Ministering in the Prisons

Chapter One My Story “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you before you were born I set you apart……..” Jeremiah 1:5 ______________________________________________________________________________ If someone told me that I would spend 12 years of my life in prison; I would have thought them crazy. I believe it is pertinent that you have some background information on my life that might help set the stage for understanding life prior, in and after prison. I will share my deliverance later in this book. I married my high school sweetheart (Jodean) and we have been together now 48 years. I have 3 adult boys and an adult daughter and 8 grandchildren. In high school I was active in sports, playing football, track and gymnastics. I took an elective drafting class in high school because I knew that I would probably cut off a limb in wood shop. All of us teenage guys would get a hold of a Playboy magazine because the articles were so informative. In all seriousness, I saw a drawing by Syd Mead in one of those issues that really did turn me on to futuristic buildings. My soon to be mother-in-law gave me a book by Frank Lloyd Wright and I went crazy over a house he did in Bear Run, Pennsylvania called “Falling Water”. It was then that I said I wanted to become an architect. After high school, we were married and I entered into architecture school. Those were lean years as I was in school, and my wife was pregnant with our first child. I began drinking around this time and it became a serious problem. After college, I went to work in an architect’s office believing I was going to be the next Frank Lloyd Wright, but all I did for the first year was Frank Lloyd Wrong. Running blueprints, errands and such was not my idea of re-designing metropolis. I never drank during the day; however, the evenings and weekends were a different story. My drinking was creating problems at home. I was an abusive drunk, not physically but verbally and six years into our marriage, Jodean couldn’t take it anymore and said she was filing for a divorce. I felt like my whole world had just collapsed. My brother, (Jack) mom and dad had come to Christ and they had been working on me for a while. Jack came over to the house during this time and in desperation I asked him what was I going to do? I knew I couldn’t stop drinking on my own and I was losing my wife and daughter. Jack and Jodean were close and he knew the problems she had to put up with. Jack basically told me the love and power of Jesus Christ and that all I needed to do was ask His forgiveness and seek His authority over all things that kept me in bondage. So, Jack and I prayed together and my life began to change. I was now clean and sober and a changed person. I was vigilant in asking the Lord to give me back my wife and daughter and just before the divorce was finalized, Jodean had seen the change in me and that I had stopped drinking and it was then that she asked me to come back home, and two weeks later, Jodean received Christ. Through the years we had three boys, Ron, Shawn and Jason and at this time I was a senior designer in the firm and in a few more years I would became a partner. The vast majority of our work was designing churches, large retail and corporate office buildings and a number of celebrity’s homes.