Joel S. Testimony

A warm meal around a neighbor’s table. A cold cell under fluorescent lights. A helicopter ceiling you can see from outside your own body. Joel’s story moves through them all, tracing a jagged path from childhood trauma and hustling on Van Buren to prison politics, catastrophic injury, and a fight with PTSD that lasted years. What kept surfacing—often quietly—was presence: a family that called him mijo and made room for one more plate, a steady voice in the chaos, and a God who refused to let go.

We walk with Joel through juvenile time, a Tennessee boys’ ranch, relapses, and the lure of the street. He talks openly about addiction, segregation behind the walls, orders made in whispers, and the moment everything changed physically: a “face meets concrete” accident that led to reconstructive surgery, vision loss, and an out‑of‑body clarity he still remembers. Healing wasn’t instant. It took county jail, New Freedom, EMDR, equine therapy, and a thousand small choices to rebuild attention, patience, and trust. Along the way, prayer stopped sounding like a performance and started sounding like work talk—asking God for a clean line while taping trim, for calm in traffic, for the next right thing.

Out of that grind came purpose. Joel helped lead a painting lab for reentry, proved he could run it lean and excellent, and then launched Prodigal Sons Painting—a second‑chance employer built for graduates coming out of prison and treatment. Think real wages, shared ownership, housing and credit support, and on‑the‑job mentoring that reduces recidivism and restores dignity. He’s back inside facilities now, not as a number but as a messenger, offering a practical path forward and a witness that redemption is more than a word.

If you care about addiction recovery, prison reform, second‑chance hiring, trauma‑informed care, EMDR, equine therapy, vocational training, and faith that shows up with a lunch pail, you’ll find something here. We pray together, wrestle with labels, and choose love over noise. Listen, share with someone who needs hope, and leave a review so more people can find these testimonies. Subscribe and hit the bell to catch the next story, and tell us: where have you seen redemption take root?

Chapters

• 0:17 Welcome And Setting The Mission
• 2:49 Prayer And Intent For Testimony
• 5:17 Joel’s Early Life And Trauma
• 13:45 The Church Family That Fed Him
• 24:52 Addiction, Street Survival, And AA
• 35:58 Prison Politics, Violence, And PTSD
• 52:20 Out‑Of‑Body Moment And Hospital Ordeal
• 1:04:18 Release, Relapse, And Teen Challenge
• 1:13:20 New Freedom, Therapy, And Healing
• 1:26:10 Calling, Purpose, And Prodigal Sons Painting
• 1:38:25 Faith, Prayer, And Daily Walk
• 1:50:44 Family Restoration And Hopes
• 2:16:20 Closing Prayers And Support Request

Transcript

SPEAKER_02: 0:16

Welcome back to the Speak Life A Z podcast, testimony of Jesus and everyday people. I'm your host, Eddie, and always with me is my son Rowdad.

SPEAKER_06: 0:24

Jesus!

SPEAKER_02: 0:25

What up, dude? What's up, buddy? Chelling, bro.

SPEAKER_06: 0:27

How was this rainy day at the shop for you?

SPEAKER_02: 0:29

Um it was alright, man. It was good.

SPEAKER_06: 0:32

Normally on rainy days, you guys are slow, man.

SPEAKER_02: 0:35

That was all right today. Yeah. We had ups and downs, but it was it is what it is, man. Yeah, it's good, but God is good. Yeah, he is. What about you?

SPEAKER_06: 0:41

Oh, it was great. Yeah, it was up on ladders, uh changing vanilla filters, man. I came in and I was like, why does the building stink like that? Uh but so I went ahead and climbed up on a ladder and got a few uh vanilla things spinning around. So hopefully people come in tomorrow. It smells a little better. Shut up, man. Uh doing man things. Come on. Ready for this one? I am, bro. I really am, dude. Got my boy Joe. What's up, dude? What's up, guys? Joe, how are you doing, brother? Good, good. This is great.

SPEAKER_02: 1:18

Hey, uh, when we started doing video, man, God made it very clear to honor his children, man. Um, so we thank you for your time, brother. We know that time is precious. We're only allotted so much in this life. And for you to give us a little bit of yours, man, we're thankful for that. And we pray that uh not only does this opportunity bless you, man, but like I said earlier in our prayer that maybe someone gets to hear this and gets to know Jesus a little better, brothers. We honor you and we thank you for your time, brother. Thank you. Thank you, guys.

SPEAKER_06: 1:43

Yeah, for me, buddy. Um, I don't know, can you figure that out? Um when you teen challenge, uh what, 2014, 2015, and I think that that that was the first place that I met you, bro. And when I met you, I was just coming out of a whole bunch of just craziness. But I I saw you and I saw Jesus in you. And I I could I could see that you'd been through some stuff and you'd come out the other side, and God actually used you uh to give me a little bit of hope. Amen. That if the that if God you can do everything you've done, been where you've been, and now you're on the other side of it too, then it there was something possible for me. Absolutely. Because when I when I first I was at a place where I didn't want to live life, I know. I hated it, I hated myself. Um remember. I remember I do. You know, so it's just it's cool, bro, to to be able to reconnect with you and get you on, man. Yeah. Um let me just pray real quick, man. We we pray a lot around here, and then we'll kind of get into this thing.

SPEAKER_00: 2:59

Man, let's get it.

SPEAKER_06: 3:00

Uh Holy Spirit, man, Jesus. Um, God, I just thank you for what you're getting ready to do on this podcast. Um, we thank you for Speak Life A Z, God, and just how you're using it for your people. Thank you, Lord. Um, I just pray for my brother. If there's any anxiety or any nerves or any fear in the name of Jesus, just fall away. Um, God, he is among brothers, he's among family. Um, so I thank you, Lord, that whoever watches this, whoever's gonna listen to this, God, their faith is gonna be stirred. Um there they're gonna you're you're gonna draw your people closer to you through this testimony, God. Um, because if you can do it for Joel, you can do it for any one of us, God. That's how you work. You're faithful and you are good to your people. Um so I just pray for a fresh anointing, uh, because it's the anointing that breaks the yokes, God. Um, devil, we are getting ready to kick you in the face. And we are taking back power and we are sharing our life uh with people who need to hear it. Thank you, Lord. Um, so Holy Spirit, just come and have your way in Jesus' name. Amen.

SPEAKER_00: 4:08

Amen.

SPEAKER_06: 4:08

Amen. Um, so when uh when God gave this to us, man, it was it was 2020, COVID. Um, it seemed like the Lord gave a lot of people some podcasts during COVID, and and we uh we weren't really obedient for the first couple years, man. We were doing what we wanted to do. I set up a studio in my bedroom and was preaching Facebook videos. And I was like, at the end of 22, man, I we sat down, we're like, what is this? What are we supposed to be doing? And and God showed us very clearly Speak Life A Z podcast, the testimony of Jesus and everyday people. Um it doesn't matter if you're like myself and you're here climbing up ladders and plugging in vanilla smelly good things so people are happy when they come to church on a Sunday, or you're like dad and and you're at the shop and you're welding and cutting up cars and doing man stuff, getting all greasy. Uh or like yourself, bro, running a business and and trying to trying to do we are all everyday people and we've all got a story. Amen. Um, we've all come from somewhere. And so today, man, what what we want to get from you, Joel, is just kind of like what life was life growing up for you, man? Um what what was your family life like? What was uh your relationship with your mom and dad? Um, any brothers and sisters? Um, dad always was God in the home. Um what what what did that look like growing up for you? Um and and you know, man, that dad, we were talking a little bit before we started recording. A lot of the uh the stuff that we gotta go through and and work through in our life late in our adult years to really receive healing and uh recovery. A lot of that stuff happens when we're we're kids, man. Yeah. Um, so whatever, let the Holy Spirit lead you into any of that stuff, man. But we I think the coolest thing we want to get from you today, Joel, is your encounter with the living God. When God became so real to you, it wasn't your parents' faith or your sister's faith or a program's faith, it was real to you, man. Um, because when that happens, things change. Yeah, um, you we and you're reading the Bible, man. Anybody who encountered Jesus, things changed after that encounter. Yeah, that we we always talk about how transformation is the very evidence that somebody had a uh an encounter with the living God. Yeah. Um, so how what your encounter was like and then how your life uh kind of unfolded after your encounter with God. Yeah um but you know, man, just because we we God draws us to him and we meet his son Jesus, things ain't perfect. We still got our battles, we go through our struggle. I'm still in a recovery group every Monday night. Yeah, we got stuff to work on, man. Um but so what what's your life look like?

SPEAKER_02: 7:11

It's called sanctification.

SPEAKER_06: 7:12

Amen. It's a lifelong process. Um, but I think the cool thing, man, is we've got faithful listeners and subscribers who at the very end, Joel, we want to get what you're hoping for in the future. Yeah. What maybe hasn't manifested yet in the physical or in the natural that God has put in your heart and what what that looks like. Uh so we can pray for you, but then our our listeners, man, they they want to pray for you as well, bro.

SPEAKER_02: 7:39

I think it's those things that keep us driving on.

SPEAKER_06: 7:41

What?

SPEAKER_02: 7:42

Uh things that we're still hoping for. Come on, bro. That's what keeps driving us forward, is that hope of getting there. Come on.

SPEAKER_06: 7:50

Amen.

SPEAKER_02: 7:51

Amen. So what was it like growing up, Joel, brother?

SPEAKER_04: 7:54

Uh well, uh, growing up was um, it was, you know, good and bad and ugly, just like it, just like it was for everybody.

SPEAKER_05: 8:04

You're an Arizona boy? Uh yes, I am. Come on, boy. You're OG. Oh, wow.

SPEAKER_06: 8:09

Yeah. There ain't many OGs around anymore.

SPEAKER_02: 8:12

Man, I don't know. We're all in native Arizona, but they took off and all these Midwesterners came in. We got a lot of Ohioans.

SPEAKER_05: 8:20

Yeah. Um, but uh grew up in a rough neighborhood, you know, uh into some uh not a good situation right off the bat, you know.

SPEAKER_06: 8:31

Um what neighborhood are we talking about here? What area in Phoenix? Uh he was from Mesa.

SPEAKER_05: 8:36

Yeah. Yeah. Uh so well, you guys seem a little kind of lighthearted in here, too. So I don't know how much you really know. It's your story.

SPEAKER_06: 8:45

You tell it, y'all. Whatever God leads you to share, bro. We we've had some crazy stuff shared, man.

SPEAKER_02: 8:52

And it's uh we've had people who talked about being trafficked, we've talked about women who've talked about being molested as kids. We've talked about whatever whatever God's got on your heart, man.

SPEAKER_05: 9:04

I'm just reading your guys' vibe, and it's just a lot it's a lot more uppity than that's just because we love Jesus, man. We've been through some things, brother. Yeah, you know, man. Yeah, yeah. I just don't want to bring, you know, bring anything down on.

SPEAKER_02: 9:19

You let the Lord tell your story, brother.

SPEAKER_05: 9:21

Uh well the whole the whole thing about my story is that like, you know, uh I look back now and I'm able to see what God did. You know. Uh I'm able I'm also able to look back and see what the world did. Yeah. And uh what my family did and what, you know, people did to me. And and uh so to be honest, you know, I didn't really have uh I didn't have to worry about an enemy yet because I I I had you know my mom was 14 when she had me. Oh wow you know uh she was into drugs and alcohol already. Uh um and uh you know, drank drank uh the drink called brass uh brass monkey when she was pregnant with me, you know. These are just things that you know I've found out that that she was, you know, we've we're a family of we've been in recovery our whole life, we've been in jails and institutions our whole life, we tried helping each other our whole life, we've hurt each other our whole life. Yeah, you know, I know. Uh yeah, and it's and it's very in very extreme though, you know, meaning life and death. Uh so with some people it's a little lighter than that. With my family, it wasn't, you know. Uh but I grew up on 3rd Street in Van Buren, right on the host roll. Yeah. Uh that's real. Yep. That was real.

SPEAKER_06: 11:00

Now it's all gentrified and beautiful buildings and things have changed. Yeah, 27th Avenue and that.

SPEAKER_05: 11:06

And and so, and that was, and I didn't know what third I didn't I didn't know, I didn't know that, you know, to me it wasn't it was not Third Street in Van Buren, you know. It was my kid. I was a kid. Yeah. We lived with a pimp, uh, a black dude, his girlfriend, okay, a black girl, her son, my age. I was a newborn, you know, and up to up to two years old, you know. Um and he was uh and he was a he was a black kid. Uh and it's interesting because this is how I was loved. This is you know, because I I'm sure I was loved, I'm sure I was, right? To their best ability, yeah. Even though I was the conditions were what it was. Right. I I I was learning love some some kind of way, whatever, you know. And it was jacked up, you know, but it but it but it was what it was. Uh it was all I knew, you know. Yeah. Um grew up fast in my neighborhood. Uh didn't know my mom was a was into prostitution. Okay. But you know, that was she's been prostitute my whole life, you know.

SPEAKER_02: 12:14

Um were you protected from that aspect of life? Like growing up, did you were you aware of that, or was that something that was kind of just under the covers and not really talked about?

SPEAKER_05: 12:23

When I got old enough, uh I mean obviously when you got old enough to kind of figure that out. Yeah, I found out. Uh and then that turned into uh, you know, I guess long story short because I think I want to talk about maybe some topics, but uh I need to I really want to convey my experience with God. Um but I I ended up pimping her out, you know. She taught me how to pimp her out. And um which made it to where she could get paid without having sex. We would just rob these people. You know, um, you know, they'd pull up uh at the we'd sit at a bus stop, you know. Um they'd pull up and sometimes she she'd have either some watered up napkins down there or or or really or really have a pipe down there, you know, wad it up and go jump in the car and and spin a lap, you know, and uh tell the dude, hey stop, I'm gonna get my pipe, uh, and tell dude I'm gonna be back, you know. And of course I run up with the pipe and and then draw down on him. You know, she pulls the keys out, you know. I tell, you know, we can defend you know how it goes. So yeah. So and I'm you know, 14, 15, 16 years old. Yeah, you know, that's what I'm doing, man. And I actually, and this is the weird thing is I actually have friends I'm going to church with at this time. Really? Oh, yeah, absolutely, man. A beautiful family. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06: 13:50

Wow. Yeah. Are you are you going to school?

SPEAKER_05: 13:53

So that's a whole nother story. Yeah. No, no, I know. I quit school in eighth grade. Okay. So part of my story, which I'd have to back up, but I'm kind of you're good, you're good, bro.

SPEAKER_06: 14:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05: 14:03

Yeah. Uh but uh in living in that situation, yeah. There's uh there was a lot of sex, there was a lot of drugs, there was a lot of alcohol, there were a lot of parties, there were a lot of fighting, there were a lot of cops, there were a lot of killing, there was a lot of blood, there was a lot of everything, everything you could imagine on Third Street in Van Buren was right there in front of me to see. You know, uh, you know, and and I wonder just just to maybe open that scope up a little bit more. This is the kind of stuff mom would do. She would be on speed and leave me at the daycare for days on end. Really? And just forget I was there. Wow. Me and my sister. Yeah, you know. Uh when I was 18 months old, I had a baby sister, and our father was chased down the street by my grandmother. He was 21, messing with this 14-year-old. Yeah. Grandma chased him down the street with a 357, and he he literally never came back. He never did, you know. You know, they she was she was fit to be tied. Yeah, you got her pregnant again, yeah, you know? Yeah. And she was like, you know, they were already, and and and this came out later in treatment and family week. Is that I this they encouraged her to to abort me, you know.

SPEAKER_03: 15:15

Dang.

SPEAKER_05: 15:16

Yeah. And it and she so she and I and and and what the trip about this, oh my god, this is so cool, man. So everybody's dead now. Everybody's dead now. But and and I got in and and I'm living in a halfway house. Everybody's dead. I have this house I have to take care of. I'm I'm I'm getting rid of everything. I find grandma's old uh jewelry box.

SPEAKER_06: 15:38

And this is your mom's mom.

SPEAKER_05: 15:41

Yeah, I pull it apart, you know, because if you know if you've been to the joint, you know what a jewelry box is, you know. So I mean, you know, I'm pulling the thing apart and boom, there I go, bam. Yeah, there is a letter from 1974 written in my mom's handwriting saying I'm I'm taking Joel and we're out, you know? Wow. And she took me, yeah, you know, away from them.

SPEAKER_00: 16:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06: 16:03

Uh trying to maybe hopefully give you a better life or something.

SPEAKER_02: 16:08

Yeah. Um dude. Or just to get under the grips of grandma.

