Can Transformation Take Place Behind Bars? How Jon Transformed a 14-year Prison Sentence into a Lifetime of Faith-Driven Service

And then, of course, that moment happens.

A decision.

A single moment in time and everything changes.

Our guest today, John Antonucci, he knows this story all too well.

That moment was devastating.

That moment would change the lives of so very many, including his own.

Faced with a 14-year prison sentence, John Antonucci could have viewed his life as done.

But instead, as the story goes, he would use this as a transformation because, well, he realized every setback is a setup for an amazing comeback.

Today is one heck of a comeback story.

Now, here's how today's episode, though, is going to mean something more to you.

Is that while you listen, I want you to keep in mind that it's not what happens in this life that matters.

No, it's how we react to it that defines us.

Keep that in mind as you listen to his story and understand how that moment doesn't make him who he is.

Instead, it's all the things that he's done since then.

My friend, I welcome you to episode 284.

What's up, my friend, and welcome to Grit Grace of Inspiration.

I'm your host, Kevin Lowe.

Twenty years ago, I awoke from a life-saving surgery only to find that I was left completely blind.

And since that day, I've learned a lot about life, a lot about living, and a lot about myself.

And here on this podcast, I want to share those insights with you.

Because, friend, if you are still searching for your purpose, still trying to understand why, or still left searching for that next right path to take, well, consider this to be your stepping stone to get you from where you are to where you want to be.

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Last week on the podcast, I mentioned that I wanted to start doing prayer requests for you, my listeners.

And today we are going right along with that.

And I have a prayer request from Debbie, and she asked prayer for her son Shannon.

Shannon recently underwent massive heart surgery.

And she just asked if we could be praying for Shannon for complete and total healing, that he will get strong and well and can get back to living the life that he was.

His name is Shannon, and it would be amazing if you could say a prayer for him today.

And please remember, if you would like to have your prayer request featured here on the podcast, I've made it super simple.

All you have to do is to send your prayer request via text to 877-749-8178.

Again, that phone number is 877-749-8178.

And remember, don't call that phone number.

Just send a text message.

That is what it is set up for.

So send a text message to that phone number with your prayer request, and I would love to feature it here on the podcast.

With that, my friend, it's back to the episode.

Here is my interview with John Antanucci.

SPEAKER_02: And was the probably the most entrepreneurial young man that you have ever encountered.

I don't know.

You may have encountered more, but at seven years old, I started my own lawn business.

By the time I was 12, I was running that and delivering newspapers and selling newspaper subscriptions and going up to the local uh convenience store.

I think they called it convenience plus back then.

Anyways, and uh like making the coffee and stocking the shelves and helping a little local produce stand sell in Old Town and really just just uh working, working, working.

And because I was homeschooled my entire life, that gave me the opportunity to get the schoolwork out of the way and get back to work.

So very ambitious young man, uh somebody that uh my my parents were often known as John's parents in the neighborhood.

And yeah, just just very, very much a go-getter.

And then at about 12, I got involved with martial arts, and that was something that I just really took to really, really quickly.

And so from that point on, that was kind of that was kind of the passion.

I still worked and did all the other jobs, but my dream was to become an instructor, and I was able to officially realize that dream when I was 17 years old.

We'd moved to Arizona by that time.

It was an unfortunate situation, but one of the instructors that had been a longtime instructor with the company that I was a part of passed away, and uh they were in a bind to try to fill all of the classes.

And at that point, a 17-year-old, ambitious young man was uh was all that was really required.

I had the rank, I had the ambition, and they had the need.

So we uh we complimented each other in that, and and by the time I was 19, I was instructing over 500 students across the Phoenix Metro Valley and really, really just continuing on.

So that's kind of a an overview of of what I what I was doing.

SPEAKER_00: Yeah, amazing.

Now, what do you think it was about martial arts in particular that really like attracted you to it?

SPEAKER_02: You know, I I think it's it's hard to say.

It's hard to say.

Being homeschooled, as much as that gave me an incredible amount of of opportunity.

This was back in the days before homeschooling was cool, certainly pre-COVID.

Yes.

And so I think there was a lot of of uh you know kids are near me that didn't know how to take that.

So probably a little bit to try to overcome some bullying and things, but but I think honestly, if I look back on it now, I kind of became a bully there for a while.

And so I think a lot of it was just a desire to be powerful, a desire to command, control, and respect.

SPEAKER_00: What do you mean when you say that you kind of became a bully?

Why why would you say that?

SPEAKER_02: Well, you know, hindsight being 2020, which it always is, there there's just you can look back on it and say, you know, there wasn't a real heart for self-defense.

There was more a heart for dominance.

And especially when I look back on the way that I treated my siblings, I got I have a lot of remorse over some of the ways that I treated my siblings.

I'm the oldest of five.

And so uh just look back and I'm so thankful for the wonderful relationship that I have now with each of them.

But boy, I sure could have treated them better growing up.

SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, understandable.

Now, real quick, kind of while we're still in this same kind of uh period of your life, the move that you guys did.

How old were you when you guys moved, and how was the move on on you and life?

SPEAKER_02: So I was 15 when we moved, and I I think for me it was a huge adjustment.

So we moved out here.

My father's been in the ministry since uh since I was born, and he moved here to help with a with a church that was, or I shouldn't say here.

I'm not in Arizona anymore, but he moved to Arizona uh to help help with a church there.

And so I think from one perspective, it was something new, it was something exciting.

Being the oldest, I was kind of the fearless one of the group, but it definitely changed a lot as well.

Uh all of the little business ventures I had going obviously kind of evaporated.

And I don't know how much you know about Arizona, but while Colorado was lush with trees and grass and things to mow and rake and shovel, Arizona not so much.

So about the about the most you're gonna get with landscaping as a 15-year-old kid in Arizona is pulling weeds and raking rocks.

And so that kind of put the kibosh on that.

But I was able to get a job.

I started working for Safeway and and did pretty well there once I turned 16.

Martial arts also took a big change because in Colorado, uh, going back to kind of that bully idea, I was just, I was undisputedly kind of the top of the class.

Even before I was officially ranked top or the oldest, it was just, I took to it naturally.

And so while that was great, it didn't necessarily foster a spirit of growth.

Well, I came to Phoenix, and Phoenix being a much larger area where the company that I was a part of was actually founded, there were people that were just a lot better.

And so I went from kind of being the top dog to being a nobody in a matter of moments, and I think that was really, really beneficial for part of my growth journey.

SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Now, when you were talking about kind of at the the height of this martial arts when you were, I think you said 19 and you were teaching martial arts and stuff, just from my own knowledge of your story, something else kind of happened at 19 that I feel like is a pivotal moment in your story.

