25 who matter

A life saved to serve others

Youth minister uses his own experiences with drug addiction to counsel Middletown's teenagers

STORY BY AL KEMP
PHOTOGRAPHS BY WILLIAM BRETZGER AND ROBERT CRAIG

10/19/2005

Joshua Kitts is attempting a trick shot, but he can't control the pool cue while balancing on a moving skateboard. He botches the shot and falls to the floor amid jeers from his peers at Middletown Youth Center.

At that moment, a large, goateed man wearing denim shorts and a black "Lord of Kings" T-shirt strides unseen into the room. This is Donald Bartell. Pastor Donald Bartell. The kids call him Don.

He's director of this center, and the one who calls the shots here.

"Ah-hem. Skateboard, Josh?"

"Yo, I tried putting it in my pocket, Don, but it wouldn't fit."

"Put it in the office then," is Bartell's no-nonsense reply. His sandals flap as he crosses the room to tune the stereo to a station that plays modern rock, hip-hop and R&B, all with Christian themes.

A mile up the road at Middletown High School, classes have been dismissed for the day, and teenagers have begun trickling through his front door.

Some come to do homework. Some come to socialize. For many of them, this blue-and-white stucco building, the former rectory of St. Joseph's Catholic Church, is a sanctuary from trouble on the streets and strife at home.

"A lot of these kids don't have the privileges that other kids do," says Bartell, 36, an ordained minister in the Church of God of Prophecy. "They can feel safe here."

This is a man who will stop at nothing to take young people "outside their box" and show them possibilities in life they never imagined. He's fed them, clothed them, taken them in when their parents kicked them out.

This is a man whose contribution to life in Middletown has been called "tremendous" by parents, other clergy and members of the business community.

As the place fills up, the room begins to pulse with the reckless and restless energy that teens exude when they gather in small groups -- that smarmy, brazen irreverence where nothing is sacred.

But they know that here in Pastor Don's place, some things are sacred.

"I will not tolerate fighting in the center, because this is supposed to be a safe haven, for them to be a kid. I will not tolerate the 'f' word. You will be put out for the day. Taking God's name in vain -- I do get onto the kids about doing that. No drugs. Absolutely no drugs," he says.

"Young people need direction and discipline and to just be a kid and be heard," he says. "They have opinions just like adults, and some of the opinions I've heard are a lot better than some of the 'wisest' men I've ever met."

In the three years since Bartell took over as the center's director, he's knocked down walls to expand the recreation room, added an entertainment area with stereo and big-screen TV, renovated the basement to add a computer lab, and painted Bible stories on the walls.

He accomplishes a lot with an annual operating budget of roughly $55,000, which covers mortgage, upkeep, utilities and salary, says Seth Baker, executive director of Delaware Youth for Christ, which runs three youth centers in New Castle County.

"I just knew when Don came in, he was the guy for the job," says Baker. "A passion for helping the kids was very clearly in his heart. I just got out of his way and let him go."

Bartell says he earns the respect of teens simply by "loving 'em where they're at." But Baker says Bartell possesses a "special empathy" that helps him relate to kids, especially troubled teens.

"He has an ability to identify with their rage and anger because of his own background."

One man's rebirth

Crude tattoos adorn both of Bartell's arms. On one, "Toots" is emblazoned beneath a cross and a spread of roses. (Toots was his mother's nickname.) The tattoos are vestiges of an earlier life when one bad decision after another plunged the high-school dropout into a criminal culture where he worked as a drug courier, driving kilos of marijuana into Delaware from Florida and other states.

So deep grew his addiction and despair that he and his wife, Eleanor, resolved to commit suicide together one night in April 1991.

"We were about to lose another place to live, and my addiction to many drugs had overtaken me. I didn't feel that life was worth living ... I felt lower than scum."

So he drove to a friend's house to say goodbye, and was unexpectedly invited to church. He was startled to hear himself saying yes.

"It totally shocked me, too," said Eleanor. "I remember his friend's girlfriend saying, 'When he comes back, he's gonna be different.' "

Bartell was a face in a crowd that night at Corner Stone Church in Bear. He remembers the preacher, the Rev. Hamilton Parker, standing at the pulpit and weeping.

"He said, 'I'm going to put away my message and speak from the heart,' and he preached my life out of the Bible. ... All I can say is, once I cried out to [God], my life has never been the same. Every desire to take drugs was gone. No rehab. No nothing."

Fourteen years later, Parker can't say why he skipped his sermon that night, but he remembers Bartell fondly, though they haven't been in touch for several years.

"He was born again that night," Parker says.

"He was so on fire," recalls Eleanor. "He was so in love with God, I told him 'Choose God or me.' He said 'I love you but I choose God.' It floored me, but it got me to thinking, and I turned my heart over to God."

Don and Eleanor have been married now for 18 years.

A man and his mission

Bartell's mission today is to keep young people from making the poor choices he made, and he has served as a mentor to several of the boys who frequent the center.

He sees people, especially teens, as works in progress. He is careful not to judge from appearances. "I ask God, 'Help me to see through your eyes what you see in this person,' " he says.

A few years ago, he stepped forward as a mentor to Justin Brewer, who set himself on fire when he accidentally ignited a vial of gunpowder in his bedroom. "Burned all the skin off my face," says Justin, now 16.

Bartell took Justin -- known to his friends as "Smurf" -- under his wing and became a father figure for him. Justin needed to know there is right and wrong in the world. Bartell steered Justin away from trouble.

"Justin can tell things to Don that he wouldn't tell me," said Justin's mother, Nancy Grant, of Fairfield Commons Apartments. "The center was the only place I'd allow him to go."

"Don's like changed my life around. If I didn't have a home to go to, I'd go to Don," Justin says. "He's like my second dad, almost. Being here makes me have another outlook on life."

"He has definitely matured," agrees his mother. "He's still the teenager that gives me a headache, but he's learned to communicate with me better."

The word spreads

People who know Bartell have been inspired by his personal rise from ruin and astonished by his generous spirit. "Don has the biggest heart of anyone you could ever hope to meet," says Baker, Bartell's boss at Youth for Christ. "When kids meet him they know Don loves them and will go to the ends of the earth for them."

Genuine concern for young people is what motivates Bartell, said the Rev. Jay Baines, who was Bartell's pastor at New Castle Freewill Baptist Church. "I sort of took him under my wing and we became friends, and I think it's a lifelong friendship," he said.

"Don has a lot of zeal. He's bold. He's not afraid to show his devotion to God," says Baines.

That zeal was not lost on Irv Brockson, a local caterer and the founder of Middletown's Big Ball Marathon. "I go in there and see the way the kids look up to him, and I know I've got to get in there and help this guy," says Brockson. "He is on my list of heroes."

Pastor Don Bartell at the Middletown Youth Center. "They can feel safe here," he says.

Pastor Don Bartell runs a tight ship at the youth center. "Young people need direction and discipline and to just be a kid and be heard. They have opinions just like adults."

Brian Lynch (left), 13, and Justin Brewer, 16. Justin said of Bartell: "Don's like changed my life around."