One80: Testimonies of Transformation
Be inspired by stories of Christian transformation from around the world--and next door! Hear miraculous coming-to-Jesus stories from all walks of life and be amazed at how God writes a story in all of us. One80 is a production of OneWay Ministries.
One80: Testimonies of Transformation
116: Not Ready Yet, Bert Berrios
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What would you do if you were in prison, labeled a security threat, and locked in isolation?
For Bert Berrios, it was reading the Bible.
Bert was serving time for murder and was stuck in segregation, with little hope of connection.
Yet, God reached him in the most unlikely of places.
The twist? The man who put him behind bars was the one who guided Bert toward hope and new life.
Hear the story of how Marco David was called to help Bert find the truth of scripture and be set free. When the unlikely pair meets up, redemption begins in Bert’s life. This is a One80 you won’t want to miss!
You’ll learn a lot about what it’s like to grow up in a gang and what prison life was like for Bert and experience his first-hand account of true healing, the grace of God, and the power of forgiveness. Bert now leads his own prison ministry, given rare permission from Cook County to reenter Division Nine of Cook County Jail as a parolee to preach the Bible.
Helpful links:
Bert’s book Redeemed
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Welcome to 180. Transforming testimonies from next door to across the globe. Be amazed at how God works to bring people to Himself. Share today's 180 with a friend. It might be the best news they hear today.
Bert Berrios :It was just the clearest thing, almost gadging on my ears when happened. So to tell you the truth, I obey God and I withdrew my appeal.
Margaret Ereneta:One of the guys who put him there was about to lead him to the Lord. I can't make this stuff up. God is an awesome author. This is Margaret Arenetta. Welcome to Birds 180.
Bert Berrios :So I grew up in the humble park area. Life, I had a really nice life as a kid, played sports most of my life growing up. I think maybe around 11 or 12, there was different influences that started coming into my life. The area that we grew up in was a lot of gang volume around there. So one of the things I remember was when we would ride our bikes going into certain neighborhoods just blocks away from our house. Some of the people would take notice where you're coming from and ask us, hey, where are you from?
Bert Berrios :Y ou know, what gang are you in? This time we were nine, ten years old. We're like, you know, we're riding our bites, you know, we're not involved in that. And um, that's something that stuck in my mind, you know, even as a kid. And I started leaning towards this gang that my brother was in. I joined the gang and it was way in over my head. As soon as I joined the gang, I had no idea what it was really about.
Bert Berrios :I had no idea what I had just got myself into. And I was about 12 years old. So um, you know, by the time I was probably, you know, 15 or 16 years old, I had been jumped. You know, I've even been shot once, those type things, where you want a lot of the friends I were around, or some of them were killed, shot. And um, I think in my mind, I started creating this idea that these over here are bad and we're good.
Margaret Ereneta:So as Bert's story unfolds, we're gonna learn a little more about the Chicago gang system. So when he talks about sides, he's talking about two separate groups of gangs, and he'll explain that later. And an organization means gang.
Bert Berrios :And this is your alignment for life, and that's the opposite. And that's basically how I was trained and manipulated as you know, as a kid, you know. If you were from the other side, uh it was something where, you know, that was just uh the opposition, period, no matter what. Um and you know, going through that thing on the streets, you start getting involved in things that you otherwise probably wouldn't, carrying a gun with you, selling drugs, all of those things.
Margaret Ereneta:Bert says by the time he was 18 years old, he was already incarcerated for first-degree murder.
Bert Berrios :For me, it was a mixture of a lot of things, but the truth was I was a follower and I didn't have an identity. I thought my identity was in this game. I thought that's where I gained credibility, but it wasn't like that, wasn't the void in my life. Where a lot of other guys seek it for that reason. That wasn't my, you know, that wasn't my reason. My reason was literally, in my opinion, you know, as I reflect on my life, I was, I didn't want to say no. And when you're a follower as a young kid, you're gonna follow what other people are doing. And these were my a lot of my examples, you know, where I was like, wow, that's cool, but I want to be like this, I'm gonna be like that. And and then when you're stuck in it, and by the time I was 18, I was already incarcerated. And then my my new life started. And when I say my new life, I'm not talking about in the faith. I'm more referring to how do I survive in prison.
Bert Berrios :My 18-year-old kid, I was 139 pounds at that time. I was, you know, skinny, small kid, and I'm around a bunch of men, and I'm in a maximum security, you know, jail. Everybody there has double, triple murder, and you know, these guys, a lot of them have life and stuff like that. So I was in a very hardened situation and I was not prison hard. I may have been, you know, street hard, but I was not prisoner.
Bert Berrios :So now my tutelage came from older individuals that were involved in the organization. I was involved in, and they I was under a tutelage of basically being a convict, learning how to, you know, be hardened and dangerous in prison.