Would you unpack that for us?

SPEAKER_02: Yeah, absolutely.

The the the age of 19 is is is huge because it was both the apex of who I was as well as the rock bottom that resulted in who I am.

The successes that I had found growing up, and it really was.

I mean, I just it was it was the mightest touch.

Everything I did turned to gold, and it really was enough to really lend to an already overinflated ego.

And so when I was probably 18, I was paired up with uh with some people that I was working with and all societally good people, we were all kind of doing the right thing, except there was one of us who had found some ways to kind of cook the books a little bit when it came to our instructing of martial arts.

And so that kind of led me down a rabbit hole.

Uh, I'm not a creative person by any stretch of the imagination, but I am certainly an innovative person.

And uh if you show me that something is possible, I'm gonna show you how we can make that possibility better.

And uh that's you know, that's kind of what I did.

He he showed me that there was a possibility of skimming off the top of the books, and I said, well, if you can do it that way, then you can also do it this other and this other and this other and this other and this other way.

Eventually, of course, when you get greedy and you do things that are that lack integrity, I think the Bible says that uh things that are done in secret are shouted from the house tops.

And so uh that's that kind of was what happened.

I I was called on the carpet for it.

I made up a lie about what my intentions were, that I was trying to find all of the problems with the system, and uh they they they bought that just about as for about as much truth as it contained.

And uh I was I was of course fired.

And so after being fired, of course, the the the reason that it was it was caught, all the books were being audited, and there was there was kind of a series of events that happened, but but to kind of just distill it all down, I was fired.

My best friend who originally kind of showed me that this was possible was under investigation, and uh we were both what we lacked in an integrity we made up for in uh in creativity, I guess.

And so one day as we were talking, we were talking about me starting up my own venture, and he was kind of scared a little bit because remember I was 17 at the when I originally signed my contract, so my non-compete clause I didn't feel was enforceable, but he was significantly older than me.

And so his contract had been signed at an elder age, and so he was trying to figure out, you know, what are we gonna do about that?

Because I, you know, eventually I know I'm getting fired too, basically.

And so he made he made this comment.

It was, it was done in passing.

I didn't really take it seriously, but he was like, you know, we should just burn the whole place down.

And I was like, ah, you're stupid, shut up.

And uh within within moments of that, I mean, it wasn't like it was even talked about really.

It was just kind of in passing the conversation ended, and I didn't give it much thought.

And uh it wasn't until probably a month or two later that it came up again with two mutual colleagues who said that they had overheard the same friend talking about the same idea, but this time in front of students.

And they were pretty concerned about, you know, not only where this idea was going, but also the fact that it had been mentioned in front of other people.

And that was kind of when it got serious because I was like uh still very insecure with myself, still lacking any integrity and courage in myself.

And with some weird, weirdly placed sense of importance, I felt the best thing to do was to take charge and all right, I'm gonna talk to Josh about this.

And we went toward that direction, but instead of, you know, hey, we should never have talked about this, or this this is a terrible idea, I more went at it from the perspective of you can't say things like that in front of students.

SPEAKER_00: Yes.

SPEAKER_02: And that uh that kind of snowballed the the conversation into, you know, what were you even talking about?

And eventually there was a plan that was put into place.

And to make a very long story very short, when I was 19, me and three of my friends thought that it would be a bright idea to go light that building on fire, the office building where we worked.

And so on, I believe it was June 13th of 2009, we uh we all donned black attire and scaled uh an awning that allowed us to break a window in the second story offices of that office building.

And uh we had a whole plan.

The whole plan collapsed immediately after going in.

I don't think any of us wanted to be there.

I think we were all freaked out.

I think if any one of us had said, I'm not doing this, the rest would have said, and and and we all would have left.

But uh none of us did.

I was too much of a coward to make such a statement.

And so we uh we broke the window.

Uh we entered into the office that we were supposed to disperse from.

None of us ever left that office.

Most of us just left our gasoline that we had brought with us in that office.

I was the first one out the window with one of the others close behind, and I was literally just running away as fast as I could when I saw the fireball erupt into the sky behind me.

And uh the alarm went off, and my my best friend, a kind of an older brother, he had apparently lit the match while he was still standing in that room.

And I didn't see him again until after I pulled my truck around trying to look for him, and he was at that point kind of rolling around up on the awning with flames coming off of his clothing.

I I was unable to stop my car in time.

I tried to make a U-turn, but in the time that I made the U-turn, the fire truck passed me, and uh he had said during the quote unquote planning phase, if you can call what we did planning, that uh if anything went wrong, all of us were supposed to get out of there and uh preserve our lives as we were all much younger than him and that he would he would take care of it.

So I made yet another cowardly move and I ran away.

I drove away, really, and uh turned my phone off so I couldn't be tracked and drove away as fast as I could.

I have no idea where I went.

It's all just kind of a blur, but um eventually we we all met up at my house and the other three of us.

We concocted a lie that uh we felt felt would be an alibi for all of us, and uh we we left it at that.

And you know, to continue to try to fast forward through the story, the police called me the next day as his wife had indicated I was the last one to be seen with him, assuming that I would be able to lie my way out of that quandary just like I had everything else in my life.

I went to the police station and answered the questions in my most convincing tone.

And they believed me for the exact amount of truth that was in my statements as well.

And I found myself with the handcuffs being clasped around my wrists as they clipped shut and being having being led away, being charged with arson of an occupied structure, and what was classified in Arizona as first degree murder, uh, not because they thought I intent we intentionally killed him, but because when you commit a felony and someone dies, it's considered uh capital murder.

So it's classified the same as first degree.

SPEAKER_00: Wow.

So your friend did die?

SPEAKER_02: Yes.

The next day I assumed he was in the hospital.

I had no idea where he was, but to me, I'd watched apparently one too many episodes of CSI, and uh I thought, well, there's this giant database, so I'll find him.

And so I called the police to file a missing person's report saying that we were supposed to leave and that he had taken off to run an errand and never returned.

In case anyone's wondering, no such giant database exists.

But they will charge you for filing a uh a fraudulent report when they find out that uh the person was not missing and you were with him later, so that's a fun fact.

But yeah, I I tried filing a report, they were unable to find him, I didn't know what was going on, and it wasn't until I received a call from a mutual colleague later that day where they said that they thought they had found Josh's body at the scene that uh I learned that he had passed.

Wow.

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: Wow, wow, wow.

My how a series of bad decisions can just completely snowball and completely change the course of your life.

SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.

No one saw it coming.

Uh not not especially not me.

But but yeah, no, it went from uh I I I think I've said I was I I went from being the the golden boy to the goober.

