Keith Channell

Tell us about yourself. Where were you born? What was your childhood like and your story in general? Okay. I was born February 5th, 1963 in a little place called Rock Hill, South Carolina in York County. And I was one of the fortunate ones. I wasn't born in the hospital. I got born in the house I was raised in. So that was a beautiful thing there. I had my mother's side of the parent, her parents were, they're Cherokee Indian. And my, my dad's side of the parents are immigrants.

They're, they're German. I grew up on this little dairy farm, like, and I can remember one of my fondest memories of my grandma. And one of the things that my, on my mother's side, she, she was always into doing kind of the. The Indian ritualistic as far as Native American, she, she took in, I got burned one time on my dad's motorcycle. She talked fire out of, yeah, 10 years old. I remember her talking fire out of my leg where it got caught on that manifold. It was amazing lady.

And she did, I had, I don't know, I was about 11, I think, and something, something that I don't know what happened, but I got covered. I had 40 something more just on the tops of my head. And, uh, he called this person and handed the phone to me and this person, I don't know what they were, I couldn't tell you what language they were using to speak here. And on the first full moon, when the dew fell, we'd go out there and wash our hands. I ain't had a wart since then.

On Sundays, we'd all go out to this creek down there by the house, after church, and have church. But then the last of them, nine o'clock to one o'clock, you can even saw them batting at the level, but we'd go out there to the creek and it had a natural spring and we'd throw the watermelons off and then let them chill. Grandpa done did the thing with the chicken that morning and plucked them, we got them all dressed out. We had them fried chicken down there by the creek.

We always had to take turns and read script. And I used to get so angry, I just couldn't understand the reader. This is at seven years old, and I remember my dad was gonna whip me, cuss, and my grandma said, let me hold the young man for a minute, and she pulled me to the side, and then she traced. She says, now it's your tray, I promise you, you'll do better. And I remember praying, and I was angry, and trying, and not wanting to do it.

The funny thing is when I sat down, I read that whole, we was in the book of best, so it was so, she was my biggest influence towards God because my dad's side of the family, they, it ain't that they didn't believe, but they didn't care. Mom's side of the family, they straight Southern Baptist all the way. No what changing? Any of that. But it was, it was a great upbringing.

They didn't know, they didn't believe in TV and stuff like that right there because it was a way for the government to brain watch. Fox spread propaganda, so I grew up without TVs and uh, we had radios. We only could listen to them on Sunday night. We used to have that old country station. Come on there. It's all like old country. We used to listen to that, the countdown on Sunday night. So we spent a lot of time, and they did a lot of homeschooling. That's how I escaped.

I was raised on a hundred acre dairy farm. We had We didn't just have cows, we had horses, we had the back 40 that they talked about. It's what they called it, the back 40, that's where all the fresh vegetables and stuff were planted. There was something going on seven days a week, just about 24 hours a day on that farm. It becomes mundane when you're born into it and you do it all the time. It does. So you learn, cause I wasn't, I wasn't a hunter like my dad's son.

They believed in killing everything. I just, I killed one animal. I killed that deer. I was like, okay, this ain't me. I'm just, I can't do, if I'm starving, it'd be different, but I ain't starving. Yeah, I never was, but. Growing up, man, at five years old, I can get in my first country store where everybody goes and sit at. And Sundays and Saturday evenings and checker games and little card games and turkey shootout back. And there's a little old handgun in your own shelf. Oh, my bad.

You know, you can't have it. So when my mom turned her back. I grabbed a gun and run, we got in the car, locked the door, and tore it open. Uh, getting a weapon in front of all those people wasn't easy, but having to go apologize, and give, and me handing that gun back to the store owner, I was, it was a terrible day. I did not want to give it back, and I did not want to tell that man I was sorry for taking his property.

And I knew not to when I was a student, and I knew to lock the door, you know what I'm saying? As a five year old, so that's some kind of environment upbringing that's involved in something that I do. But like I said, I had a mother's side of the family, were beautiful people for God. When my grandmother passed at 11 years old, I was 12.

At 12 years old, I got into something that took me on a journey up until about Three years ago, I, I played with that hair hole a long time ago, 12 years old, I got my first shot and I knew then that I knew then I didn't need no problem. I mean, it was, I don't, it ain't, and I didn't do everything yet, but that was my go to, that was what I went to bed with. That's what I got up with, that's what made my decision. How did you come across hair in the country at 12 years old?

I'm a 12th generation jarhead. I grew up down there on Parris Island for a few years and all the men on my side, the family were Marines and my mother's brother, he was a Marine and his name was Sherm. He came back from over at Nall and came back with that. I called him a few times and I was, I was playing around, experiment with some stuff like that right then and weed, but I wasn't, wasn't a whole lot of things I was doing, but when I did that, I didn't need to.

That was a wrap, you know, you know, um, I continue to do what I'm doing and walk in the grace of God, you know, I'll be at my three year mark of January 5th. We do recover in spite of decisions we make and the attitude we have come in. I wasn't, I was always, I knew there was more to life. Going to work, running a farm, being a part of family, that made me just knew there was more to life. Growing up, when I got, at 14, let me start there, 14, committed a crime against family.

False imprisonment, hostage taking, sustaining, pointing, pointing and discharging a firearm at my step. And they sent me, I spent four years in there, and while I was in there, they sent me to this, uh, evaluation. I didn't do very well there, instead I went to a reformatory school called John G. Rich's Reformatory in Columbia, South Carolina, and it was a work reformatory. It took care of cattle. We just made that buddy.

I was there and I just would not be in touch with reality, not knowing how to deal with withdrawals at that time. And even now, I don't know if I really went to a whole lot of withdrawals, but I know that's all I thought about. I didn't go to a physical sickness, wasn't there, but the physical obsession never left me. So I, I did some good behavior, got into this uh, specialty shop, did a little extra thing. Got me a knife, saw blade, took it back to the barracks.

