SID: Hello, Sid Roth your investigative reporter here with Joan Pierce. If you think you are in a hopeless situation, what until you hear how hopeless Joan ‘s situation was, two children, third on the way, on place to live, no money, can’t read, no where to go, she’s in a phone booth, she cries in desperation, “God, help, help.” And a miracle happened. She hears God’s voice. And God said, “Go to the donut shop.” The donut shop? And call a woman you’ve met there and you call this woman and she arranges for you to have housing, you have your third child, you go into your apartment, and you are shocked. What do you see?
JOAN: I am shocked. Because I had nothing, the house was filled with cribs, bassinets, not only that but on the sofa was clothes for my boy, Alan, clothes for my boy, Rob, and I just stood there holding my baby and I started crying. And I said, “Who do I thank, who do I thank?” And this lady said, now she was not a Christian, she said, “I went,” she smoked, she cussed, she was just a cantankerous wonderful lady, you know. She said, “I went, I typed a letter of what your needs was, and I went out to about 14 churches and I in and I said I want to speak to the guy that’s in charge, I don’t know if he’s the priest or the pastor, whatever you call the guy in charge, I want to talk to him.” And she got right in their face. And she’d go into the pastor and she’d go, “I don’t know what it says in that Bible you guys read every Sunday, but there’s a lady that has needs and I’m sure somewhere in that Bible it says you’re supposed to take care of people with needs. Here’s her needs, do something about it. The house is unlocked, fix it.
SID: You know Joan, what amazes me is God chose a non-Christian to bless you. I’m wondering if most of the Christians would have been too busy, but let’s not go, let’s not go there right now, but then, things went downhill.
JOAN: What happened? What happened is they filled the house with furniture and food and clothes, but no body, no body came back to get me the greatest gift of all wasn’t the furniture and the baby clothes, because for months I would, every time I’d put a new outfit on that little baby I’d go, “Oh thank you God, oh thank you God.” And I would just cry, I would just cry but little by little because nobody came back to tell me about Jesus. Nobody cared about my, they took a care of the physical needs, but nobody took care of the spiritual needs. Little by little: trying to earn money because I wanted to be rich. I went from poor, I wanted to be rich, I had this in my head, I am going to be rich.
SID: Listen, you became the second leading sales person in this international company you are with. How in the world did you get from there to there?
JOAN: God.
SID: All right, but in addition to that, all these other things going against you, you can’t even read? How do you go into business?
JOAN: Oh, well I got this little girl next door to come over and she’d read everything for me. And I would pay her to read.
SID: Don’t you ever say I can’t do it anymore after you hear what happened to Joan. Go ahead Joan.
JOAN: I hired people to read what I needed to read, and so anyway I was trying to be successful.
SID: How did you have any confidence at all with the background you came from? You should have been, ‘I don’t want anyone to see me.’ And just have a pity party your whole life.
JOAN: Well, you know what? I just want to share this with you, Sid. Some people when they are sexually abused go introvert, and some people who are sexually abused, which I was, become angry. And I became extremely angry and after a while, after I forgot about how God blessed me I was mad at God, mad at people, and I had this anger that motivated me, so it was like a demon actually.
SID: I see.
JOAN: You follow what I’m saying?
SID: Yes.
JOAN: There was something pushing me. And so when I couldn’t get my drugs after about five or six years in this business, one day I hurt my daughter, I stabbed her, this little girl that I had brought home from the hospital, seven years later in a rage, I was doing a shag rug and she was bugging me about something, and without even, cause I was demon possessed, I don’t know if your viewers believe in demons, I was a little Catholic woman girl, and I got to know about demons like first hand, and I will tell you in a second, and all of a sudden I went like this, she was driving me crazy and I had this shave rug thing, with a hook on it, a poker, and I went wow, and before I knew it I had it stuck in her leg all the way into the bone, and I saw myself, I saw myself with this poker thing stuck in my daughters leg and I was like, and she’s screaming, “You’re crazy mom, you’re crazy, you’re crazy.” And she took off, I pulled it out of her leg, and she took off to her room and she pushed her little furniture in front of her door. And I sat there and said, “I’m crazy. Cary please let me see you, please Cary, let me get you to the doctors, let me get you somewhere.” And you know I took her to the hospital and she had to have a tetanus shot, but it was a clean cut, but I knew then that there was something seriously wrong with me. And all of a sudden, at right about that time in my life, my neighbor that was across the street, Pentecostal lady, which I used to laugh at, she had these bumper stickers, Jesus loves you, hallelujah, praise God, and I used to go, “Aw, she’s a holy roller, she’s a fruitcake.” But she started coming over and telling me that Jesus loved me, and I’d say, “Jesus can’t love me.” And I called the Mormon Church, and my sister was Mormon because we were Catholic and Mormon. And so I realized I needed to be a better mother, so I called the Mormon Church and said, “Send the missionaries here so I can learn how to be a good mom.” Well, the missionaries started coming over teaching me Mormonism, and when my neighbor saw it she came over and said don’t listen to what they’re saying. And she said, “I want to tell you about Jesus.” And I said, “What do you care?” You’ve been my neighbor for three years, you know I’ve been over here crazy.” And I says, “Why didn’t you come earlier?” And she says, “Well now the Mormons are here, so now I’m coming.” But anyway to make a long story short, because we don’t have the time for it, she kept working on me for nine months, and the Mormons kept coming, and actually the Jehovah Witnesses started coming and everybody coming. I was really confused. She finally got me to go with her to a meeting. She told me it was a Catholic priest speaking, and it wasn’t. It was an ex-priest, and it was a full gospel men’s meeting. And she got me there and I felt the presence of God, and everyone was speaking in tongues and it’s like I got to get out of here. Cause I had a demon in me. I said I don’t want to stay here, I want to get out. So anyway at the end of the meeting she says, “Do you want the man to pray for you? And I went, “No way.” So we got out in the car and she says’ “I want him to pray for me do you mind going back so he can pray for me?” She’s smart.
SID: Very tricky. I’ll tell you what, hold that thought, we’ll find out what happened to Joan. Imagine she got straightened and became what we call a minch, and had a two million dollar business. Don’t go away, we’ll be right back.