SPEAKER_05: 16:12

Okay, hold on. I'm sorry. I'm I'm sorry, I'm mixing up this whole story. I'm mixing up the story. The the point is she was pregnant and and the one, you know, and she was like, I'm gonna go have this baby. Yeah. Right? Yeah, yeah. Okay. That's when you read the letter, you can figure out that this is a this is a baby, this is a teenage girl pregnant, leaving her house to go live on the streets or with her boyfriend and have this kid. Wow. Because mom and dad saying, uh-huh, you're doing great, but you ain't having a kid yet. Uh and and what a and and and who in who in the world, why in the world, would I find that letter at 51 years old? Yeah. Or or actually I was about 47 back then, you know, whatever. Before I was 47, but I mean, still though, like such opening closure to my life and to what God is showing me and doing with me and and healing me and stuff. Yeah, that's right. You know what I mean? That's right, but you know, uh it happens in everything I do, my spiritual I stay in prayer, my my my conscious contact with God is 24 or 70. You know, even in my sleep, man. It's it's just it feels like I'm in a bubble, you know. Yeah, um uh everything's not good. I I I'm in I I'm in constant spiritual warfare. I I I take my my you know what to the front lines, you know? Yeah. Um and that's where uh I do a lot of fighting. Um and not really fighting, I learn from it. Uh what I would when I say fighting, I you know what, never mind. I that was the wrong thing to do. So this is what I see God does with me. Because and here's the thing, too. My prayers, they used to be the foxhole prayers, get me out of this. I mean, yeah. If you if you if you can just let the judge let me out this lap this one time, you know.

SPEAKER_06: 18:03

I'll surrender my life to you completely, God. Yes, I'll yeah, I'll all that, you know.

SPEAKER_02: 18:08

Well, do it again, a promise as soon as they get released. You got anything? Yeah, absolutely. How were you the first time you got in trouble? Like with the law.

SPEAKER_05: 18:16

Uh 15. I went to juvenile prison for six accounts of grand theft auto. Yeah, you know, and it was a major thing back then. Yeah, you know, and I I went to Supermax, yeah, and it really tried started traumatizing.

SPEAKER_06: 18:27

When were you born?

SPEAKER_05: 18:28

1974.

SPEAKER_06: 18:29

Okay. All right. So he's a couple of years, you're you're you got him by beat by a couple of years. I'm 72. Okay, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 18:36

I swear we've been locked up together somewhere. Probably. Yeah, you guys probably are together.

SPEAKER_04: 18:42

Yeah, you've always yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 18:43

I remember when I met you at Teen Challenge, I was like, I know you from somebody. I recognize the face. Yeah, it's funny.

SPEAKER_05: 18:49

That's what prisons like that, man. And people, you know, and then and then coming out and working at New Freedom. It's just like, my oh my god, it's overwhelming, overwhelming, dude. Like, come on, man.

SPEAKER_02: 18:59

It's like you're gonna surround me with all these people. I had a buddy, I had a buddy I ain't seen in a long time, and he was the one that uh I used to do a lot of stuff with, you know what I mean? And the other morning I'm at the shop, boss is not there, hear the doorbell, so I go in there.

SPEAKER_07: 19:16

What's up?

SPEAKER_02: 19:17

I'm like, all these emotions, bro, all these villains of oh, oh God, oh no, oh, I love you. Well, well, why are you back? You know what I mean? Just all these different things come flowing through you, bro. Yeah, and I just gave him a hug, told him I love you. I mean, I worked on his car, gave him my number, and um he started blowing up my phone with YouTube videos. I'm like, dude, stop spamming me, bro. I love you, dude. But if you're gonna send me something, send me some curves, but I don't want no damn YouTube videos. But I know the feeling, brother, when you get around those old those old people, man. It's breaking up.

SPEAKER_05: 19:51

My prison story is hellacious. So the people that I saw come new for to through New Freedom was life changing for everyone. You know what I mean? Everyone That knew and that was there and it was surreal, yeah, because the trauma that you know the traumatic experience happened in prison to me. Yeah. Uh, and then seeing all of us there at new at New Freedom fighting for our lives. Yeah, wow, dude. It uh man, I might get into that story.

SPEAKER_06: 20:17

Yeah, we'll hopefully we can touch on that, man. So you you you drop out of school.

SPEAKER_05: 20:23

Um at about that's at eighth grade. Okay um and and I want to tell you, so I was, yeah, I was molested. I've I've had more sex with men and women from the time I was two years old to at least twelve, you know, 10 or 12 years old to where that was messing me up, right? Totally, you know. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06: 20:41

Um but it's what you were exposed to, it's what was going on.

SPEAKER_05: 20:45

And then when I say like, and it and it it started with my mom's girlfriends, uh, and later on found out that I was they would so mom was this the teenager with a baby. Yeah, and in 74, that wasn't like super unusual because they were starting to make programs at schools for teenage teenage girls, right? So it wasn't super unusual. There they knew it was a problem, but it was un but it was unusual. Yeah, right. There was up there wasn't a ton of them. Yeah, there was barely a classroom for you know, yeah, yeah. Anyways, she was the odd one out. And the first time my grandmother stole me from my mom, she caught her and like 10 of her friends in the den passing me around to see what breastfeeding felt like. Oh, wow. Right? Wow, and so grandma, so and that and yeah, we as as guys were like big whoop. Yeah, but when you look at that as now that a spiritual father, that's different. You're what are you girls doing with my child? What's what the what are you doing right there? What that's so you see how now I look back at my life and I'm like, now I see how I was affected by it, you know. And then now if you can imagine how that hit my psyche, even being that's probably that probably it matters with the type of women I pick, yeah. Uh the type, you know, the whole everything. Yeah, um, yeah. Yeah. How how I nurture a woman, how how I how I nurture a woman.

SPEAKER_02: 22:06

The word the word they use these days, and I hate to use it, but I'm gonna use it. It's called grooming. You know what I mean? The lifestyle that you were living, you were being groomed to be this, which you became, you know what I mean. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_05: 22:18

What I want to know is I want to I want to Which was a womanizer and uh and all that and sexually uh just uh whatever, yeah, whatever.

SPEAKER_02: 22:27

Not biblical at all. No, no, no, no. You know what I mean? So you were talking about this family that took you to church.

SPEAKER_05: 22:34

Yeah. Tell me about that. I want to know about that. Yeah, okay. So this is what's cool about this family, man. And in this family, were they from the neighborhood or how'd you how do you know how'd you know them? Yeah, so it and and here's the big story about it. And that's why we should. I mean, I would like to almost do this in a part deal, man. But you'll you'll see that these stories, these stories, each one of them is just for instance, here's this, here's the here's this story. Yeah. Okay, so you know the school, JB Sutton Elementary. I I don't know. Isaac in Isaac, Isaac's school. Anyway, there's a school named JB Sutton Elementary, right? Okay. It's in Maryvale. Okay. That's where I'm from. After 3rd Street and Brambjorn, I moved to Maryvale with my grandparents, back and forth between mom and grandma. Okay. I was a ping pong ball. You know what I mean? I was a bartering chip. Yeah, yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah, of course. And grandma and grandpa, mom and mom, mom came from a good family. Grandma and grandpa were Christians, and I say that with quotations right now, because please don't call me a Christian. Yeah. Please don't. Yeah. Right? Yeah. That's the abuse I went through. Right. Yeah. Okay. That's real, buddy. All right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06: 23:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05: 23:40

And Jesus is my savior. Amen. And please don't call me a Christian. Amen. You know? Yeah. Uh, that's my own stuff. Yeah, that hit you, right? That you just felt that, right? How you like that?

SPEAKER_06: 23:50

Well, tell me what you're feeling. Man, just um like you, a lot of times you apologi have to apologize for Christians. We've sat right here, buddy, and apologized to the children.

SPEAKER_02: 24:03

There's people who use the label Christian, yeah, and and and and they don't act like misrepresent the truth.

SPEAKER_05: 24:10

Because if I told you what I saw a Christian do, right, please don't call me that. Please don't.

SPEAKER_02: 24:17

Right. Please don't. Right.

SPEAKER_05: 24:19

You know?

SPEAKER_02: 24:19

And we get that. Right. There's people, I mean, you see it all the time. Amen, buddy. There was just a pastor here in Phoenix who was arrested for child sex porn and molesting girls and all these things. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. Those are the kind of people that are like, give the rest of us a bad name. Yeah. The ones of us who truly love God and are trying to do the right thing and be helpful to people like yourself. You know what I mean? And that sucks, dude. That sucks that there's people that claim that name but do the things they do. You know what I mean? That's real, bro. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05: 24:50

So it's easy for me to be private. I mean, I mean, open about my faith here because that's what this show is about. Yeah. But I talk a lot in different places, spaces, and areas. Amen. And a lot of times there's rules set on stuff. Yeah. You know? Yeah. And I'm NA's and things like that. Yeah. Yeah. You know? Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 25:14

And there's nothing wrong with that, brother. Yeah, there's no.

SPEAKER_05: 25:16

Yeah, there's not. No, I know. Uh, but it's hard to tell your story because people don't want to accept it. You know, it's funny, like with AA, they're like, be uh rigorous, honest from the very start. Yeah. Well, you don't want to hear my story then, because it don't qualify for AA. Right. You know what I mean? Right. And I and I I got to be a circuit speaker for AA last year. Yeah. And um Wow. Yeah, and it was cool, man. Uh um, but uh So tell us about this family.

SPEAKER_06: 25:43

Yeah, oh, okay. Tell us about this family, bro. That when you were. So you're living on the track with sidetrack, yeah. Okay, well, we love rabbit holes, but yeah, we love them, bro.

SPEAKER_05: 25:55

So there's uh there's uh this anyways, this family, the mother and the father, both went to this school.

SPEAKER_00: 26:04

Yeah.

unknown: 26:04

Right?

SPEAKER_05: 26:04

As baby son, as children. Yeah, yeah. You know, because they're they're from the hood.

SPEAKER_00: 26:08

Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_05: 26:08

Right? They have a big family, though. They're called, you know, they're uh, and you know what? I don't know if I was gonna use names.

SPEAKER_02: 26:16

You don't have to use names, brother.

SPEAKER_05: 26:17

I don't think I'm gonna use names this time.

SPEAKER_02: 26:19

Yeah, you don't have to have to, brother.

SPEAKER_05: 26:20

Let's not do that.

SPEAKER_02: 26:21

No, let's not. There was just a wonderful.

SPEAKER_05: 26:26

You guys know, but I just think that uh because all the if all the glory is gonna be God's, then let's just leave some names. Amen. We respect that, brother. We respect that. Totally good.

SPEAKER_02: 26:41

Uh anyways, so ultimately it's your story, not theirs.

SPEAKER_06: 26:44

Yeah. You know what I mean? So praise God. Um what did you see in this family or what did you experience with that?

SPEAKER_05: 26:49

Well, so they they they so they anyway, say they lived right around right around right in the same street. We went to the same elementary school, right? My best friend uh we have been in the same school junior high school and high school since second grade, his whole family. Yeah, and there's many of them five brothers and sisters, yeah, you know, and I'm like in the middle of all them, kinda. You know, I've I'm actually I'm actually like the second oldest, uh, something like that. No, third oldest. Okay, so there's two older brothers, you know. Um but they started loving me with God's love. Genuine love, genuine love. I did not know, I did not know, but there was there was God in that house, right? And there wasn't in mine. Okay.

SPEAKER_06: 27:46

You could just feel it. Yes.

SPEAKER_05: 27:48

Wow. The first time they here's how it happened. Hey bro, uh, we're cooking uh my mom's cooking dinner, alright? Here's my response. And that's a cue to get the heck out of here, bud. My family's about to eat.

SPEAKER_00: 28:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05: 28:10

I'm not picking, you know, this is what God does. This is what God does. Oh, cool, is what I say. He's like, and he looked over his mom and he's like, Mom, could you eat? And she's like, Yes, me home. Let me now let me tell you right there. So you felt that right there, right? Right? I ain't never been called nothing like that. I didn't know what I'd do. God let me sit down with that family that night. How am I fifty-one years old and can remember that we ate chicken, bro? Wow. And I got a brain injury that I and I have trouble remembering that rent is due again.

SPEAKER_02: 29:36

It was life-changing for you, brother.

SPEAKER_05: 29:41

Oh man.

SPEAKER_02: 29:42

So, anyways, uh because I can tell you from your little bit of your story already, you probably never experienced that.

SPEAKER_05: 29:46

No, man, no. We it was fit for ourselves at our house.

SPEAKER_02: 29:50

You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_05: 29:50

Hopefully, there's something in the fridge.

SPEAKER_02: 29:52

And yeah, you saw something here, like, what the hell is this? Yep. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_05: 29:56

At my house, we're fighting over who gets the hot Taco Bell hot sauce and who gets the onion. Yeah, I mean, because we're eating and then we're learning to share, and then putting the Taco Bell hot sauce and the onion together and eating it like an apple, and me and my sister are cool to get, you know. And uh and it wasn't always like that though, either. You know, I'm not saying it, you but don't that but we lived in a drug field house, you know. We didn't always have food, man. You know what I mean? Overweight has never been my problem, Robbie. You know, man, bro. You don't have it that bad, bro. That's real. I'm telling you, bro, I'm not not in my nature. This is this was not, yeah, this is yeah, this is one right here.

SPEAKER_02: 30:48

Oh Jesus. Yeah. So you have dinner with this family.

SPEAKER_05: 30:51

Oh man. And anyways, so God, whenever that was, uh, started working on me. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06: 30:59

Was that was that something that happened often? Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_05: 31:02

So that's it's still it's still happening, you know. It's still happening.

SPEAKER_02: 31:08

You still in touch you still part of this family?

SPEAKER_04: 31:10

Oh, bro. Come on. There you go, bro.

SPEAKER_02: 31:14

I can tell by the smile on your face that I do know.

SPEAKER_05: 31:17

Yeah, they have saw me through. Wow. Uh they have seen me through a lot. I don't want to, I don't, I don't want to say everything they've seen me through, but you do know that blood makes your relatives.

SPEAKER_02: 31:30

Blood, what? Blood makes your relatives. It doesn't necessarily make your family brother. Yeah, no, no, no. Family is a choice. Family is someone who says, I I I I want to love you. Yeah. Oh, but you know what I mean.

SPEAKER_05: 31:42

They they call me son, brother, uncle, Miho. I mean, they yeah, yeah. Theo, you know, they're they are that's family. It's family, it's family. It's family. But put it this way: I have a family chat that goes off 50 times a day. This family is 30 deep, man. Yeah, amen. And they're letting me in it. Come on. And my little sister. Come on, you know, and it's just it's something else, man. But so I would eat dinner over there, and then I would go back into, you know, my house would be the house that the cops are at. You know, too. Why the cops there? Oh, this, that, this, that. You know, CPS came in, the whole, the whole nine, you know what I mean? Real bad, violent stuff, you know what I mean? Um, oh man. Uh, but anyways, I would, and at in, and yeah, and and I I was safe with this family. Yeah, and and I'll tell you, their son, my best friend, raging alcoholic, man. You know, gun totin, uh, raging alcoholic, but protected by God.

SPEAKER_00: 32:47

Yeah. Because his family was protected by God. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05: 32:52

And so Joel was protected by God just because I was with him. Let me tell you what he was also a golden glove kickboxer. Yeah. So we weren't having no problems on the street. You know what I'm saying?

SPEAKER_07: 33:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05: 33:05

Matter of fact, I only think I fought one time ever being his friend.

SPEAKER_00: 33:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05: 33:13

And he and he's usually fighting at least three to four dudes. And I'm just watching.

SPEAKER_06: 33:17

You know, his reputation proceeded in.

SPEAKER_05: 33:19

Yeah, bro. I put it this way. One time we got into in Mexico, bottles came out, we're breaking bottles over people's heads. Bottle goes over this guy's head that he's fighting. The bottle cuts his arm almost in half in Mexico. Oh, it was treacherous. It was so bad, bro. So bad. But that was why we don't need to get involved. He's like, Yeah, I didn't ask for no help. You know, I had them. One was on the ground, the other one, you know, yeah. It was like, you know, so I didn't need your help, man. And his whole family is like that. They come, they're a family of fighters. All the kids go through either even the sisters are black belt and taekwondo. As kids, they grew up fighting and boxing, yeah, and they're the most gentle family you'd ever imagine. Just don't piss them off. Yeah, you know? Yeah. And it's, you know, or don't hurt anything around them.

SPEAKER_02: 34:10

You know, you know who the most dangerous man is, don't you? The most dangerous man? Most dangerous man is someone that has the ability to kill somebody but can also restrain it. That's right. That's the most dangerous man. Yeah. Because he can rip your head off and he can kill you, but he knows bare hands. He knows the time and the place when to refrain from being such. Yeah. That's the most deadliest man, dude.

SPEAKER_05: 34:30

I don't know. I would say it was the one that does know that he can do that and doesn't know how to restrain it. That's just a fool. But he's dangerous.

SPEAKER_01: 34:40

He's dangerous. You know what I mean? He probably ain't around very long, though. Oh no, you know what he's always saying. I know where they're. I know where they are.

SPEAKER_05: 34:50

Yeah, I've seen him. I I lived with them. I lived with them.

SPEAKER_02: 34:52

Were they were they Catholic?

SPEAKER_05: 34:53

Did he get a Catholic church or just uh so they're they were when I met them, good question. They were uh they were non-denominational. Okay. But uh they grew up uh, you know, but the mom and the dad grew up different religions, you know what I mean? But the the church that that they that they're part of and that I visit with them um is is a non-denominational church. Amen. You know, yeah.

