All The Places God Has Brought Me, Through...

Life as you know it is going to change. We’re always on the cusp of something “new” occurring, most often we’re just too busy to realize it when something significant happens.

One of the first things I learned about the life of a disciple is this: God reserves the exclusive and express right to interrupt your life at any given time. The only question is, what will you do when He comes calling? It’s hard to kick against the goads, meaning, when God is training you to follow the course that He set for your life and you begin to stray off in your own direction, He will use the hardships of this life to bring you back on track.

I know what it means to run from my purpose, I’ve tried that, not only does it make life hard, it hurts. So, on that note, I try to keep stride with the direction that God is leading me on. My life had been interrupted. I embraced that...

All the prerequisites for success were in place. I was adopted by a young couple—both recent graduates of Calvin College and Calvin Theological Seminary. They dreamed of shaping and propelling their son into a life full of wonder and hope.

Sadly, things didn’t go according to plan.

My life as a teenager revolved around drugs, crime, and broken relationships. I was married and divorced, became a father, and served five years in prison—all by the time I turned 23. When things couldn’t seem to get any worse, they did. In 1995 I committed armed robbery and was sentenced to serve a life term in the Michigan prison system.

Seven years later, on the evening of Dec. 12, 2002, a fellow prisoner spoke to me about the love of God, the realities of heaven and hell, and the availability of salvation through Jesus Christ. I returned to my cell with the realization that I was guilty of a wasted life and rebellion against God. Sin had been my burden, and its weight was on the verge of breaking me. With nowhere left to run, I wept quietly in the dark while confessing my sin and guilt before God’s throne of grace.

My journey as a disciple began in the solitary confinement cell of a maximum security prison where I responded to God’s call for me to follow Him. For 6 years, alone, in a 12 x 6 ft cell for 23 hours a day. I spent most of my time reading the Bible trying to understand what it meant to be His follower. By the time I made it through the Gospels and Epistles I reached the conclusion that in order for me to follow His ways I had to commit to understanding, internalizing and living out His teachings for the rest of my life, so I did exactly that. I committed to being a disciple of the Master.

I call it, enrolling in The Kingdom University. I knew that I was being taken to school to learn a new way of life. God assigned disciples to encourage, comfort, and guide me through letters and brief visitations as my relationship with the Holy Spirit grew deeper each day while we were alone in my solitary space.

After my years of school, knowing that prison was my place of calling, I was determined to make a difference where I was. At that time I was pretty zealous after living in isolation for so long. I thought I was going to single handedly change the prison landscape from desolate places of despair to places of learning. I knew that I, along with others unbeknownst to me, were going to disrupt the status quo of the place where I was called. I just didn’t know how.

In 2005 and again in 2016, Banner Magazine, a publication of the Christian Reformed Church of North America, gave me the opportunity to write articles on the topic of the prison church. This was the beginning of missioning me to encourage others to go back to the basics of discipleship. These articles laid a foundation for God to demonstrate the disruptive power of discipleship through society's most unlikely candidates.

While leaving Newberry Correctional Facility an unlikely disciple, Correction Officer Gary VanSicle, shook my hand and encouraged me, “Bloom where you're planted.” I was being relocated to Ionia, a prison named Richard Handlon Correctional Facility formerly known as the Michigan Training Unit, aka “Gladiator School.” This place had bad soil. It’s where the system would send its most incorrigible and violent prisoners. The gang and drug hierarchy was maintained by cliques that were the most violent. How was I supposed to bloom in an environment that was not conducive to growth?

In 2010 I was nearing my second parole board review. Even though I was sentenced to live out the rest of my days in prison, I had hope. I was thinking about what life would be like if I were released from prison? Where would I go from here? What would I do as a profession?

I began reaching out and forming a friendship with a professor from Calvin Theological Seminary named David Rylaarsdam. David became interested in meeting with me to talk more about how to bridge the gap between free and imprisoned believers. Once a month David would drive an hour to the prison, where we would talk for the afternoon in the visiting room.

After giving thought to what I would do after graduating from prison, I decided that I wanted to matriculate to seminary. I asked David if he would explore if it were possible for me to enroll into Calvin Theological Seminary and he agreed. David’s return visit introduced the next seed. I received a course catalog from the Seminary and selected the Pastoral Care certificate program, submitted a letter of interest and received an acceptance letter to provide the parole board.

Parole Denied... I was disappointed that I would spend another 5 years in prison before having another chance at being granted parole, but I tried to make the best of it. I informed the Seminary of my unsuccessful efforts to make it to their campus, and began probing into the options of being paired with a seminary student to share the course work with me in person right in the visiting room. Maybe we could do it through correspondence, I suggested. No option was off the table. In addition, I had friends, a lot of friends who were interested in accessing a more formal education in a discipleship.

