Issac Stooksberry’s passion for helping people in drug and other addictions with their recovery and their finding a grounded ‘center’ for a purposeful life began 18 years ago with his own 1-year residency/recovery at The Foundry in Bessemer, Alabama. After studying at the Impact Team School of Ministry in 2004, he went from there to serve 10 years as the men’s Program Director at the Center of Hope in Anniston, Alabama seeing the program grow from 60 students to over 200. It was there that a group of court-ordered inductees arrived saying, “Man, there’s no program like this down in Alabama’s Baldwin County!”
Isaac could not get this need off his mind. In the fall of 2014 he traveled to Baldwin County where God gave him divine appointments making connections with others who had this same concern on their hearts. Isaac was told the need was recognized, but no one knew exactly how to proceed and that he seemed to be an answer to prayer! He led Celebration Recovery meetings at Liberty Church in Foley, Alabama as he laid the groundwork for a Baldwin County recovery center.
After just 18 months from arrival, they had a presence on Gulf Shores Parkway, a sales yard to generate funds in front of a garage apartment where they brought the goods undercover every evening, then returned them in the morning to the highway’s edge. In February 2016 Big Fish Ministries officially took on their first “student”. Before they knew it, the apartment was bursting at the seams with 10 men students/residents, not only receiving immediate help for basic needs of life, but learning and realizing the availability of a permanently transformed life, free of the sins and grips of addiction, through the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ.
This was the beginning of Isaac’s walk of faith, and it is simply amazing what has been accomplished in the succeeding 5 years. Isaac states: “Our goal for each individual that comes into our ministry is for them to successfully return to society as productive, responsible citizens with hope and a vision to fulfill God’s will for their lives”.
