At 13 years old, our latest Unsung Hero, Nels Nelson, left home. He bounced around helping local farmers and eventually landed in Arizona with a friend. Drugs and alcohol had woven their way into his life but when he reached Arizona, everything changed. “I thought I was dying of a drug overdose, but I was actually having a heart attack.” Nelson said. At that moment he said, “I asked God to save my life.”
Not long after, he found himself at a recovery meeting in Arizona where he met a retired fire chief who gave him the advice he still lives by. “He told me to find a mentor,” Nelson says. “It was simple advice but something that struck a chord with me. I have followed his advice ever since I started my recovery which is now 30 years ago.” “He also told me to decide what I want to do well in life, whether that’s to be a good husband and father or be good at my work but stressed the importance of this.”
Nelson started attending recovery meetings regularly. He was searching for sobriety but also for a better way of life. He never has stopped going to meetings. Recovery has been a way of life for Nelson.
Now, years later, he credits everything to his faith. As his healing started, so did his desire to help others. One by one, he helps people through their own recovery journeys, offering encouragement and support when they need it. He tells people, “Let me know when you’re ready to get well and I’ll be there.” He constantly prays for God’s will in their life as well as his own. He remembers when he first decided to “get well” that he prayed to God a thousand times a day “whatever your will is God, not mine.”
This service is what keeps him going. It shifts the focus off himself and onto others, which helps keep him on track too. “Helping others helps me stay out of my own way,” he explains.
He lives by the principle of progress and not perfection and is constantly seeking God’s guidance. “We are all sick in some way,” he says. “And the only way we are going to get better is to rely on the right power – and that power is God. Our own power just doesn’t work, I’ve tried it.” He emphasizes the importance of mentors in his life. “I’m always looking for someone who would be a good mentor – even if it’s just one or two parts of their life that I admire or want to grow in myself,” he says. “I don’t look for people with power. I look for people with good character.” Throughout the years, different people have served as his mentors, each contributing something different. “Dave Fix has been my greatest mentor and he has helped me so much,” he says with a tear in his eye. “And, it isn’t only me he has helped, it’s many others as well. He is amazing.”
Through his construction business, Nelson has extended his mission even further. Over the years, he has hired more than 300 individuals coming out of jail who are on the path to recovery. For Nelson, helping others isn’t just a side effort – it’s a calling. “Helping others the right way is what life is about,” says Nelson. He often challenges others with a simple question: Are you giving a handout or a hand up?
Nels has been active in his church and has taught classes through the Free Through Recovery program and participated in the Time to Revive initiative which was a project focused on encouraging people to return to church and their faith. He has also traveled to Poland where he used his construction skills to remodel a church at a youth camp and traveled to Russia where he and his pastor helped others with recovery.
Years ago, Nelson purchased a home in Arizona, the place where his journey started. He has spent time fixing it up and now plans to semi-retire there. For him, it isn’t just a place to relax, it’s a place to continue his mission. He plans to continue helping others in recovery from the place where his transformation began!
Nelson’s focus has always been his wife and family. “We need to raise all children up so they can achieve. Not just our own, but all children.” Nels has been married to his wife Meg for 23 years and between them they have 10 children and many grandchildren. Nelson says, “I had so little without God and since I opened up to God and I have so much!”
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