Margaret Ereneta:So when Bert's talking about tutelage here and learning the ropes of being in prison, he's actually talking about his gang. And gang life continues, it even hastens in prison. And Bert will share that with us as this story unfolds.
Bert Berrios :And that was the next chapter in my life for the next maybe 11 years. All the stuff that happened in prison back at that time was very uh savage. You know, murders in jail, stabbings, drug deals, all kinds of other things. While I was in prison, I started to be uncomfortable in my mind first about what I was involved in. I started seeing some of the fallacies of the organization, the gang, of prison life of who really cares about you, who's theirs for you. And I started seeing, you know, some things that were just really hard to turn away from.
Bert Berrios :Things that I, you know, they were a part of, you know, gang culture in prison and directly where I was involved. And one of the things I didn't want to be was a hypocrite. I didn't want to be involved in something I didn't agree with, or something that I thought was, you know, was phony or fake. That's what I started seeing. And I started seeing that, you know, the truth is these guys really didn't love me. And the reverse was I probably really didn't love them either. And, you know, we were bound together by this organization that had no real bond, had no real strength to it. In prison, it's actually worse than on the street. It's actually more organized, it's more strategic than on the street. A lot of guys on the street can run to another place in prison. There's not many places you can run.
Bert Berrios :So when I'm referring to the organization, I'm referring directly to the gang. And the reason they called it an organization was every gang back when I was in there were referred to as organizations. Well, what organization? You know, and then in Chicago, there's two classifications. You're either folks or people. Under those two umbrellas, there's a bunch of gangs. For example, folks, um, you know, when I was growing up, they wore their hat to the right, and they most of them rode under the six-point star. People nation wore their hats to the left and rode under a five-point star.
Bert Berrios :And then there's many gangster disciples of folks, they ran under six star, vice lords are people, mad kings are people, black disciples are folks, and there's a bunch of other dozens and dozens of gangs under those two classifications. So in prison, the organizations was folks and people, and then you were involved in a mob inside of that organization. So remember, I kind of I kind of uh refer to prison basically as a new training group, because now you're going to different stripes of being a member. And really, you're validated when you've been to prison. If you've never been to prison, you know, when you're in the streets and you know someone asks you, have you ever been to the joint and you say no, you don't have a lot of validation. But when you've been to prison for a serious crime like murder, attempted murder, something like that, you're more of a validated member than someone who's not been in prison. That's crazy, as crazy as that sounds. Yeah.
Bert Berrios :So prison is like college for the game. Does that make sense? It's like you're coming out with a bachelor's or a master's after you come out of prison. So now comes the point, the turning point in my mind. I I refer to this as my crossroads, where I started becoming uneasy and unsatisfied with not only what I was a part of, but what it stood for. And not spiritually yet. I was more so seeing the contradictions and the hypocrisies of being in the organization. And um simultaneously, God is God, and he's a good God, and he has mercy on me, he has mercy on all of us. And in that same point, God, I believe, knew and he started uh involving me in things, you know, where uh, you know, Manny Mill was involved in my life. He was a pastor coming in for a Bible study like three times a week, and he was he was pursuing me. He was pursuing me, he was always trying to talk to me, not to hit me over the head with the word, even though he will, but it was more so he just wanted to like show, hey, I'm here.
Bert Berrios :He was always speaking to me in Spanish, you know, endearing towards me, even though we disrespected him many times at his own Bible study. We would have meetings in his Bible study, gang meetings, where we were there for a completely different purpose. And even in those instances, he had grace. And that was something I remember. And then there was a second thing. Uh, I'm gonna get to this is right by. I ended up in SEG.
Margaret Ereneta:So Manny Mill is a local pastor who is in charge of Koinonia House, and he ministers to a lot of inmates, and we'll link his ministry in the show notes. SAG is segregation, where Bert is punished for something in prison. And you think that would be really dark, but God uses that time in SAG in a mighty way. See what happens next.
Bert Berrios :SEG is the hole, like where you're segregated from everyone, and it's because you did a bad thing, or you're, you know, something like that. And I went to SEG for a big gang fight happened, and I was one of the individuals involved anyway. So I'm in SEG and I'm under investigation for STG activity. STG stands for Security Threat Group, which would be the organization I was involved in. And my cousin had sent me a bite, it was just you know the small Bible, NIV Bible, and I started reading this little bite because I was by myself for quite a while. My biblical knowledge was very little to any, but you know, it was one of those things where we called ourselves Catholics, but you know, we never went to church. So I just started reading that Bible in Seg.
