Lynette Simpkins grew up in Gary, where life was not easy in the garage that she, her two half sisters and her parents called home.

She was called Lonetta then, but she left that person behind. After a lifetime of trials, tribulation and change, she's a new person.

She's Lynette.

Lynette's life is the subject of a gospel play titled "Dancing Out of Darkness." It's based on a prayer she wrote, "I Prayed to God When I Was in Darkness." The play debuted Nov. 14 at the Church of Cassopolis.

It's a dramatic story.

Gary was a tough place to envision a future in 1968. As a child, she took solace in her mother's faith. But family life became complicated and she lived in a foster home until high school graduation.

Simpkins worked a short time at a fast food franchise and then decided she "wanted to make something" of her life. So she joined the Army and served four years as a nurse, including one year in Vietnam.

When she returned to Gary in 1973, Simpkins tried crack cocaine for the first time and became addicted.

She was also diagnosed as having paranoid schizophrenic tendencies, and so began a prescription medication regimen that included up to 24 pills a day. She started receiving a Supplemental Security Income check because she could not function.

Simpkins' father eventually told Lynette that she had to leave. She soon ran out of money.

"They don't want to know, because I don't want to know," Simpkins said about the things she did to survive on the streets of Gary. "The only thing I wanted to do was close my eyes and never open them again -- never."

In the worst of times Simpkins was walking the streets, freezing, and fending off drug dealers and wannabe pimps.

"When I was afraid of something I would say 'God, help me,' and I would get comfortable," she said. "I'd be OK, and I knew that he was there. Even in my mess, I knew he was there, and that's all I had was him. I thought that I would have been dead, but he kept me."

In 1997 the VA Hospital in Chicago diagnosed Simpkins with intestinal cancer, and they sent her to the Faith Mission in Elkhart to convalesce. Simpkins returned to Gary, and soon demons and drug dealers were chasing her again.

She needed a safe place to stay. Although she didn't think that anyone at the Faith Mission would remember her, she called anyway.

They remembered her. So she sold some of her pills to pay for the trip back to Elkhart. She intended to stay for a week.

Stephanie Topping, who was women's director at Faith Mission, remembers when Lynette showed up in 2000.

"She carried a lot of baggage," Topping said, "and when I say baggage, literally. When she showed up at the mission there was like a suitcase full of medicine, and I'm not exaggerating -- a big suitcase. In fact it was a concern for our staff because we were limited on staff. We have someone there 24 hours, but for really intensive care, we just didn't have it. But she was very cooperative and very loving. She needed help, she needed a place to stay, and she was so cooperative that I didn't have any problem helping her."

Simpkins slept in an empty room the first night. She was given new clothes. She was still taking many prescription medications.

"I took pills to go to sleep, pills to wake up, pills to keep my balance, pills to keep me from killing you, or myself," Simpkins said. "It didn't really matter. If you took enough you could sit for hours without blinking your eyes. I had pills to give me confidence, or to calm me down when angry. I just didn't want to think. It hurt too much."

Simpkins soon met Minister Dorothy Pittman, who started teaching Bible study the year Simpkins returned to Faith Mission. Simpkins "didn't want to hear this stuff" that Bible-thumpers preached "about some man who could save you from going to hell," Pittman recalled.

Three or four months later Pittman had a vision of Simpkins with her arms out flying into a tree, and knew right away that Lynette was in trouble.

Pittman went to a crack house in Elkhart and rescued Simpkins.

"Unlike a lot of times that you see drug addicts, and it takes them program after program, and year after year; God delivered her almost overnight," Pittman said. "She began to go to church with us. She began to submit her life to Christ."

Lynette remembers her first visit to the Church of Cassopolis, where Pittman's son Christopher is pastor. To Simpkins, he sounded like someone "who knew the streets, about how low I felt."

But Pastor Pittman made it clear he couldn't help Simpkins -- only Jesus could.

"One Sunday when the Holy Spirit came upon her she actually ran from the back of the church and slid on her knees into the altar, and that's when God delivered her in one day, and she's never been the same because the presence of the Lord came upon her and transformed her, and now the drug is something in the past because she got a high. She has a real high now -- a high that lasts forever," Mother Pittman said

Pittman watched over Simpkins and her finances for five years and let her stay in her home for a time.

Pittman owns Pitt'$ Exclu$ive, a women's apparel store on Main Street in Elkhart, and in 2002 Simpkins persuaded Pittman to let her run the store when Mother Pittman said she was "going to have to close it" because of time restraints.

Simpkins enjoys the job. She knows that she would have a hard time finding work elsewhere.

"It's like therapy," said Simpkins, who always greets people from the adjoining Cornerstone Apartments with a smile and spiritual words of praise.

Four years ago Lynette met Earl, who has become her boyfriend. They live next to each other in adjoining apartments in Elkhart, and would have married if the VA had not told her it would mean the end of her monthly checks.

Earl calls Simpkins his "dark angel" and watches over her to make sure she is eating the right foods so that her diabetes stays under control. Simpkins calls Earl her "dear heart" and helps him manage his heart condition.

Simpkins likes to say that "I just want to live for right now." She attends church regularly with the Pittman family. Upon arrival, she walks through the congregation shaking hands and giving hugs.

"I'm just blessed," she said. "God knew what I needed and he gave it to me."

                                 

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