Gentleman that was going to go with me just got scared and told, and I didn't cut through some bars. It was a wrap then, so now, I get to go to, so there you go. Then I get to go to the big boy place, hang out with my lads. Always treating you. From there, it was, there was no looking back as far as the lifestyle that I was going into. It wasn't forced on me. I showed them everything I've ever done, but I don't think I've ever committed an innocent sin.

So when I came out, I met, I met this lady in the club, got married, that lasted about nine months. And then I started to work for a company in Montreal called Procal Racing. It was decals and I started putting decals on NASCAR.

The very first car I ever did was for Harvey Gantt, had a big old red mountain on the top of it, uh, Folger's Mountain Road, was, was the name of it on this car, and so I was traveling around doing decals on NASCAR, Rusty Waller, Bill Elliott, I got to meet all those guys and it came through and NASCAR did, it came through. You know, you're a drug test and I failed, so they gave me six months. You gotta get cleaned up and what you gotta do to come on back. You know what I did?

I wasn't meant to do what I was supposed to. Trust in the mind of God, lie about everything, and forge some paperwork and get on back. Pay for some paperwork and go back. I wasn't there long, and they come through and did another one. And when they did this one, and I failed, they escorted me out of the pit. And I can't ever go back. They say it's a life thing, but I can't work ever again. It was a great, and after this happened in Pocono, Pennsylvania, I had a great start.

You know, my early 20s, I had a great start. I ain't gonna blame it on what I was using, but it helped me do the things I wanted to do, so I didn't have to, you know, think about, have a conscience, I would say. And after a while, That humanity switch stays off.

When humanity switches off, and you don't speak of nothing but hate, there's no joy, there's no forgiveness, there's no empathy for mankind of any, no. Everybody I came into contact with after that appointment was nice, especially my parents, my siblings, because they're doing everything they can to save their soul. He deserves better because he can do better, because they know he's better than that. But he don't kill them. Uh, what about your grandmother? What about God? Where God at?

I ain't seen him in a minute since I took my grandmother. Resentment. I didn't know if that's what it was at the time, and I didn't know why I didn't have to prepare you. See, I know you real. I don't care if you did nothing for me. You took something from me. You ain't gave me nothing. You didn't see that. I said that to this God of mine for a long time. So I ended up, uh, I ended up getting married. I had two beautiful children by the time I was a month old.

I was the only one holding them in my hand. It's a beautiful thing. You know, your first and your second. Whatever boy. Take them home. When you take them home for the first time, they'll be chill. It's a beautiful thing. I was blessed. I got a son and a daughter that still didn't change my life. Now I'm trying to keep a job on the front for my family and everybody around me in the neighborhood. And here in intervals, I would jump in and out the church, but it never, it just never showed.

I just, and what I'm going to tell you is that I didn't know is that I just said, no, I didn't know how to communicate. I did. I didn't know how to communicate honestly. But see, I finally got it. Where it says in the script, should be angry and do not see it. I'd like to know how you do that. When I found out Jesse, now sir, is sitting in prison. And I'm waiting to come home now.

And I'm like, I don't know about six months, seven months away from being in the U. S. I get a phone call about my mother. I just walked out of the O. T. dog. Went out there in the middle of the Redfield, yards flowing. He's telling the other COs, just give them a minute. It's for me to talk about love and God help you, God. Really, this is, really, you let me get this close. It's 15 calendars in prison, and I didn't let my mom come see me, but twice. She got no business being back there.

I did that. I'll give my time to come home. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, let me get this straight. So you were angry at God because he took your grandmother and you had a resentment there, and then while you were in prison, your mother died. Yes. You said about six months before you were to get out. Yes, sir. So you're angry at God because, because of that. Yes, sir. Very. Totally understandable. Yeah. Now, now I'm telling you, you know, if they shouldn't get out in six months.

You helped me do this. You helped me do, cause I knew he helped me get through that time. And I'll be glad to share some of that with you too. I did a hard time, but I chose to, but what I'm saying is about this angry, be angry, do not sin is that I had to be honest with it was okay. At that point in time to say, if you God, it was okay at that point in time to say you took something you ain't gave nothing second time I'm counting. I'm keeping count with God now.

Okay. Now ain't telling y'all the grace, just counting all the mistakes that he made in my eyes like, right. So anyway, let me back up just before I go finish that story out is that my mother remarried to this guy and he's a really good guy for the first five or six years. It was some hard times because I fought with this man every day. I mean physically fought with him. Then one day, man, he said to ask God to help him quit. And if he couldn't quit, kill him.

And he never took another drink after that. I don't know, seven, eight years, he probably wanted to, I wish he had a draft. That's how miserable he was and everybody around him. But then he came down with the same kind of cancer. Came down with cancer. But then we had throat and neck cancer and he had lung cancer. So I decided I'm gonna get clean so I can spend some time with him. I can't go around and use him. I just can't. Because I can't go long enough without having him.

And I can't take, that's the mama's house thing. Or my dad. I flew down to Charleston, South Carolina, far surf. I got through this program, this little 28 day thing, and I go, I move into a Oxford house, as a matter of fact, down there. I get a call that dad's doing real bad. He's in the hospital, he's on this breathing thing. Two days later, he calls me, and I talk to him, and he's, I'm not going to walk away from this son of a bitch. And he says, but you can't come over and stay clean.

Don't come at all. You know, first thing, see, God, I hate to say this, but I tell the truth. First thing that comes to my mind, who the hell are you, D? You're my stepdad, you're in my room. Father, Grandad. This man come by my house, got me out of bed, took me to the doctor, brought me home, bought my prescription. And I was so sick, he couldn't. That's who this man is that I'm feeling this way toward. I went and picked her up.