SPEAKER_06: 35:20

Was that the church that you visited when you were a kid? The same church that they're going to now?

SPEAKER_05: 35:25

Yep.

SPEAKER_06: 35:25

Wow.

SPEAKER_05: 35:26

I've been a visiting member there for as long as they have, you know. Yeah. I watched them, I watched that church be built.

SPEAKER_06: 35:32

I love that, buddy. Wow.

SPEAKER_05: 35:34

Yeah. That's beautiful. Yeah, that's why I'm saying God never's never beautiful. There's I mean, yeah, there's cultural aha moments, but yeah, God God's been here the whole time, you know, the whole time. That's the only reason I'm still breathing. Amen, buddy.

SPEAKER_06: 35:47

His grace and mercy.

SPEAKER_05: 35:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 35:49

So how was that contrast growing up, knowing that you could have this these family here, but then you're back at the home? Like, did you conflicting?

SPEAKER_06: 35:57

Because like, like, like he he didn't grow up, he didn't grow up with a guy in a god home. But he knew a family on his street that there's something different about that family. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05: 36:07

Well, and years would go sometimes without me seeing them. Okay. You know, but but now it's not. Now I'm there.

SPEAKER_02: 36:12

But internally, internally with you growing up, was there this conflict of I'd rather be over here and not over here, or did you know that home was horrible and this was really nice? Was there just conflicting contrast within you knowing the difference? Or was home just kind of home, but this was nice over here, you know what I mean? It had to have been conflicting for you, brother, knowing that you could have this peace when you're here, but home is where your family is and it's chaotic and just treacherous, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_04: 36:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 36:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 36:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 36:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05: 36:46

Um Yeah, I didn't I hid everything. Yeah. It wasn't like that. No, no, no. No, it wasn't there was no battle. I hid, I hid it. Nobody knew what was going on at my house. Really? You know. Yeah. I mean they did some they did, but they didn't know what was really. They didn't know the depths. They knew I needed it. They knew that I needed to stay for stay overnight, and I need to stay over for dinner, probably need to come to church with them, but they didn't never ask. Amen. You know? And they didn't always wanted to love it. And they didn't have to, and that's all they did. Yeah, and it didn't matter. It would it wouldn't matter what they wouldn't have said no, you know, they wouldn't have they never have. They're still gonna feed you, yeah, love you. Yeah, yeah. But no, it wasn't like a no, never a so you you said you said that like a decision or anything. There was never a you know, yeah, no, no, no. Amen.

SPEAKER_06: 37:38

You got out of school and you said like 14, 15, 16, you're working these marks and these Johns and stuff with mom, and you said you got in trouble at 15 for grand theft. Yeah, did they try to keep you in jail?

SPEAKER_05: 37:53

Yeah, I did sometime, you know, and I started my little little prison career, you know, as a Kubernetes. Prison career.

SPEAKER_06: 37:59

I don't recommend that. Nah.

SPEAKER_02: 38:01

It's not lucrative.

SPEAKER_05: 38:02

It's not lucrative.

SPEAKER_03: 38:04

Well, actually it is, but temporarily.

SPEAKER_05: 38:09

If your God is money, if your God is money, go to prison. You'll make money of it. You know, straight up. I've made more money in prison than I've ever made out on the streets.

SPEAKER_07: 38:18

That's real.

SPEAKER_05: 38:20

And that's why a lot of people stay in prison. I know. It's easy.

SPEAKER_06: 38:23

It's easy, man. Yeah. It is. It's like a boys' club. Yeah. It's a lot. All right, dude. So what did what does um how long are you locked up for as a juvenile?

SPEAKER_05: 38:38

Uh a year, you know, with a tail on, you know.

SPEAKER_06: 38:43

You're on paper now, now you gotta be responsible.

SPEAKER_05: 38:47

Okay.

SPEAKER_02: 38:47

Um did you get out and go back to moms, or where'd you get out and go to? Just back to the streets.

SPEAKER_05: 38:53

I went to treatment. I went to a she went to prison. I went to uh Really? Yeah.

SPEAKER_06: 38:57

I went to uh got out of juvie and went to a treatment.

SPEAKER_05: 39:00

I went to a boys' ranch in Tennessee. In Tennessee.

SPEAKER_02: 39:03

Tennessee, holy crap. Wow. And here's a trip. Did you ever go by the name Tennessee?

SPEAKER_04: 39:09

No. No?

unknown: 39:10

No. Alright.

SPEAKER_05: 39:11

No. Amen. But I know Tennessee. But I know him. Sounds that sounds from like someone's nickname I remember.

SPEAKER_06: 39:19

No, that is a real dude. It is. He's a friend of mine, yeah. Yes. He's a friend. He's a friend of mine, yeah.

SPEAKER_05: 39:26

His name's Jerry.

SPEAKER_02: 39:28

Amen. Uh but I was out going to Tennessee. Was that?

SPEAKER_05: 39:32

Yeah, yeah. Uh, it was great, man. It was great, but it was weird, you know. And here's the funny thing. Here's the funny thing. I never knew my father, right? And the one who grandma ran off. I mean, he ran off. Yeah. So that was gonna shoot him. So just so you know, that guy ran off and became one of the most successful men. Uh he put it this way, he he's you can't even look him up. He's so successful. He He's private on the internet. Good luck looking him up. He has the same name as me. He's senior. I'm junior. I'm the second. But uh he was on the you know, he's a team he was the team. This is what I've found out, and and I and I knew him for a little while. You know, I did meet him when I was 21, but oh wow, but he he's he he was a knucklehead up until he was like 35, right? And uh turns out that you know the the Sutton side of my family are powerful men in the world, you know. Okay and I you know my my grandfather is Dr. James Bishop Sutton, yeah. And um my great-grandfather is Jay is James Bishop Sutton Sr. Who the school is named for your. I was gonna ask you that when you just bring that together and yeah, so my grandfather, so my grandfather, uh he, if you look him up, he's pretty first open heart surgeon, uh uh worked on uh worked on the Apollo and something other space shuttle, space, space program as a doctor. He was the NASA doctor or where you know the on the space shuttle or whatever program. Yeah. Uh then found out that my father was on the on the the uh he was the team leader for the laser guided missile system. That's a whole nother story. I could tell you how that happened because that happened while I knew him and intercepted a call while while while they were it while they were using this thing and you know, found out the whole story behind it and met, you know, and and got to meet him. And these guys are guys with um uh just I don't I don't know getting too uh anyways, top tier clearance. You know, top tier clearance. We're not supposed to talk about these guys, but anyways, top tier clearance. So I got and and they're my family, right? And so and I'm and I'm hitting them hard with questions, you know. And but of course anyways, but it was just uh anyways, to find out who they were and what they did. And he uh, you know, and and and they're you know, his he's uh I very successful.

SPEAKER_06: 42:14

I see now why your grandma and your grandpa made because with your mom being as young as she was and them coming through that family that they did, that it was it's kind of one of the uh the what do they call the kids that are the the black the black uh it's the kids that are bad in the family.

SPEAKER_00: 42:40

Black sheep?

SPEAKER_06: 42:41

Black sheep. You know what I mean? Mom was literally doing whatever she was doing and and giving the family in this name not a good name.

SPEAKER_05: 42:52

Yep. But here's the thing too, though. This like I said, God's been there the whole time, right? My I what what my grandmother and grandfather on you know my mom's mom and dad, uh you know, they and he was successful in his own right, you know. But what was weird about him after his death, I found he was a 30, you know, he was a a a 33rd degree Mason, okay, which is a 333rd degree Mason, which is the highest Mason you can possibly be. And I don't know if you know anything about that, but I'm not even gonna talk about it. Yeah, but just say that the spiritual warfare in my family. It's real. Was real, real. And I took what I found when I was closing out when I was cleaning out the house over to somebody's house who I knew knows about that. And even he was like, How did you get this? No. Uh don't bring this in my house, you know? Don't bring this in my house.

SPEAKER_07: 43:56

Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_05: 43:56

So I couldn't, and I didn't and he wouldn't read none of it with me, he wouldn't look at none of it with me, and um but it was interesting, real interesting stuff, and I started opening my eyes up to what spiritual warfare looked like and what it is, you know, in the spiritual world, you know, because I knew what my family went through, I saw everything that he did that that my grandfather did, and you know, and it uh I don't really want to get into all of it, right? That really totally good because it's a it's a that's all his story.

SPEAKER_06: 44:31

Yeah, let's stay let's stay on you, man. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 44:34

So we that explains why there's such this cloud of darkness over your life. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06: 44:41

This attack. Ever since you were a kid. I'm serious. I'm serious, but the devil's been trying to take you out.

SPEAKER_02: 44:47

Yeah, yeah. Well, they're working for him. His family's working for him, bro. Absolutely. I don't know if you know what Masons are, but they're demonic, dude. Absolutely. They call themselves spiritual, but actually they're demonic. Yeah, it's very demonic, bro.

SPEAKER_05: 45:03

And here's the other side of that. Go into a certain church in the valley, yeah, and you'll see my family's plaque on the wall as the elders tend deep. Yeah. The founders and elders of one of the biggest church in this valley, one of the oldest churches in this valley, you know. And so I'm getting both sides. Oh, yeah. Right in my house. Yeah. I mean, I'm seeing and even my little sister, I mean, all you know, we're seeing demons for real. Yeah, right. And, you know, my little sisters telling me what they look like. Did you see this one? Did he look like this? And blah, blah, blah, blah. And that's not normal chatter for kids in a household, man. No.

SPEAKER_02: 45:43

No.

SPEAKER_05: 45:44

No. Not normal kids. No. Not a normal household.

SPEAKER_02: 45:47

No.

SPEAKER_05: 45:48

No. And and to be in and I don't know. Yeah. It's just it was a lot, man. It was a lot. It was a lot. And to be able to see it, yeah. And God show it to you. And and and to know that I'm I'm seeing, you know, spiritual world. And you know, I can feel it, see it, and stuff, you know, and and I know it's real. So right? If you if I know there's bad, yeah, I know there's good, but but I but I'm not seeing where that is or what that is. And I know it ain't I sure as hell ain't no church. Nah. You know? That's where I'm that's what I'm being shown right right then and there, you know? Right? Okay, so so how how so the enemies won, right?

SPEAKER_02: 46:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05: 46:30

The enemy's won.

SPEAKER_02: 46:31

The reality is, Joel, if we're being honest with ourselves and you look at the world, like you say, the church as we see it is probably far from the way the church is actually supposed to be. Well, God intended it to be. You know what I mean? We put we put on a great show, we make great buildings, we know all the terminology, we know all the lingo, but the reality, bro, yeah, in the spiritual aspect of things, we are lacking.

SPEAKER_05: 47:00

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 47:01

Uh because here's what I do know those who worship the devil and know demons, uh, there's no question, bro. Yeah, no, no, there's no question who they serve. No, there's no question that that aspect of spirituality is real. Yeah, absolutely it is.

SPEAKER_05: 47:18

And if and if you haven't researched that, I've I had a nice dark period in my life with witches and warlocks. So have I, bro. You know, and and and and sacrifices and all that. But here's the but here's the reality. And there's real power behind that, right?

SPEAKER_02: 47:31

Here's the reality. If you if you were to really pull at Christians and they were to be honest with you, I can almost guarantee you 90% of them would be like, eh, I'm not sure. I'm not sure if that aspect of what we're dealing with in the spiritual realm is actually really real.

SPEAKER_06: 47:47

Because they've never looked evil in the face.

SPEAKER_02: 47:51

When you've been where we're because if you have to look evil in the face, then you have to stand up and do something. Yeah. And people don't want to do that. So they just that's good. Uh that doesn't, it's not affecting me. It doesn't, it doesn't affect me personally, so I'll just leave it over.

SPEAKER_01: 48:05

The reality is is until it hits your home.

SPEAKER_02: 48:07

It's real. Yeah, yeah. Spiritual warfare is real. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. When when the when the when the archangel, I think it was Michael, was talking about how he had to battle demons to get to a be able to tell a message to somebody and it delayed him a week. Yeah, we don't read that and think, oh, that's a cool story. Through the third heaven. That means there are things within our scene that we cannot see that are really taking place, wars and battles that we in our comfy little chairs cannot really see because if we actually saw that, then we would know that we gotta do something, we gotta fight.

SPEAKER_05: 48:41

Yeah, you know what I mean? Yeah, I asked for that. I I asked for that sight and vision, you know what I mean? Oh, yeah. You know.

SPEAKER_06: 48:49

So what was what was this uh Tennessee voice?

SPEAKER_05: 48:52

Yeah, it was cool, man.

SPEAKER_06: 48:53

What was that? It was uh how'd you how'd you find out about that? How'd you get out there? Oh I love you, Daddy. He's like, man, that was a great rabbit trail. I like that. He loves the rabbit trail, man. I'm the one that's gonna keep us on track here.

SPEAKER_01: 49:09

I can talk about I can talk about that stuff, brother. I can talk about that stuff all day long.

SPEAKER_02: 49:14

Yeah, because it's real, but I don't I don't know. But yeah, what was Tennessee like for you, brother, when you went there? It was great. So how did you get from Arizona to Tennessee? That's what I want to know. That's interesting.

SPEAKER_05: 49:24

Did the state of Arizona say, hey, we're gonna ship you here? Yeah, it was a um it was no, it was a choice.

SPEAKER_02: 49:31

Did your family be like, hey, we're sending you to Tennessee?

SPEAKER_05: 49:34

Uh we did get the choice of it. Uh it was, I think, I think it was, you know, it was treatment. It was was my plea agreement. Yeah. Um and uh I really don't know, man, how I got there. Okay. I don't know.

unknown: 49:49

What was it?

SPEAKER_05: 49:50

But I know she like got an insurance bill for it and never paid for it. It was so much. It was like$7,500 a month. I was there for thirty like like I don't know. I was there a long time. I was there for over a year. Yeah, I was there for over a year, you know what I mean? But but this place was cool.

SPEAKER_02: 50:09

It was it was uh Was it a Christian-based program or no?

SPEAKER_05: 50:13

Uh I don't know. It was called Peninsula Hospital. It was the second rated hospital in the in the nation at the time.

SPEAKER_06: 50:20

For treatment.

SPEAKER_05: 50:21

For treatment, yeah for adolescent treatment. Okay, and uh and funny thing there, so I'm I'm I go there, you know, it's really cool program set up. Uh they have officer candidates that are military guys that are the counselors uh that are from the military base right there. Okay. And um you go there, you have no water, no electricity, you build the cabin that you sleep in, you're there with 15 guys, those are your group. It's a Native American Indian medicine wheel, uh, where you have the the the mouse, the the the mouse, the bear, the eagle, and the buffalo, and um you you your treatment runs through that. Through the native American through the cycle of that. Uh so you learn you learned all type of stuff like that, you know. Um we learned all kinds of stuff. We did sweat lodges and all that. Um but it was really cool. Anyway, we what you learned vocational. That's where I started my vocation stuff, and I learned to build, you know, and um as a kid, you know, and um, but I yeah, I was in the middle of the Smoky Mountains uh in in uh uh uh Louisville, uh Tennessee. Nice, not Louisville, Kentucky, but Louisville, Tennessee. Um, yeah, but really cool place, man. Really cool place. Uh I was the youngest kid there. Um you were fresh out of juby. You were what? I was no 15. Just turned 15. You were just a kid. Just turned 15. Okay. Yep. Uh I I want to say I went to Juby after that. After that.

SPEAKER_06: 51:58

Yeah, after that, I think. Yeah. So you were over in Tennessee at the camp for 13 months or so? A year, yeah. Okay. A little over a year. And what'd you do when you got done with Tennessee? Come back.

SPEAKER_05: 52:09

I want to say I came back here and went to jail. Yeah. I yeah. Uh yeah, I got I was sober, but uh cars. Living in the hood, you know what I mean? Living in the hood, going back to what I never let's go cruising, and we didn't have nothing to cruise, so we stole we stole. I got you, guys. We started stealing cars, you know? And that was a deal. But um, yeah, you know, yeah, so then how long do you do in your second case?

SPEAKER_06: 52:41

How long would because you went you went, you got locked up, you got in trouble, and then you went out to Tennessee, you came back, you got in trouble again. No, I think no, see that's Tennessee first. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05: 52:54

I got in trouble, but I didn't go to jail yet. Okay. Yeah, I got in trouble, but I gotta do treatment first. Yes, treatment and then. Hopefully this will work for you. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 53:02

And then I yeah, messed up, but yeah.

SPEAKER_05: 53:04

So, but uh uh, you know, then I yeah, then I went through a couple years of real heavy drug use.

SPEAKER_06: 53:11

I was gonna say, so you're using drugs as a teenager.

SPEAKER_05: 53:14

You're getting Oh, I'm an intervenous drug. I'm I'm I got hep C at 15, caught it from my mom, you know. Yeah, we're sharing needles, the whole nine, yeah.

