you leave in your will;
To provide services, products or information you have requested;
To check with you on how you want us to contact you, and record these preferences;
To keep notes of conversations that you have with our team, as a reference if you want to revisit the conversation later;
To notify you of changes to our policies when these affect you;
To ensure that content from our site is presented in the most effective way for you and your computer;
If we need to do so to comply with a law, process or regulatory requirement;
If we need to do so to comply with a law, process or regulatory requirement;
To process a job application you may make with us.
to allow you to participate in interactive features of our websites when you choose to do so;
to provide customer support;
to provide and maintain our website
to gather analysis or valuable information so that we can improve our website;
to monitor the usage of our website;
to detect, prevent and address technical issue;
to fulfil any other purpose for which you provide it;
to carry out our obligations and enforce our rights arising from any contracts entered into between you and us;
to provide you with notices about your account and/or subscription, including expiration and renewal notices, email-instructions, etc.;
to provide you with news and general information about our website;
in any other way we may describe when you provide the information;
for any other purpose with your consent.

The information that we collect

The personal data that we collect about you will be based on how you interact with us, but we collect the following information from many of our supporters:

Your name;
Your postal and email addresses;
Your telephone number or numbers;
Details of any correspondence that we have had with you. For example, if you call our team, they may make a note of the conversation, in case you need anything else on that matter;
How you would like to hear from us, and when you told us this;
Details of any donations that you have made to us;
Your date of birth;
Any fundraising appeals that you may have responded to;
Events that you have taken part in or enquired about.

There is also other information that we may collect and hold in specific circumstances. For example:

Your bank account details if you set up a direct debit with us;
Health information that you give us if you are participating in an event, to help us to ensure your safety;
Campaigning actions that you have taken on our behalf;
If you are a volunteer or part of our local organiser campaigner network and have told us that you have a specific area of interest to receive training on;
Our telephone system lists the numbers that have recently called or been dialled, but we do not link these to any supporter records;
Information to support our work with high-net-worth individuals, to understand their philanthropic interests, and complete any necessary due diligence.

Sensitive data

Some personal data is legally considered to be sensitive, and so is subject to additional safeguards – in data protection law this is known as” special category” data. Data on the following matters is classed in this way:

Race;
Ethnic origin;
Political opinions;
Religion or philosophical beliefs;
Trade union membership;
Genetics;
Biometrics (where this is used for identification purposes;
Health;
An individual’s sex life; or
Sexual orientation

Similar protections apply to personal data relating to criminal convictions and offences.

We will only collect or use this type of data if there is a specific reason for doing so. We will always explain this reason to you when we ask for the data and will usually ask for your explicit consent to use it. We wouldn’t ask for consent if it is information that you have clearly made public, for example, your religion if you are working with us because you represent a faith group such as our church.

Age is not legally considered as a special category of data, but we will always treat it sensitively.

How and when we collect information about you

There are a number of ways that we collect information; most often this will be directly from you, for example, if you fill out a form on our website, or directly with one of our team. Whenever we ask for information from you we will explain why we are asking for it (including by reference to this policy), and you will always be given a choice about how we communicate with you.

In some very specific circumstances, we will gather data from publicly available sources. We may use data from third parties to keep our records up to date or to enhance the information that we hold. Sometimes you will also provide data to third parties who then pass it to us with your permission. For example, you may be raising money on fundraising platforms, or you may have signed up to one of our campaigns through a 3rd party website.

We do not buy lists of data to use for our marketing purposes or share data with other charities for them to use in their marketing purposes.

Anonymous information: cookies

Like most websites, our site uses cookies; small data files that are downloaded when you use a website, to make the site easier to use. The information that is gathered is totally anonymous to us, but it helps us to see how people use our site, so that we can provide a better user experience.

Technical data that we collect automatically, including cookies and similar technologies

We use cookies and similar tracking technologies to track the activity on our website. Cookies are files with a small amount of data which may include an anonymous unique identifier.

Cookies are sent to your browser from a website and stored on your device. Other tracking technologies are also used such as beacons, tags and scripts to collect and track information and to improve and analyze our website.

We will automatically collect, store, and use the following categories of data when you browse and search our site:

technical information, for example, the type of device (and its unique device identifier) you use to access our site, the Internet protocol (IP) address used to connect your device to the Internet, browser type and version, time zone setting, browser plug-in types and versions, operating system, mobile network information and platform; and

information about your visit to our site including the full Uniform Resource Locators (URL), clickstream to, through and from the website (including date and time), pages you viewed, page response times, download errors, length of visits to certain pages, page interaction information (such as scrolling, clicks, and mouse-overs), and methods used to browse away from the page.