My dad went and picked up the right D. And three days later, I'm still getting texts and calls from Mom. Come home, come home. She says, Keith, you need to come home. He's hanging on just for you, son. Don't make this man do this. So I got a little bit of a conscience, thank you, God. I jumped on the bus and went to sleep. Now, mind you, I'm on a two week run. No shower, no food, just, you know what I'm saying? No change in the clothes, no shit even. Just spent 16 hours on the bus. Ha ha ha.

Straight up in the hospital. Ended up seeing my dad. He told me, he said, Go home, man. He said, I love you, but I can't take this. Meh. I went home. I did the shower and came on back. He got real bad and refused the medicine, the pain, trying to get us out from the pain. And, uh, they were trying to give him more medicine. I wasn't letting him get medicine. I ended up fighting and going to jail. He didn't start getting out of jail.

Uh, you know, it's a couple of weeks going on there and it's a big loss and a big fight going on. My dad had that asbestos can from the shipyard. I used to work there with him all the time. Uh, he has other children from another marriage. And, uh, when he passed because he didn't leave them anything in the wheel, The settlement comes after the will, their entirety. I don't care man. At that point. I'm not capable of carrying that. So, and it was them that I got in a fight with. It's a hospital.

And had me arrested. I didn't care about the money. I signed the release. I don't want none. And all them people. I don't know what they ended up with. If it wasn't much. It's just 90, 000. Each one of them got eight of them. Something like that. Mom got a good bit more than that. But, I had. During this waiting period. I'm not going to go into detail, but I, my son, your voice dropped off there. I didn't hear that.

He come to live with me where I was living at, which wasn't too far from where his mother and his sister lived at, and the music heavy. I can't, just can't control it. But it wasn't a control ever anyway, but I thought of many, pretty good. But that's, he comes to live with me, you know, doing things around and showing him things, you know, kind of told me about it, favorite about it. Parents got involved. Mother got involved. All in this one sixth wage. Anyway, they all left.

They took my, put in the bathroom. Wanted me a tub of water. Mm hmm. Both my ribs. Mm. Cause I did this, I did that. Mm hmm. Mama said because I never said anything during this whole thing. You know, and I got slapped a few times. I deserved everything and more than that. You know what I'm saying? Cause in person, I wasn't there. Like, and their life too. I just stood there. And that's your whole damn same thing. Look, so mom says she knew something was up.

So her and my brother came back to the house. Done. I had 14 stitches on the inside of one of them with 11 stitches on that. I mean, staples on the outside on the left, but anyway, come out and we do this way in my day, I just can't do it. Okay. It put me on the spot. My mom's sister found this place. In West Palm Beach, Florida, Joshua Treatment Center, two year program just for me and Erwin at Don't Hold the 16 People, the waiting list to get in. We look.

Mom's sister sent him a video, told him what happened, what's going on, and they took. So I went down there, met, and I did my thing there, and during this time there, I've got marriages. We was, we got, oh my, I'm on my fifth marriage. So it shows you what I know about relationships, it helps me anyway. And what I'm going to tell you Jess is that whenever I did all this man and I went down to West Palm Beach, I had been to school with Clemson University for a little while.

I finished my degree down here in Fort Lauderdale at Barry University, which is Number one school in the Southeast for counselors. That's what I wanted to go and get. I went and got my CAS and I went to work on Singer Island, a place called Beehop. And it's one of the most prestigious treatment centers in West Palm Beach. But anybody from 14 to 18, and most of the people that come there are all from up northern, never anybody from that state. So I go to work there.

Let me back up there just a minute before you go on. So you, did you finish this? Two years, Joshua House. I finished the program and, and I ended up going through their program to get the house, and I ended up buying the house while I was down there, moved into the house, they helped me, uh, they helped me finish up my schooling and then they helped me get the job because we you, your school, when you say your schooling, you mean like a bachelor's degree?

I got a bachelor's degree in psychology with an emphasis and a chemical addiction count. Okay. All right. I just wanted to clear, just wanted to get a clearer about, oh, I'm sorry. Sorry. I finished that. Yeah. I finished the program and it was, it's really a four year program. It's two years of being in house. It's two years of being outta house. So I did all that and at this time I decided this ain't working.

This the low team, $42,000 a year job to start off a, we had great benefits, but I'm like, this ain't me, but I said, it's some great, here it goes though. I already had some guys, I just haven't been using them as a resource. So I, I reached out and started doing moving stuff on the side, illegal stuff, making money on the side, keeping a good job, there's a front, there's a lady that comes through there. When she graduates the program, we end up starting dating, that's totally cool.

Everything across the board. So I ended up going to meet her family. When I went to meet her family, they were the family. They lived in a little place in central Florida and I knew something was up, but I didn't know what. So after a couple visits, her dad took me to this little cellar he had. They grew stuff. I learned how to grow. Once I learned how to grow, you can't. I can't. I can't be a part of illegal activity like that. And not partake of it. I can't just, so now I'm using it.

It doesn't take long for me to go back to what I like best. Now I got the heroin and I, you know, I didn't do this. I didn't do this almost two years. That's all, you know, accumulating a lot of stuff. You don't know what to do with it, right? So I wasn't educated in the area of how to clean it and put it somewhere safe and make it work, so now you got stuff buried in it, you know, whatever. Outside the house, like everybody else, we walk inside.

Man, that's two of them saying, there's so much immaturity in that lifestyle. People didn't even want to ever make out there for a very long time. So much, no, there's no planning. It's just, I'm going to tell you about just when I tell y'all this 2002 prison for killing somebody green 28, 30, 000 a man. And during this process, I get shot five times. And I said, I've been in and out of the institution all my life. Ended up, uh, he ended up taking a plea deal.