Once again , David returned with good news. The Seminary was sending the Deputy Warden 50 applications for me to share with others interested in entering into some form of ministry after they’re released from prison. This was a big deal! Everyone was excited and a new door was open. I provided The Deputy Warden with a list of other prisoners' names who would be interested in this “pilot” opportunity, they completed the applications and our first course was scheduled to begin with twenty students in the Fall!

For the next five years David, myself, and others continued to challenge the seminary and the prison to go beyond pilot phase, and in 2015, Calvin Prison Initiative (CPI) was formed as a joint partnership between Calvin University and Calvin Theological Seminary. We have bloomed! Currently there are 140 students enrolled, 47 bachelor Degrees have been granted, with a running student GPA and they are changing the culture of their world.

As a good practice I try to keep my rearview mirror perspective of life in view. When a person is driving forward we tend to look behind us as naturally we watch the road ahead, along with all of the peripheral clutter. Looking in the rear view is just important. As the saying goes, hindsight is 20/20 vision, looking back I get to review the places and people where I witnessed God unfolding a fraction of His Master plan, right in front of me, and I was included. God is at work, all of the time, everywhere. I’m sure you’ve heard it, seen it or have even been a part of it at some point in your life. As you read this, ask yourself, “Is there a place, time or person (including yourself) that I can look back and see that God was doing something good in the middle of someone’s (including your own) worst situation?

While still at Richard Hanlon Correctional facility I was assigned to work as a clerk in the prison administration and academic building which gave me daily interaction with all of the Wardens Staff . After spending some time working closely with the Deputy Warden, I received permission allowing me to form a weekly book club for anyone to join. The group was named “The Life Change Group.” The goal was to create a core group of positive people that would strive to influence a hostile and hopeless population. We all were in need of being affirmed of our God given potential and guided to begin thinking more… civilly.

Our first book and catalyst for change was Ten Powerful Phrases for Positive People by Richard DeVos. By the time we completed our first book we were prepared to take the next step of disrupting the prison culture by hosting the Life Change Seminar series events in the prison auditorium, again, for anyone who wanted to come. We sought out the most influential members of society to come and speak to the most influential members of the prison population about their value and the need for them to return to the community as upstanding contributing members. This was a big change to the system we were living within, bringing people inside the walls for hope and inspiration.

On a hot summer day in 2012, just months before his 24th birthday, Kirk Cousins, NFL quarterback, accepted my invitation to visit and speak to the Life Change group at Michigan's Richard A. Handlon Correctional Facility. He challenged the audience of more than a hundred prisoners and administrators with two questions: "Who will be your Master?" and "What will be your mission in life?". In parting, Kirk encouraged his listeners with this reminder: "Your life is not over. God wants to redeem your life and use it for his glory and the good of others." Its funny, his visit and time spent was incredibly motivating and impactful to our group and yet the impact was circular. Kirks book "Game Changer" highlights the insight and experience he to also gained from his visit, bringing us hope.

Over the years, many of us in prison have asked for ways to be engaged as full citizens, rather than only as recipients of services. Clearing a path toward reconciliation will help us contribute toward healing the harm we have caused. We feel an obligation to make things right.

At Synod 2005, the Christian Reformed Church adopted the resolution from the Committee to Study Restorative Justice. "We support the restorative justice movement’s concern for the restoration of offenders. The path of return specified by restorative justice is a hard one. It involves taking responsibility for the wrong done, working to restore the harm where possible, and suffering whatever consequences result from the criminal offense. Restorative justice provides a clear path back to the community, which is often not the case in our criminal justice systems" (Acts of Synod 2005, 558).

Encouraged by this call to action, I joined a small circle of family members and friends to organize Prisoners in Christ (PinC), a prison and justice ministry at Church of the Servant, Grand Rapids, Mich. This team has worked with prisoners, organizations, institutions, and government agencies to create opportunities for people to experience hope and healing after suffering from crime and incarceration.

PinC is now partnering with interested inmates, the Restorative Justice Coalition of West Michigan, the School of Criminal Justice at Michigan State University, and Starting Up Now Business Solutions to organize its newest initiative, Network for Real Change.

Net4REAL is focused on providing opportunities for in-­prison training in restorative practices and principles, equipping participants with tools on their journey toward reconciliation with God, themselves, and others. Net4REAL will also offer education in entrepreneurial skills, preparing students to enter the workforce or perhaps start their own small business once they reenter the community.

I believe the reason God used prison to create the context for my worldview and my mission to reach those in the margins is because I was literally brought to a place where there was nothing standing between me and God. Everything was taken away, daily, in perpetuity until God had fulfilled His purpose in me. It is a painful and traumatizing experience, but when you reach the lowest point in life, you look up, and as long as you think that you can solve your own God sized problem, you look somewhere else. God put me in a pit, waited until I looked up and then asked me if I was ready to get to work.