Most web browsers allow some control of most cookies through the browser settings. To find out more about cookies, including how to see what cookies have been set and how to manage and delete them please visit https://www.allaboutcookies.org/.

Our legal basis for processing your information

We will always make sure that we consider why we are processing your personal

data and identify our legal basis for doing so. Often this will be because you have given us your consent. We may also process your data where we are furthering our legitimate aims and have assessed that the processing is not likely to be too intrusive, or to unduly infringe on your rights and freedoms. In legal terms, this is called the “legitimate interests” basis.

In some cases, we have a legal or statutory duty to process information, and we will always comply with any legal requirement.

We may also process your personal data where it is necessary to carry out the terms of a contract which we have with you (or when we are in the process of forming that contract with you).

Marketing communications

We will make it easy for you to tell us if you would like to receive “marketing” communications from us and hear more about our work, and the ways in which you would like to receive this information (post, email, SMS and phone). In every communication, we will always make it clear how you can tell us if you choose not to receive further marketing communications, either at all, on certain topics or by certain methods.

If you tell us that you do not want to receive marketing communications, we will remove you from our list and will then not send you any further marketing materials.

Processing your data on the basis of your consent:

There are a number of circumstances where we only process your data on the basis of your consent. Examples of this are:

To send you marketing by email.
To send you marketing by SMS (text message).
To send you direct messages through social media.
To process health information that you give us if you are participating in an event or travelling overseas.

When you give your consent for us to contact you, we do not treat this as valid indefinitely. However, we understand that our supporters want to continue to hear from us whilst they have an active relationship with us, and for a period afterwards.

Here are some examples of what we mean by an active relationship:

If you make a donation or sponsorship payment to us, including regular monthly gifts or sponsorship donations
If you participate in an event on our behalf (for example a prayer meeting)
If you tell us that you have left us a gift in your Will
If you take a campaigns action for us, such as signing a petition

We will consider your consent to be valid whilst you take these actions, and then for 24 months afterwards, to enable us to keep you up to date with our work and to offer you other ways you might choose to support us. At the end of this time period then we will get in touch with you to re-confirm that you are happy to continue to hear from us.

You can withdraw your consent at any time. If you wish to do so, or have any questions on this, please do just get in touch with our team at any time and they’ll be happy to help.

The Legitimate Interests basis

We have a duty to promote the Gospel of Jesus Christ: to promote ourselves and our work; to responsibly raise as much money as possible to further our charitable aims; to update our supporters and the general public on our progress; and to operate in an effective way. We always pursue these interests in a respectful manner, with our purpose and supporters at the heart of what we do.

We might further our legitimate interests in the following ways:

To communicate with you about marketing and fundraising materials or products:

To respond to requests for information, such as where you have asked for an information pack.
To send you mail relating to activity that we think you may be interested in (unless you have told us you do not want this). We will always consider how much mail you receive from us, and what the topic is, to ensure that it is appropriate.
To fulfil gift requests if you have ordered either for yourself or to send them to a gift recipient.
To use social media so that you see our adverts on your newsfeed.

To ensure that we understand our supporters and so can contact them in a way that is relevant for them, and to make sure that we are using our marketing budgets effectively:

To segment and analyse our data that we hold so that we can understand who our supporters are and contact them about specific activity.
To manage our everyday business needs
To work with third party suppliers, where we can make use of their expertise in a specialist field, or where they can provide services at a more cost-effective rate than we could manage internally.
To update our database records to keep them accurate, for example, to amend an address where we receive returned mail.
To contact former job applicants who have been placed in our Talent Bank.

You have the right to object to us processing your data on the grounds of our legitimate interests. If you would like us to stop using your data on this basis, please do get in touch with our Team. You may also see a ‘please do not contact me by post’ box on our communications where we are using the legitimate interest basis, and you can also tick this to ask us to stop sending these.

Administrative messages

There are some administrative messages that we legally must share with you, which are not affected by how you have told us you would like us to contact you for marketing purposes.

Examples of these include:

Confirming subscription to a newsletter;
Confirming the details of any direct debit that you set up with us, including your bank account and payment details; and
Confirming where you have made an Aid Declaration orally, so that we can give you the information on the tax implications of this.

How we work with third parties in processing personal data

We sometimes work with third parties. It’s important that you understand the circumstances where this might happen, and who we work with.

We never sell or swap your details with any other organisation for their marketing purposes.