Spent three years fighting this case. Everything crossed the board from the beginning until I actually went to the court with 25 of them. 25 men. They took everything. I gave them everything that I had that I wasn't supposed to have. Houses, cars, a little bit of money. And the wife, she had to divorce me and testify against me so they could take it. A no blong. It doesn't matter. I up with a 15-year-old son.

I don't know, but what anybody else thinks that's inconceivable in, in his mind here, 15 years because I've never been someone who's calculated to, especially growing up in, in go. I've never worldwide, so I don't care about time, but about three years into my sentence it said either I'll never come in hiding, never swear my charged with wife, put me at a violent camp. I with Martin Ci. West Palm Beach, Martin Correctional Institute. It's a closed custody and level seven care.

I was there for about three years and uh, just me just going with the flow, not really caring about anything back then. Time was different. I had gotten some ink put on me. Someone else took it as a disrespect and it was a gang member and he thought I was being boastful with ink that I had put on me and I got stabbed twice. And I got put on one of them bags for a couple of weeks. I wouldn't, uh, I wasn't going to take the cuss. Yo, I had a Cuban. Julio Anstevero. Great dude. God of luck.

And he says, I know what you're gonna do. He says, but if you can do this your way, you ain't gonna die. You can handle it. I got a suggestion for you now that this away, everything will work out. So I listened to it. They got, if you ever seen anybody on the streets that has a Z like this across the forehead, if they have a J, it goes from the corner of the mouth up to the end of the ear. And they tell you they've been in prison. That's what they do to snitch.

That's what they do to people who chattel. That's what they do to people who do things against the community that they're not supposed to do. I made me a saint and in there to have bars. I didn't have. Wall, they had bars on the front of the rooms and I cut a Z on his forehead. He went, he got up and went straight and told, and it put me on a C M, put, it gave me, C M closed management. That means I'm in a room, I'm in a eight by eight by eight room, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

And they got different levels. And I went on a level one, which is the highest level you can go in on. And you get to come out of the room for an hour, once a week, once a week, but the week, yes, sir. And I spent 18 months on CM1 and then I got to go to CM2 for about six months. And then they released me, but then they put you on a, you know, what they call a reentry camp. So when we've been on lockdown and all that, they put you into a reentry camp.

But at that point, yes, I didn't care, man, I'm not much. I was a statue of a man, father, and I wasn't good with father, dad. And it's just, and I stayed in the bar, but I didn't get game counseling, getting mad. They couldn't take anything from me but my life, and I, living in there, I didn't have. Also, I thought. After I finished the C. E. U. and camp, they took it, uh, they sent me to another one in there with a guide.

And, uh, he used to come and sit on my bed and bring what they call a bowl of, uh, he'd cook a little brick, what they call a brick. How we cook our soups in prison, they bring it and he sat down and he'd come back, would never say nothing. He'd just sit down and eat that soup and read scripts, get up and leave, take the bowl with him. I never watched one bowl, never cooked anything.

And he did this for a couple of months and I come here from New York one day and he's just packing on my bed because I'd been asking questions about getting into seminary. Went and talked to the pastor up there. Church and he says, let's see what your scores look like. So I did, I took some pre scored test work and did very well on the lab that I did. And, uh, so I got a sponsor, the sponsor is going to pay for my scholarship, so. I started going to the Jacksonville Baptist Theological Seminary.

Now, this is online courses that we have to do the chapel. They don't get computer thinking behind the fence. So I'm up there and I do the courses and I do very well. But during this time, I'm still showing how they value time. Knowing who they are. I had to do, write certain essays and I would intentionally throw jabs at who's the seminary I'm going to, Southern Baptist. I would throw jabs.

You know, things like that right there, and it was borderline disrespect, but, you know, they tolerated and they degraded by three professors doing a report like this and it never retired. There was one who loved me to death, told me, you don't know how to do the light that I can shine. Yeah. Gratitude of God just has no meaning. It doesn't. And so I ended up, I ended up graduating there and I did very well then I ended up walking away with a bachelor's degree.

In systematic theology, with an emphasis in ex genesis, the interpretation of scripture. And I studied both the languages of Hebrew, and I only got through one of the bricks in the U Test. I didn't complete the other one, but those are the things that, but what I was doing, I wanted all the information I could get on God so I could form this opinion about it.

I mean, I researched, I mean, and what come to happen was that When he told me that I knew I wasn't meant to be, and I didn't know what, so I took and I started doing a little bit of rec time preaching, you know what I mean? I go out there with my trusty sword and hold, and then just start putting stuff on. One of the first sermons I ever did, and this is just, I did a call, the plate of life treats fool. And this comes out of Luke T, 38 to 42, back at Birdson.

Martha and Mary, Jason's the stepdaughter in the house to visit with. And one of them's up, just cleaning and cooking and moving stuff around, nothing, sitting there just loving him, loving on him. The plate of life can become full and there's things that everything's in our life for me should have a priority. No matter what I'm doing, everything should have a priority and can work its way down. So we see one sister doing the priority thing and sitting with the master.

You see the other ones get, she's so busy preparing for him and she acting like he ain't even there. All right. Right. You know what I'm saying? So he told us about, she's too distracted. She's so distracted with serving and setting up for him to stay in the exhort. So that's one of the first things that I ever told him was the, but that's, and I, but I look at that today, being in recovery, today, I don't struggle with the physical.

Desires to you or drink, but I have, because I don't pay attention and I don't, and I don't want to keep more of a conscious mind that, Oh my God, these gifts of recovery will take me out of here. Cause you, a, when you, when they lose their priority, your gratitude, they know what they become being very important, not you. So anyway, just that part there, man, when I came up, finished school, get a little bit of trouble. It shouldn't be down south.