Bert Berrios :And um, when I was reading that Bible, you know, I was I was in a place where I felt I was either gonna make a change or I was gonna get worse. So check this out. I started at Genesis chapter one, verse one, and I just started devouring the Bible. Full transparency. I might have skipped a little bit of Leviticus and Deuteronomy, you know, full transparency. Okay, but uh I tried to read as much as I could, and um, I I it just felt as I was reading this that the pages and the words in this Bible were directly related to me. And one of the biggest things I think I noticed was I was made with purpose, according to this Bible. That life was just not nothing, it was just not happenstance, it was just not blink, it was just not this is it before it was. There was something greater, something different. God called me by his name, he had a purpose for my life, he had an unexpected end, and that was something that really penetrated my spirit and my soul. And I got to the verse, obviously, Jeremiah 29, 11, which everybody loves. Jeremiah 29.11 is a beautiful verse, but that's not the verse that touched me.
Bert Berrios :But I'll read it. For I know the thoughts and plans that I have for you, says the Lord. Thoughts and plans for welfare and peace and not for evil, to give you hope in your final outcome. That's beautiful. But the verse that really touched my spirit and my soul, and is still my my my life-changing verse till today is this then you will call upon me, and you will come and pray to me, and I will hear and heal you. Then you will seek me and inquire for me, require me as a vital necessity, and find me, and find me when you search for me with all of your heart.
Bert Berrios :So obviously, the 11 is is a great thing, and I have heard that before, even when I was not saved. But the 12 and the 13 is something that gave me unction where I understood there was something I had to do in order to necessitate that relationship with God. And that thing that I had to do was first submit, make a ruler of my life, and three, not serve two gods. Because at that point, even though I was a say, I still had my foot in the pit. I was still serving two gods. So my decision, I don't exactly remember how it was, but I said something like, God, you know, I want to serve you. I want to not be involved in what I'm involved in. This seems good. I like what I'm reading. Please save me. So I thought I was, you know, I thought, you know, that was good enough.
Bert Berrios :A nd I got out and it was like if nothing had ever changed. I was back in the folds, I was back with the organization, with the guys, doing every vice, you know, smoking weed, carrying a knife, like nothing had changed. With every decision we make, that decision would be tested, every spiritual decision. It would be tried to see if it's even true. And that's exactly what was happening with me. That decision, and that's where this guy comes in at. So simultaneously, God is God, he's a great God.
Bert Berrios :My father had been telling me, hey, listen, I want you to put this guy on your list, uh, Marco David, and the name just sound rang a bell. I didn't know who it was. He just said he's a pastor, you know, he didn't give me all the he's a police officer. So when it occurred to me, Marco David, when I talked to my father, I'm like, wait a second, is that the cop that basically had, you know, got me in here? You know, like you know, so Marco David, Pastor Marco is one of the officers, but he was involved in my case, significantly involved in my case. But the underlying truth was Pastor Marco interviewed the victim when he died.
Bert Berrios :So I really felt Pastor Marco knew more of the responsibility and the devastation that I caused due to my act, more so than I did. I never got a chance to see the outcome of what I did. The devastation of the family, the death that he did. And I was very um I was very convicted of that. I was very ashamed of that.
Margaret Ereneta:Here's Marco David weighing in on this story in Bert's life. And he's a pastor and a cop, and just happens to be the person or one of the people that was responsible for sending Bert to prison in the first place. But here he is on the other end of his story, and he'll explain.
Bert Berrios :So I was I was pastoring a church, and Bert's parents began to attend the church. And uh, but God began to work on them and they started hearing the gospel, and uh both mom and dad uh surrendered to the Lord and trusted Christ as your Lord and Savior. And they began to tell us about the fact that they had a son in prison who was serving a 40-year sentence for murder. And at one point, dad asked me to visit Bert and asked Bert to put me on his visiting list. And as you heard very earlier, uh he was very reluctant to do that because I was not only a pastor, but I was also a police officer. I was in Bible case ministry. And then at some point, it occurred to us that I was the officer that was involved in a preliminary investigation that landed uh Bert in prison. And so by the promise of God, we're we're reconnected again 10 years later. And uh, out of respect for his dad, Bert put me on the visiting list. And about a month later, I was sitting in a visiting room with him. And he explained that he had just gotten out of segregation, he had just read the scriptures, yeah, he had been reading the scriptures, which I believe began to prepare his heart for that for that visit. So God was providentially working and pursuing Bert and getting him ready for this visit. We began that visit by breaking bread together and talking about uh growing up in the same neighborhood, and and our paths went in different directions.
Bert Berrios :And and I began to share the gospel with Bert, share with him that salvation is found in Christ and receiving him as Lord and Savior. And again, God had already been drawing Bert to himself. Bert realized he needed to surrender to God. He just heard some more specifics about Christ and the redemption of Christ and the power of the Spirit of God to help you to live the life that God calls us to live. Now back to Bert. I decided to put him on the list. And right when he was coming up to see me, I had just got out of sync and released me. Days later, I thought I made a promise. And here it is, you know, days later, and I have not even read the word of God or even opened the Bible. So at that time, obviously, that that decision is being tried, right? And I'm failing miserably. So I get a visit. So Pastor Marco came up, and when he came up, he just confirmed some things in my spirit and really convicted me to truly submit and truly confess before the king of kings. And that's what I did on that visit.
