From Captivity To Destiny
Rob Weatherholtz
Director of Discipleship at Still Water's--The Potter's House Ministry
"And we know that God works all things together for the good of those who love Him, who are called according to His purpose ." (Romans 8:28 BSB)
"The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me to lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside the still waters. He restores my soul; He leads me in the paths of righteousness For His name's sake." (Psalm 23:1-3)
Rob shared his testimony on a VictoryEmbraced: Truth, Talk & Testimonies broadcast.
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These are the questions that I asked Rob during his interview on the VictoryEmbraced: Truth, Talk & Testimonies YouTube channel, and what he shared.
May you share what the Lord has been doing in your life for the past 15 years? You shared with me that you saw Still Water’s Recovery Center—The Potter’s House Ministry—almost 20 years ago when you were in a prison cell. Can you share your life circumstances? Why did you need to go to prison and share the vision God showed you while you were there?
I grew up in a very dysfunctional family—my dad was a Korean War veteran. My mother was a beautician raised in a higher society atmosphere than my dad, so their relationship was like leather and lace getting together, and here I came. Still, there was a lot of dysfunction and violence in my family growing up that took root in my life negatively. When my dad left, I was young and started searching for meaning and direction in my life. Unfortunately, I began gravitating towards older guys in the community, which exposed me to drinking and alcohol at a young age. As life went on, I felt a lot of confusion about who I was, where I belonged, and why my family was not together. When I was younger, I had unresolved issues and nobody to guide me through healing, resulting in numerous bad choices that led to multiple DUIs and eventually landed me in Lancaster County Prison.
I was in Lancaster County Prison for a year, and during the ninth month, they put me on work release. Unfortunately, I was self-employed at the time as a contractor, so they wouldn’t let me go out to work unless I was working for somebody else. As a result, they kept me on the work release block for 3 months, but they didn’t allow me to go out and work. During this time, there were a lot of guys that went out to work, and the guy who was one of my cellmates came back from a job that he was working that day, and he brought back chewing tobacco, and that’s illegal in Lancaster County Prison.
I was a model prisoner and worked in the warden’s office. When my cellmate came back from his job, I was in the office working, and the guards went through our cell and found chewing tobacco. Unfortunately, what happens in a scenario like this is that you both go into the hole—the “dungeon.” I was supposed to be down there for a month. While there, I needed to take a serious look at my life. I have been married before and had three beautiful children—Jacob, Joshua, and Jonathan—and my current amazing wife Beth and daughter Tisha. I had a good-sized construction business, and here I was going from being a member of the County Building Association to losing my family and ending up in prison, and I came to the end of myself when I was there. I got so desperate that I dropped to my knees and cried out to the Lord, “How can this possibly happen? How can I go from having a business to being prosperous, and end up losing my freedom? I’d rather die than go on like this—I have lost everything that meant anything to me! God, if you’re real, reveal yourself to me!" Suddenly, I experienced a sense of peace and witnessed an illumination in which I saw a cross. It was not a wooden cross, but rather a glowing one through which I could see upwards. When I looked up through it, I realized that I was in the Lord's presence. It was so amazing! There were murders, rapists, bank robbers—all kinds of foul stuff went on down there, and when I saw that, I started singing, and pure joy overcame me. All the demonic forces in the hole went silent, and peace came over the entire unit. It was so surreal that you could tell you were in the presence of something holy, and the Lord became very real to me at that moment. I will never forget that, and as a matter of fact, I share this experience in my book, A Raptured Heart. It was shortly after that they thought I had lost it, but I can tell you that I had my mental health restored right then and there.
For the last month of my sentence, I went back up to the block, and while there, I was sitting reading my Bible. I read my Bible cover-to-cover twice in that year, and it became very, very real to me. I had a hunger and thirst for more of the Word of God. And all of a sudden, I had a vivid vision of a property my dad owned along the Conestoga River with buildings on it. I heard the Lord speak to my heart in a still, small voice, saying that one day, He was going to bring forth a healing center on this property. People will hear about Me from you, and they will experience a new level of freedom. They will be healed and delivered from addiction, which will then prepare them for their purpose.