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In 2016 my Parole was Granted! I call it God’s plan. In Michigan a person serving a life term with the possibility of parole serves on average 42 years in prison before they are released. I was released after 22 years.

My sentence was cut in half the moment I began to work for God. I was right where I was supposed to be for as long as I was supposed to be there. I was convinced deeply about that. I Know that God used prison to keep me alive, He met me there to teach me, And then…

I was out, but I wasn’t free. My boundaries had been expanded, and my territory increased, I had four years of intensive parole supervision to complete and that meant I was also still in school. That meant more tests to pass and fail, more life lessons to learn, and more recalibrating of my senses that were deeply acclimated to living in an abnormal environment.

Shortly after I was released, I began hosting community meetings and speaking with local church leaders and criminal justice reform advocacy organizations in search of the “men of peace” who were called to disrupt the status quo of an unjust and harmful legal system that tens of millions of people are affected by every day. This is a big topic for many to digest because of the sensitive nature of all the unhealed harm that hasn't been matched with a solution. I learned that people in society have a different pace they move at when addressing issues that don't directly affect them. Talking about prison reform was like having a casual conversation where you are trying to gently bring someone along without offending them and losing a potential ally. Organizing in prison was classic preaching to the choir. This was different.

A year later I was working with Safe and Just Michigan serving as their Outreach Director. We grew from 3 part time staff to 12 full time employees in my first 2 years and I quickly became the face of formerly incarcerated people in Michigan. Safe and Just Michigan was one of the top criminal justice advocacy organizations specific to Michigan. My role was to raise awareness of our organization from the grassroots to the grass tops.

Our mission was to reduce the state prison population, create safe alternatives to incarceration, amplify the voice of survivors of crime, remove barriers to education, employment and housing for people with convictions on their record, and to promote voter rights and access to the polls for people housed in county jails.

Throughout my 4 years with Safe and Just Michigan I learned how change happened in society. I was working in a secular arena that occasionally would include work with faith based organizations, but this was not a faith led movement. To my frustration, I knew that secular organizations had essentially stood up to carry out the disciples' work, in essence, the work of the church.

For the next 2 years I took time to reflect on the years I had been out of prison. Life had moved at light speed since I returned to the community. I was disappointed to have to sit with the number of tests I failed, the setbacks those failures caused, and how the cares of the world quickly sprung up and choked out my dependence on God. I had chosen my own path, I kicked against the goads again and it hurt.

The positive takeaways were, our policy passed, the Clean Slate Initiative become law. More than 5 million people living in Michigan who have convictions on their record would now be eligible to have those convictions forever erased. They would no longer have a “criminal background.” With no effort of their own, their names will be forever removed from having “sinned” against society. They have been forgiven.

One month before my parole supervision ended. I was called to the Genesee County Sheriff’s office to meet with, Sheriff Chris Swanson. Due to the work we were engaged in to bring vocational education opportunities and voter access to the men and women housed in the Genesee County Jail, Sheriff Swanson exercised the power of his position. He appointed me to serve his office for a four year term as a Deputy Sheriff of Genesee County as one of the first appointed Deputy’s for I.G.N.I.T.E.

As I moved out of criminal justice advocacy I still was an advocate for people. God was leading me even further in the margins. I was meeting more people who were escaping the abuse of their intimate partner, people who never recovered from the financial impact and trauma caused by the world being placed in the confinement of their own homes as a result of the angel of death in our world’s history. Covid-19.

After society’s term of imposed solitude ended I watched as the U.S. Director of Education entered the prison to congratulate the 1st graduating class of Calvin University inside of a state prison. I felt the tears of joy rolling down the faces of men who had regrettably wasted most of their lives, now celebrating new life, bore into the Kingdom, as disciples.

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My experiences have gifted me a deep understanding of how to walk while being guided and to recognize the hurt, pain and suffering others are facing. I co-founded the Coalition to Oppose Domestic Abuse (CODA) a 501 (c)(3) non-profit that focuses on creating and sustaining healthy relationships for ourselves, our family and our community. I have additionally been able to develop a great deal with the outreach of my prison ministry. God has taken some of the worst and most challenging times and experiences in my life and shifted the prospective to become a truly rewarding journey, filled with purpose.

Never forget where you have been. I hadn’t forgotten, but I was trying to move on to a place where I was further removed from the suffering of others, because I know that once you come into proximity of those who are dwelling in the chains of poverty, abandonment and abuse, and you see the gift of God in them, you cannot run from what you know. And I know that God was bringing me back to that place he wanted me to be, with Him.

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Here's an article published highlighting a fellow inmate who benefited from the Calvin Prison Initiative. He proudly received his bachelor’s degree from Calvin University through the Calvin Prison Initiative program.

https://calvin.edu/news/archive/a-broken-door-leads-to-a-new-identity