These are some examples of how we work with third parties:

Analytics and other third-party tools. We employ third-party tools to monitor and analyze the use of our website, and to automate certain processes related to the development and operation of our website.
For payments. We use third parties for payment, analytics, and other business services. Such providers will collect identifying information about the devices that connect to their services. They use this information to operate and improve the services they provide to us, including for fraud detection.
Where we work with other offices, subsidiaries or affiliates.
Where we sign a contract with a third-party supplier to carry out services for us. These contracts will always hold a supplier to our own high standards of data protection, to ensure that they treat your information with the same care as we do.
Where you register to take part in an event, and we have to provide your details to the event organiser to secure your place.
Where a company sends us data because you have given permission for them to share it.
Where we use companies who can help us to enhance the information that we hold about you.
Where we might use your phone number or email address to communicate with you on social media. This won’t be through direct, personal messages, but updates about our work and stories that we think you might be interested in, which might appear in the form of content on your newsfeed.
Where we legally have to share information. For example, if you make an Aid declaration to enable us to claim Aid on donations that you make, we have to share your name and address with US tax authorities so that they can audit our claim.

External websites

Our website contains links to and from various third-party sites. If you follow a link to any of these external sites, please note that these sites have their own privacy policies and that we do not accept any responsibility or liability for these policies. Please check these policies before you submit any personal data to these third-party sites.

We may use companies to provide services and process your personal data on our behalf, where they have a specific expertise or can offer the most cost-effective solution for us. Some of the activities that third-party companies carry out for us are:

Packing and delivering postal mail;
Making telephone calls to our supporters;
Signing up new supporters for us in door to door, street or private site campaigns;
Sending emails;
Processing credit card payments;

Whenever we work with a company in this way, we will always have a contract with them, to be certain that they treat your data with the same level of care and respect as we do. We will only send them the data that they need to carry out their specific service, and they are required to delete it or return it to us once they have completed this. Your data will only ever be passed to them for the services that they carry out on our behalf, it is never shared for their marketing purposes.

Event organisers

Some events require us to pass your personal information to the event organisers to secure your place. We will always make this clear to you at the point of your registration, so you understand the information that we will transfer, and who will receive it.

Third Parties who send us data

Some third-party organisations collect data on our behalf, and share it with us, in accordance with their policies and procedures for data protection compliance. Some of these organisations are Data Management companies, which we use to ensure that data you have provided us with is up to date. We do not use this to add new contact data; so if we already have your address, we may update this, but if we do not have your telephone number we will not use one of these companies to find and record it.

Whenever you give your data to any organisation, you should always make yourself aware of their Data Protection and Privacy Policies.

Companies who provide us with additional information

Understanding our supporters helps us to provide them with a really personalised experience and makes sure that we use our marketing budgets in the most efficient way. We may collect the following additional information about our supporters:

Information on the size and composition of your household
Information about your interests and hobbies
The age band that you fall into.

Social media

Using social media is a great way for us to update you on our work, and let you know the difference your support is making. As an example, when we upload a file to Facebook which is ‘locally hashed’; a highly secure encryption method. This file is used to find our supporters on Facebook and Instagram by matching email or phone number data to Facebook and Instagram accounts. In addition to this, we may use your data to create ‘lookalike’ audiences on Facebook and Instagram. This means that Facebook and Instagram will match interests, behaviour and demographics to create a new audience which closely matches our existing supporters. Using this method is the most efficient way for us to reach more people who are likely to take an interest in our work.

Where we have a legal requirement

We will always share data where we have a legal requirement to do so. Examples of this include providing audit information to the US tax authorities for our Aid claims or if we are required to do so by law enforcement officials. If we were to merge with another charity or restructure, we may also share your personal details with other entities involved in the merger/restructure for that purpose.

How long we keep your data for

We want to make sure that we have up to date records for as long as you are actively supporting us, so for as long as you take actions on our behalf or to engage with us, such as participate in our campaigns, donate to us or correspond with us. Once you are no longer an active supporter, we will keep your data for a set period of time, which we calculate depending on the information that you originally provided, and why you gave it to us. At the end of this time period, we will remove any personal details from our records of you, to ensure that any information is entirely anonymous.

In general, we will keep records of financial donors for at least seven years, to meet our requirements for any Aid audit from US tax authorities. If we have asked for sensitive personal data specific to an event, we will dispose of this data within a month after the event.

You can find more detailed information on how long we keep your data for, and other timescales that might apply below.

In most cases we will keep records for seven years after you last make a donation to us. This ensures that we keep the information we need for any financial audit (including Aid audits).

The seven-year time period applies to most people, but you should be aware of the exceptions, which we will communicate as applicable.

What happens at the end of this time period?

At the end of this time period, we will remove your personal details from our records, to ensure that they are entirely anonymous. We keep records on how our supporters have interacted with us, but not of who those supporters are.

Your right to be forgotten

You have a right to be forgotten, which means that you can ask us to delete your personal details before the end of the time limits we’ve listed in the table above. You should know that there are some circumstances where we may need to keep your details, for example, in order to comply with a legal obligation. If this situation occurs then we will explain and discuss these circumstances with you.

