“My life is awesome!”
This is not a statement you would expect from someone isolated in solitary confinement while serving a twenty-five-year prison sentence. But it is exactly what Crossroads student Buddy wrote in his testimony.
Growing up, Buddy took his family’s comfortable lifestyle for granted.
“I didn’t have a rough life—no sad story of poverty, neglect or abuse like most of the men in here,” he recalled. “On the contrary, I grew up privileged in a financially comfortable home. I was raised in the church and baptized at age seven.”
As a teenager, he began to rebel and experiment with drugs.
“From age fourteen to age thirty, I went from a street-level recreational meth and drug user to a meth cook and white prison gang member,” said Buddy.
But the drugs didn’t bring him the satisfaction he desired. In fact, they ultimately took away everything he loved.
“I had my children taken away from me by Child Protective Services when I got my first prison sentence,” he remembered. “I lost my wife, my parents, my home, my business and my inheritance over the last nineteen years. I was a resentful and bitter man.”
Despite everything he lost, he continued to let drugs control his life. High on meth one day, Buddy received a phone call that turned his world upside down.
He was told that his friends from the gang, who had been staying at his house, had gotten into a fight. Guns were drawn, shots were fired—and one of the men was killed.
Buddy panicked. He didn’t want to be connected to the murder, but it had taken place at his house. Suddenly, he was struck with an odd feeling.
“I don’t know how else to say it except that the Lord gave me such a strong sense of dread, and a profound feeling of His divine presence, that I nearly fell to my knees,” Buddy said.
Convincing himself that the feeling must have been caused by drug-induced paranoia, he ignored it and started toward the house to deal with the situation. But he had barely driven a block down the road before he was pulled over by police. Not only was he associated with the murder, but his pockets were full of meth.
After he was arrested, he thought back to that strange feeling. He realized it wasn’t from the drugs. It was from God.
“I told the Lord I was sorry for all of the evil I perpetrated against Him,” Buddy said. “I asked Him to forgive me of my sins in Jesus’ name, and I have never looked back.”
Buddy immediately focused his time on studying the Bible and developing a relationship with Jesus. In 2016, he signed up for the Crossroads mentorship program in 2016. Today, he is studying seminary-level courses in Tier 3.
“I am very grateful for the Crossroads Bible studies and for this opportunity to learn more about the Word of God and His will for my life,” he said. “My studies and my mentor are such a blessing to me.”
Buddy and his mentor have been studying together since 2018 through his Tier 2 and Tier 3 courses.
Over the years, she has seen incredible growth in him.
“[Buddy] is an outstanding student. He has an amazing relationship with the Lord,” his mentor said. “He spends much of his time studying the Word and in prayer, and he desires for the Lord to use him to witness to others. He has described to me the person he used to be. God has created a new main in [him]/”
A new creation in Christ with a whole new perspective, Buddy now understands what truly makes life awesome. It’s not drugs or possessions. It’s not wealth or status. It’s not even freedom from prison.
“I’ve asked the Lord to keep me locked up as long as it takes to train me to be a full-time servant of Jesus and minister of the Gospel. I have completely devoted all my time and energy into living a life that brings glory to God,” he said. “All I can say is Jesus is everything to me. My life is so awesome.”
Christ-centered relationships like the one between Buddy and his mentor allow men and women behind bars to grow closer to God with invaluable fellowship and guidance from brothers and sisters in Christ. Learn more about studying God’s Word with people like Buddy by serving as a Crossroads mentor.