Testimonies

Norm's Story
20 Years and Still Going...

Hello, my name is Norm and I am the Chaplain for the SPC Cook County Jail Ministry. We serve as volunteers with the American Baptist Metro Chicago Jail Ministry. I would like to share with you how I became involved in jail ministry and how it has expanded my faith walk with the Lord. But first I think you need to know a little about my own pathway to becoming a Christian. How Jesus became not only my Savior but also the Lord of my life. It's like apple pie and ice cream, you can eat them separately but in time they just have to go together. Do you know what I mean?

I accepted Jesus as my personal Savior at age 11 at an Awana boys club meeting. I knew there was a God and that I did bad things, but it was the first time I was told what Jesus had done for me, and why I needed Him as my Savior. The choice was heaven or hell, and my mama didn't raise no dummy, I chose heaven. By faith I believed in God, that I was a sinner, and that God sent His one and only begotten Son to die on a cross and pay the penalty for my sins. Jesus died for me! I also knew that I had to stop doing bad things the best I could, but I didn't get or understand the part of lordship at that time.

By the time I was 17 I was in real trouble. Married with a son, I was charged with auto theft and burglary, convicted and sentenced to 5 years. After that I joined the Navy. There I got some discipline in my life and for a while, walked right. I walked with the Lord, took care of my family, two more sons, and started my own business. I was a great success. Then I started down the road of self-pity. I prayed to the Lord to let me experience the world, to leave me alone. He did and I started to walk away from the Lord and pursue the sinful pleasures of the world. Wine, women, drugs and all the things that money could buy, and I thought I'd missed out on, “the big lie”.

By the time I was 40 I had divorced my wife of 15 years, leaving her with 3 sons. I married my present wife, had another son, and was on the verge of repeating the cycle a second time when in God's grace He opened my eyes to see where the pursuit of the world and it's supposed pleasures had brought me. All the things I though would make me happy were like a consuming fire, never enough, leaving me empty and unfulfilled. It was at a "supposed family celebration" in my home, when my world crashed in on me. My sons got into a dispute and I saw in them myself. I went up to my bedroom, laid flat on my face crying uncontrollably because of what my foolish disobedience had taught my boys and what my life (my way) had created. I cried out to the Lord to forgive me and take control of my life. I wanted Him to be not only my savior but my Lord as well. I gave up the throne of my life to Jesus. That was the moment of change, 26 years ago, 1982.

In the years following that event I was on fire for the Lord, telling everyone about Jesus and what He’d done in me. In the spring of 1988 I received a phone call from a man saying he was the Chaplain at a place called the Lords Ranch, in Arkansas. He explained that the ranch was a place where the courts sent young people that were having problems at home and young adults who struggled with addictions that got them in trouble with the law. He called to tell me about an ex-employee of mine who was sent to the Lords Ranch to get clean, you know, rehab. He told me that after my employee was there for a while, and still rebellious, he’d told him ‘ your just like my old employer, always talking about this Jesus’. Well it ended up that while at the ranch the young man was saved, he accepted Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior and the chaplain thought it would be an encouragement to me to know the influence I had on the young man's conversion. I thanked him and told him the next time he's up in Chicago he should give me a call and we’d do lunch.

A couple of weeks later I got a call from him saying that he's in town and was wondering if he could come by and take me up on my offer. He said he had the chaplain from the Cook County Jail with him, Rev. Andy Gonzalez. I said “sure.” So my partner Al and I took them to lunch. At lunch they asked to hear our testimonies, how we’d become Christians. After telling my story in detail the Chaplain said, ‘you have to come to the jail and share your testimony with the men.’

My partner was a new believer, hot on fire for the Lord and said, ‘yes,’ he wanted to go and pleaded for me to go as well. But I was having none of that, been to jail, done that, that was the last thing I would ever want to do. But after much pleading, I gave in and said I would go just once to keep him company, but I wasn't going to say anything, he'd have to do all the preaching, not me. So we committed to go to the Friday night Chapel service at 26th and California in Maximum Security Division 1.

