My user name is Bo Mitchell.I live in Grosse Pointe Woods Michigan,jus outside Detroit. I sing in a Christian Alternative band called Bloodscrubbed. Our web page is at bloodscrubbed.com I also do vocals for the Mannabred Bible.It is a online bible and free to the public to download.I also go by the name beaux Minetola.....and this is how it goes...my life in a nut shell...*grins* Here goes, looking back to my days of being a little girl growing up in small towns in the south. My dad was in the Air Force so I moved around a lot. Out of the four kids my mom had, you can say I was the black sheep of the family. At the time I thought I was the only one who knew me.

Being creative got me in too much trouble. When it came to clothes, I seemed to be wearing things I had put together in my own kind of way thinking I'd look normal, but ended up looking like a walking ad for a billboard of some sort. I cut my own shag in the early 70's with mom's big shears. And always being the new girl in school got me many stares and heckles. This, along with a dysfunctional family life, left me with no choice but to do things my way. In and out of trouble and making my own rules.

By the age of 14 I had been a pain in my mom's butt, so we constantly argued. Dad was too busy flying planes and all so he wasn't a part of my battle with mom. At 15 I got a much, much older boyfriend who introduced me to my new world full of color...drugs! Up till that point everything seemed to be in black and white for me. I had curiosity running through my veins and by the age of 16 heroin and liquid Demerol replaced that curiosity. I left home at 16 never to go back.

Being 16 and only 4'11" at 95 pounds got me a lot of big brothers and sisters in the drug scene and I became a mixed-up, drugged out little girl. I tried all the usual 70's drugs and filled my world with Jimi Hendrix and the famous purple haze drug. A part of me wanted so bad to go back home and be loved and protected, but I had gotten myself too far into the world of haze and darkness. The so called "hippie" scene in Atlanta, Georgia, became my new family. Until I got busted in Piedmont Park holding dope for my older boyfriend. The cops pulled me aside and told me they would let me go if I promised to get away from the whole scene. They, too, felt the urge to play big brother to me.

I tried with all my might to get it together so I ended up dumping my boyfriend. That left me without anyplace to go and no food or money or dope. So I did what I saw everyone else doing, I started dealing drugs. That ended me up even more broken. I fell apart and this time there was no big brother or sister to put me back together again. I decided to go see my granny in Bainbridge, Georgia. My hometown. The first morning I woke up at her house I realized I had no money and no way to get drugs. I took a walk down to a park by the Flint River. A place I played at as a little girl.

I found myself feeling so down and so broken. Who was gonna help me now? I kept crying. I found a paper bag on the ground and I wrote a letter to God on it, crying out for help. I crumbled it up thinking "What's the use"? I stuffed it into a hole on the side of a big old oak tree. I noticed a cool hippie van at the end of the park. I knocked on the side door hoping to cop a high. Inside were a small group of hippies. I climbed in and something seemed strange. No smell of pot, no needles, no Hendrix playing?? They were a bunch of Jesus freaks and had been praying for the Lord to touch a soul in the park. And there I was. By the time they got through witnessing to me I had asked Jesus into my heart and I felt like all those broken pieces had been put back together. On my walk back to granny's house the sky looked so big and so colorful. Even that old spanish moss that used to depress me looking like beautiful lace adorning those big old oak trees. My life was never the same. Christ filled that lonely, empty spot that no one or anything could ever fill.

My urge to get high was replaced with hunger for the love of Christ. I moved into a place in Tampa, Florida, called "the Hallelujah House". Street kids were taken in and fed a good meal, given a place to live and fed the Word of God. I grew in the Lord and was loving it. I left there by the time I was almost 18 thinking I could do this walk with Christ my way which got me back in trouble. I slowly stopped reading His Word. I replaced my brothers and sisters in Christ with people of the world. I ended up in Detroit, married to a musician in a rock band, the "Peter Frampton era".

By the time I was 20 I was very heavy in the Detroit punk rock scene in a punk girl band "the Roommates". Again broken into pieces I fell apart, back to black and white again. I got divorced and ended up all alone and mixed up. On my darkest day, at my lowest point, the Lord sent me a new friend. He shined the light of Christ and I could see the world in color through his eyes. I wanted to come back home to Christ. My heart had been broken. My mind was hazy and I was so tired and lonely.

I ended up rededicating my life to Christ and am now married to my friend, Peter. We have been married for 15 years and have a cool son, Roman. We worship as a family and it's the coolest!!! It was harder for me to give up my music than when I gave up the drugs. But the Lord led me to quit my band and put down my guitar to pick back up my Bible. Many years into my marriage the Lord gave me the nod of approval to pick up my guitar again, but this time to use it as a tool to write songs to lead the lost and broken ones to Christ. So Peter and I now are in the band and together are called "Bloodscrubbed" and we are saved!

I now have a blessed life and I thank the Lord Jesus Christ for giving me another chance. I could have ended up like some of my old friends: Johnny, Billy, Julie and a few others that died from suicide, murder, overdose, etc. But God had mercy on me. Even though I turned my back on Him, He gave me another chance. I sometimes wonder why my past was so messed up, I never wanna go back. After seeing the beast for what it is, there's no turning back. I like this new life. And now I can give hope to the lost souls and shadow dwellers. ~beaux~