If you would like to discuss or exercise this right, please do get in touch with our Team.

How we keep your information secure

We take the care of your data very seriously and we use a combination of organisational and technological security measures to protect your personal information to the highest possible standards. This includes the use of secure servers, firewalls, virus & malware protection, secure socket layer (SSL) encryption and secure file transfer protocol for our work with third parties. We follow payment card industry (PCI) security compliance guidelines when processing credit card payments.

Access to all data is protected by complex passwords, including letters, numbers and characters: in some cases more than one method of authentication is used. We make sure that only staff who need to access your personal data can do so. Any member of our staff who has access to your personal data is given training to make sure that they understand the importance of keeping your information safe and secure at all times.

Whilst we take all of the measures that we’ve outlined above, unfortunately, the transmission of information using the internet is not completely secure. Although we will do our best to protect your personal data sent to us this way, we cannot guarantee the security of data transmitted to our site.

In the extremely unlikely event that we experience a data breach, our Data Protection Officer would immediately work with our Information Security Officer and the relevant State Attorney General if necessary.

Where we keep your information and when it might be transferred outside of the US

We are aware that countries other than the US have differing standards of data privacy. Much of our data is kept within our systems in the US, but there are a number of exceptions that you should be aware of: If you are a sponsor or volunteer, your name and address will be added to our international database. This can be accessed by an international team (including those from affiliates) in other parts of the world.

Your data may also leave the US if you travel with us, for example by signing up to one of our missionary trips. This will only be information specifically related to your trip, for example to book your travel, or to arrange your visit to one of our sites with our overseas colleagues.

Some countries (but not every country in which we work) have been determined by the US to have “adequate” standards of data protection compliance.

Transfer of Personal Data Outside of the European Economic Area (“EEA”) and International Users:

We are headquartered in the United States. Your Personal Data may be accessed by us or transferred to us in the United States or to our affiliates, partners, merchants, or service providers who are located worldwide. If you are visiting our Site from outside the United States, be aware that your information may be transferred to, stored, and processed in the Country where our servers are located, and our central dataset is operated. Any transfer of Personal Data from the EEA to the U.S. or any other country will utilize one or more of the approved data transfer mechanisms which may include Privacy Shield, Model Contractual Clauses or Binding Corporate Rules. By using our Service, you consent to any transfer of this information.

How we use your information if you apply for a role

We collect information from anyone who applies to work or volunteer. We only use this information for our recruitment or employment purposes and it is entirely separate to our supporter data. As an applicant or employee, you are entitled to the same rights as our supporters, and these are outlined in our Rights section.

Applicants

When you apply to work or volunteer we will ask for information about you and your work history to understand how your skills and past experience matches the requirements of a role.

There are two circumstances where we might disclose details outside of our organisation as we process your application:

1. We will ask for details of referees, and we will contact them to verify the information that you have given us – when we contact them, we will share your name and the role that you have applied for. We contact referees on the basis of our legitimate interests as an organisation to understand applicants and their suitability for the roles they apply for.

2. Some roles also require us to obtain a disclosure from a disclosure & barring (or equivalent) service. This will be clearly marked in the advertisement, and so we will not give you further notice before we apply for this disclosure.

All candidates applying to work or to volunteer will automatically have their application details saved and retained on our secure recruitment portal and in our Talent Bank for 7 years. We use our Talent Bank to identify candidates who were unsuccessful in their application, but who we feel may have an interest in and suitability for another role.

If you would like for us to remove your personal details from our system at any time before that, please let us know.

You should know that we always keep anonymous statistical information about applicants to develop our recruitment processes and for equality and diversity monitoring, but this does not contain any information that could be used to identify individual job applicants.

Employees

If you begin employment with us, we will put together a staff file, which will contain your information. We keep this information in this file secure and will only use it for matters that apply directly to your employment with us.

We provide all of our employees with an internal privacy notice, which explains exactly how we process their data as an employee, including how we use their personal data in case of emergency, and how long we retain all of this information for.

Changes to this Policy

This policy was last updated on November 6, 2023.

From time to time, we may make changes to this Policy and you will always be able to see here when it was last updated. If we make significant changes, such as in how or why we process your personal data, we may also publicise these changes on our website or may contact you directly with more information.

Please do revisit this policy each time you consider giving your personal data to www.ourtestimony.org.

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TESTIMONY:

TESTIMONY VERIFICATION STATUS: Unverified

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Short sledge

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See What God Has Done For Others

TESTIMONY:

TESTIMONY VERIFICATION STATUS: Unverified

TESTIFIER:

Joanna Lane

PASTOR:

Short sledge

LOCATION:

United States

Comments (0)

Get testimonies from others sent to your inbox!

Get a FREE when you subscribe!

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