Jeremy

(interview conducted by Barry Smith, Regional Director (TN, North GA) and MINTS Prison Theological Education Coordinator)

“I grew up in the projects, the youngest of four children of a single mother who was attracted to musicians and drug dealers. I don’t have any musical talent, so I gravitated to the drug dealers. By thirteen, I was selling weed. By fourteen, I was an addict myself. By sixteen, I was in motel bathrooms sticking needles in my arm and shooting meth.

My life was headed for destruction, but God had another plan.

Growing up, I didn’t know my father. We met during a drug deal when I was seventeen. For the next few years, we ran together as drug buddies, selling and shooting dope. Then I went to prison. When I went out after that incarceration, something had happened to my dad. He’d surrendered his life to Christ. He tried to get me to change, but I thought he was faking it.

Then, after my next arrest, while I was in the county jail, I met my daughter for the first time. She was twelve years old, and she told me that all I needed was Jesus. That seed was planted in my heart as I went to serve my current sentence.

When I got to prison this time, I ran into a childhood friend who had become a Christian. At that time, I had become a Muslim. We went back and forth debating the person of Jesus Christ. I was finally convinced, and seven years ago, Jesus saved me.

Not long after that, I got a mentor through Metanoia Prison Ministries. A Presbyterian pastor mentored me for five years, and those five years are precious to me. It was through that relationship my journey into seminary education began.

I earned a Bachelor of Arts in Theological Studies with MINTS Seminary-in-Pirosn and am now working towards a master’s degree. In MINTS, I’m receiving a great education. I get to teach classes to other prisoners, and I’m already using my education to teach courses on the basics of reformed theology and church history.

I know that my calling is for ministry. I love to read in Isaiah, where the prophet said, ‘Here am I, send me.’ I am scheduled to be released from prison later this year. I have already joined a Presbyterian church in my hometown. When I go home, I’ll begin the process of becoming a pastor.”