From drug dealer and gang member to pastor
Locked up at 14, a violent, hate-filled criminal was changed by radical love
Growing up with a father who was verbally and physically violent in the Sydney suburb of Cabramatta, Tony Hoang admits he became “the very person I despise and hate”. He became like his father.
During Year Seven, Tony was expelled from four different high schools. He was introduced to a gang and that set him on a course of home invasions, intimidation and drug dealing. “Looking back now, the acceptance I wanted from my father, I found in the gang at the age of 13,” reflects Tony.
While he was a teenager, Tony became addicted to heroin and saw many of his friends die due to murder or overdoses. But, incredibly, Tony found a “way out” of a life that almost had him gunned down at 19.
Watch Tony tell his life story and how a “sign from God” caused him to radically change – and move to becoming the minister at The Potter’s House, a church in the south-western Sydney suburb of Liverpool.