Uh I went from being the the the person that was doing good things to just being an absolute loser in a matter of matter of minutes.

SPEAKER_00: Wow.

So what happens next after you're arrested, all of this, what happens?

SPEAKER_02: A long and very positive journey.

And when I say positive, I don't mean fun.

I I don't mean comfortable, I don't mean entertaining.

I mean that it was good for me.

The arrest woke me up a little bit, but honestly not as much as you would think.

I was still very you could say I was still drinking my own Kool-Aid, maybe you could say.

And so because of that, uh I maintained my lie.

I wasn't there, I I didn't know what they were talking about, I was not guilty of what they were charging me of.

And in my mind, I I wasn't.

It wasn't even so much that I believed that I didn't do it, it was that I was being very technical about it in my own mind.

So in order to justify everything, I was charged with arson.

Well, in my mind, I never lit a fire, I never lit a match, which is technically true.

They were charging me with murder.

Again, I didn't kill anybody, and so that was technically true.

And so I just really perpetuated this idea that uh that I was innocent.

And that was compounded by the fact that uh anyone who's ever had any interaction with the law can affirm that your lawyer will tell you do not admit guilt under any circumstances.

But that doesn't mean lie, it just means shut up is really what that means.

Um So it took me a while.

It took me a while.

I think it I want to say it took me at least a month or two to even admit to my attorney that I was there and admit to my attorney that that I was at least culpable of what I felt I was culpable of.

And then honestly, Kevin, it took I I mean, it happened over a series of time and there were gradual incremental acknowledgments, but I want to say it took at least six months before I was able to just reconcile the fact that it was my actions that were a part of this.

It was probably a couple of years before I recognized that my actions had a ripple effect.

And it was probably close to five years, I want to say, before I recognized that the natural born leadership calling that I carried actually did indeed lay on me a greater level of culpability than even the others possessed.

SPEAKER_00: Wow.

Now, what would be the outcome of you being arrested in all of this time?

SPEAKER_02: Yeah, the the outcome was was not what anybody, well, not what anybody that loved me would hope for.

I eventually was offered a plea bargain, which for those that are not familiar with the law basically meant that the state of Arizona would not take me to trial, where I could be facing up to 25 to life.

In fact, the very first conversation that my attorney and I had, uh, he said to me through a you know bulletproof glass, my name is Jeffrey Kirchler, I'm your court appointed attorney.

I will be your court appointed attorney for the duration of your pretrial proceedings unless the state chooses to seek the death penalty, at which point I will no longer be your court appointed attorney and they will assign another.

And so that's that was a you know a 19 year old punch in the face right there.

So I was facing really some strength.

Serious time.

So they offered a plea bargain that would eliminate trial and and would just kind of leave it in the hands of the judge, and that plea bargain offered a range of between seven years in prison to 21 years in prison.

And I think everyone that uh that loved me and knew me were all really thinking that seven years was was too long.

Uh in fact, I think one of the things that really got me in trouble was that there there's a way for a judge, if they really want to, they can basically say I'm not accepting the plea bargain and I'm just gonna sentence them less.

And it hardly ever happens, but that sliver of hope was very large in in many of us.

And I think there was, especially me, I'll just speak for my own uh naivety and and my own ego.

I really felt like they were gonna look and they were gonna say, this kid really, all he did was actually break a window.

We're not gonna send him to prison for seven years.

Because this is still early in my in my kind of acknowledgement process.

But I think most of my family was thinking, you know, seven years.

I mean, that's that's so much time.

The kid's never been in trouble, he's never been arrested, he's not, you know, he's not out there doing drugs, he wasn't gang-banging, you know, all the things that that at least my circles would think.

And so we were all really hoping for seven years.

As it turns out, many of the things that we thought would be mitigating circumstances were actually ended up to be aggravating circumstances.

The fact that I had never been in trouble and had the upbringing I did was used as an aggravating circumstance to show that I should have known better and that I don't have bad influences and things like that.

The fact that I wasn't on drugs uh indicated to them that this meant I was sociopathic.

They actually had me clinically tested.

I was determined not to be, so they weren't allowed to officially bring that up, but that was the allegation.

And so the way the sentencing went was that uh my family had the opportunity to share why they felt that it should be seven years, and those that were victims, which included my best friend's family, and of course the owners and employees of the business were all able to give their statements.

And every single one of those that were on the prosecutor's side of the aisle asked for the full 21.

Everyone on my side of the aisle asked for seven.

I just asked for mercy, and the judge split the difference and sentenced me to 14 years in the Department of Corrections.

SPEAKER_00: Wow.

Wow, wow, wow.

What was going through your head when that sentence came out?

SPEAKER_02: This can't be real.

There's there's just no way.

There, there was so much so much disbelief.

You know, I was remember at that point, I was I was thinking, you know, one or two was what I was hoping for.

So I think there was just there was a ton of disbelief that this was happening.

It couldn't be real.

And then I think there was also some sort of uh what I'm gonna call misplaced hope.

You know, everybody, everybody that's in the jail or prison system has I shouldn't say everybody, but many people have this clinging hope that their case is gonna be overturned or they're going to get relief or whatever.

And and so even as a part of sentencing, the judge will tell you, you are always welcome to file for post-conviction relief.

So I think that was what I clung to in that moment.

Yeah, it was it was just very surreal.

I was I was sharing with someone just just the other day.

So the whole experience now, even looking back on it, is just extraordinarily surreal.

If if you were to look at me, Kevin, and you were to say, John, what are you talking about?

Dude, you you never went to prison.

That that's that's insane.

What are you like, are you okay?

Like I would have a hard time like arguing.

It would just, it's so it's still such a dream that and and and and just like such a surreal experience that as I reflect back on it, the only thing that I can really point to that I would say, no, it absolutely happened, is the amount of growth that came out of it all.

SPEAKER_00: Wow.

Now for myself, the idea of going to prison, especially for a sentence of 14 years, it's it's literally gut-wrenchingly terrifying to me.

SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, especially at 19.

So 14 years is, I mean, that's a lifetime to a 19-year-old.

Exactly.

And and you don't really know what to expect.

You're you're hoping for hoping for the best.

I was in county jail for nine months, kind of fighting the case, if you can call it that.

And the God just really surrounded me with people that I don't know if they were good people, but for whatever reason, they they seemed to want to provide some level of help.

And so they would, you know, give me little little tidbits like, hey, you know, if you you end up going to prison, here's here's things that you need to know.

Um, unfortunately, most of them hadn't been there for a while, and they didn't realize things had changed.

So many of the pieces of advice that I was given, while I can see where there would have been value, it didn't end up serving me super well.

And so, yeah, it was it was, man, again, just very surreal.

