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WOW, great portion of your testimony, Jerry, and seems impossible in the normal run of things. I know the workings of prisons as in my trade I used to service 4 different prisons. Praise God for the trust you were given.

Yes, Jerry, isn't it neat to look back and see God's hand all thru our lives like a perfectly woven garment?

Yes, Lloyd, I do thank and praise God for the trust that I was given, but, in a way I think it was God's way of testing my faith and my trust I Him and in His Word. That trust and the freedom that came with it was a two edged sword, it made my time in prison both easier and harder, easier because of the almost unlimited freedom that I had, harder in that many of the projects that I was asked to work on put me in a bad light with the other inmates, projects that, as an inmate, I should never have been allowed to work on, projects like installing a Sylvania perimeter sector alarm system. I could have refused to work on it, but I didn't. No one was suppose to know what I was working on in the tunnels at night, the story was that I was installing new switch gear in the transformer rooms, but somehow the fact that I was installing the new alarm system got out threats were made on my life. I ignored the threats, stayed in general population, and finished installing the system. My reward for bucking the other inmates and installing the alarm system...I got to finish out my time at an administrative facility that was more like a college campus than a federal prison, if it hadn't been for the razor wire topped double fences, it would have looked like a college campus. I guess there were many reasons why I didn't refuse to install a system that made escape almost impossible, but the main reason was that I learned, perhaps I should say that the Holy Spirit had revealed to me that I had no one to blame for being in prison except myself, I had chose of my own free will to become a bank robber. Because I owned the responsibility for putting myself in prison, I never felt that it was me against the guards and other prison authorities, the attitude that most inmates have, perhaps that was the reason I was asked to work on the project in the first place and given the trust and freedom that I had been given.

Praise God, Jerry, as you've had some hard lessons but you allowed God to direct you path and now you're free to proclaim His awesomeness to others. You're a great example to us all, Jerry. God bless you, BIG...!!!

Yes, Donna.it really is. It's all a matter of trusting and obeying. Perhaps coming to God in prison made it easier for me to put all my trust in God than it would have been for me if I had come to God in more normal circumstances. A man's life isn't worth much in prison, an inmate can have another inmate killed for as little as a carton or two of cigarettes. I was hated by many, if not most, of the other inmates for some of the things I did, as I talked about in my above comment to Lloyd, but I never feared for my life. My hands and feet were considered weapons, I had/have a black belt in Karate, but even my prowess in the martial arts wouldn't have protected me against someone throwing a firebomb in my cell when I was asleep, only God could protect me against that and so I put all my trust in Him to keep His word to me. The Marines inculcate every recruit with the idea, "I'm the biggest, baddest, MFer in the valley," well, I walked through the valley and can tell you that the biggest, baddest person in the valley is God.

Trust in God and He will get you through the good and the bad times

i love reading your testimony Jerry. thanks so much for sharing and for caring.