SPEAKER_06: 53:22

Are you are you talking heroin, meth?

SPEAKER_05: 53:25

All of it.

SPEAKER_02: 53:25

Okay, yeah. Wow, bro. Yeah. And that laugh is whatever you can get your hands on, brother.

SPEAKER_06: 53:29

A garbage pail. Just give me a high.

SPEAKER_05: 53:32

But yeah, heron and meth every day, though. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06: 53:35

One to wake up and one to help sleep. I don't mean to laugh, bro. It's just real. Yeah. I've been there, dude. I know, I know what it's like, man. Yep. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 53:48

So I love you, Joel.

SPEAKER_02: 53:52

I love you, buddy.

SPEAKER_04: 53:53

Thank you, man. I feel that.

SPEAKER_02: 53:55

I'm glad you're I'm glad you're still here, dude. Yeah. Yeah. I'm sitting there listening and I'm just like, I'm sorry, bro. I really am. I'm sorry you had to go through all that, brother. I really am. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_05: 54:11

You know, it didn't seem that bad, dude.

SPEAKER_02: 54:13

I know, but you know, it really didn't. But if you sit here now, look back, I can tell on your face the hurt.

SPEAKER_05: 54:18

Oh, really? You know, and I want to say that too, you guys, but you you gotta understand this. I I am, I'm rough around the edges. I'm rough around the edges in my looks, in my appearance, and the way I carry myself. What do you mean? You're quite handsome, dude. You're a good looking fella, bro. But I mean and and and in my words, even, you know, they they cut sometimes, but you don't know the demons I'm fighting, man, and that I've fought. Yeah, I'm rough around the edges, but you just see some of the dudes that whoop my hat, you know. You know, I mean, straight up. Amen. And that still that I get in the ring with. Yeah, they ain't nothing nice, man. They ain't nothing nice. So I stay like this. Yeah, and it's and it works, and it's fine, you know. But everyone that's in my life and that's around me definitely knows I love them. And that's all they and that's all they feel from me, you know. Can I ask you a question? Yeah. Do you know that you're loved? Oh, absolutely. That's the only reason I love. All right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's and that's what, you know, I I don't I here's my claim to fame, man. It ain't that I love God, it's that he loves me. Amen, buddy.

unknown: 55:27

Amen.

SPEAKER_05: 55:28

It definitely ain't contingent on my love for him, man. Amen. He loved me before I did any of all this stuff, before what I'm before any of the good stuff I'm gonna do, you know, shoulda, woulda, coulda. Don't matter, man. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_02: 55:42

Amen.

SPEAKER_05: 55:42

I believe he treats me like I'm his favorite, man. That's what I believe. You know what I mean? And that's how I walk around, you know? And you know, yeah, he, you know, and I do it in love, though, man. And because guess what? He tells me they're all my favorite. He tells me I tell you I tell them all that. Yeah, I'm your favorite? Yep. Yeah. I tell them all that. Amen, brother. Yeah, amen.

SPEAKER_02: 56:08

So you like so you're like 15, 16, get out of juby, you're back, you go back to moms.

SPEAKER_05: 56:15

No, we're we're in anything. You go back to the streets. Yeah, we're uh I don't know.

SPEAKER_02: 56:20

Did you have somewhere that you went? I mean, is there somewhere as a kid that you're gonna go? Where I go, where I go, where'd I go?

SPEAKER_05: 56:25

I mean, I'm in and out of nowhere now I'm starting to get renting places and stuff. But oh no, actually, 17 mom was in prison. I get signed over to my first halfway house. I had to have a legal guardian sign me over to this halfway house in Mesa. That's what I did at 17. Started getting sober in Mesa, and uh uh got under some guardianship of this big black dude, you know, yeah, a couple of them actually. Yeah. And a Dominican Republic dude. All right, yeah, okay, and they were gangsters, bro. They were gangsters. One was from North Philly and the other one was from uh Kensing or someplace in New Jersey anyways, they were tough dudes, man, right? I got signed over into their care by another tough dude that was just helping my mom, helping me stay out of the court system, yeah, you know, helping me see help helping me not end up in prison. They knew I was out on the streets.

SPEAKER_02: 57:34

Yeah, and they knew where you were heading. Yep, yeah, yep, yeah. They were trying to looking out for mom.

SPEAKER_05: 57:41

Yeah, you know, they were looking out for mom, I think, man. Okay, and uh and and then of course God, you know, so I'm living in this halfway house, underage, being taught God through AA. You know? Yeah. And um so I'm learning a different perspective of God, you know. People are, you know, calling it different things and da da da, and it's and then there's you know, and now I'm being opened up to uh uh other people's opinions and experiences with who they think God is, you know. And so I I get uh into this mystical world of confusion, you know, and end up going in and out of AA for many years, you know, my my whole life, you know.

SPEAKER_06: 58:27

Even to this day, I'm yeah, you just said last year you were on an AA speaking circuit.

SPEAKER_05: 58:32

Yeah, yeah. So I'm you know, three and a half years sober into this, but it's taken me 51 years to get that. Amen, bro.

SPEAKER_06: 58:41

Amen. And better late than never, bro. Yeah, well, it's not my goal anymore.

SPEAKER_05: 58:46

It's not my goal. I don't even it's not that's not even that's just a side effect of my life now. I'm not I don't I don't hold on a day at a time, really. I I really I mean I do a day at a time, but I don't think about drinking or doing drugs. Amen. You know, that's how you know when you're on the when it's not the thought, it's not the craving. I don't have cravings, I don't have, you know.

SPEAKER_02: 59:07

Again, a customer's car today smells straight like weed. And I'm just like, oh God, really? Oh my people just drive around smoking in their cars like it's no big deal. You know what I mean? And it's just like, oh God. I'm like, I don't miss that at all. I don't miss any of that. Yeah, you know what I mean? I really don't. It smelled good, yeah, but I also know what comes with it, you know what I mean? And I'm like, I don't miss that. Yeah. I miss being right in my head and free. Yeah, there you go.

SPEAKER_06: 59:36

Waking up in the morning, okay. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_02: 59:39

Yeah, yeah. But anyway, so you're in this halfway house and you're doing trying to do good.

SPEAKER_05: 59:45

Um, where am I at? Yeah, oh yeah. And I'm starting to have a real connection with God, man. I'm learning it through the steps of AA.

SPEAKER_06: 59:51

Are you working?

SPEAKER_05: 59:52

And um, I couldn't, I don't think I could work at the time. I was like, I was doing, I was trying to oh, somebody got me on a construction crew again. Yeah, I started framing houses. Yeah. I just I started framing houses.

SPEAKER_06: 1:00:03

So this has been something you've just been doing for a while. What? Framing and construction and working. Oh, I've done I've done it.

SPEAKER_05: 1:00:10

I've built houses my whole life. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I've been doing everything. Painting is just the easiest thing I picked. Yeah. I can do a lot. Yeah. Painting is the most profit, least amount of work, pretty much. But easy, but now that and that's changed now because when you get good at it, it's different. It's it's a whole different game now. And then now learning to create a company to support other people's and other people's families and other people's livelihood. Come on. That's the position I'm in now. Amen. And so my thoughts and actions are not for myself and my own gain and motives. They're how can I better serve God and the people about me? So good. And if I'm a and I'm in I'm in a position to do that to him who does not do good when he knows when he knows he he's to do it, to him that is sin. Okay. So what sin might look like for me might not look like for you, but I'm sitting in a spot right now where God's saying, Here's the keys, buddy. Here's the keys. Okay? And I you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_06: 1:01:22

If I am I gonna Yeah, so I don't know. You're gonna do what I'm calling you to do. Yep, yeah, yeah. Obedience, bud. Yeah, it's uh I don't know.

SPEAKER_05: 1:01:36

Uh-huh. It's uh it's something else, man.

SPEAKER_06: 1:01:38

I know and this is so this is the late, this is the early 90s. We're talking about when you're out and you're under the guardianship of these guys. Yeah. And you work in construction. Early nineties, yep.

SPEAKER_05: 1:01:52

Okay, yep, eighty-eight, eighty-nine, ninety, yep, absolutely, yep. Yep, and uh, and I had a good bout, man. I I did sobriety there, put many years together, uh manager of a halfway house, doing good, got married, you know, AA power couple, we're going, you know, we're going strong. Wow, she gets pregnant, boom, miscarries, something happens, something weird, da da da da. I I relapse and cancel Christmas, you know, I'm done. Uh after so many so Yeah, after many years, yep. After many years of building a life and um my mom getting out of prison, coming to my wedding, uh or actually she didn't make it to the wedding, but but coming, meeting my meeting my bride, you know, meeting, you know, and and meeting their family, and even though she was all messed up, but da da da uh you know, whatever. She she g she got to get out and see that I was doing, I was sober. And but then I fell, you know.

SPEAKER_06: 1:02:51

You said you had a kid?

SPEAKER_05: 1:02:53

She got she got a miscarriage, yeah. She had a miscarriage.

SPEAKER_06: 1:02:56

Is that kind of maybe what helped in a relapse?

SPEAKER_05: 1:02:59

No, maybe, I don't know. Okay. I don't know. I don't know, maybe I'll probably all of it. Yeah, okay. Maybe all of a lot all at one time, brother. So this is what I've learned in my spiritual journey, and that's what I'm on. You know, um it's exactly what it is.

SPEAKER_06: 1:03:16

Yeah. Spiritual journey with Jesus.

SPEAKER_02: 1:03:19

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Amen. Yeah. So you relapse, is that just saying you've spent out of control for a long time?

SPEAKER_05: 1:03:26

Or uh wait, what'd you say?

SPEAKER_02: 1:03:29

When you said you relapsed after the miscarriage and all that other stuff. Oh, I'm out.

SPEAKER_05: 1:03:32

I went out of control. Yeah, the the the the dude uh he sent me back to North Philly to do a geographical. Uh it was not good.

SPEAKER_04: 1:03:42

Yeah, it wasn't good, man.

SPEAKER_02: 1:03:43

That only works if you're ready.

SPEAKER_05: 1:03:44

You don't send a kid, you don't send a kid, you know, from Maryville to North Philly. It was like I went from one, I went from the backyard to the front yard. You know, it was like what what this was it was all bad, man. It was all bad. It went bad, it went bad real quick. Uh yeah, stuff happened there. Anyways, but I so I came back here, but um, and then you know, started my prison. Uh is there any any church in any of these? Oh, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_06: 1:04:14

Oh, you're going.

SPEAKER_05: 1:04:14

You're still so every now and then you I'm living in churches, bro. They're my homeless shelters. Yeah, I grew up in churches. I was sleeping in their basements and and and all the black churches down on Van Buren. I know all the pastors, bro. Elder Glass. I know, I mean, they're yeah, I they they all take me in, bro. I slept in all them them church front houses on Van Buren and McDowell. Yeah, I've slept on all of those front porches, front rooms, on couches, and all those pastors know me. Yeah, I yeah, I've been baptized, you know, uh evidence speaking in tongues and all that, all that uh religious stuff. Yeah, totally, man. Yeah, very subject to everyone's religion, you know. Well you just said everyone's opinion of God. Religious stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And and here's the thing about that, that might be a lot more damaging than we think, man. Because I know when I did finally get locked up in prison and finally said, I'm gonna do this for myself, and went to Liberty University for theology, you know. Uh one of my favorite lines in in the Bible uh was was uh lack of knowledge will be the death of my people. Not your sin, not your this, not your that, you're you just don't know, man. Right. And then you know, and then you know, and I know it's my my opinion, my belief, my whatever. Uh but I also have a lot of research done in in in, you know, and you got a lot of life experience. I do, man. You know, my mom around the block with my mom. My mom, you know, my mom being a tarot, you know, the the tarot card, the the whole that the her whole deal growing up. And then I had I had the church and I had grandparents. I had I had I had I had I had I had all kinds of spiritual stuff going on. I had the church, I had demonic cult, I had uh uh mom's crystals and and beads and jewelry and and and tarot cards and and you know Would you say all that left you more confused than anything? I don't know what it is. I I would say it it let me have a nice, pretty, full spiritual experience. Yeah, you know, yeah, because what my life looks like today is a combination of all of that. Yeah. You know?

SPEAKER_02: 1:06:35

One of my favorite Bible verses is it says that the spirit of truth will come and he will lead you into all. Yeah, that Holy Spirit, man. Amen. Thank you, God. I'm thankful that I didn't grow up in church. I'm thankful I didn't have all that influence in my life like you did, brother. Because when I started my journey, uh when God I feel like God called me out of darkness into his beautiful light, I came with a fresh light. I didn't have no preset opinions or all these different voices in my ear, you know what I mean? So I came with a clean slate of I just want to know the truth. You know what I mean? And I just started seeking and I didn't seek God at first. My first experience was uh uh Odinism. Also true. Some people call it, you know what I mean? Uh the methodical gods, you know what I mean? Oh yeah. But I went through all that and I didn't Yeah, I studied all that. Yeah, there wasn't nothing there for me, dude. To me, it was just uh all I did was bed my anger. Yeah. You know what I mean? And uh yeah. It wasn't until I picked up my Bible, started reading my Bible that I actually started feeling peace, started having joy in my life. You know what I mean? Yeah.

SPEAKER_05: 1:07:42

I could pick apart all the other stuff. You know, I I it's easy to, you know. And I even did it with Christianity, you know what I mean? Because I I stuck you know, I got get in arguments and fights with skinheads and and talking, you know, and and I and it took their their shape.

SPEAKER_02: 1:07:56

Well see, they tried to they tried to lead me to uh the Christian identity movement.

SPEAKER_05: 1:08:00

Yeah, of course, yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 1:08:01

You know what I mean? Where white man is God's children. I'm life. Yeah. But it was so so I'm we're from the same background, brother. And I'm in prison and I have no God, but I know that there's something outside of myself I need to seek and find, right? Because I'm at the same time.

SPEAKER_05: 1:08:20

Oh my god, you just confused me. We're not from the same background. You just said you didn't grow up. No, no, no. No, no, no, no.

SPEAKER_02: 1:08:25

Talk about prison and that kind of history when you come from that kind of same background. Um but I knew I was at this crossroad of either go all into prison politics or find something outside of myself because everything in me said go this way, but there was something that was saying, hey, there's something outside of yourself you need to find. And so I made this decision to start seeking for something outside of myself, you know what I mean? And uh so when they started feeding me that Christian identity movement stuff, they you know Is that the name of it? It's what it's called Christian identity. Christian identity movement, yeah. But they're good at propaganda. Yeah, you know that, you know what I mean? Yeah, I pushed it. I pushed it, I was learned it, pushed it, uh, enforced it. Yeah, yeah. But they would, but they would hand me all this paperwork and it was like printed out paperwork, right? And it was all their theology, Bible verse, all their theology, Bible verse, all their you know what I mean? Yeah, and I'm like, and this is where this is where the enemy made a mistake. I'm like, okay, if they're quoting Bible verses, I gotta get me a Bible and read these verses. Enemy's first mistake, he let me get my hands on a Bible. You know what I mean? So I started reading my Bible and I'm reading these verses, but something tells me, don't just read that, read the whole the whole story, the whole context. So I started reading the whole context of what they're trying to say. And it was so confusing to me. Wait a minute, you say we we're we hate Jews, but yet we're worshiping this man who clearly was a Jew. You know what I mean? It's like, so how can what you're saying? And I just upon that I said, you know what? I'm just gonna read my Bible. You know what I mean? And I did, I just started reading my Bible and threw all that other crap away and just I realized that they were all full of crap, that they were pushing some propaganda lies that I didn't want. I just I just wanted truth, and that's all I cared about. Yeah, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_05: 1:10:05

Yeah, yeah. Totally.

SPEAKER_02: 1:10:07

Yeah. You want to talk about your prison time, or is that something you want to get into?

SPEAKER_05: 1:10:14

I I can, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_06: 1:10:15

Well, you you meet this lady and you you get married and you have this time in recovery and sobriety. How long was that time? I don't know. A few years?

unknown: 1:10:28

Okay.

SPEAKER_05: 1:10:29

Five, six, seven years.

SPEAKER_06: 1:10:30

Oh wow. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, you had some time under your belt. Yeah, okay. Said he was doing his thing, brother. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05: 1:10:36

At least five. I don't know, at least five years or whatever. Yeah. So late. At least five, yeah.

SPEAKER_06: 1:10:40

Late late 20s, you life freaking takes a dump. Twenty later. Three, yeah.

SPEAKER_05: 1:10:46

I think twenty-two, you know.

SPEAKER_02: 1:10:48

Okay.

SPEAKER_05: 1:10:49

Seemed like.

SPEAKER_02: 1:10:49

What was what what was the first time you went to prison? What year was that?

SPEAKER_05: 1:10:52

99, 2000.

SPEAKER_02: 1:10:54

Yeah, so that's right around the red.

SPEAKER_06: 1:10:56

So you got one of those O Dog numbers, bro. 15478.