And then my placement got canceled.

So I was I went back to jail where they're supposed to, okay, you know, get you ready and then take you to prison, and usually that takes about a week.

Well, a week came and went, and uh I still wasn't gone, and nobody could figure out why.

And to this day, I don't know what happened, but I know there was a moment there where I was just I was sure that the whole thing had had fallen apart and that I was going home.

And of course, that did not happen.

Eventually, I think it was two weeks later, or maybe even three, I was eventually transferred to the Department of Corrections.

And I think where they really struggled was I think it was a classification question because they were trying to reconcile the difference between such a serious crime, such a young person, and no previous backstory.

And so they were trying to figure out how best to classify me in prison because in jail, it's crime is all that matters.

It doesn't matter what you're anything else.

In prison, they use other criteria to classify whether you're going to go to medium custody or minimum custody or maximum custody or whatever.

So I think that that's what it was now.

But, anyways, yeah, I ended up going to prison.

I did end up filing for post-conviction relief.

Nothing happened.

I also applied for something known as clemency, which is basically, I'm sorry I did it, but I'm doing better.

Will you please take some time off my sentence?

That also was not uh fruitful to my cause.

And so I was uh in a position where I spent 14 years under the jurisdiction of the Department of Corrections, 12 of which was actually behind bars, and the other two was out on community supervision.

SPEAKER_00: Wow, wow, wow, wow.

So, I mean, I don't even know how to summarize the idea of 12 years locked away in prison.

But talk to me about life during that time in your life.

I mean, like I said, 12 years it's a big, it's a big time to summarize, but but give me a snapshot of of what life kind of uh was and what did it take on.

SPEAKER_02: Well, when I had been given those those tidbits of advice in jail, one of the things I was told is that when I got to prison, people would kind of just watch me for a couple of weeks, kind of see what I was about, how I carried myself, and then someone might approach me from different groups or whatever to find out, you know, kind of what I wanted my quote unquote prison career to look like.

That is not what happened.

What happened was I had been there about three minutes and I got attacked from behind by three people who were trying to make a name for themselves to see if I would fight back or if I was going to uh be a lame in the prison system.

But I didn't know what was going on, and I knew that I wasn't getting uh getting raped today.

And so I fought back with everything I had, and it with you know three black belts under my belt, I I did okay in that that altercation.

And that moment set a tone that really I think God used to help.

And then just there's just so many moments where I can only thank him for the wisdom that I that I had.

Where that moment kind of made it to where people were just like, okay, he's not causing any problems, we'll we'll leave him alone.

They there wasn't, you know, no gangs were trying to force me to join them.

There was no uh, or there was less pressure to do stupid things.

And I was, again, somehow endued with a little bit of wisdom where I knew where to draw lines.

And if you draw lines in the beginning, it's a whole lot easier than drawing lines in the end.

And I think that that that's obvious just even from the crime, right?

I think if anybody in the beginning had just said, no, I'm not doing this, we never would have been on that roof.

But it's a lot harder once you're already there.

And so once I was in prison, there was a lot of value that was there while I was in jail.

I had recognized that I was not not the person that I claimed to be.

I recognized that my way wasn't working, and I submitted to uh Christ as the Lord of my life.

I had made a profession of faith earlier in my life, but uh at this point I don't I don't believe it was legitimate.

I think I was looking for fire insurance back then.

And so just kind of really submitting to him and so studying the Bible and eventually leading some Bible studies and things, got to prison, and it was it was really just okay, I'm here.

I'm hoping not to be here for too much longer, but while I'm here, how am I going to make the most of it?

And the title that I have given to the my published story is Redeeming the Time, because that was really the summary.

You want a summary of 12 years.

It was a desire to make the most of every moment, a desire to grow personally and to empower others to do the same, a desire and a execution of learning and growth and rehabilitation.

And like I said, that is really, I can look at that now and say, if you want proof that this happened, look at who John was 15 years ago and look at who John is today.

And you're going to have to acknowledge there's a dynamic difference.

SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.

Powerful, powerful, powerful.

When you look back during this time, is there any moments that stand out the most to you as a really transformational period or a moment in time that was extremely positive, that that gave you encouragement, that gave you hope for the future.

Any any moments like that?

SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.

Really, really, I mean a ton, a ton of moments.

But I think that most of them were the same type of moments that we have in our everyday lives that we just miss.

And when you become acutely aware of them, it really, really just serves to encourage an individual.

Often we're looking for major incidents instead of consistent grace.

And the the idea there is, I mean, there there are times, right?

There were there were many times.

I found out at one point that there was actually a price put on my head that was actually removed and taken care of before I even knew about it, you know, before anything, anything happened.

And so you have some major moments like that.

Or I think of a similar scenario where I was really working and dedicated to, I just moved to a new unit, being reclassified to minimum custody, was dedicated to working on some school stuff that I was that I was working toward, and I was approached by someone I'd never even met before, and he said, Hey, I'm getting ready to go home, and I think you would be the best candidate to replace me in my job.

And I was, I didn't know who he was, I didn't know what his job was, I didn't have any understanding.

And it turns out that someone or some ones had been observing me as I'd gotten to the new unit.

Some people who had known me from previous units had had put in some sort of a recommendation, but this was what could arguably be the job with the most responsibility on the unit.

And I just was like, I didn't apply for this, I didn't ask for this, this is incredible.

And those moments are just very encouraging.

Those moments are, they provide personal inspiration, and and there they were they were kind of just like, okay, you know, we're we're we're moving in the right direction.

Now there were also many moments where you just question everything, and it's like, man, what is going on?

Why, why would that happen?

I I that that isn't that doesn't play into the way that I think things should be going.

Uh, I think of the time where I helped uh run a Christmas service at one of the units, and the senior chaplain of the complex took great offense that an inmate would be spearheading a religious event and took so much offense to it, in fact, that he tried to actually send me through disciplinary proceedings for usurping authority or manipulation of staff or something because he felt like I had had too much sway over the event.

That didn't work, but he was able to get me moved randomly, uh, off complex, further away from my family.

And it was like, seriously, like I'm just trying to do the right thing, I'm trying to help, I'm trying to be a blessing, I'm trying to serve, and this.

But even in that scenario, you know, you flip back to the other side.

I got to that new unit, and that new unit had a deputy warden that really, really valued what's called peer education, inmate peer programming, which is something that I helped to develop while I was in this in the uh Department of Corrections.

And so we developed one of the most comprehensive programs in the state while I was there with an incredible success ratio, and it was very fulfilling to be able to serve in that place.

And so for every disappointment and discouragement, there was an inspiration and encouragement.

