Raised in the 1980s, a time when drugs ran from Afghanistan north through his city of Almaty to Russia, Yerkin found heroin to be an easy buy. By the time he was in college he was an addict. His father, desperate to get his son freed, tried every therapy and medical treatment known. One day his father heard of Teen Challenge, which had a program for freeing young people from drug addiction. When he learned it was Christian, he decided that his being a Muslim wouldn’t prevent him for grasping at any straw.