Bert Berrios :And I believe at that point is when I truly submitted. And at that point is when I truly confessed, because that was when I made a decision that I can no longer serve two guys. So the next day I went to the organization to one person and I told them I cannot do both. I'm gonna serve God. This is what you know God has called me to do, and I can't do both. So whatever I have coming, because you just couldn't walk away back then. You had a brutal, a brutal response to walking away. Sometimes even death. But um, you know, I knew it was gonna be five minutes head to toe, brutal. And I was very scared of that. And I was praying, Father, preserve me. So the individual that I spoke with, one person in all of IDOC, it could have done this, and it was that person.
Margaret Ereneta:So here, just to clarify, when Bert talks about the IDOC, he's talking about the Illinois Department of Corrections, but that's not the officers or the staff who worked there. It's actually the prisoners. And this is the one person in the prison, actually in the state, that has the authority in the gang to grant Bert what he is asking for. So cool how God moves.
Bert Berrios :The one person that could have let me out of the organization was the person I spoke with. And when I told him, he's the only person in the state who could have done this. And he said this to me I'm gonna let you go, and no one's gonna touch you. Not a person in the whole state. He said, But I'm gonna tell you this if you come back, or if I can't you around the guys in any form or fashion, what you should have got, you're gonna get that. So not only did God preserve me, but he gave me an utter deterrence to ever go back to that life at all.
Margaret Ereneta:Next, Marco talks about Bert's discipleship in prison.
Bert Berrios :I and others from our church began to visit Bert and help to disciple him, along with Matty Mill. He was already in that prison, he had already been sowing seeds in Bert's heart as well. And uh Bert began to grow and become a strong, mature believer in prison. And from that point forward, started my true journey, which was where I'm at even till this day. And me and Pastor started doing some prison visits and ministering to some of these brothers in prison. I never realized kind of how profound, because I never thought about it, never thought it was a big thing. But people had told me, like, man, I can't believe you did that. And now that I think about it, I kind of realized wow, that was, you know, to a lot of people, that would seem foolish. So what I'm referring to is I just got saved.
Margaret Ereneta:Not only does Bert Get released from the gang and starts witnessing to other prisoners in the prison, but also God's about to move in a really powerful way, actually by saying no.
Bert Berrios :I was maybe a baby Christian a year with that. And something had come back in my tr in my case, in my appeal, where there was a technicality in my case that the judge committed. This technicality was a no, and it could have basically let me out. So when this came out to light, it was automatically remanded and reversed for new sentencing or new trial. So that basically meant that I could have potentially gone home immediately. Now at this time, I was only in for one year as a Christian. I was only saved for one year.
Bert Berrios :And I felt I started hearing in prayers, even in fasting, that God was telling me, you are not ready yet. And I still had 10 and a half years to do. So to hear you're not ready, I still have a little daughter, my family who loves me, a great, you know, surrounding caste. So I'm like, I know I'm not hearing this right. But it became more and more ever clear. You are, and then a confirmation started coming. And even God, yeah, it was just the clearest thing, almost with God's, you know, mouth to my ears, you are not ready. So to tell you the truth, I obeyed God and I withdrew my appeal. And I did the next ten and a half years of prison where I could may have potentially went home, you know, immediately. Those next 10 and a half years were basically the foundation of my spiritual health, of where I'm at even today, bearing fruit from something that was stored up when I was in prison.
Bert Berrios :And beyond that, you know, I don't I don't know if you know maybe God was preserving me from getting killed out there. Who knows what? But I can assure you, tell you this. If I would have got out then, I was not ready to send for me. And a lot of people, when we go to prison, a lot of people have basically questioned me, why did you do that? And I have to tell them that's a strong spiritual conviction, even from my own family who told me I was crazy to retro. You know, I was not ready. And and not saying that I'm perfect now, because I'm not. But what I'm saying is there are certain foundations, there are certain things that happened within that 10 and a half years that I could assure you would never happen. Our church family was there when Burke got released, and he's been part of our church ever since. He is a solid member of our church, he loves the Lord, he got married, he's serving the Lord. He's a deacon right now. And now it was a huge blessing to be involved in Burke's life, to see him come to Christ, to see him grow in the Lord, and also to receive him when he came out and to be part of his life as uh someone that's out of prison. There's no great, no greater joy to see uh believers walking in the truth.
Margaret Ereneta:Thanks for listening today. You might have heard the story and wondered what you can do. Well, rest assured, we have some Chicago prayer resources for you in the form of prayer cast videos for 77 each of the Chicago neighborhoods. Check that link out in our show notes.
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