I'm up here, I was up here at Putton CI and they sent me down to Hardy CI, which is another CM field. That's where they put Nucleus there. And I spent my last year and a half there, two years there, I think, and that's where I really got into doing that type, that style of teaching, uh, pre teaching, teaching. And I used to teach Sunday school every Saturday and Sunday morning there, and it made a difference. Just, yeah. And I put all that aside and they gave me that, blah, blah, blah, blah.

And then they took and put me in the box too, for 30 days. So I come out of prison, did the game plan before she died was to come home, South Carolina and take care of them. But after she passed away, you know, this is during COVID in 20, right? During COVID, yeah, hard. They're not giving bus tickets to inmates. I haven't been.

Now, they're giving me a bus ticket from Central Florida to Jacksonville, but then I've got to get a Uber or whatever to go across state line, then I can get another bus and go on into South Carolina. But they won't. So I get here to Jacksonville, I'm not sure what to do, man. This Lighthouse Ministries in Jackson, decided they want to take me in and give me a chance. They're so ridiculous, I just couldn't, I couldn't do it, I'm sorry, I just couldn't do it. I ended up leaving.

When I left there, I just, I went new, period. Overdose three times in eight days, say, here's the, let me tell you, let me tell you about grades, me, say me and TK, man, first time he gave me, got me out of the front yard, and then I was getting up, so it was no big deal, second time he came and get me, was in the house, and he done put me on the gurney, I thought my way off that gurney, third time, got me out by the pool. He says, I don't care what you say, what you do.

You're not dying on my watch, you can die tomorrow. You're going to the hospital today. He kept me strapped down in that garden, took me to the hospital. Let me interrupt you for a second. Where'd you OD on? Fentanyl. I didn't know it was fentanyl. No, I was shooting heroin. I thought, yeah, I thought it was all heroin, but it wasn't. It was fentanyl in there.

So. When he came and took me to the hospital, man, they sent me up to a Baptist in Jacksonville on the second floor, the middle floor, for violent people. And it's been 20 something days there. And then they shipped me up to the third floor for treatment. Because I had signed up for it. They did the treatment, and they got me in touch with the three quarter warehouse here on the island. It's Green's house. And I went there and when I got there, here's what we're taking.

And I told you about all this crap I've done up till now, right? Intentional harm, intentional disrespect for the lives and people and all of that, right? So now I get here and I'm not there, but a week and I get coke. I didn't know it. I go to the hospital and they're like, you got COVID, but your oxygen level ain't low enough. This guy's got another two points that we can admit you. Yeah. Before I can get back to the house, they want to know where I'm at. I tell them where I'm living.

They just got there before I could get back. They done called it. But when I get back, all my stuff, and it's raining now, this is in December of 21, 20, something like that. All my stuff's sitting in the front yard. And he's telling me I got to leave. I can't stay there. I'm like, hold up, man. What am I supposed to do? You just come and got me from the hospital. Where am I? He's like, I don't care what you do, you can't stay here. Get out of my yard. So he called the police.

So when he called the police, I'm there. So I go over to the church and on the corner of 14th, the lady says, I can't do nothing to you, son. I'm sorry. She gives me a tent and a sleeping bag and there's all kinds of food, dry goods and stuff in a box. I said, take this. I'm angry, man. You know, really? We got COVID. So I cussed her out and by the time the police come and it was one of his, one of his people on the force. He said, look, man, I can't do nothing for you.

He said, my hands are tied, here's 40, get you an Uber, and get across that bridge. So I got in the Uber and I went to, I went to a Jack's Caterpillar. That's all I really remember, man, when I woke up eight days later, taking the tube out of it, I ended up on, on the incubator, and then I spent another six days in ICU.

So when you come out and you're homeless, though, just during the middle of that COVID bad, you ain't, you're homeless, ain't got no address, they got a little place where they're treating homeless people or letting homeless families stays out there. Next to Middleburg and 103rd over there, Old Middleburg Road. They had this little place set up in this little cow pasture like area. And they had golf carts that were patrolling around, yeah.

And they had these little, uh, things that you use in the bathroom set up out there. But they also had the ones that had water and you could walk and you'd go in and watch. And, uh, and they'd bring food out there and they had tents set up. Like, almost like military, but they were a little bit better. Once your test know that if you can leave, but if you wanted to leave and you would actually sit at home and no, no one there to pick you up, nowhere to go, then they put you in jail.

Wow. So I'm, no, I'm, so I take, I stay there eight days, take the test and I'm still pot stay there 10 more days to take the test and I'm, and I come back for Dealer Beach to Henry Greens house. He has a program. So I committed to six months and I got missed spots. I went to meetings every day. I saved my money, got a job, back in the sixth month I went my own way. So, started getting more involved in the field.

Then, I don't know, somewhere nine, ten months into the program, my liver was messing up. I damaged it bad. I've been Hep C positive since 92. I tried to interfere on it and it wouldn't work. The body rejected it. This new stuff that got out, ended up getting the due rate. But anyway, I ended up having to go to treatment. The first thing I had to go through was chemo. What? Therapy? Chemotherapy. Okay. So I did the chemotherapy and tell me it was hard. It was this, what?

What was the chemo for at that? Let me back up. You had Covid, you got over Covid, and then in, or you went back to Henry's place and signed up for six months. Okay. Yes, I'm sorry. So that's right. Yeah. So what did you get tested for? I'm Hep C. I'm, I'm, I have Hepatitis C. I have chronic Hepatitis. So I have to go in every now and then and get treatment for it. They're taking, they're flushing, they're rejuvenating, whatever.

I'm doing, and I'm, anyway, I end up coming to what they call stage 4 fibrosis of the liver. Which is scarring of it. Now stage 4, I'm 70 something, I'm 72, 73 percent clogged up. That's why I'm having so much trouble with the kidneys, the intestines, and other things. So they're taking, they do the treatment it'd take, but during the treatment, I don't know if you've ever done it, but you know, I've done a little bit of everything since then.