It was at this time in my life that I became born again. From then on, some amazing things started happening. A Chaplin named Bud Roda came to see me, and The Potter’s House Ministry released me. While there, I formed a friendship with Lloyd Hoover, the Executive Director and Founder of The Potter’s House. Over time, I left there for about 5 years and went to Virginia Beach for a great job to help pay the large amount of child support I needed to pay. A gentleman by the name of John Holly, who’s a retired Navy Seal, took me in, and he was a father figure to me. He helped me mature, grow up a lot, and man up to my responsibilities, and I was down there for several years. Today, John is helping those in recovery and doing outstanding work. He started a ministry called Seals In Recovery and helped me get to another level in the ability to do things, so when I went back to Pennsylvania, I started my business again and reconnected with Lloyd Hoover. At this time, I heard that small voice again, and that still small voice said, “Finish what I had started in you—finish the work that started in you.” In 2013, Lloyd invited me onto the Board of Directors of The Potter’s House Ministry. At this time, my father got ill, and I walked with him for the last three years of his life, from 2013 to 2016. In 2016, he got very sick, passed away, and left me the property that I saw in the vision. Suddenly, it was like this gigantic jigsaw puzzle in the sky coming together. I went to the Board of Directors and shared with them that I had a vision and that this place was going to be a healing center for the lost, broken, and addicted in this county, and I wanted to do what I could to see this through. I thought these guys were going to think I was crazy and laugh me out of the room, or they were going to say yes. The next thing you know is we prayed about it for 2 to 3 weeks, and one gentleman of the Board of Directors, John Wagner, his wife’s brother, is a consultant, and he came to talk to us about starting a capital campaign to raise 2 million dollars to build this facility and just a couple of years before, the Lord gave me the vision in a prison cell, and, all these pieces of this puzzle were coming together. Do you know how I know that this was God? Because it was never my plan for my life. I thought I would continue in construction until I got older and maybe move to Florida, but God had other plans for me, and He earmarked this property for this Still Waters Recovery Center.
I partnered with The Potter’s House Ministry and the Board of Directors, and the entire community came alongside us, including the building community, suppliers, and the Amish. They all did an amazing job! Lloyd and I sat down and designed the houses, and after we designed them, we went to an architect and told him what we wanted—we had favor from God and favor from people. It amazed me because even the people on the township board supported us and embraced the idea. I was told by the surveyor that what we did it in 2 years; normally, it takes 5 to 10 years to get approved. So, we started raising funds in 2017, but by mid-2018, we had raised $850,000, obtained approval for all the permits, and initiated construction in April 2019.
A heavy machine operator cleared fifty trees on the property to make way for the new center—it looked like a tornado came through the area. I would have never thought this beautiful facility would have come out of it in a million years. Praise the Lord! To this day, I can see God’s hand in every step—He had contractors, builders, architects, the township supervisors, and the water and sewer authority lined up. We encountered an issue with the well as it was not sufficiently deep and did not yield enough water. To address this, we hired a skilled driller who went down 500 feet and discovered an existing water source that could adequately supply more than enough water for the entire facility. It was nothing short of miraculous, and it set the stage for my life’s work as a Director of Discipleship at The Potter’s House Ministry. I’m also an associate pastor at Breakout Ministries in Leola, PA, and I have written two books. We have built a beautiful center for healing for those who are addicted. I’m also a volunteer chaplain at Lancaster County Prison to do interviews to bring people to the recovery center—the same prison that I was in—and I have recently obtained an addiction counseling degree, but mainly I’m a minister of the gospel; the one who set me free; He can set anyone free; for those the Lord has set free are free indeed.
Rob Weatherholtz is the Director of Discipleship at Still Water's--The Potter's House Ministry in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania area, and the author of two books--A Raptured Heart and The Believer's Warfare. For more information please visit their ministry site at https://thepottershouselancaster.com/
The vision that the Lord showed Rob in his prison cell was built and many lives are breaking free from addiction, being healed, and coming to Christ! (Overhead view of Still Waters Recovery Center/The Potter's House Ministry.)
Rob’s book is available for purchase on Amazon, either as a Kindle ebook or in paperback.
Click on the book covers to be brought to Rob's author page.
Jesus Advantage
Pastor Rob is a Pastor of Addiction Recovery and Discipleship at Breakout Ministries. He and his wife Beth head up Jesus Advantage (JA) a Christian-based recovery meeting in Leola, PA.
For more information, contact Pastor Rob or Beth Westherholtz @ JAbreakoutministries@gmail.com.