SPEAKER_01: 1:11:01

Oh, I got a zero in front of mine, bud. He steps out of the yard. Here's the keys, bud. Jesus. I don't step on yards. Amen. Unless I'm going to share unless I'm going to share the gospel. There you go.

SPEAKER_06: 1:11:14

That's the only way you're gonna get me on a prison yard again, buddy. Yeah, thank God for new life, guys.

SPEAKER_05: 1:11:19

Yeah, no doubt, no doubt. I did get to go into prison pretty recently. It was cool. It was a trip, man. I shook the whole time. Right. But it was good, man.

SPEAKER_02: 1:11:27

It was good. I remember the first time I went to the jail with Tracy Kobak. Oh, yeah. Yeah. It was Towers Gail, bro. Place I was locked up. And uh, so we go into the little we were in TC.

SPEAKER_06: 1:11:39

Yeah. And Tracy came in and I connected him with Tracy and got him in. Yeah. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 1:11:44

But we go into this area, right? And give him my ID. All right, I step through this door, clang.

SPEAKER_06: 1:11:50

I'm like, are they gonna let me out here?

SPEAKER_02: 1:11:52

My mom, I'm like, this just got real. I'm like, they just claimed the door. I'm in, I'm in. You know what I mean? And uh, oh god, I hope they let me back out. It's a real struggle, man. I got to go in and share my story, man. And the minute I walked back out those doors and they had my my ID again. Yeah, you talk about the most liberating feeling I've ever had, bro. I just literally walked into a jail, free man, shared my story, and turned around and walked right back out. Yep. Liberating, dude.

SPEAKER_05: 1:12:20

Yep, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, totally. I love it. I I I I want to go back to prison any chance I get, man. I like I want to go back there. Really? Oh, hell yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 1:12:28

You go back in and share wow. Yeah, I've been working on that one because I haven't been to the prisons yet. But I I don't know. The avenue that is presented to me to do that, I don't want to do that.

SPEAKER_05: 1:12:39

Huh?

SPEAKER_02: 1:12:40

The avenue that I have that's presented to me to go in there, I don't want to do that avenue.

SPEAKER_05: 1:12:44

Oh, really? Yeah, I understand that. Yeah, I got a great, yeah, that's I hear you on that. Yeah, I want to go to a nice avenue.

SPEAKER_02: 1:12:50

I want to go in and share the gospel. I don't want to go in and share someone's programs. Oh, really? Yeah, yeah. I want to go in and preach the word. I don't want to go in and be like, oh, I'm here with this particular program and this is what we have to do.

SPEAKER_05: 1:13:00

We just get to go in and talk about our experience. Come on, that's what we get to do. And we get to go to the the straight slam down gang, gang, gang yard, you know what I mean? Where all the where all the fellows are, and that's where and it's and it's something else, bro. It's unbelievable. I need to talk to you about that. Can you get us on that team? Probably not.

SPEAKER_02: 1:13:19

I was doing I was doing one-on-ones in Fourth Avenue, brother. Wow. And I was getting people that were coming.

SPEAKER_05: 1:13:25

Yeah, I couldn't do nothing like that.

SPEAKER_02: 1:13:26

I was coming back. I can't do that. I had people who were coming back from prison to go to trial because they did something in prison and they were in Fourth Avenue. Yeah. And I'm talking to like dudes who are never getting out. And I'm sharing gospel with these people. Yeah. And you talk about like thank you, God. Like just an all moment of God that here I am talking to convicted murderers who are never gonna see the light of day, but able to share the gospel with them, that they may be heading to a death sentence, you know what I mean? And be able to share the gospel with them. Dude, I'll I'll never forget that time. It was beautiful. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_06: 1:14:06

From death to life, yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 1:14:07

Yeah, I do. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06: 1:14:10

I love that though. So you you you're talking about your uh your prison time.

SPEAKER_02: 1:14:16

Yes, your mind's working, brother. What do you got? Oh, I mean, I see I see you reliving something where we go. I do, yeah.

SPEAKER_05: 1:14:25

I do that. That's part of my life today. That's what I do. You know what I mean? I talk to them, that's what I do. You know what I mean? That's what I do that. You know, I it's important. All the important stuff in my life today, man.

SPEAKER_02: 1:14:36

You know what that is, don't you? That's redemption, man.

SPEAKER_01: 1:14:39

Redemption.

SPEAKER_06: 1:14:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 1:14:41

We talk about this redeeming God. Yeah. We talk about this redeeming God and how God is He's He's our Redeemer. We sing the song, our Redeemer. You know what I mean? Yeah. You literally are living out that redemption. Redemption in your life. The same places that God meant for evil that you probably had some horrible experiences with and and things like that, that now you get to go back and share light with that's redemption. Come on, buddy. That's God saying, Hey, I see your mess, and I'm gonna take it and I'm gonna turn it into this message, and I'm gonna send you back to those same areas that the enemy meant for evil, and I'm gonna put you back there, and you're gonna share my love and my my light with people. That's redemption, bro.

SPEAKER_05: 1:15:19

It's yeah, my my life is like that. It's it's it's incredible that what I what I get to do, man. It's a gift. Yeah, it is.

SPEAKER_02: 1:15:26

It's a gift, it's great. It's great. The enemy tried to take us out, bro. Yeah, and the fact that we get to go back and do that, that's a gift. Cherish it. Yeah, come on, including it. Seriously, cherish it, bro. Listen to me. I live it every day, bro. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_05: 1:15:41

Yeah, you're acting, you're telling me like I ain't, man. I just want to make sure you are, brother. That's all.

SPEAKER_02: 1:15:47

Trust me, it's cherished. Yeah. Yeah. So you're like late to late 90s, 2000s, man. You find yourself going to doll prison.

SPEAKER_05: 1:15:56

Yeah, I go in there.

SPEAKER_02: 1:15:58

What was the first yard you were on?

SPEAKER_05: 1:15:59

Uh you remember that? Yeah, I'm not, yeah, but I don't want to talk about it.

SPEAKER_02: 1:16:06

No.

SPEAKER_05: 1:16:07

Yeah, no, no, no, no.

SPEAKER_02: 1:16:08

I went to I went to Aspen. You remember Aspen? No. So right where Alhambra was? Uh huh. There was Alhambra, the nut house, and right next to it was Aspen. It was a DUI prison. It was right there on 24th of Bam Buren, right? And it was a little DUI prison. That was the first prison I went to. We used to sit there and watch them set up people on Bam Buren trying to pick up tricks, you know what I mean? Yeah. And getting arrested.

SPEAKER_00: 1:16:30

They were yelling, don't do it.

SPEAKER_02: 1:16:32

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05: 1:16:33

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, you can see that whole avenue right there. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 1:16:38

Because they had that what was the rec field or whatever for the nut house that had the track right there off of Bam Buren. Yeah, yeah. And that's where all the people from the nut house would go out there and do their walks and stuff. Right. And we would be yelling. Yeah. That was my first one. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06: 1:16:51

Um, yeah, we don't have to use names or anything like that.

SPEAKER_05: 1:16:55

Yeah, but I'm what I'm thinking is if I start saying names, I'll start saying all kinds of names. So that'll just get me, I want to stay out with the names. That's the only reason, bro. Totally. But it was it was it was a Florence, though, you know what I mean? Like, but I'm gonna I'm gonna not name names because I'll start I'll start popping names. And I am I'm trying to stay away from that. So tell us tell us more about your experience than names. Uh weird thing is I you know I went through because for me, prison was fun, bro.

SPEAKER_02: 1:17:19

I'm not gonna lie. Really? If we're gonna sit here and talk about be real and be honest, I enjoyed my time in prison. I thought it was fun.

SPEAKER_05: 1:17:25

That's why you kept going back.

SPEAKER_02: 1:17:27

I thought it was fun.

SPEAKER_05: 1:17:28

Totally not my experience. No, no, but I died in prison. So no, no. Wow, yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 1:17:34

And and amongst other things, though, part of me did, but not not not physically.

SPEAKER_05: 1:17:38

No, I physically did, yeah. Really? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, this whole side of my face is fake. I got three titanium plates, 65 screws, traumatic brain injury, damn, bro, loss of vision, had to learn to walk and talk again. Damn, you know, PTSD for the rest of my life is is you know, is uh and memory loss, um and the whole everything that I've been recovering from, anyway. But that was a bad deal. Yeah, it was a bad deal, bro. Prison really ended real badly for me. It didn't end that way, but I mean it if I look at the whole 10-year span, yeah, it it it it it was just it was a I ended up on death row for 13 months. Wow, you know, not arrested on the street to go in there like that. Yeah, shouldn't have been on there, yeah, but that's why I was, man. Wow, you know, and that that did a number on me, man. Mentally.

SPEAKER_02: 1:18:30

Mentally, you know, and I I spent a year in SMU by myself in a cell. I know what that's like, brother. You're talking about they said that stuff mess with it messes with you, dude. Isolation, it messes with you, bro. Yeah, the mind will play tricks on you. Yeah, yeah. I drew myself on the on the concrete wall so I could have somebody to talk to. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05: 1:18:50

I do pictures every you know, every couple of times, you know, I'd do a new, you know, big old palm tree, sunset, and every ocean with the little sand dune, yeah, and then and then then I'd do a mountain scene. Have I wanted to go camping? I'd make me a little campsite, you know. Absolutely, dude. Make a swimming pool out of your property. Actually, the best time I did was in solitary confinement as far as like like what I learned about myself. Remember the hardest time though. Remember the plastic property boxes? Yeah, the bathtub.

SPEAKER_01: 1:19:19

Yeah. Summertime. Summertime, you're just filling it up so you can cool off. Laying in their butt naked in your little tub off. Come on, man. I'm like, just keep rolling, dude.

SPEAKER_02: 1:19:33

I'm in my pool. Yeah. Yeah. I did some things in there, brother. I'd yeah. Yeah, I can't believe I would let myself resort to that kind of stuff. But yeah, I did some things and is not proud of it.

SPEAKER_05: 1:19:46

I went to a lot of therapy uh dealing with my experience of prison, man. Yeah. Okay? Because there's not a racist bone in my body, man. Right. I I meant to say that when I'm growing up too. The funny the funny thing One of the you know, when I and we skipped a lot of my story, a lot of it, you know, because it's just too it's too much, but it's funny that uh w growing up the way I did, you know, and I grew up in a predominantly black and Mexican neighborhood.

SPEAKER_06: 1:20:14

Uh you know, the pimp was black, your best friend was black, the family that with the church was mixed up.

SPEAKER_05: 1:20:22

Everything, yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 1:20:22

And I just I was not racist, man.

SPEAKER_05: 1:20:25

When I went to prison, it was born and bred into me. That's right. And I took I bit on, went and earned my ink, did the whole deal, was living this lie, you know, that I wasn't that wasn't me, man. Yeah, and so I had lost myself. I used to be a professional dancer for a rap group, a break dancer, a popper, locker, tumbling, flips, all this stuff, right? And we we traveled with multiple famous rap groups and and and MC Hammer and uh a lot of big groups, you know. Um and uh but yeah, and and I I have not danced since I've been out of prison, man.

SPEAKER_00: 1:21:06

Wow, you know, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05: 1:21:09

And I do a little bit here and there. You know, it's I'm things are changed now. I'm a change man now, but I I'm just saying that I used to get paid to dance. And after prison, bro. If you got the money, if you got some money, bro. I'm a professional dancer, bro. I will put your dance, but you love your date button.

SPEAKER_01: 1:21:33

I love you, buddy. Yeah, I love you, man.

SPEAKER_06: 1:21:35

Yeah, yeah. Isn't that crazy how just going behind the walls like that and being surrounded by those people that we were surrounded by, how that hate just gets inside of us. It just said inside of us, man, and then it just becomes this thing in you where it's just like well, see, here's the here's the thing, though.

SPEAKER_02: 1:21:57

Here's the thing about prison, bro. Whether you're racist or not, there's rules that you have to abide by. And yeah, if you don't, you find yourself in a situation where you could possibly get hurt. You know what I mean? And so whether you are or not, by the time you get out of there, there's a little bit of hate, not hate, but the separation that takes place because oh, the segregation, you mean?

SPEAKER_06: 1:22:21

Yeah, man.

SPEAKER_02: 1:22:22

Not that you hate them, but I can't talk to you, bro, because if I do and someone takes it the wrong way, I'm over here and have to fend for my life because they think I'm a race traitor or whatever. And so now I gotta go kill this guy or beat this guy up because I'm gonna protect my you know what I mean? And it's just it's a lot, bro.

SPEAKER_06: 1:22:39

And I there's people that are listening or watching this that have never been in prison and have no comprehension of what that life is.

SPEAKER_02: 1:22:48

Prison prison will let you see what you are capable of. Oh, yeah. That's for damn sure.

SPEAKER_06: 1:22:53

Yeah, how far you can go.

SPEAKER_02: 1:22:55

I never thought taking someone's life was a possibility until I went to prison. Then it became a reality that your life has no value to me, and I can take it in a heartbeat if I feel it's necessary. You know what I mean? And that's not me. I didn't grow up that way. I grew up thinking that life had value. But yeah, you're put in a situation where it's you or me, and now your life no longer has value, but mine does. Yeah, I'm willing to take yours because I want to live. So if it's me or you, it's definitely not gonna be me. So I'm gonna take your life if I have to. That's real, buddy. And when the reality is that that is a possibility, and you find yourself physically harming somebody that you know what I mean. It's you learn a lot what you're capable of. That you don't that you don't realize that you're capable of. Yeah, you know what I mean? Nobody thinks you're capable of murder until it's put before them and that's you or me. You know what I mean? Then it becomes a reality that I I can take this man's life. That scares the shit out of me. I didn't know I was capable of that until I was presented with the opportunity and it was him or me, and then it was like, I could possibly take this man's life right now.

SPEAKER_06: 1:24:01

Or like I don't know how far you want to get into it, but or when you have power and you can place an order on someone else's life. Yeah, I can't tell you how many people I've had smashed.

SPEAKER_02: 1:24:14

You know what I mean? Just because of whatever.

SPEAKER_05: 1:24:17

Like I said, lots of therapy, you guys. Yeah, lots of therapy it took. It took real buddy, it took eight months of intensive therapy every week, horse therapy, EMDR therapy.

SPEAKER_06: 1:24:27

Oh, you did EMDR.

SPEAKER_05: 1:24:28

Oh, yeah. I don't I've done every I've done CBT, CBT.

SPEAKER_06: 1:24:32

Remember, Nate Nate was on here and he talked about it. It's it's like rewires your brain. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. So check this out, man. This week, I get a phone call from this number in NorCal. I'm like, hello? And I get it. Hi, my name is blah, blah, blah. I listened to the Speak Life A Z podcast. Really? And uh you guys had Nate on there and he talked about EMDR therapy. Is there any way that I could possibly get in contact with him? I'm like, what's your name? How do you know him? And he's like, I don't know him. I just listened to your podcast. I went into the search thing and I typed in EMDR therapy, and Speak Life popped up with that episode, and he watched it. Wow. And he's like, he's yeah, he's like in government over there in the politics in North NorCal, and he reaches out, so I got him connected with Nate, and I'm like, and Nate's like, yeah, I'm on it, bro. Wow. So he yeah, he connected with him. So it's just a trip, bro. How all this is getting used by God. It really is. It may seem like we're just sitting in kids big in a funny painted room sharing our life.

SPEAKER_02: 1:25:41

We know it's bigger than that.

SPEAKER_06: 1:25:42

But God's God's doing God's doing something with this, man.

SPEAKER_02: 1:25:47

So you did so how so you do what 10 years? 10 years altogether?

SPEAKER_05: 1:25:50

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 1:25:51

Yeah, in one center.

SPEAKER_05: 1:25:53

A little more. No, chopped up, yeah. Uh, you know, but a little more than that, even though, yeah.

SPEAKER_06: 1:25:58

Amen. When you got when you went in, got you into your little scurfuffle, and what the hell is a scurfuffle? What else do you gonna get called with the whole sign of the fake? This is fake and the plates and screw, you know what I mean? Good using words I don't know about when you when you really got into it. Was that the your last time in prison, or was that one of your first times locked up?

SPEAKER_05: 1:26:25

Last time, yeah.

SPEAKER_06: 1:26:25

Oh, okay. Last time. Okay.

SPEAKER_05: 1:26:28

It was a six and a half, my last one.

SPEAKER_07: 1:26:30

Okay, yeah.

SPEAKER_05: 1:26:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06: 1:26:32

How long was recovery on that?

SPEAKER_05: 1:26:35

I'm still in it.

SPEAKER_06: 1:26:36

Still in it. Yeah, still in it. Uh that PTSD, bro, and that is a good one.

SPEAKER_05: 1:26:43

So now I have a hole in my mouth right here. I'm about to go back and get plastic surgery now. Wow, bro. Yeah, the struggle's real, bro. Tomorrow. Yeah, I'm in constant pain all day long. My eyes bloodshot. Uh, you know what I mean? Yeah. Uh, and I'm just rolling, dude. I'm rolling, living life, living life to the fullest, and it doesn't nothing slow me down. Yeah, nothing slows me down, nothing's gonna slow me down, but I'm about to go under the knife again and get this fixed. I have a uh you see how underweight I am? I'm I've lost 20 pounds because I can't eat, you know?