And now I know different, but chemotherapy man's probably, it just, it takes you some really dark places in your life. The depression, incredible. And it's, and I, it's just a little time they stick in your vein, you sit there for three or four hours and it runs through me, and then two or three days later you get sick, and you stay that way until you get the next one, and you do it like that.

The chemotherapy was rough, so I got really warm, and I had just finished what maybe, I think I was 40 something days from changing troops. Somewhere like that, and I gotta die, I end up having this thing on the side of my neck kick me, so I end up going through the throat and neck, you know. So now I'm doing radiation. I went from 172 pounds down to 115 pounds in eight weeks. I had to start treating, but I couldn't take any more.

And he told me, he said, man, you need to get your fairies in order. This old look good is for your kid. I'm sorry, I'm doing the best I can, but I'm just telling you. You go, I go get all this paperwork, power of attorney, take care of a cremation. And it's just things that need to be done so the family don't have, because they got enough to worry about, you know, and it kills me. During this time, there was just so much that went on. I couldn't eat, throat completely shut up.

So I ended up having to get a tube put in the eating tube to eat with. And this, I finished that treat. I'm not even, I hadn't finished, to be honest with y'all, I got two more treatments left, you know, I get diagnosed with a colon cancer, so they got to do surgery, got to do a recovery. So they got to go in there and take it out. And let me tell you how funny it is. I love these doctors, man. Right.

I go into surgery and when I come back out, I just, this is all I remember in I want you to know that three of those cuts are mine and I ain't paying him no attention, right? But when I finally get around, I'm like, I got seven cuts on me. They had staples and stitches in them, seven places. And what it was is a machine that attaches to you and four of them and does the surgery and does it, but it attaches to you and they have to take it and stitch you up.

Yeah, but anyway, he goes in there and takes that thing out, and he said he's glad that he did, because he said it's some really nasty stuff, and that was it. They take it out, and I let the people know that, uh, I have no problem with taking anything for paying while I'm in there, but limit it as much as you can. And, and whatever you do, I don't care what you give me for paying. I don't want no delight. No, none of that period. And cause that would trigger night.

Ain't going to drop too fresh for me. Best of that weekend in pain. I kind of switch nursing. This lady comes in there. She just missed shot. And I knew right away what she did. And set me y'all. I start cussing her out and I'm down the same vents in river city. And I'm trying to get up out my room. You know, I told y'all don't give me that stuff because it makes me rude, makes me get very violent and I really don't.

So I did a few threatening moves and they keep me from AMA and the doctor come in there and release. Now I'm just wish I'd have made you, sir. Won't get in a wheelchair, tell me they stick it up. Nowhere. I don't need y'all no If you had began with this, I wouldn't be in the situation I'm in right now. I fall out there and go walking out of the lobby. I fall out. Fall out of the lobby into the park. I'm so medicated and can't walk and baby's dumb.

I put Jess in there and the real nurse helped get me up in the car. I won't go back in. I came home and I tried to move too fast. I healed quick. Scar tissue doubled almost. And what it does is, then it's strange. Yeah, they have to do certain stretch exercises to be able to stretch it out. But anyway, during all this time, I want to teach something responsibly. I love her to death. I ain't got no problem with taking you through the steps. That's all I said.

I just want to, I want to understand the steps the way you explained them when you was up there doing them that Wednesday. I went through every session with her. She says, okay. She says, but in order to do that, I need you to tell me that you're committed to belonging to the No Matter What Club. Hmm. I said, okay, sure. No matter what, I won't pick up.

She says, now, because of who you are, and the way you live, and the way you take, and the way you come in at this recovery, your lifestyle and this program is going to test that theory one day, sir. Hmm. That's when all canceled. I made sure that people didn't give me anything they weren't supposed to. I don't take stuff. I don't take pain pills now. I do have other alternative stuff that I can take. In years, I don't need the lighters and more shooting and more time. Prococet.

I took all the prescriptions. I've told you how I live. Shooting dope at 12. Taking hostages at 14. Going to prison till I'm 18. And all the different marriages and all the different successes. I've had crazy, incredible breakthroughs. Learning to live clean and sober is the hardest thing I've ever done. I've gotten clean and sober so many times, Mr. Jesse, I went to my very first meeting in 1976.

Now, I had been, I had overdosed on some baggy, sent me, and back then the detox centers were in the state hospital. This was in 76. So they sent me to the Columbia State Hospital, put me in there for a 72 hour evaluation. Took me 91 days to get out of there, being a little smart. Whatever you want to call me at that point, you know what I'm saying? By the choices I made, Paris didn't raise me that way. They didn't make me live that way. Nobody.

I chose, at some point in time, I didn't have to choose that way. I had the drugs. The years took that away. It took an hour of choice. If I had to choose, I chose that. I didn't choose nobody else. Nothing else was important. But what I'm going to say to you is, is that all this. There, there's grace in the very beginning of my first breakthrough. Now there's grace in my life. There's grace that I come from a family that had the ying and the yang. The good and the healthy and the unhealthy.

You want to call it that idea. And just as much as I had a, he wasn't evil. He just, he didn't know how to be a dad. My real father. As much as he was hateful and disrespectful, my grandmother was just, I had to be a spoke and have one more of one of the others, like, yeah. Say I was treated unfairly anytime like that, it balanced out, it just, the learning to communicate honestly. God, that's why I'm able to be, sit here and talk to you right now and be in a sober state of mind, not just body.

I knew after a while. After the second round of treatment for cancer, I knew right then. Cause I keep hearing people share about struggling with drinking and using. And I'm like, I'm not a struggling, but I'm struggling living sober. The behavior, the talk, and the way I act. Sometimes you slur them down. I'll let you think they're drinking. Trolling that crazy man. He's don't speak that at all. Talking like that. But see, God is showing how I can change.