Well to get into the jail as a volunteer they had certain rules you had to follow. One was you had to have a picture ID, like a drivers license to get in passed the gate. When Friday came along, Al was all excited. He was going to get his chance to preach the good news, the gospel, his story, and how his relationship with Jesus changed his life. Me, I was pouting because it was the last place I wanted to be. We got to the jail and met the Chaplain, Andy at the gate. He gave us some instructions and in we went. When we reached the gate the officer asked for our ID's and I noticed Al in a state of panic. He’d forgotten his wallet and had no ID. He couldn't go in.

“Now what? He's the one who is supposed to speak!” I asked.

“Well Norm, you’re going to have to speak in Al's place,” declared Andy.

“What? This wasn't part of the deal. I said I'd keep Al company, not talk.”

“We have no choice,” stated Andy, “you have to give your testimony.”

Well inside my head I was fuming, I mean, I was mad and still pouting. I begrudgingly participated in the service and shared my testimony, while Al waited in the car for the 1-1/2 hour service to end. But all I was really thinking about was how I was going to get back at my partner, making sure we were returning the next week because now I wanted him to have to go through the same thing I did. Al wasn’t getting off that easy.

That was not the end of the story. So it just goes to show you… the Lord moves in mysterious ways. We went back the following week and I have been participating in the Friday night chapel service ever since – 20 years now and still going, like that pink bunny who's batteries never run out.

I have been blessed with seeing the Lord work miracles, change hard men into loving brothers, into preachers and evangelists. I've had the privilege of leading thousands of men in the prayer of repentance, witnessing their public testimony of their faith and trust in Jesus Christ as their Savior and Lord, praying for the forgiveness of their sins, believing that by Christ’s sacrifice of death on a cross to pay our penalty, and His raising from the dead, happened so that we may have eternal life here and now through a relationship with God.

Norm
September 2008


Wendy's Story
From Glory to Glory

I grew up in Sunday school, I memorized the golden rule, I know Jesus came to set the sinner free…

Those lyrics from Avalon, basically describe my upbringing. I attended Trinity Lutheran Church from about the age of three until the age of about 14. I was baptized there as an infant, and confirmed in the eighth grade. I participated in Vacation Bible School (VBS), youth group and choirs. After confirmation I was appointed a Jr. Council Member to represent the church’s youth. All of this while my parents attended only on special occasions. I felt God had a calling on my life.

Now the church at that time didn’t seem to teach much about having a personal relationship with Christ, and if they did I missed it. But I did fully believe that I had a personal relationship with Jesus, and believed undoubtedly that he was aware of my every action and thought. I believed that he heard me when I prayed and that he loved me no matter what.

Still, as my friends all left the church and I struggled relentlessly with low self-esteem and the feeling that I didn’t fit in anywhere, I made a conscious choice to go and live a worldly life. At the age of 15 I began with cigarette smoking, then the use of alcohol and then the smoking of marijuana. This sort of behavior along with a need to feel loved led to other indiscriminate behavior, including shoplifting and promiscuity.

To fully understand who I was and who I am today, I must go back in time and identify my one God given talent. As far back as anyone can recall I loved to sing. I clearly remember my first live performance at the age of 4 in the outdoor auditorium of the camp grove in our town, as the finale to VBS. I don’t recollect any of the songs the other children and I sang that evening, but I can still invoke the feeling I had as I sang my heart out “for Jesus”? I didn’t know it then, or for many years to follow, but that was the first time God was showing me the plan he had for my future.

From age 15 to 17 I abused my body with drugs and alcohol. I lied continuously to my parents about my whereabouts and whom I was with. I did barely what I had to do to get through school, getting high most days before I ever entered the building.