And uh when you just kind of look back on the summation of the entire experience, just you know, you you you have in the title of your podcast Grace, and that that really I feel like very well summarizes the entire experience.

It was no cakewalk, it was certainly not fun many times, but there were so many moments where I can just say, man, I don't know how that happened the way it did, but boy, I'm sure thankful it was or it did.

SPEAKER_00: Yeah, absolutely.

I I admire your your insight.

I admire your your mindset when you look back on this and you share this with us today of a experience that you know I spoke of earlier that that terrifies me, shakes me at my core.

And yeah, I listened to you, and even though it was that, you you have these moments where you not only turned your life around and got yourself in this own transformation, but we're also helping to lead others in it as well.

SPEAKER_02: Yeah.

And and you know, there's so much intrinsic value in that, right?

Yeah, you have to address internal issues before you can really help anybody else.

And so I think that was very, very important for me to acknowledge my own lack of character, my own lack of integrity, my own issues, and really take a moment to just say, okay, you know, that's not okay, and this needs to be addressed.

And that wasn't like a singular decision.

You know, there that has to be that decision has to be made every single day.

But while that decision has to be made, there is so much purpose in helping others on their journey.

And that was such a privilege because for pretty much the entire time I was incarcerated, I got to help people earn their GEDs.

I got to help people participate in peer education classes and rehabilitation courses and learn new skills and look at their own character and assess their own tendencies and habits and things like that.

And I got to lead uh uh spiritually.

I got to serve in the churches there that are in prison and got to be a blessing in that way and got to help the community.

We would do fundraisers and support uh charitable causes.

And uh so just I really got to be a part of a ton of really great stuff and found incredible purpose.

And you talk about like light bulb moments a minute ago.

I I'll never forget, it was after one of my uh one of my experiences where I did not get the relief I was looking for.

And I remember thinking that, or recognizing, not thinking to myself, but recognizing that the souls that were in front of me, the ones I was serving, were just as important as the ones I was trying to get out to deal with and to serve.

And that was a moment of clarity that I really appreciate.

That so many times I feel like, in fact, even people, well-meaning people that that really wanted the best for me, would say things like, Well, you know, you're in a time of preparation, and when you get out, you're gonna make such an impact.

And they were, you know, they believed in me.

They were they were trying to be encouraging, but it speaks to this idea that what I was doing there was less important, and those people were were less impacted or less needful or less deserving, maybe.

And that's just simply not true.

The the reality that uh is very, very impressed on my heart now is that those souls were just as valuable, those individuals deserved just as much dignity, and I had the privilege for 12 years to serve that community, and I lived every day with the ambition to leave that community a better place than I found it.

Whether I succeeded, I'm sure is up for debate, but I certainly gave it my best effort.

SPEAKER_00: Yeah.

Wow, wow, wow, wow.

My last question that I that I'm really curious about before we kind of start moving forward in your story is you talk a lot about leading, you know, groups and in with your faith and stuff.

And what is faith like behind bars?

Because I think so many of us can maybe think that these horrible people, quote unquote, who are in prison, that they're probably not Christians or they don't go to church.

So talk to me about that whole aspect.

SPEAKER_02: That's a great question, Kevin.

Because I because I think there's more than one answer, and I'm gonna do my very best to not take the rest of our podcast talking about it.

But but yeah, it's a fantastic question.

So uh first and foremost, I'll say that one of the other epiphanies that I had, and I think it's necessary for all of us to have.

I think that if there's anyone on this podcast that disagrees with my next statement, I would just ask you to really search your heart and kind of just ask like what God's heart is on this.

And if you come to a different conclusion, that's that's fine.

But this is something that I believe very strongly, and that is that I did not need God's grace any less than the very worst of the people that I was surrounded by.

That was a pivotal moment in my journey where I recognized that these horrible people were not any worse than I was.

Maybe it manifested differently in their life.

Maybe their sin and their reality impacted people more negatively.

But when it came down to the root core of character, I was just as bad as them.

And I think that was really important for me to understand.

Um, because once you understand things through that framework, at this point it's not like, oh, they're horrible people.

How could God love them?

It's more like I'm sure glad that God loves horrible people because that's me.

And uh it really changes the framework.

With that being said, I do think you kind of find three different classifications of Christians.

Maybe, maybe that's oversimplifying it, but three general classifications of Christians in the prison context.

You have what I'm going to call the jailhouse Jesus Christians.

These are the ones that find Jesus every time they come to jail.

It gives them a sense of purpose, it gives them a sense of community, it might keep them out of trouble, and so it's very convenient for them, but the relationship that they claim to have has never impacted their life in such a way that it keeps them from coming back.

It just kind of provides them a way to meaningfully go through the experience with each repetition.

Those are ones that I think are very frustrating for many families and why the idea of Jailhouse Jesus became popular, because there was a time back in the maybe the late 80s, early 90s, where if somebody went before a judge and said, I found Jesus and my life is changed, the judge would say, Okay, cool.

I believe in redemption, and we're gonna change your sentence.

We're gonna give you less, we're gonna let you out, whatever it was.

And judges quickly became disenfranchised with the number of people who claimed radical life change only to see them come back months or or years later.

So that's certainly a group that's there and it's disappointing.

Uh, but you never know who those people are, right?

You never know which time that's it's actually going to resonate.

You never know which which time the former seeds will take root.

And so trying not to be judgmental and trying not to view them in a diminished light, again, just trying to serve the people that are in front of you.

The second group of Christians are the just straight-up hypocrites, the straight-up hypocrites.

You have the individuals that are literally in church because that is a place where they can meet up with people from other buildings, that's where they're passing drugs, that's where they're swapping, you know, notes and letters.

Sometimes it's because they're in some form of uh trouble on the unit, uh, whether that's administrative trouble and they're trying to prove that they're you know doing the right thing, or maybe it's they're in trouble with the other inmates and they're they're trying to gain some level of protection by, you know, I'm a Christian and and I don't know what they thought that would mean because I sure saw a whole lot of uh pseudo-Christians get mollywalked because their actions did not align up with their stated beliefs.

But those are less frustrating because they're easy to identify.

And I said for many, many years while I was in prison, you can be just about anybody you want in the prison setting as long as you're consistent.

And it's the inconsistent ones that just nobody has any respect for whatsoever.

And so those straight hypocrites, nobody respected them.

The Christians didn't trust them, of course.

We we tried to love them, we tried to give them grace, but there was no real camaraderie or or brotherly love because, you know, we simultaneously knew that uh it was it was in many cases a facade.

So we just tried to plant seeds as we were able and uh love them in the best way that we knew how.

And meanwhile, no one out of the yard respects them either, because again, they they know they know that they're one way.