I didn't, I spent six years being the kind of person I am, so these last, look, three years didn't scratch the surf, but you know what? It's enough to save me so I don't have to drink, I mean, I've got to work on learning how to keep the friends that I have, not push them away with my attitude, I tend to be a very angry person when I'm in pain. I spend a lot of time. No, let me take that back. That's not what I would do. I'm having better days now than I had. I stopped treatment four months ago.

No, I'm doing nothing else but to go back in and have some surgery done. So this, I got another one to come up in my colon. I got another one in my neck, this one in my neck. It's attached to my spinal cord. So I said, you know what, man, y'all can do what y'all can do. I'm not letting y'all cut on me anymore. I'm not gonna stick me with anything anymore. Trust God on this and he's gonna let me never. He's gonna come and get me, but I'm not letting y'all do anything else too.

And that's where I'm at and I'm okay with it. My, my, my family, I talked to my wife first. I talked to both of my sons about this. Talk to my daughter and my brother, and they're okay like that. And we get it, man. I'm gonna, I'm gonna trust God in this process. And what I'm gonna say, it's just the most beautiful thing I've ever experienced. You wouldn't believe the people that I have met. Now, I'm a backwoods country boy that learned to be three quarters slick in the city.

But look how I've made it, man. I live better than I deserve. I do. I got a wife that loves me. I got, I wasn't a father to my first born son, because I was too stuck in being self centered and all about cheating, making money. Now I have a two year old son. That's about the time I left his side. Now I'm raising him, because he loves me with respect. Not only that, the one that I didn't raise lives with me, and he works with me, and he calls me Pop. See, I don't deserve any of these things.

I haven't done nothing in my past to keep you deserve these things. God said, my grace is sufficient. I got you, father. And I didn't earn it and couldn't earn it. See, that's why I know I live a life. Right. That's why I don't have a problem with how I live today. I don't have a problem with helping. I don't have, I don't have the trust. I don't, the transformation that I see in me, you know, in my life, will sustain me until he comes. It will.

Because every day it starts with me and it ends with me. And as long as it starts and ends with me too, there's nothing in between me and him. Yeah. Yeah, that's great. Hey, let me ask you a question. When we started out, you were talking about this verse from James. Was it James that says, be angry and sin not? And you said, now how do you do that? So you obviously have learned something about controlling. What do you do with it when it comes up?

I mean, you're obviously in pain at off and on and then pain causes. That doesn't push you in that area. I have to, when I guess like that, Mr. Jesse, I'll tell you the truth. Jesse will tell you, my wife should tell you.

Keith, not people, friendly today, that's why he's not at the meet, because I can't, I don't go out there, because I'm not going to take that stuff they've given me, and if I can't do push ups and sit ups to try to ease it or ride a bike, or lay in the shower and cry at all, I'll probably show a wheel, but I'm not taking that stuff, no, I won't go around people and have to add to my eminence list. I won't man, but here's what I would say.

Last week I had five days of not really feeling anything, just feeling really good, a lot of energy. And then I woke up at three o'clock in the morning, like I was going diarrhea, choking up, can't breathe, trying to push this down so I can breathe because it's something catching right there where that knot is and landing in the bathroom floor. Really God, you're giving me five red days now, and I wake up like this, just like I never had a good day. It's over, wow, love that.

Be angry, do not see it. Now, it used to be, I'd be like, okay, F you God. Now you got, I got your attention. See, I don't have to, I don't, I've got his attention. He never lost his attention with me. After knowing that fact, I don't have to cuss. Now, now I can get to the real, okay. I feel like that I'm being played with and being toyed with, Paul. You give me five great days, now you didn't give me five, you let me have five. Yeah. He's also letting me be sick for a month. You are sick, man.

Don't you forget that. Because if I forget that I'm sick, I'll have a lot of other things. And what if I forget my gratitude? He's the main thing. He's the type of help I don't go bring. Yeah. With that being said, Now I go, God, I'm angry because I feel like life is not fair, you know what it ain't. I said, you didn't just reach where I catch myself. You let me come through this and this. But now, yes, I'm still here and it goes back to what Paul said about that.

If he was, if I was not to be in any more pain, you know what? If he was to give me everything I wanted, I'd be the most miserable son of a gun in the world. But you can't, now, you couldn't give me anything to make me any more joyful about life than I am right now. You couldn't. He said, if you can give me a new home or a new car, unlimited Vids account, that would make me happier than I am. It would bring me a lot of happiness for about 5 10 minutes. It would be a lot of trauma.

But you know what I'm saying? So it's like, just communicating. God, I tell the God like I'm talking to you. I'm angry because I feel like, dude, how can I be healthy and wake up sicker than I was been a while? That's just. This vehicle wasn't meant to last. The soul that he breathed in for a while, that's the channel that never goes away. Part of you. So if that's the case, I'm not going to try to work out every day and help you every day.

I'm going to try to arrive with this body just barely making it to the gate. When it comes to snatching this soul out, it's like, God, boy, you barely made it. That's all we need to hear. I made it. Now, don't you worry about the barely part. Ha, ha, ha. Cheers. So let me ask you, obviously you do live with a lot of joy, this awareness of this grace in your life. It seems to me like you're really, you're truly living one day at a time. And I don't know, I'm just giving you my perspective.

I'm happy, but I'd like to know what, are there any practices or things that you do every day that keep you on track? With God honestly, yeah, I'm crazy. I told you. Yeah. He's real So I don't have to talk to any of you, I don't have to talk to any of you. They see me riding down the road. How do you know I'm talking to myself? I might be singing. No, I'm just, I'm just being funny. But I do, every morning. It's not true me now. Don't get me wrong, I'm humorous, I do make slip up.