My senior year as we prepared for graduation, I was to sing along with a group at baccalaureate, Joni Mitchell’s The Circle Game, which I was really looking forward to. I had begun to recognize my estranged relationship with God, but through my own means was trying to straighten myself out. Three days before my last day of school, I started a fistfight in the hall with another girl because I had seen her driving around with my 24-year-old boyfriend. As punishment I was suspended for those last three days of school and was not allowed to participate in baccalaureate, not to mention I had to take my final exams right-handed, I had broken my left hand during the fight… I’m left-handed.

I was allowed to graduate, but by no means was I ready for it. Without school or any other sort of responsibilities, summer just meant party harder. One dreary morning I woke up, called my best friend who always had pot, and said, “lets go to the beach.”
I picked her up at 10 am and we began to party. We hooked up with a couple of guys later and the party went late into the night. That night I suffered a lengthy blackout. I came to occasionally, but would remain cognizant only long enough to know that I was out of control.

I drove home that night from the neighboring town to the one in which I lived. There were three different routes that I would alternate between to do so. To this day, I am not certain of which route I drove. I recall coming to in my friend’s driveway as I was dropping her off. I asked her, “Did I do what I think I did tonight?”

“Oh, Yeah!”

I will spare you the gory details of what that was. But for me it was hitting the very bottom.

Prior to that night, I would lie down in bed, drunk or stoned, and I would pray to God, because I never stopped believing, I would pray, “dear Lord, forgiven me for the things I’ve done tonight, and forgive me for tomorrow too, because I know I’m going to do them again.” I don’t think I believed that God was forgiving me at that point. But I did know that he was still there with me.

When I made it home that morning, an hour past my midnight curfew, my mother awoke. I remember her screaming at me, but she claims she took one look at me and told me to go to bed, that she could see there was no point in scolding me then. My brother, who is just 15 months older than I, was in the living room watching television. I joined him there, and I know he lectured me. I confessed to my brother that night that I had a problem, I wanted to stop using the drugs, but I had tried on my own and I couldn’t. I wanted him to have some simple answer to my problem. But he didn’t. He told me, “Tell Mom & Dad, they’ll help you.” And even though I knew he was right, it was the last thing I wanted to do. I was too ashamed.

My brother went to bed. I went to the kitchen. I got a glass of water and a bottle of Percodan, which was prescribed to me for the pain I was having in my broken hand. I took ten tablets, that while drunk, stoned and high on a substantial amount of methamphetamine. My aim that night was to die!

OK, not really, the aim was to have someone find me and the empty prescription bottle setting on the table next to me. But that didn’t happen. At some point, I made it to my bed and several hours later, around six or seven in the morning, I awoke. Still in my bed, still alive! Now what? At the end of my bed was a tall mirror. I sat straight up, and there I saw a reflection of the pitiful person I’d become. Now I knew, I truly needed help. I couldn’t even end my life on my own.

I stumbled to the bathroom, directly across from my parent’s bedroom. I was very ill. A few trips back and forth from my room, and I realized, I really needed help. Quietly I crept out of the house, and staggered up the middle of the street to my church just a block away. The doors were unlocked. This was unusual this early in the morning. I went inside. Sitting on the stairs at the front of the church was Burdell Steigerwalt, a man I kind of never liked.

“Is Pastor Solliday here”, I asked.

“No, he is on vacation.”

Devastated, I turned to leave. I made it out the door and then had to sit down on the stairs because I was dizzy. Burdell came out right behind me. He sat down next to me and asked, “Is everything OK?”

I poured my heart out that morning to a man I barely liked. I did so because I was desperate, and I think God kind of had a hand in it too. Burdell, who was filling in for Pastor Solliday that morning, took me home to his wife who was still in bed. They called Mr. Walk, a recovering alcoholic, and he called a man whose mission from God was to help Christian addicts. Then we all came together at the Church. Oh, and at some point they called my parents who were frantically looking for me after discovering the empty bottle of pills.