You're you're you're in a fishbowl.

Everyone knows everything you're doing in that setting.

There is no secrecy, there is no privacy, there is no sneaking around.

It's everyone.

Everyone knows you're you're you're kind of in the middle of the open open air, and so people know and and people just don't respect them.

And then you have those that are just just trying to serve God.

And the cool thing about the prison context is in large part the whole separation of denominations and whether or not you're of the of the right uh you know brand of Christianity kind of goes out the window.

There's a little bit of that.

There are some kind of cults that you know coalesce there, but if if you believe that Jesus is God and that he came and paid for your sins, you're probably gonna just find the other people that believe the same thing, and you're really gonna find fellowship and unity in that scenario.

And and I've had many, many people who have said to me that you know they going into the prison system as a volunteer has shown them what church can really look like.

That uh, you know, they're they just the the authenticity of the singing and and and the the uh passion of the prayers and and things where people are just they're not encumbered by all of the distractions that exist out here in the free world, and they really have nothing better to do than just study.

And so you have some some theologians in there.

I mean, people that you would try to have a conversation with, and you'd think, oh, they're they're they're an inmate.

I'm gonna go in there and I mean I'm gonna, you know, I'll try to dumb it down for them, and hopefully I don't speak over their head, and then they'll ask you some some question uh uh about you know the disposition of Christ on the Mount of Transfiguration and whether or not that was a uh Christology or whether that was an actual metaphysical transformation.

I mean, and you'll be like, um yeah, I never heard half those terms, so I'm gonna get back to you on that.

And so you have people that just spend an incredible amount of time that studying and learning and trying to develop their faith.

And so it's really kind of a three-part beast.

I think that in that last group, there is maybe a subgroup that I would have to say you never really know if they belong in the first group or the third group, because they are usually some of the most studied and the most passionate and the most well behaved.

And so, from all outward appearance, they're very sincere, and you can only give them the benefit of the doubt, but you wonder sometimes, not because of their actions, but because they genuinely believe that it is God's will for them to get out of prison ASAP.

And so you you wonder at times, are they studying and and being a part of everything because they would be willing to go to prison for Jesus, or are they doing it because they're hoping Jesus will get them out of prison?

And that was something that uh was always very burdensome to me because there are some really dear brothers that I know in there that uh just, man, they've been clinging to this idea that that it's not God's will for them to be there.

And it's like, well, he still has you there, if nothing else.

Maybe he is, you know, maybe he is going to bring you out sooner rather than later.

But I know when I study the Bible, I see a whole lot more people going into prison for doing the right thing than I see God getting people out of prison after they've done the wrong thing.

And so I think that there's there's that kind of subgroup that you you pray for them, you love them, and you and you really hope that the legitimacy is as legitimate as it appears.

SPEAKER_00: Yeah.

Wow.

Very, very interesting.

I love the way that you could explain that, could answer that question, broken down into the three segments.

Very interesting.

It's literally a it's a community within the prison of people of all different shapes and sizes and beliefs and prerogatives.

And to hear you break that down, uh, that was really cool.

So thank you for taking the time to do that.

SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's it's basically a microcosm of society.

It's just on a more visible display.

SPEAKER_00: Yes.

SPEAKER_02: So, I mean, you have those same groups in in the real world with just maybe different motives.

You know, maybe it's not to get out of prison, maybe it's to restore a marriage or whatever.

You have the same people that are, you know, just straight hypocrites, whatever.

I was, I was that person.

I was the person that was completely different on Saturday night than I was on Sunday morning.

Uh, that was that was me to the core.

So that the groups exist out here, they're just not as clearly on display.

And uh prison is very, very much a microcosm of the outside world.

SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.

Would you end up serving all 14 years?

SPEAKER_02: With the understanding that two of those years were technically outside under community supervision, the answer is absolutely yes.

I served every day of it.

SPEAKER_00: Okay, so 12 years behind bars.

Correct.

Talk to me about getting out of prison.

SPEAKER_02: Aaron Ross Powell During my time, I had, as I've mentioned, placed a great emphasis on growth.

And one of the things that I very firmly believed in is the best time to start preparing to get out is the day you walk in.

That was a piece of advice that someone had given me along the way, and I tried to embody that and live that.

And so part of my efforts to get ready to get out was to ask people who had gotten out what to expect, what I should be looking at facing, and and and what things I should be prepared to overcome.

And one of the things that, or many of the things I'd been told, but one of them was basically how difficult it was going to be, that the transition was going to be very harsh.

Some examples, you don't have a refrigerator in prison.

And so I heard stories from one person who would literally just stand there with the refrigerator and open and close it because they just it was like they were in a tick.

They they couldn't continue.

Something else, you never walk barefoot in prison.

You always wear like what they call them shower shoes, but basically they're they're just sandals, like beach sandals or whatever.

And so that the feel of carpet on your feet, uh, the ability to make a decision.

Yes, there's a commissary where you can buy little snacks, but to walk down one aisle of the store and see nothing but cereals and to be able to make that decision would just paralyze people.

And so I was prepared for this.

I was prepared for a difficult transition and I was geared up and ready to go.

I walked out of prison that first day, and my brother was there to pick me up.

We weren't 100% certain what day I was getting out, which is probably a longer story, but bottom line is the state of Arizona has like a range that they can let you out.

And so instead of breaking my family's hearts by having them expect day one when it was actually going to be day 30, I just told them day 30, and then when I got out on like day 10, uh most everybody but my brother was surprised.

So that was a really neat experience.

But in any case, the I got out, walked in my brother's vehicle, he handed me uh we had talked, my brother was extremely supportive.

I could spend two different podcasts just talking about the wonderful support that my brother provided over the years of my incarceration.

But he was there, he he handed me one of his old phones, and and it already, he said, you know, it's already hooked up and ready for you, and the first month is paid for.

And we we had talked.

I told him I didn't want to, you know, be at be a charity case, I wanted to try to work, you know, work through things, and I was gonna be getting a job.

He said, So you can you can start paying your part of the bill on month two.

And somehow, I honestly don't know how, I knew how to use the phone.

Hadn't touched a phone like that in 50, well, never really.

Not never a phone like that.

15 years before or 12 years before, those phones didn't exist.

And I had worked hard in there to remain up to date with technology.

I was one of the few inmates that almost always had access to a computer due to the work that I was doing, but we were talking desktops with Windows XP, not the latest version of Galaxy smartphones.

SPEAKER_01: Yes.

SPEAKER_02: And so somehow I actually pretty much knew what I was doing.

And we surprised my cousin for breakfast, and somehow I had no problem engaging with the waitress or ordering off the menu.