SPEAKER_02: 1:27:13

I got an open You're a trooper, bro. Yeah, you're a fighter, dog.

SPEAKER_05: 1:27:18

I'm not, he was.

SPEAKER_02: 1:27:19

He's giving you the strength. I'm not, he is, yeah.

SPEAKER_05: 1:27:22

Yeah, it ain't me. It ain't me.

SPEAKER_02: 1:27:23

So when you went to when I met you in Teen Challenge, was that when you got out of prison? Because I remember having conversations with Teen Challenge.

SPEAKER_05: 1:27:29

No, that was a rebound after I after I yeah, after I my mom died, you know what I mean? Yeah. Uh 2012, after I got out of prison, um, I went back to work. Uh construction? No, uh selling drugs, making drugs.

SPEAKER_06: 1:27:47

That's not called going back to work.

SPEAKER_01: 1:27:49

It is one that's all you know, brother. Not anymore.

SPEAKER_05: 1:27:56

No, not anymore. Not anymore, buddy. Not anymore. But it was pretty a long time. Yeah. So I went back to that, you know, and got involved in with the back with the cartel, uh, started processing hair, went over here. Mom got a hold of some. Uh oh, Jesus. Wow.

SPEAKER_06: 1:28:14

I remember you sharing that with me.

SPEAKER_05: 1:28:16

Dang, bro. And that's when I lost my head. So I had uh the immediate thing I did was to go into teen challenge, and you seen how messed up I was there. Yeah, you couldn't talk to me, you couldn't touch me, you couldn't walk behind me, bro. You you you couldn't make a noise, sleeping. You know, I was a nut, you know? Yeah, and it was just too much, and then I just took to the streets, you know, and I and I, you know, it I remember when he kicked the kicked a hole in the wall during the Super Bowl.

SPEAKER_06: 1:28:43

Yeah, they didn't like that, dude. He got excited, man. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 1:28:48

I remember some of our conversations that we had when you were at Teen Challenge and how you were you you expressed great concern about people that were trying to you thought people were after you and stuff like that, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_05: 1:28:59

Oh, that turned into a big thing. Yeah, it was a it's and it's still uh it was that's an interesting thing. Uh yeah, you know, when I got out of prison, you know, because of the gang affiliation stuff, uh uh the head of the Aryan Brotherhood Task Force called me up, and um you guys know Tracy. Tracy is a good friend of mine. Tracy helped me a lot. Um, but they had offered to uh move me 3,000 miles away, erase all the tattoos on me, give me a new name, change my identity, and but they wanted me to come in and talk to them about two murders, you know. And uh and I was like, uh anyways, long story short, man, it it didn't happen, and they threatened me, and and they said that there's a green light on you, uh you're next. Um, and they were right, yeah, you know, and I was cool with it, and um I even met the dude that was supposed to do it, you know. Uh and then it happened again, and it happened again, and it happened again, yeah, and it happened again five or six times on my life. And you're still here, and every time God showed me something different, but definitely showed me Himself. Yeah, even when that accident happened, I had an out-of-beer, out-of-body experience and a long time with God. Do you want to talk about that? Well, I just did. Okay.

SPEAKER_06: 1:30:29

Yeah. Amen.

SPEAKER_05: 1:30:30

Do you have questions about it or something?

SPEAKER_06: 1:30:32

Right. So when when you were suffered the beating and you were It wasn't a beating.

SPEAKER_05: 1:30:37

That's that's that's funny. That's how people assume stuff. You know what I mean? I never said I got beat.

SPEAKER_02: 1:30:42

No. Uh uh. I never said that. I said it was an accident. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05: 1:30:49

Accident.

SPEAKER_02: 1:30:53

So the out-of-body experience, what is that like? What was the out of body experience like? Out-of-body experience? Yeah, you said yeah, this is like out of body experience.

SPEAKER_05: 1:31:02

So how this happened was uh could you like see yourself? Oh, absolutely. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I'm sitting there, you know, I can't speak, I can't move, I can't, you know, I can't I move anything. Yeah. I'm looking at this doctor, a nurse, EMT above me. Yeah, and she's got a flashlight in my eyes, boom, shining in my eyes, you know. Yeah. And finally she just takes her stethoscope and slings it around her neck and looks at whoever was over here. Well, actually, it was the they had a gurney, yeah, and it was a helicopter crew. Yeah. And she goes, he's unresponsive. Well, I'm looking at this, I'm up in the quarter corner like Spider-Man, yeah, with a bright light behind me. I'm like suspended, bam, looking down like, and I, and I don't know where my arms are. I'm kind of just like there, just like literally like kind of like just folded up in the corner, man. Yeah, you know, watching all this. Yeah. You know, and I and I can even, and even the guy down here, they're looking back and forth at each other. I'm staring at myself, right? Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. And I'm trying. Wow. None of them can talk. The spirit can't talk, and neither can I. Yeah. Right? Yes. And so I'm like, I'm trying to yell at this lady. Like, I'm right here, man. Don't leave me. I'm I'm responsive. I just, you know, so, anyways, but and I'm out. Bam! I don't, I don't know, I lose consciousness, you know. I wake up in the helicopter, you know, fighting the paramedics. They're trying to shove me through full of holes to get a line started on me. They think my neck is broke. I got a neck brace on. They got duct tape around my head, my chest, my stomach, my groin, my thighs, my knees, my ankles. I cannot move, bro. And I start convulsing. Oh, and my heart rate goes to, they say I'm gonna go into a cardiac arrest if I don't calm down, you know. And uh, I said, I'm I'm overheating, man. I'm overheating, right? I'm now and I and I'm and I'm I don't know where I'm at, though. I don't know where I'm at. I just said I'm hot, I'm hot, I just I just know I'm saying I'm hot. And I see blood everywhere, you know. They're they're trying to stick me, they're trying to get a line, you know, but they're failing, I guess, because I I I guess I'm moving, but I'm strapped down, you know. But my there, they're in this, and all of a sudden this head pops over me. And it, oh my gosh, it was just an angel, man. Yeah. Beautiful brunette girl, very wholesome looking. There was no hoochie look to her.

SPEAKER_00: 1:33:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05: 1:33:37

There was it was it felt like I felt safe and I felt like home, you know. And I don't know if you've ever encountered a person like that in your life. Where you just feel safe around them. You just know everything's gonna be alright. This this mother, whatever, is gonna can handle anything, you know. I got this girl staring over my head, down at me, and she starts blowing on me. And she unzips my jumpsuit and just keeps blowing on me, and my heart rate starts to come down. Wow. And I start to calm down, you know. And uh and the emergency room is a wreck, you know. They're they're you know, complete trauma. You know, uh, they they got me handcuffed to the hospital bed now by my wrist and my ankles. I gotta go to the bathroom. They're telling me, go ahead. You know, pee yourself, you know. Go you you ain't going nowhere. You gotta go to the bathroom, go. Yeah, you know, yeah. And so I hold it for another hour and a half, you know, sitting there with my head busted up, you know. This whole all the bones were crushed in my face, you know. And I'm sitting there strapped to this gurney, handcuffed for about seven and a half hours in a hallway, happening to go to the bathroom. Damn.

SPEAKER_00: 1:35:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05: 1:35:04

I finally shift change, man, and they shoot me full of morphine finally, you know. Yeah. For the pain. Yeah. But I'm so swollen that they can't do x-rays, they can't do nothing, man. You know. And God sends an angel into my room, and um uh I wake up, whatever, you know, and there's this girl in there who had befriended me on the yard, a cop, you know. And one of my jobs on the yard was to flip cops. Yeah. That's what I did. Yeah. Right? Yeah. And I made a lot of things happen that way. Okay. That's all we'll say about that. Amen. Yeah. Um and uh she told me they were gonna cut me from ear to ear. You've ever seen that scar that someone has that looks like a like a checkered scarf going from ear to ear above their head, and they peel down their forehead like that. That's what they were gonna do. And she was like, Ask them if there's something else, you know. Anyways, she saved my face because when the doctor came in, I was like, is there some other they were about to take me in surgery and do this, you know? I was like, there's something else we can do. He's like, Yeah, but you're gonna sit here for two more days. The dude's in China, he has to come here, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But it's in it's a something invasive, blah, blah, blah. They cut you, they they take your face off, they take the bones out, they put a camera in your eyeball, and they and they do it through uh laser-guided surgery. Yeah. Yeah. That my father was on the team to invent. Yeah. That's crazy. But, anyways, uh. Yeah, that's some funny stuff, man. This is God is cool, man. Anyways, uh, that's some hilarious. I don't know. Um, so I heal, yeah. I go back to, you know, I go back to the same yard, man. And there's the whole, the whole, but the whole hospital thing, this what happens in there. You know, now I'm this so they they got me all, they got my eyes sewed shed, they got a turban wrapped around me. So I'm oh you can only see this part of my face, you know. Yeah, yeah. Uh, I'm unshaven, I'm scruffed out, you know. Yeah. Uh, and I'm, you know, 25 pounds heavier, you know. Um they got me, uh, they got a they got a collar on my neck, a chain going to my belly, wrist cuffs in the front, down to my feet with shackles. And it's and they they have I have to walk three times a day for the blood flow in my legs so I don't get a blood clot. And they're supposed to clear the floor, right? Because they got me on the surgery surgical floor off the DOC floor because I'm an ICU. I'm in regular ICU, right? They don't have ICU for DOC. You you're on the regular, you know.

SPEAKER_07: 1:37:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05: 1:37:59

So there I am. And my only wish is I don't want to see no kids, man. Right? Because I knew how I grew up and I knew what happened when I seen certain stuff. Yeah. Because there's some stuff that I attached to when I saw it. Yeah. The first time I saw mom pull a needle out of her arm, guess whose arm I knew that needle was going in.

SPEAKER_00: 1:38:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05: 1:38:23

I attached my as a child, I attached myself to what I saw, yeah, to my environment. Yeah, I'm in this spiritual battle, right? And I'm starting to see stuff like this now in my life. Yeah, they don't respect my wishes. We get out on the stroll. I got the whole floor for me, and out runs a kid, man, and drops what he's holding. You can see is very affected by looking at me. Yeah, you know, I'm in an orange jumpsuit that's halfway zipped off. You know, I'm tattooed from neck to you know what. Oh you know what I mean? Yeah, and and you know, and I'm just not looking. I got my whole face is purple, orange, red, yellow. Yeah, I almost look like I'm black. You know, I almost look like a black dude. You know what I mean? Yeah. And the size of a basketball, you know. Yeah. I look scary, dude. Yeah, you know? Yeah. And I'm sure I left a lot left a lasting impression on that kid, man.

SPEAKER_00: 1:39:18

You know, yeah.

SPEAKER_05: 1:39:19

These are just the things I'm going through that were that were affecting my spirit at this time. The other thing that affected my spirit was the lieutenant coming in and saying, Hey man, tell me what really happened. You know? Yeah. And I'm saying, what and the doctor was in the room and he's all doc, I want to know really what happened. And the doc's like, he had an accident, man. His hate, his his face hit the concrete.

SPEAKER_00: 1:39:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05: 1:39:42

And that's all you need to know.

SPEAKER_00: 1:39:43

Yeah. Amen.

SPEAKER_05: 1:39:45

That's what matches his injuries. He has no fight, fighting injuries on him. Nah. Okay?

SPEAKER_00: 1:39:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05: 1:39:51

His face hit the concrete, period. Yeah. You know? Amen. I didn't have buddy, you know. I mean, I have no, there's no, nobody hit me. You know, nothing. Yeah. Yeah. Nobody hit. There's no, yeah, there's no fight. No fight, Marks. No fight. Yeah, yeah. Amen. Yeah. And um, so he said, Well, I'm gonna sing back the same yard. I say, Go ahead, let's go, man.

SPEAKER_07: 1:40:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05: 1:40:11

So he even made it worse on me and let me go back uh against medical advice to the same yard with stitches, over a hundred stitches still in my head and eyeball. I'd so sh I so sh sowed shut, could not walk, equal liberty and messed up, couldn't put a sentence together to tell you what I needed. Yeah, couldn't talk.

SPEAKER_06: 1:40:34

You know, uh they send you back to the yard to get dealt with, you know what I mean? That's crazy.

SPEAKER_05: 1:40:41

Yep, and of course, my story was true. Yeah, uh and then you know, and so I went back, had no problems, yeah, did fine, yeah, healed, you know. Wow. A lot of stuff happened because of it. Yeah, I'll tell you that much. For one, they shut down all the yards and put shower mats across the state in all the showers, those little black pads that happened in 2007 across the state, you know. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 1:41:05

Amen.

SPEAKER_05: 1:41:06

Damn, yeah. Don't want nobody to slip and fall, yeah, have a$75,000 facial reconstructive surgery. Damn, you know?

SPEAKER_00: 1:41:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05: 1:41:15

So wow, dude.

SPEAKER_02: 1:41:18

Amen. Yeah. Glad you made it through a big one. Yeah, me too.

SPEAKER_05: 1:41:21

Me too, dude. Me too. And a lot of therapy, and but I am on the other side of it, and and I'm off medication now, and and things are you look good for someone who has a been through everything you've been through, bro.

SPEAKER_06: 1:41:33

Yeah. So you got out in 2012. Man, I I remember you telling me that in 15 challenge, bro. That you got out and went back to being a knucklehead and man.

SPEAKER_02: 1:41:50

So when so when did when did you finally like when did you finally like Jesus finally got a really good hold of you? Like when things really begin to change. Because obviously things are different now. You said you're doing all this ministry and stuff. You said you had teen challenge and then you went back to slinging dope again and making dope again. So from when till Jesus really got a hold of you, brother.

SPEAKER_06: 1:42:14

Um, after teen challenge, you went back to slinging dope and making dope again.

SPEAKER_02: 1:42:19

That's what he said.

SPEAKER_05: 1:42:20

Absolutely, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 1:42:20

He said he got the hell out of teen challenge and went back to learning and yeah, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_05: 1:42:24

Because again, more religion, more religion, more religion. Yeah. And and I I'm I you know, I had a religious demon about me, bro. Oh, yeah. That people don't get going to church. Yeah. But I do. Amen. It attaches to me. Yeah, yeah. Because do you know how good I know the Bible? Yeah. I will sit here and argue with you and and debate with you about it. Yeah. Like the religious demon that wants me to, you know. And so I don't. Amen. You know, I share in different circles, I fight different battles. I've kind of moved on from certain religious battles. Yeah, you know. Yeah. And I and I and I and I and I walk in love, man. And everybody that knows me knows that. You know.

SPEAKER_02: 1:43:08

Yeah. Amen, bro. So when did that when did that particular transformation take place as far as because you said you went back to it's not, it wasn't overnight, but it happened in prison right when I said that.

SPEAKER_05: 1:43:19

It it happened in prison right then and there.

SPEAKER_02: 1:43:21

But I'm talking about you said even after you got out of prison, you went to Teen Challenge.

SPEAKER_05: 1:43:25

Well, before prison, though. I mean, before I got out of prison, you know, I was baptized, I was baptized in a horse trough on the yard.

SPEAKER_02: 1:43:30

I I get all that. But what I'm trying to get at is somewhere after you got out, because you said you went back to manufacturing. Yeah. Somewhere after that, something happened where you finally said, Hey. An aha moment. I'm all in for sharing my story and sharing God and going to these what what was that moment? Oh, my mom died. When your mom died? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. What about what about that made made you change? I didn't change. Well, you had to. You say you go serve Jesus and you go into prisons. What was that?

SPEAKER_05: 1:44:02

Oh, that was a long. That was that's just half the story. No, that was many years ago. That was 2012, man. It's been a lot of life since then. You know what I mean? Yeah, the story's long, dude. You know what I mean? Yeah, that was just that was just one of the bouts with church and God and all that.

SPEAKER_02: 1:44:15

But what okay, you say now you're saying you said you're clean and sober. You say you're going, you do all these different things. You were just doing an AA thing. What moment after what moment changed all that for you, brother?

SPEAKER_07: 1:44:32

I don't know that.

SPEAKER_02: 1:44:33

Because if you got out of prison and then you and you and you still had definitely wasn't a moment.

SPEAKER_05: 1:44:38

Definitely not a moment, no. Okay. Wrong, wrong, wrong thought, wrong, because that would be teaching people that there has to be a moment, and that's not my case. Okay. I don't want to teach people.

SPEAKER_02: 1:44:49

What was the process then?

SPEAKER_05: 1:44:51

I'm still going through it. Yeah. There's not, you know what I mean? Yeah, I'm still in it. I'm still in it. I haven't made it to anywhere, you know. I'm I'm I'm in it, I'm living it. You know, and will be for the rest of my life.

SPEAKER_02: 1:45:01

Guess I'm not framing my question correctly.

SPEAKER_06: 1:45:03

Well, like the the the want to to get higher to use dope or any of that is gone now. It's gone. It could be back in this second if I wanted to.