I went into a rehab that day, after a side bar to the hospital, because I’d been vomiting on and off for nearly 13 hours. The doctor there would tell you that I survived the overdose attempt because I had built up a tolerance to narcotics. But I believe that it was because God wasn’t finished with me left. He had a plan for my life, a perfect plan, not to harm me but to give me hope and a future (Jeremiah 29:11). The Lord saved my life that day, not just physically, but spiritually as well. It was my first step on my way back to Him. But it would take another ten plus years, before I’d truly give myself to Christ.

Now, more than another ten years have passed, since truly seeking to have God in my life. There have been many, many ups and downs during that time, but I’ve been able to stay grounded through them because of my ongoing relationship with Christ.

In January of, I believe it was 2004; I followed God’s prompting and left my previous church for South Park Church. I was seeking a larger church with more hands-on mission opportunities. My first week there, I pulled out a card from the seat in front of me that listed the churches ministry opportunities. I read down the list, slowly, contemplating each choice. When I reached the last one on the list – Jail Ministry – God spoke to me. “Wendy, this is what I want you to do!” It was a very clear calling.

Later that week I would contact Norm. He sat with me the following Sunday and as they say, ‘The Rest is History.’ I’ve been going to the prison with Norm on Friday nights ever since. The first week I was there I gave my personal testimony. The second week I was there I asked if it would be OK if I sang a song instead.

“Sure,” they said.

That night I sang I am, by Jill Phillips, “Come gently lay your head upon my chest, and I will comfort you like a mother while you rest.” a description from Mathew 11:28-30, my favorite bible verse. “I am holy, I am wise, I’m the only one who knows your hearts desires,” It went over so well, that when I didn’t sing the next week, the Chaplain asked me if I would. God had revealed his perfect plan.

I’ve been singing to the inmates of Cook County Jail, ever since. It is there through the voices of the inmates, that God speaks most clearly to me. I am blessed every time I have the privilege of visiting there. Oddly enough, I found the one place I feel that I truly fit in. Though I’ve never committed a crime that would have me facing a life behind bars, I do understand what it is like to be imprisoned to the world and your surroundings. My goal as a disciple of Jesus Christ is to use the talent God has given me, to set others of His children free.


Thank You Jesus!


On September 7, 2008, I publicly rededicated my life to Jesus Christ, vowing to live as a disciple – following Jesus Christ and inviting others to do the same. Pastor Anderson & Norm baptized me at South Park Church.

Wendy
September 2008



Jack's Story
In A Dark Forgotten Basement

I’ve been volunteering to go to the jail for 5 years. But I always say I go 50% to minister to the inmates… and 50% for me. I trust that I can encourage and challenge the guys and many have shared that I do. But I am regularly humbled by the responsiveness to the Lord that many of these men exhibit.

For instance, a particular Godly man named Antwone was sent downstate to serve his 20-year sentence. The last Friday before he left Cook County Jail, he remained encouraged in the Lord and gave a testimony of God’s faithfulness. Several months later, I received a letter from Antwone that said, “I started a prayer team. I use this as time to get rid of everything that is not of God. I feel that that is how I got in here. Too much of the world and not enough of the Word.” Amazing.

Carl has a drug addiction and the first night I met him, he cried and cried about the emptiness in his gut. You should see him now – a growing Christian who warmly hugs me each week and tells me he loves me.

One week, our small group of guys discussed forgiving those who’ve wronged us and as we went around the table, each guy mentioned someone they forgave (in some cases, re-forgave) that week… a mother who abandoned her child; a girlfriend who forgot him; an absent and alcoholic father. Ugh, if only I could forgive the petty inconveniences (by comparison) against me.

As I interact with these guys and hear them respond in obedience and faithfulness to our Lord, I am humbled – sometimes overwhelmed. Where in my life have I exhibited such responsiveness to our Lord’s calls? Certainly, they have a long ways to go with many “downs” to go with their “ups”, but their willingness to move in the right direction is convicting to me.

God is changing lives in the dark, forgotten basement of Cook Country Jail where most people fear to go. But that’s how God works, showing up in places and in ways that “He’s not supposed to”.

I’m just humbled to be part of it.

Jack
September 2008