And we surprised my parents at lunch, and somehow I had no issue engaging the counter at lunch and engaging in public with my parents.

And I could just keep going on.

The bottom line is this I kept waiting for the ball to drop.

I kept waiting for the PTSD to hit.

I kept waiting for my just world to get rocked by something, and it never happened.

It never happened.

I walked out and the transition was as smooth as anyone could have ever asked for.

My brother probably paid me what has to date been one of the largest compliments I've received.

He said it was, it was, he was this was like two days after I got out and he was talking about the first day.

He said it was really interesting watching you kind of navigate that first day.

It was almost like you never left.

And to go into prison, I mean, the people that work in the prisons will tell you that they are quickly institutionalized and that their ability to navigate the outside world changes.

In fact, my now father-in-law is a works in the federal correction system, and he'll tell you that he is institutionalized, that he does not like people, that he kind of is a recluse.

And so, I mean, for me to have been there, not even getting to go home every day, but just there for 12 years straight, never seeing the outside of those fences, man, Kevin, I just can't explain the amount of grace that I feel was conferred to me in that.

And as I recalled back on my time of incarceration, I thought of a few things, and I thought of how many times I had been in trouble.

And you think, well, what do you mean in trouble?

I thought you were doing all these good things.

Well, you think back on the time that the Christmas service happened, and that wasn't the only time something like that happened.

If I looked back, every time that I got in quote unquote trouble, it all centered around the same basic idea.

And that idea could be summarized by uh one of the counselors who particularly did not like me, where she constantly kept telling me, John, you need to understand your place.

You need to remember what color you're wearing, you need to remember you're an inmate.

Because I was doing a lot of things that inmates wouldn't do.

I was running programs and I was working with administration, and and so I would just try to help, and often that helpfulness would would be either either misunderstood, but more often not misunderstood, just dislikes.

Just how dare an inmate have the right to do that.

And that happens enough, and it did.

It happened quite a few times where you begin to question yourself, or at least I did.

I started to question, hey, man, am I the one that's in the wrong?

Like I'm trying to help, I'm trying to serve, I'm trying to be humble, but man, maybe, maybe I'm the problem.

Maybe the issue is not anybody else, maybe, maybe it's me.

And uh I really struggled with that for the last like year or so of my incarceration.

But when I got out and the the transition was so seamless, it occurred to me that the problem was not that I did not know my place.

The problem was that my place was not in there.

And so when I got back out here and I was back in the in a world that um I fit in much better with, I was able to step into that role of a contributing member of the community.

I was able to join with a church, I was able to serve in that church, I was able to take a good job, I was able to add value, and I am extremely thankful for the opportunities that I've had to engage that same level of grace and that same heart for service in this outside community as I was able to do inside.

SPEAKER_00: Yeah, absolutely.

Now, you were under probation for two years?

SPEAKER_02: Not probation.

Probation is administered by the county.

This was administered by the state.

Uh, used to it had been called parole, but they've done away with the term parole, and it's now called community supervision.

For the people, for you know, for those that don't know any difference, you can call it probation or whatever, but technically it's administered by the state, and parole or community supervision is usually much easier than probation.

Probation usually has classes that you have to attend, and often you have to pay for various aspects of it.

In my case, I only had to pay.

I had to pay, I think it was like$65 a month.

Then, of course, I needed to finish paying off my restitution, which I was able to do within a month or two of getting out of prison.

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: Okay.

Okay, perfect.

So you're you're out of prison.

You you talked about this kind of seamless transition back into quote unquote real life.

Where does life go?

Did you have a plan or not?

SPEAKER_02: I definitely had a plan, but it was a loose plan because I recognized that I didn't know what I didn't know.

My plan was to spend the first month basically being present, spending time with family and friends, experiencing things, not trying to rush things, but also keeping an eye out for where I might be able to add value in terms of work.

During that month, my brother, the same brother that was very, very supportive and encouraging, had actually spoken with his employer, and he wasn't trying to get me a job.

What he was trying to do was actually buy me some time.

He had it, he had basically said, hey, I'm, as you guys all know, I've got a lot of projects I'm working on.

I would like to bring my brother on in like a contractor role to help me finish some of these things up.

That'll give him a little bit of income, and it'll give him an opportunity to figure out where he wants to uh where he wants to go, what value he wants to add, etc.

Apparently I wasn't a part of those conversations, but apparently there was some apprehension.

Some other people were brought into the conversation, and it was determined that while they were okay with bringing me on as a contractor, they did not want him to be the one supervising.

They wanted to avoid any form of whatever it's called when family members hire family members.

They wanted to avoid that.

And so they ended up saying, hey, we've been working on some training material.

It sounds like John's done a lot of curriculum development and stuff with what you're telling us about the work he's done in the prisons.

So why don't we bring him on to develop our next training course?

So he asked me, you know, hey, what do you think about this?

And I said, Yeah, I'd be open to doing some training material for them.

And so I did a little interview, met with the director of operations, and I don't remember who else was on that.

I know the director of office was there, but I want to say it doesn't matter.

Several people on the interview, and they decided to bring me on as a contractor at an hourly invoice rate.

And so came on, started working for them, working on some things.

It wasn't very long before they actually asked me to come to Atlanta, which was where their office was.

And I'd only been out of prison at this point, I want to say four weeks, and that is uh not much time.

They it's very, very uncommon for them to allow you to leave the state, and sometimes not even the county, for at least 90, if not 180 days after you get out.

And sometimes they just say no, they won't allow you to do it until you're off of supervision altogether.

In this case, for reasons again unknown to me, they did require a letter from the employer, but they did allow me to go to Atlanta uh within a month of getting out of prison.

And while I was there, the director of ops called me into his office and said, you know, I see what you're capable of.

You're doing great work.

What am I going to have to do to keep you?

Oh, wow.

And uh I I we we talked some strategy, we talked some about some things and so forth.

And to kind of summarize that whole scenario, two months into my three-month contract, I was presented with a official job offer to take responsibility for their entire training department there at the company.

I served in that role for two and a half years before being asked to take the director of revenue role for the organization.

And currently I'm still functioning in that director of revenue role while also working to start my own business doing something completely different.

And uh so that's kind of the work side of it.

Meanwhile, I had probably ten years before I got out, so a couple years into my sentence, I had begun listening to CDs from a church in the Phoenix area that uh I felt aligned with a lot of the values that I felt the m I guess matched with mine and and and I thought hopefully matched with the Bibles.

And so I went there as uh as you know to kind of get to know the place.

I went I visited a lot of churches, but not so much to visit to go, but to go worship with people that I had met and had grown close to, and then had the opportunity to join with Palmcroft Church in the Phoenix area, where I served for uh almost three years within a matter of months of getting out.