SPEAKER_05: 1:45:12

Yeah. You know, I don't I I do other things now. That's real. There. I could go out and die today, bro. Yeah. I just do other things though. You know what I mean? But yeah, and I don't have the urge to use, I don't know when that happened, you know, uh, through the steps, uh, you know, uh working.

SPEAKER_06: 1:45:26

Okay, so let's go, let's go with that. Teen challenge, it was 2014 or 15. You leave and you go back to the street.

SPEAKER_05: 1:45:33

I went back to the streets, streets, yeah, all the months. So how'd you get how'd you get back to arrested, rescued again, put in county jail? You know, yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 1:45:41

That's what I was kind of trying to get. What happened that changed you in that project?

SPEAKER_05: 1:45:46

I sold to an undercover cop, got arrested, they hung some prison time over my head, slapped it, slapped an ankle bracelet on me, ended up at New Freedom. Yeah. Oh when we went through New Freedom when three and a half years ago. Yeah, yeah. Oh, so after COVID. Uh-huh. Oh, okay. Right at the end of it. Yeah. Okay. Right at the end of it. But yeah, you know, went from living under the bridge to county jail to New Freedom. Wow. And then on to more, six more months of intensive therapy. Yeah. The horse therapy. A doctor prescribed a horse to me. I have my own, I got my own therapy horse. You know, started doing that. Ended up working at another therapy ranch that now I'm partners with. Come on. And I go out there all the time now. Amen. You know, it's awesome. Uh we got it now. They partner, they partner with me doing anything I want. You know, they're they're Equine Connections is the most awesome ranch ever. Pacific uh Del Pacifico is the other one that that invites me, Rancho Del Pacifico, and they're a humongous therapy ranch. That's un it's unbelievable. Amen. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 1:46:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06: 1:46:50

What's the one that you sort that you we go with so here at LifeLink, we're very uh once a month. We get out to different places. One of the ones is out in Santana Valley, it's called Hoof Beats with Heart. There you go. Yeah. And I always go out there and volunteer with that lady. That's a good yeah, cool, man. It's great. It is, yeah. There's something about those huge animals, man. Majestic. Being able to tell it's like, man, a lot of you can feel the power. Oh, that thing can stomp you in a heartbeat if it was a brother. And but just them being chill. It's like, man, this is cool.

SPEAKER_05: 1:47:23

I've done so much with them. And I think my life is kind of leaning towards becoming a horseman, you know, going through the certification, which I was gonna do, and then life got busy. But I the ranch is really becoming part of more part of my future in life, and I'm thinking so I'm I've done a couple uh seminars out there. I'm I'm working with the horses now and teaching people with the horses and stuff, you know. Yeah, it's real good, but very therapeutic, huh? Oh, yeah. But the therapy's kind of over now. Now it's the like same thing, like with the steps. The steps are now my way of life. Yeah, yeah. You know, that's right. God is now my director. Come on, you know, being all powerful, he provides everything I need. Yeah. When I keep close, you know, as long as I if I if I keep now, if I go back to the dope circle, I know what's gonna happen. You know, I'm gonna learn another hard lesson. Yeah, but if I stay on this uh in where I'm at, yeah, God takes care of all of my needs and my wants.

SPEAKER_02: 1:48:19

I think that's what people don't understand about people like us who've grown up with addictions like that, is that that's still an option.

SPEAKER_05: 1:48:26

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 1:48:27

You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_05: 1:48:28

Oh, when my mom died, I saw where this will end for me if if I don't get something happening, but you know but you said it perfectly.

SPEAKER_02: 1:48:36

I could go do that tomorrow if I wanted to.

SPEAKER_07: 1:48:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 1:48:39

That's still an option. You know what I mean? But the fact that we're like we don't make that choice no more to me is like, I don't know, there's something beautiful about not making that choice, even though it's still an option. You know what I mean? Yeah, I could go out tomorrow, I could leave here right now and go go to Circle K, go to Circle K right out front of the store.

SPEAKER_05: 1:48:55

My mind, I guess my mind through my through my journey and walk, it's just like I don't even, yeah, I don't even think like my mind is on creating creating kingdom stuff right now. You know, that's what I do. I don't I don't ever think about no no no no I'm thinking about how to uh help this guy into the detox or get this guy out of into a house or you know, I I I God God lets me do God lets me he shows me how to help a lot of people, man, and that's what I do. And he and he puts me in position to do that. And I have a I have a holy army backing me up doing it, man. You know, it's not me, it's him. And all the success in my life is his, not mine. Amen. And I'm super, super successful, man. But it's not me. Amen. It's not me, it's it's God, you know. I told my co- and everybody knows it too.

SPEAKER_02: 1:49:40

I told my co-worker, I told my co-worker yesterday, I was like It's undeniable. I was like, if my drug experience was not horrible except for the fact that I kept going to prison. You know what I mean? Okay. If I if my addiction was really enjoyable, there was nothing I don't know I can't look at and say, God, that was just horrible. It was enjoyable. But it always ended up with losing my family and going to prison. That part of it sucked.

SPEAKER_04: 1:50:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 1:50:10

Actual using and getting high and all that stuff was actually pretty fun. But losing your family and going to prison sucks. You know what I mean? That was the downside of it. My family and going to prison are very or not going to prison are far more valuable to me than getting high. But if that was not to be the case, I would still be using a day.

SPEAKER_03: 1:50:30

Yeah, I love being happy to do it. But my family is more important. I get it.

SPEAKER_02: 1:50:35

I get it. I get it.

SPEAKER_05: 1:50:37

Yeah, but my family is more valuable. Absolutely. I'm on some other stuff now. And so I don't think you're not. Now lack of knowledge would be the death of my people. Oh, yeah. I know now. Yeah, shame on me this time. Yeah, you know, yeah, and and I I've been faked out every single way you can, and so my eyes are open, you know, and I'm and I'm watching for the next thing. And so I'm very hyper-aware. Yeah, and you guys, you feel that. Yeah, you feel I ain't. I know, you and you know I am. I'm very hyper-aware, you know, and I do have to be, man.

SPEAKER_02: 1:51:12

If I if I didn't have enough brothers that I know who I just wanted to get high one more time and died, huh? How many brothers I know that said, I just want to get high one last time and they died. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I'm like, God, I don't want that. Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah. Even though that's an option, I could go do that tomorrow if I wanted to. Yeah. One, I don't want to die.

SPEAKER_05: 1:51:31

Yeah, I I I go to I do uh I officiate ceremonies of life, you know. Uh I mean I go to a lot of funerals, a lot of them, you know. You know what's you know, that's all what you do on the front lines, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_02: 1:51:43

You know what the beautiful thing is, Joel, is I haven't used methroin in 16 years, right? Uh-huh. My children who are now 25 and 23 don't even remember that life anymore. That's good, yeah. Yeah. That's awesome. When I bring up stories and they're like, oh God, I totally forgot about that. I'm like, praise God. Yeah. Praise God. Now you ask my kids about me, all they know is He's in church. He loves Jesus and he goes to church all the time. You know what I mean? They don't even remember that old me no more. Thank you, God. And I am so thankful for that. Yeah. They were eight and ten when I got out of prison last time. Yeah. So they're 25 and 23. So that's 15 years. That they don't in that 15 years, God God re What's the word I want to use? God gashed, God gave them a different image of me over those 15 years. Yeah. Of the guy who just you know what I mean? Like, like we were at a family thing the other day and we were talking about church, and I'm like, I'm there all the time. And then, like, my even my son was like, I forget the word he used, but he was a good word. He's like, Oh yeah, he's there all the time. You know what I mean? And I'm like, that blesses my heart. You know what I mean? We used to not know where you were. Knowing that, knowing that, I'll never go back. No doubt. Knowing that right there, I'll never go back, brother. Right. You couldn't, you couldn't get me to go back to Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah. As much as I enjoyed it, you just couldn't. Yeah. Even though that's still an option. I could if I wanted to, but I don't want to. I have no desire for that. You know what I mean? Yeah. I do. I do. Yep.

SPEAKER_06: 1:53:07

So you were at New Freedom for almost three and a half years?

SPEAKER_05: 1:53:11

Yeah, three. Oh no. Going on three years. Uh what exactly? I mean, I'm still at New Freedom. You know, I just in a different, just in a different role or computer. Yeah, just in a different uh create just creating something. I I I I work, I don't go there to work, no. But I'm working for them, yes. Oh man. In a in a in a different sense, yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 1:53:34

Are you like uh because I know they do vocational training?

SPEAKER_05: 1:53:37

Yeah, I ran one of the paint classes there. Come on. And now I'm making making uh come on, brother. Uh a company to support the graduates, you know. Really? That's great.

SPEAKER_02: 1:53:47

That's fantastic.

SPEAKER_05: 1:53:48

It is, man. It's unbelievable. Wow. Uh the things that I think we're going to be able to do with the company. Yeah. Um, you know, the company is called Prodigal Sons Painting. Uh, it's a second chance employer for the prodigal son. Yeah. And um, and I'm concentrating on taking these guys from the treatment centers, fresh out of prison, and sharing my experience, strength, and hope with them and showing them what God showed me, you know, how to live life. Yeah. You know, and and and and do this, do this thing called life with him, you know, and how to do it, you know, and how to do it. And it's really simple. It really is, man. And it really is. And uh, I want to show people how to get over the hump, man. And I have, I have, and God has put the most powerful spiritual men in my life. I do want to say this, man. I I do want to say this. I have these men in my life, from my best friends to man, the owner of the treatment center I went to, the director of the treatment center, the whole staff of the treatment center, the vocational director, who's a personal family friend of mine. Yeah. God did that, right? A girl that I've been her only family, her her only father figure in her life from eight years old. Wow. She's staffed there. Like God put me right in the midst of my people. Yeah. And I want to tell you how powerful this was for me because this treatment center was under investigation by access, right? I'm in there fighting for my life. I got no teeth. I'm I'm going to medication, trying to get on to take care of this PTSD. I'm living in a hotel room where nobody can sleep in there with me because I'm a wreck, bro. Sheets are flying, covers, I'm up, I'm up smoking cigarettes down at the pool at 3 a.m. I'm that dude. I'm that dude that you're looking at like he's never gonna make it, man. That guy is shot out. Yeah, yeah. They called it, they called me it all the time in there. Shot out, bro. You're shot out. Yeah, I don't care. Yeah, you'd be shot out too if you're done when I got it. You know? Lucky to be here. No doubt, man. You're gonna eat that. You know what I mean? Yeah, and I got healed in there. And I want to tell you something that happened in there, man, that started my spiritual journey. But I I just got off track of something of a point I was trying to make. But all your all your spiritual fathers and stuff. Okay, I have got guys around me who are disciplined, who are godly men. Look, put it this way New Freedoms stopped getting paid by Access for three months. The whole three months I was there. Yeah, it cost two million dollars a month to run that place. Wow. It it cost my treatment to me six million dollars to get me through that place. Wow. If I look at the big picture and what God is doing, yeah, yes, I'm saying, oh, that was all for me. Yeah, but guess what? This world and what God's doing in it is all for me, and it's all for you. And it's all for you. Yeah, yeah. Right? Yeah. And that's how special I do. I think God thinks of us. You know? Amen. That's right. Amen. And so I'm having this experience. Uh I'm having this experience there that probably nobody else is having.

SPEAKER_00: 1:57:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05: 1:57:21

Then I go get healed with these horses and all this therapy, and I do major work. The therapists are taking breaks. They're taking turns, passing me off, you know. You take them today, you know? Yeah. Yeah. Here. But it put me under weighted blankets. Yeah, you know. Yeah. They're moving me houses. I had to move different houses because I'm getting into conflict with everybody, you know. I'm a wreck, man. It took a it literally took a state to raise me. Wow. You know that saying county born state raised and federally funded all my life. Yeah. That's my story, man. Yeah. You know? Yeah. And this state is still raising me. And it's a village. Yeah. And it's now a spiritual, and it's a lot of different people. Yeah. You know. But the so I come back to work at this place that saved me. I wear this ring. It's a it says 360 on it. Yeah. 360. I came in there as a as a member. I came all the way back as a staff member. I created a program there. For the first time in my life, I wrote an SOP. I learned how to use the computer. And I did, I did this stuff the best I could. And I did it under such gentle godly leadership. That it has changed me for the rest of my life. And it has it has it has made me so inspired that I just I wanted to create this company. You know these kids are having trouble learning painting. I had the gift of I'm a journeyman painter, man. I can go out and make a thousand dollars a day, you know, easy, you know, anytime, you know. These guys can't, man. They don't have the chance I have. And like I said before, to him to know to do good and do not and does not do it, that is your sin, man. Yeah. Forget about the all the crap. Yeah. Just remember that.

SPEAKER_00: 1:59:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05: 1:59:31

It's good, buddy. Because it might just be hey, you know it'd be a good thing to create this company because God's got you in his grip, and he and you and this is possible. Yeah. So you might want to do it. To me, that's me and God. I know he's gonna do it, you know?

SPEAKER_00: 1:59:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05: 1:59:47

Because it's bigger, way bigger than me, right? And but I was diligently lurk working and creating, you know, and trying to do the best I can, and people were bragging about me, and they loved the the work I was doing. The paint. Program program before me was one but one but run by a paint company. I said, How much did it cost you to run this thing? Right? Because I'm doing budget and I'm I'm figuring this thing out. He goes, I spent$180,000. And I was like, I spent$24,000 doing it. You know? Anyways, it taught me that I'm not so stupid. Come on, bro. If it took a millionaire, business owner,$180,000 to run this class that I was doing for$1,400 a month, I think I'm on to something. It gave me confidence. It let me know that, hey, you ain't dumb. It made me start looking up my family and stuff. Wow. And and the people that, you know, that that are came before me. Yeah. You know? They were brilliant. Yes, they were, man. Yes, they were. And Apple doesn't fall far from the tree. I just need to get up, stand up, and shut up, you know? Yeah. Yeah. And get on, you know.

SPEAKER_02: 2:01:00

Shake the dust off. Shoot up. Shoot up for shooting movement. Oh, yeah. Shake the dust off and get to move.

SPEAKER_05: 2:01:05

Exactly, man. So one day the owner calls me, right? And he's like, I hear you got a good idea, bud. And I was like, Yeah, I want, I want, I want, I want to, I want to provide housing, transportation, uh credit counseling, um, horse therapy, a job, employment, security. I want to make an employee-based, an employee-owned company so everybody gets a piece. Yeah. You ain't just getting 20 bucks an hour, man. When this job closes, you're getting a little percent of it, man. An extra 1,200 bucks because you were there the whole time. You know, that's what I want this company to be, man. I want to be a legacy. I don't need to be rich. I've figured out how to live off of$2,000 a week. I can probably dumb that down. I guarantee I can. You know, I can do that. Yeah. I'm not looking to make this company to get rich or anything like that. The dude that owns it, he already is rich. You know what I mean? If we can put his name on it and let him control it, it'd be a lot safer anyway. You know what I mean? But he did call me up. And let me tell you again, here's God in my life. And and I'm like a David, bro. Trust me, I'm on the ground on my face in prayer, out of your sight. I'm up on the mountaintop arguing with God. You, you, you all, you all know we we all have the same friend, Tracy. I'm in sitting in New Freedom one day, and he and he sees me talking, he's like, what are you doing? And I'm like, I'm arguing with God. He's like, let me know how you how that goes for you, you know. And I'm like, Yeah, I will. And that's sometimes I sometimes I pray, and sometimes I argue with God. Amen, buddy. And guess what? I get an answer every time. He can totally handle it. He does, he can, you know, and my and I liked and I like to tell people about my first prayer was the F word.

SPEAKER_03: 2:02:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05: 2:02:50

That was my, you know, yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 2:02:51

He could take that too. He did. Yeah. He did. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05: 2:02:54

And he knew what I meant. Oh, yeah. He knew what I meant.

SPEAKER_02: 2:02:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05: 2:02:56

It was everything all into one.

SPEAKER_02: 2:02:58

And he knew he'd rather you come to him like that than not come at all.

SPEAKER_05: 2:03:01

And so I stay like that with him. I don't keep doing that, but I mean, but but I'm I'm still in conscious, like, hey man, is this really what's gonna happen here? Yeah, you know?

SPEAKER_00: 2:03:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05: 2:03:10

Uh and he answers, man. He answers quick. He answers quick, you know. But I will say, I my my thinking and my motives are cleared of wrong, wrong stuff, man.

SPEAKER_02: 2:03:22

I love when the Bible says pray without ceasing. Yeah. People tend to take that a little more kind of literal than it should be taken. Like you don't have to be on your knees and oh, God, Heavenly Father, Lord Jesus, thank you. It's constant conversation. Right. It's it's dialogue with God constantly. Right. That's praying without ceasing. It's not some religious get on your hands and knees, fold your hands, and say five, say five, five hell Marys. It's dialogue. It's talking to God.

