A life saved on the mountain
Sharon Mager
August 17, 2017
MIDDLETOWN, Md.—Brian Hogan met Jesus at Skycroft and was saved, both physically and spiritually. Hogan was at the end of his rope in 2000. He had spiraled down after having major struggles in high school and then running away from home. Hogan moved in with friends. “By the end of the month I had nothing,” he said.
He and his friends used any little money left for alcohol. Then, to make matters worse, his girlfriend cheated on him and insulted him. “My self-esteem was completely rock bottom.” He prepared to kill himself. He sat down and took a bottle of aspirin and a bottle of liquor and downed each pill followed by a swig of the alcohol till both bottles were empty.
As he waited to die, he received a message from his mother. A woman from church was persistently calling to get in touch with him. It was urgent. For some reason, Hogan said he called the woman, who urged him to go to Centrifuge camp at Skycroft. There was one spot open. They were leaving the next day. “I said, ‘God if you are there, let me wake up tomorrow,’ and amazingly, I did.”
There were 300 students at the camp, but Hogan felt the words deep in his heart as the pastor said, “I know you’re suffering, I know you’re going through a lot and I know that for some of you in this room you feel there is nothing out there. You think there is no hope, and you want to ‘end it’.…”
Hogan ran from the room and called his parents and apologized to them for hurting them so deeply then he sat on a bench trying to recover. A young man named Peter, serving at the camp, sat down next to Hogan and shared how he too was lost, how things were getting progressively worse in his life. Hogan asked, “How did you get out?” Peter replied, “I found Jesus. Do you want to know more about him?” Hogan said, “Absolutely!”
“I accepted Jesus into my heart that night,” Hogan said. That week he met his wife, Rachel, and he also became acquainted with a family that took Hogan in, gave him a place to live, helped him get a job, back to church, and on his feet.
Now, Hogan takes his students to Skycroft and shares how he once sat on a bench, broken, and how Jesus sent the Skycroft staff and others to him to share the Gospel message and save his life.
Hogan served over 15 years in youth ministry at Bethel Baptist Church, Ellicott City. In June, he and Rachel moved to Bruce Outreach Center where Brian now serves as the youth minister.
