"We are often troubled, but not crushed; sometimes in doubt, but never in despair; there are many enemies, but we are never without a friend, and though badly hurt at times, we are not destroyed." - II Corinthians 4:8-9.

Wendy Sanderson, of Mandan, holds on to these words from the New Testament.

She quotes them as part of the testimony she shared on a recent Sunday night with members of the Fellowship of Christian Cowboys and members of the Bismarck-Mandan Mothers Against Methamphetamine (MAMas), a group she helped found more than a year ago.

That night, she performed a few of her own country gospel compositions and shared her story, which holds painful life experiences enough to fill several albums, including two unsuccessful marriages before finding Dale, whom she calls her "forever" husband.

Her two sons both had problems with hyperactivity disorders as children. The younger also has struggled with a brain injury since being hit by a drunk driver at age 13.

Sanderson said she believes that those conditions contributed to their susceptibility to drugs, particularly meth: Her older son was just released from two years in prison because of it; the younger was recently extradited to Missouri for the same reason.

Two statistics that the Mothers Against Meth group uses claim that methamphetamine has a 95 percent "mortality" rate, Sanderson said - within five years, 95 percent of addicts are either dead, brain-damaged or incarcerated, and secondly, that methamphetamine has a 98 percent addiction rate; that is, 98 percent of people who try meth get addicted to it within one year, 75 percent of them within one week, she said.

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So on this Sunday night, about 50 people sit in the wooden stands at Kist Livestock's sales arena to listen to Sanderson and her brother, Scott Winistorfer, who have recently started playing music together again, calling their group Win-Win Situation.

Sanderson and Winistorfer, along with Sanderson's 8-year-old daughter, Katie, and Winistorfer's son, Nicholas, 10, play and sing some of their own compositions and Katie solos on "Jesus Take the Wheel." Sanderson's mother, Joanne Winistorfer, joins in during a couple of familiar gospel tunes. Encouraged by Katie, even Scott Winistorfer's daughter, Jessica, 3, joins in a "here, kitty, kitty" refrain during a song about Daniel in the lions' den.

Up in the stands, where each semicircular row of benches is outlined with an arc where the paint has been worn away from the wood by countless boot heels, cowboy hats - about evenly divided between black and white - nod to the music. They are doffed respectfully during the Lord's Prayer and replaced in unison after the "Amen." About halfway through the program, a pretty girl with long brown hair collects the offering in a black cowboy hat.

Testimony follows the music. Sanderson's son, Chris, 28, plays guitar on a few numbers, but he shakes his head to sharing more as his mother tells her faith story to the people in the stands.

The family is glad to have him back, Sanderson says, though their troubles are not over.

Sanderson sings a song she wrote about her younger son; it's hard to get through it without a struggle with tears, though she's not a crier, she says. It's called "Jesse's in Missouri," and she wrote it the night, Jesse, 20, was extradited there to face a jail term, up to 15 years, on drug charges.

Jesse's story, as she tells it, seems like the piling-on of a dozen kinds of bad luck.

So much so that, as Sanderson tells the audience, "if there's anything good about prison, it's knowing your child is alive."

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Sanderson is a teacher at Wachter Middle School in Bismarck.

It was a scary thing to open up about her sons' drug problems, she said in an interview the next day. People may forgive one child getting into trouble, but two? It's like an unplanned pregnancy, she said. People give you a pass when it happens once - but twice, judgments start to be made.

She said both her sons had hyperactivity disorders as children and believes this may have made them more vulnerable to addiction; Jesse's brain injury also complicates his situation, she said. And on one side of the family, there's a strong history of alcoholism, she said.

What people in the community don't know is the extent of the drug addiction problem here, or think it's all confined to "lower-class"people, she said.

The Bismarck-Mandan chapter of MAMas has been in existence for about 15 months, she said.

Sanderson keeps her cell phone with her at all times; when people are in crisis, they will call her or show up at a MAMas meeting.

Most are looking for resources, which there are not a lot of, she said.

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As for her, faith is what's doing it, getting her through, she said. She says she is connected with "an amazing group of believers" through her church.

Music also is a release. Sanderson plays the keyboard, the guitar, the violin. Now that her brother is teaching in Wilton, he's close enough so they can perform together, she said. Sanderson is thinking about adding a music studio in the basement of her house in Mandan, which she shares with husband, her daughter and cats Pepe and Casey.

Sanderson has a poem coming out in a new book by Denise Ledbetter, " 'Til Meth Do Us Part," scheduled for publication this spring, she said. It's a poem written by a father, in prison for meth, to his children.

Her hope is to make it into a picture book for children, she said: "My uncle and mother are both artists, and with their help, we hope to get this book into the hands of families," she said.

With two children who were susceptible to addiction, Sanderson worries about her third:Katie is a bright and articulate second-grader who likes math, reading, science and social studies, and whose future plans include being, as Katie lists them off, a hairstylist, a nurse, a veterinarian, a babysitter and a singer.

But genetics favor Katie; Sanderson said she has read that girls are less susceptible to the alcohol predisposition.

All this trouble takes a toll: Sanderson gets sick a lot, she said, "stress, most likely." She also has developed diabetes.

But she puts herself into faith, into reading the Bible, into prayer, into "wrestling with God," she said.

(Reach reporter Karen Herzog at 250-8267 or karen.herzog@;bismarcktribune.com.)