SPEAKER_05: 2:03:49

We're always in prayer. I hate it. I you know, I I like I don't hate it, but I mean I I like to just stay in prayer. Like you open a prayer and you don't have to say amen. You know, it's just like you it just you and I do that like in the beginning of the day. I'll start my prayer and maybe say amen at night. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 2:04:09

I get these cars that I work on, brother. That I I'm like, I hate this car. You know what I mean? But I I'm I by myself and I'm like, okay, God, you you you blessed my hands. You gave me you gave me this talent, you gave me this gift, God. Help me help me to do this car like it's your car. This is your Chevelle, God. Let me do this, let me do this job like I'm doing it for you. And I go over there and I start working. And I turned out the best work. You know what I mean? Those are the conversations I had with God. Those are my prayer life with God. It's not just every morning, like, oh God bless this day. Thank you for your spirit. Yeah, traveling mercy is to run. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_05: 2:04:40

It's it's it takes me a couple hours in the morning, you guys. Just so you know. It's not pissed off at my boss.

SPEAKER_02: 2:04:45

I'm just like, God, help me, help me not be angry with him, God. He's really a good boss, Lord. You know, show him mercy and grace and help me to be, you know, it's that's that's praying without ceasing. Yeah. That's not yeah, let's not be religious about it, man. It's conversation with God. Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it is. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You're awesome, dude. You know that, right? Thank you. I don't know. No. Yeah, you don't know God does it. He is awesome. Yeah. He is awesome.

SPEAKER_05: 2:05:13

God's awesome. But that and that's and you know why you say I'm awesome? Because you see him in me, brother. I do. You see the light, and the light is in me.

SPEAKER_02: 2:05:21

I see I see the I see the redemption light upon you, brother. Yeah. And I see I see God's mercy. I see God's grace. And I just see I see a life that the world spat on, shit on, yeah, pissed on, yeah, and thought was worthless. And I see a life now that God said this life has value. Yeah. And I'm gonna use it for my course. He is, man. You know what I mean? He is.

SPEAKER_05: 2:05:49

I definitely always ask to go. I I never say no. Yeah, you know.

SPEAKER_00: 2:05:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05: 2:05:54

Uh I've it took me a year to get here because of my spiritual battle with PTSD, bro. Yeah. I now drive without taking any medication.

SPEAKER_07: 2:06:02

Come on, man.

SPEAKER_05: 2:06:02

But I've been trying to get here for a year, bro. Or something like that. And I couldn't make it out here, dude. This is a it was too long of a drive, you know. And I can today, you know. No, we've I know we've been trying to get you for a while. Yeah. Yeah. And I praise God that you're here today, brother, because uh And I could go on and on about stories, so I maybe we can do another one or something, but I it's uh I got, you know, I I there's really cool spiritual stuff going on in my life. You know, I got this new oh man, there's just the new company that's happening. I got uh my my niece is coming back into my life. Come on. Uh I mean I'm I'm learning love for the first time in my life uh on how to love a woman. You know? Come on, man. And I'm being loved by a woman. And it's um I'm telling you what, bro, it's I'm I'm doing something different. It's different than anything I've ever done. Amen. Um we are uh taking care of each other and um and I'm just gonna be upfront and honest because I I feel this is the conviction of my life. And like I said, I have been a sexual deviant. And God has literally told me not to be that way with this woman. Amen. And let me tell you what I later found out was that was the wrong woman to be that type of thing with. So it's funny that God put me in her life because it's easy to be the man that she needs to be because of the man that I am. And and vice versa. Yeah. I have a lot of I'm damaged goods, you know? Yeah. And she loves me anyway.

SPEAKER_02: 2:07:49

There's a key word there though.

SPEAKER_05: 2:07:50

Goods.

SPEAKER_02: 2:07:51

Goods. You're still goods. You know what I mean? It is, yeah. It's still good.

SPEAKER_03: 2:07:57

Yeah, it's just still good. Yeah, but we did it, shut up. I'll leave it right now. I'll need I'll leave it right now. Yeah, I'll yeah. Oh, maybe that's wrong. But you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_02: 2:08:09

No, I mean just that. So you told us about this business you're trying to start.

SPEAKER_05: 2:08:14

No, no, no, no. I did not tell you about a business I'm trying to start. I told you about a business that God ordained, that's been started, that's been uh I have a I you know what it is, bro? This I have a fortune, I think they're a fortune five, yeah, they gotta be. But anyways, I have a Fortune 500 company mentoring and tutoring me, man. It's amazing. It's only God, bro. And let me tell you, they're so gentle, and this company is so full of excellence. And let me, this dude, they they're construction workers that made so much money, they went into the mental health field, started buying mental health buildings and stuff. Now they're into the, you know, uh, they're into everything, man. And this dude is a dude that I think God is showing how to spend his money and he's doing it correctly. And he's he he he he's he's a he's a creator, man. Come on, and he's a kingdom builder. Amen. You know, and and I don't know if you guys know in in even in Bible times, there's certain things that happen with kingdoms. Yeah, it takes a king to fund it. Yeah, you know, it takes soldiers to build it, yeah. Right? Yeah, it takes a village to maintain it. Yeah. And this guy's a kingdom builder. Come on. And he plays his role and he does it well, man. Amen. And he has got an army underneath him that loves him, that he loves. You go to his office. I'm gonna get in trouble for being so honest, but hey, I'm one of them. Everybody in there is handicapped. Yeah, you know what I mean? Me included, bro. You know? Yeah, someone either either they're missing legs or arms or in wheelchairs, and it's like this, you can tell this dude's got a heart of gold. Yeah, because he the what society says people are and what people's value really are is two different things. And he sees that and he picks it, he has vision, bro. He does. He has eyes to see, and he has the heart. You know, and I'm sure it's his wife because behind every good man is a good woman.

SPEAKER_02: 2:10:06

The world says and he's the world says value is this. You can walk, you can write, you can read, you can talk, you got your legs, you got your lamp, you got all these different things that the world says is value. Where obviously this man sees true value and people, the people that he shared his walk with me, you know, with God, right?

SPEAKER_05: 2:10:25

Yeah, and one day he asked me, he goes, uh, he goes, How Christian are you? I go, I'm about as Christian as you are, dude. You know what I mean? But here's the thing. I I here's the thing. He don't know, I hate the word Christian. Yeah, he don't know what kind of Christian I think he is. Yeah. And I think he is the one of the best. Yeah, you know, but that's in the sense of that and here's the thing, too, Christian was a slang word that they did they that they that it's be it'd be like calling somebody a honky or a or a or a or a cracker, bro. Yeah, I don't get why. So now this this whole stigma to are you a Christian? Like why would that offend you if I was? Yeah, you know, and and and if I and if I so if I do offend you, then I guess I am. But if I don't offend you, no, I probably ain't. Yeah, you know, yeah. Because he said that they will hate me before they hate you. That's right. The world will hate you, man. They hated me first. Yeah, and guess what? Yeah, he's right, man. Yeah, he's right.

SPEAKER_02: 2:11:25

Amen. Yeah. So give us uh some other things that you believe in God for in your life, brother. What do you believe in God for?

SPEAKER_05: 2:11:31

Oh He's restoring my family right now.

SPEAKER_00: 2:11:36

Yeah, he's restoring my family.

SPEAKER_05: 2:11:37

If you guys want to, if you you can follow kind of follow it on Facebook, you can kind of see it on some things, but he's brought my uh niece who was giving a really raw deal.

SPEAKER_02: 2:11:49

Is it your sister still around?

SPEAKER_05: 2:11:50

Yeah, yeah. She's filling herself full of holes with heroin right now, but but she's still around for the time being, you know, yeah. Yeah, yeah. But her daughter is made it out, made it out, and has a niece or has a nephew uh that I want to meet, you know, and and get to know, and has a husband, and they they're doing good. Come on. Uh she reached out to me, and um we're we're planning on, yeah, that's that's happening like as we speak, type of thing, you know. Amen. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 2:12:21

Anything else? Anything else we can be praying for you for, brother?

SPEAKER_05: 2:12:24

Uh don't pray for me. No, don't pray for me.

SPEAKER_04: 2:12:27

I'm good. I'm good, yeah.

SPEAKER_05: 2:12:29

Yeah, really. I'm good. I I don't, you know what I mean? Pray for pray for pray for God to use me, man. Pray for God to send me, pray for God to protect me. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_06: 2:12:38

I don't uh what was the name of the pray? What was the name of the business prodigal? Prodigal son's painting. Prodigal son's painting.

SPEAKER_05: 2:12:46

Yeah, but I but here's the deal too. I here's the and and I feel strongly about this. Don't worry about praying. Don't worry about praying for me. I I got watch, I I and I know you're you're feeling this type type of way, but here's the deal too. I don't need anybody else's will on this but God's. Just watch God, please. Amen. That's all.

SPEAKER_06: 2:13:06

It's beautiful, buddy.

SPEAKER_05: 2:13:07

That's all, man. You guys already know. If I sit here and told you the story, we don't we don't have to add nothing to it. I'm gonna pray for you anyway, I'm gonna turn it for you anyway. I'm gonna be a righteous prayer warrior, bro. You're gonna judge it, you can mess it up. So I don't know what you got on you if you do, but that's what's gonna be a prayer. Spiritualist life is not a theory, man. And I and I can't do it.

SPEAKER_02: 2:13:34

You give me people give me too much power if you think I can stop the will of God. You're giving me way too much power.

SPEAKER_05: 2:13:40

I don't want to get in this argument. You know what I mean? I don't, I don't, but I I've had people touch me and put stuff on me. I've had people pray over me and pass demons on to me. So I don't, you know, I'm I'm very private in my life.

SPEAKER_02: 2:13:51

Don't put me in their their group. I didn't, I didn't. Don't put me in their group.

SPEAKER_05: 2:13:55

I didn't. I did it. I get I I'm alerted to it when people ask to pray for you. Yeah, why? What's wrong with me?

SPEAKER_02: 2:14:01

Nothing.

SPEAKER_05: 2:14:01

Okay.

SPEAKER_02: 2:14:02

I can't pray for God's will in your life to be done. I just want to bless you. Unless you don't want God's will in your life done.

SPEAKER_05: 2:14:08

Do I need you to pray for me to have God's will done in my life? Of course not. Then cool. High five. We're good then. Thank you. Yeah, we're good. Don't worry about it.

SPEAKER_01: 2:14:16

Amen. Don't worry about it. Amen.

SPEAKER_05: 2:14:18

I know I'm a different creature, bro, and I know you mean nothing but love for me. I know I also know that me and you would kill for each other if we had to, right? I but I I'm just on a different deal, man. I've had different stuff attached to me. Yeah. Um I don't know, man. You're in my first church camp, sexually molested, bud. Amen. Yeah. Amen. You know, I I have a different, I have a different chip on my shoulder, but I have Jesus in my heart, man. Everybody knows that and feels that. There ain't don't get it twisted.

SPEAKER_00: 2:14:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05: 2:14:47

Every knee will bow, every knee will confess. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Because he is the one and only true God, man.

SPEAKER_06: 2:14:54

Yeah. Amen.

SPEAKER_05: 2:14:55

And if and if that does offend you, it should, because he said it would. Yeah. He said it would. So if it does offend you, and and I'm speaking to some people, because it does offend people, why? All I want to do is love you. Amen. Because he loved me.

SPEAKER_06: 2:15:15

That's real good. Amen. Is there any uh anything that you would want to encourage anybody with? And maybe they're going through something right now and they're struggling. You got any uh words of wisdom, man, from heaven?

SPEAKER_05: 2:15:38

Seek first the kingdom of God. Then everything else will be added unto you. There's no other way. If you're not doing that, just know your life will be full of everything you want. Because that's what you're bringing on. Because what you seek you will find. Absolutely. That's the golden rule. Yeah, that's one of the golden rule. Yeah, you you you you knock and it will answer. It will answer, yes. But I just think uh and I would say everyone pray for uh to have their eyes open to um the spirit world, you know. Um I think a lot of people are starting to see it now. And you know, in in in God's word, you know, may old men will dream dreams, young men will see visions and see stuff, you know, and uh so there's a lot to pay attention to right now. There's a lot of warriors being cultivated right now. And I I I'm I'm telling you, you guys should see some of the guys that God puts in front of me, man. I bet. Ooh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Amen. And I and I and I those are the good ones. Yeah, you know what I mean? Yeah, and so I I I know I I know my purpose today.

SPEAKER_06: 2:17:04

Come on, bro.

SPEAKER_05: 2:17:04

And my real purpose is to fit myself to be of maximum service to God and the people about me. If that's all I do the rest of my life, everyone will be in a better place, you know. And you're being obedient to what God's done. That's right. That's right, that's right. That's right.

SPEAKER_02: 2:17:22

Well, we ended every show with a prayer, so I'm gonna pray whether you want me to or not. No, bless it. You want to eat to or you want to?

SPEAKER_01: 2:17:30

We're gonna have you pray here in a minute. All right, but uh thank you, God. Thanks, brother, for the Lord.

SPEAKER_05: 2:17:35

Thank you for having me, yeah. I'm so proud of you guys, too, because hey Thanks, buddy. We we was we were sleeping in the bunks, bro. That team challenge, so uh, this is a lot nicer than that. Thank you, Lord. Whatever you whatever he's doing.

SPEAKER_01: 2:17:48

I'm a firm believer, we're a long ways from where we were, but we're far away from where we need to be. I do. I do. I got a lot of head. A lot of head, bro.

SPEAKER_05: 2:17:59

All right, I I feel differently, but okay, I got you.

SPEAKER_02: 2:18:02

Do I do I do I look like Jesus? Do I love like Jesus? Do I talk like Jesus? Yeah, not fully.

SPEAKER_05: 2:18:08

Okay, well, I hope you're not because you ain't Jesus, bro. You ain't never supposed to.

SPEAKER_02: 2:18:12

But but you know, then I'm not there.

SPEAKER_05: 2:18:14

If you're trying to be Jesus, I guess if that's what you're trying to do.

SPEAKER_02: 2:18:17

I'm supposed to be a reflection of him.

SPEAKER_05: 2:18:19

You are. I that's for the most part. Okay, so you win, yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 2:18:25

I love you, dude.

SPEAKER_05: 2:18:26

Yeah, you are. Pray for him, Dad.

SPEAKER_02: 2:18:28

Let me pray, brother. Yeah, uh, Heavenly Father, Lord God, we just praise your holy name, creator. Yeah, Lord, we just thank you for your son, Joel, God, and we just pray that your will is done uh and everything that he's putting his hands to, God. Yeah, that's all we ask. That's all we ask, God. Bless it, God. Uh, we just thank you for blessings on it, Lord. We thank you for new freedom. We thank you for everything they're doing, God. Uh, we thank you for that program and how they're restoring the people who are in jail and they're coming out and having the opportunity to uh learn a new life, God. We thank you for that. So we just pray blessings upon new freedom. We pray for financial stability, God. We pray for the finances just to keep that place running, God, and all that they're doing there, Lord God. And we thank you for uh Joel's niece that she's coming back into his life. Thank you, Lord. We thank you for restoring that relationship, God, and we just pray blessings over that uh as they continue to seek restoration in that relationship, God. And Lord, we just thank you for Joel's life. We thank you for just the way that you redeemed him, that you're restoring him, God, that you brought him to where he is now. Thank you, God. And we praise your name for that, God. We know that you're not done and you keep working in us each and every day, God. And we just ask that you just keep us and you love us, and we just uh ask all these things in your son's mighty name, Father. In Jesus' name I pray.

SPEAKER_06: 2:19:41

Amen. Amen. Hey Joel, will you pray for Speak Life A Z and me and Dad? You pray for us right now, man. Yeah, thank you, God.

SPEAKER_05: 2:19:49

Yeah, God, thank you for this day, thank you for these friends, uh, thank you for this opportunity and this podcast. And uh, I just pray to ask that you can. to bear fruit with it, Lord. And uh thank you that they have this place to do this. Uh thank you for the opportunity to um thank you Lord heal again uh and share my experience with you thank you with people. Um and thank you for this setting this whole thing up like this man. This is uh what a peaceful uh what a peaceful place.

SPEAKER_06: 2:20:24

Thank you Lord what an awesome thing and uh it's cool to see uh your handiwork you know and and that you that you have places and spots like this thank you god and and uh family that comes together yeah to uh thank you Lord in in in worship and connection thank you god and uh I think this is the worship you crave right here God uh you gotta be very pleased with uh this little uh speak life AT podcast thank you Lord so thank you in Jesus' name I pray amen amen appreciate you bro hey everybody I don't know where you're watching from or where you're listening from um but if you could go like the the channel subscribe to it follow it uh hit the little bell on YouTube you'll get all the uh future upcoming notifications uh maybe you yourself got a good testimony uh you want to reach out through Facebook or Instagram uh speak life az all one word uh if you're able to and you're able to support the show man God's blessed you with resources uh please go ahead and uh support the show uh if you can comment uh leave a review man it really does help uh for the show and all the things in the background with the algorithms uh but until next time we're gonna continue to speak life AZ God bless you Jesus