I was asked to start to help lead the college and career ministry, so the 18 to 25 year old age group, and was privileged to be able to serve that group of students for, like I said, almost three years before we uh we moved to South Carolina.

SPEAKER_00: Yeah.

Wow, wow, wow, wow.

So powerful.

When you look back on it all from kind of where you sit today, do you feel like knowing what you know now, do you feel like you would have changed it?

Would you have rewritten the story to not have gone to prison?

Do you think you would be the man that you are today, be where you are today, if you had not gone through that?

SPEAKER_02: It's an interesting question, right?

I've heard people say, you know, I have no regrets because if I hadn't gone through what I've gone through, then I wouldn't be the person I am today.

And I understand the sentiment behind them.

I I don't personally carry that view.

I think that it's absolutely horrendous that with the upbringing I had, the wisdom God gave me inherently, as well as just kind of the skill set and other things that I at that I placed myself in a position to need prison for 12 years to knock some sense into me.

I think that God gave me all the tools that I needed to be in the place I'm in now without going through that.

But because I was too stubborn and too egotistical, he said, okay, I'll do what I gotta do.

I'm gonna make sure that you operate in your purpose, and uh, if you're not gonna get on board, I will get you on board.

And so I have a hard time saying I don't have any regrets because my actions hurt so many people, Kevin.

Not only did my best friend die, but his family, of course, was devastated.

All of the members of the business were were were harmed.

But I, you know, I mentioned the 500 students, and and there are some that I've had the opportunity to reconnect with.

And some of those students uh, you know, are very understanding, very forgiving.

But there are young men and young ladies out there right now who are in their early 20s, who I was their martial arts instructor or I was their soccer coach, because I did both for the company.

And their entire life has been jaded by somebody they trusted, somebody they looked up to, somebody that they thought was a good guy making the decision I made.

And uh I I can't say that my growth journey is worth what I've put those individuals through.

And so I really desperately wish that I could have acknowledged these principles, these things that I was taught, these things that uh, if nothing else, I mean, it there's so many things that I just somehow knew, and I can't explain how.

Like, surely I could have somehow known these things and and and recognized these truths without needing to cause such devastation by my choices.

And so, yes, I would absolutely rewrite the story.

I'm thankful for how it's been redeemed.

I say often that God has the uncanny ability to take our stupidity and turn it into something great.

And I am deeply thankful that my stupidity has been turned into a redemption story, and I love getting to share that story.

I have a whole presentation that I love to give that's that's a lot more uh streamlined than this conversation because it usually needs to be given in about 30 minutes.

And I love being able to encourage people and and and to be able to share it, but I I sure tell you what, I I really wish that I could have experienced the growth that God's grace gave without causing the devastation that led me there.

SPEAKER_00: Yeah.

I just want to acknowledge the fact that that was the most heartfelt, most honest answer to that question that I could have ever expected you to answer it with.

And I feel as though that speaks so highly of just the person who you are.

SPEAKER_02: Thanks, Kevin.

SPEAKER_00: Yeah, absolutely.

So would you mind sharing kind of what your ideas, your hopes, your dreams, what you're working on today and for the future?

SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so part of my responsibilities as the training manager were to empower the leaders of the organization.

And I realized in the midst of working on some materials for them that I just have an incredible passion for empowering leaders and providing tools specifically to what I call the forgotten leaders, which tend to be those frontline leaders, the middle managers, the people that have a ton of responsibility but no real actual education on how to deal with it, and uh, who are usually the ones either making people's lives miserable or making a place an enjoyable place to work.

And so I've started a company called SML Consultative.

SML stands for servant-minded leadership, where we seek to empower those frontline leaders to effectively engage with their teams and hopefully improve the employee retention and engagement of organizations while also improving customer satisfaction.

I'm really passionate about that.

I got a YouTube channel that I put little uh videos out about, and and I've just had a blast trying to get this started.

Still in the very you know, the infant stages, still uh still actively uh you know looking for clients that I can serve.

I know there's a need, I know that I have some value to offer, but of course, branding and getting you know getting oneself out there is always a journey.

So that's something that I'm working on really diligently uh right now in my spare hours.

I'm still working full-time as the director of revenue, and so I'm trying to be a person of integrity with that while giving them the full time that they are uh paying me for, while also giving my business uh its due needs because a business doesn't start itself.

And so working very, very diligently on that.

I'm now married, and so uh I have the privilege of being married to a wonderful woman who is just incredibly talented and beautiful and brings so much uh life to our home.

And so wanting to make sure that I'm faithful to serve her and make sure that I'm upholding all of the responsibilities that come with that life commitment to marriage.

And we just moved a couple of months ago, so we're currently in the process of finding a new place to serve uh in a local church setting, and we're we're working diligently to make sure that we're not church shopping from the perspective of what can we get, but rather visit places to ask where is God calling us to serve.

And so we're looking forward to that next opportunity that God has for us to hopefully participate in what he's doing locally uh here in the Greer Greenville, South Carolina area.

And as a part of that, I I do I was actually just thinking the other day, I posted on some Facebook groups because I realized when I was in Phoenix, I got to share my testimony with several churches and several groups.

And like I said, I got a whole presentation, so I'm looking to see if there's maybe an opportunity to be a blessing by sharing that my story of redemption and how God has worked through my stupidity to some of the groups that are are here.

And you know, anybody else that's uh anybody else that wants me to do so, I would be I'd be thrilled to hopefully be a blessing and and share what God can do no matter how badly we we foul it up.

SPEAKER_00: Yeah, well, well, I hope and pray that this podcast can do some degree in helping you to share your story, to share your message.

I'm gonna be sure for anybody who's interested in connecting with you, I'm gonna be sure that all of your links, information are all inside of today's show notes for easy access.

Man, you've got a powerful story.

You're a powerful guy.

I'm so glad, grateful that things are going good.

That that you took a bad situation, you flipped it on its head, and you've made good come out of it.

And I think that's one of the most powerful things that any of us can do.

And so thank you so much for sharing it with with us today.

SPEAKER_02: Oh man, it's been an absolute pleasure, Kevin.

I love your heart, I love your energy, and uh it's been just a great honor to spend this last few minutes with you.

SPEAKER_00: Yeah, thank you, thank you.

And for you, my friend, my hope as always is that you didn't just enjoy today's episode, but that it impacts your life somehow, some way.

Something that John said today, maybe it resonates with you, or maybe you think of a friend who you really think can use to hear this message today.

It's a story of redemption, it's a story of hope, a story of our child just turned into trials.

It's the craziness of life.

It's a powerful conversation.

And I am so grateful that you were here to hear.

This is great, get out there and join.