Most mornings when I wake up, first thing I do is I say good morning to God. If it's okay with you, I would like to be a part of your life this day. Not my life. We know what he would do with it. And if there's any issues, please help me to see them, to deal with them in a way that's honoring you. And that's all I say. And then if someone says, Hey, remember what I said, I needed you to handle this.

And if you don't strike them dead with lightning, then that means I got to go in here and work on it, because they ain't, they ain't, they ain't the problem. I mean, clearly I do. I talk to them all day of my own life. And that, and I'm, you know what? And ain't that I'm afraid to quit and see if this is really what is working? I know this is the honest I've ever been with God. But God more than I have you or me or anybody else. He ain't denied it, lied to it.

That ain't true, God. I didn't think that. I didn't say that. I didn't know, not true, you see I give him all my fear, I do, I'm afraid of God this cancer got me terrified, I'm afraid of leaving my family, best life I've ever had as far as a family, family man's concern, I do, I have an amazing life, we have family night, we have date night, we have meet night, We have recreational, we have something every night of the week that we do or something.

And to say it or not, my play life is full, but I got the master in the middle. He's first and last and I ain't got to worry about not balling out the play. Are you, I would say that you have a close fellowship, a close relationship with your And I would say that's what, from what my, where I understand what you said, is that's what's made all the difference. No, it's shifty. Cause I've read this thing all the way through every year for five years, from cover to cover.

Once a year for the last five years, I've read this all the way through. It's not because I want to know more, it's because I want him to know that I want to know more about, you know, and when it's all said and done, see, I can say that. Yeah, that's my, that's the guy. He gave me love, and he gave me a flag, and, and still put up with what he put up with. He allowed the things to be said and done to him. And that had nothing to do with me.

If you take, say, I wasn't born back then, I didn't do any of that. See, it wasn't the Romans, or Jews, or whatever you want to call it, did that. That was humanity. His creation did that to him. He said, I still love him now. I know, I know the gunshots. He's safe. Surgery is different. It's cancer. I'm not gonna walk away. I don't care. If I die, everybody has a time limit. Nobody knows when everybody's dying. That's the thing. I'm not gonna go any sooner than I'm supposed to.

This cancer can't take me one second before God's ready. It can't. So if that's the case, then I can live joyously free. I don't have to navigate myself with the pain and the sickness. But other than that, I'm not in prison, I'm not in bondage, I'm not in any of that things anymore, I'm not, man, I'm free. Your story is going to be online and available for as long as there's an internet.

Long after you're gone, long after I'm gone, would you, what would you tell somebody out there in the future that is listening to this? What advice would you have for A young man, young woman out there who may hear this someday, by God's grace. And, um, what kind of advice would you have for them? Honestly, as men, we tend to be, we're stuffers and hands on. We want to fix everything, but we don't want to feel nothing. What I'm saying is that usually feelings and emotions are what drives.

You know what I'm saying? And with that being said, it's okay. Feelings and emotions have their place in life every day. But when it comes to making decisions, if I don't take a fact of the situation and then base it with my feelings and emotions, I won't make a choice. So with that being said, if you don't think there's the God in your life, you don't think grace is working in your life, look for the fact. Then you can do what you feel. Well, I don't feel like God. I don't feel like God.

I don't feel like God. What facts do you have to give any of that? I didn't have any. I just chose. But I knew in here, I knew there was a God. So when I quit fighting God, then I had to learn how to communicate. Oh, I know who you are, but I'm not talking to you like a little child. So what I'm saying is trust the process of developing a relationship. Allow him to do what he does. What's wrong with you? Once I, it ain't that I stopped fighting it, but I acknowledged it.

Once I acknowledged it, once you open the door and comes in, it's what he says. And he did. I'm living. Now I'm not crazy. You might think I am, but I'm living proof. When I opened the door to God, my life shape was changed. Man, I said, perfect. Am I perfect? You know me better than anybody, sir. You know I'm not a saint in that world. And I ended my behavior a lot. But in God's eyes, I'm old.

We were just talking about that in our Bible study this morning, how when we do, when we are born again, our spirits are sealed by the Holy Spirit forever. And there's no matter, even if we sin, and no matter what happens to us, we're sealed. And that doesn't give us license to sin, but it just means that we have grace. And like you talked about that, God's grace follows us, goodness and mercy follows us all the day of my life. He won't let us go.

And so I wanted to just ask that you would pray for our listeners before we wrap things up. Well, first, is there anything else you wanted to say? I want to tell you that it's an honor to do this. I really appreciate you allowing me this trip because this is a trip and I want to thank you for it. It's the only thing that I can ever do for you. I will be more than glad to serve. Thank you for this offer this year. No, thank you. I'm, I'm honored. So let's pray for anybody who may be listening.

And I believe that God is in charge of whoever listens to this. And he's going to send somebody that needs to hear exactly what you said. So I'm counting on it. Okay. Ready? Yeah. Okay. You're my father. Yeah. Come before you thanks for this gathering. We thank you for this special moment in time that you have placed here. We do not know the dividends that it's going to pay for what this man here is doing, but we know that it's going to reach me.

Father, I pray that anyone that is listening, that they'll take the time. Everything about me is public, right? I live the life that's unworthy according to the world. But when I study your word, like it talks about. In Romans chapter 12, when I studied the Word of God study, that's how I know that God loves and cares. And I know that He loves me and cares for me and loves and cares for me.

Anyone out there listening to this, if it's not a God, please take the time to just, if it's not real, then what will it hurt to talk? If it's not real, what will it hurt to study? Give yourself a break and re allow God what He does best. And that's love. Well, I pray and ask this to everyone that comes into contact. In Jesus Christ's name, amen. Amen. Thank you.