Set Free Prison Ministries

Distractions

It felt as if God was drawing me in to, be more connected with him. On the other hand, it seemed as if there were also a lot of distractions that attempted to derail me.

Even though I did not care for the Chapel too much, I kept going. Sometimes the sermons were good and other times not so much. Instead of focusing on my relationship with God, I was looking for the services I attended to cater to my spiritual needs. Sunday Christian.  Where I got the idea, that I had the right to critique the style of worship or the sermons that were prepared for us by the Chaplains, I’m not sure.

During the week what I thought were Bible studies, actually turned out to be a half hour lunch time sermon from some of the Christian Cadre. Each day of the week a different guard would preach. I liked these sermons better than the Sunday Chapel. These guys seemed more genuine and really connected with us inmates because they were in our midst everyday.

There were free Bible correspondence courses that you could send off for and so I did. They came from a Bible College in Iowa through an organization called Set Free Prison Ministries based in Kansas. It was kind of a look up scriptures in your Bible and answer the questions type thing. Two correspondence booklets and tests came for me to complete. They also sent me a book to read called “Twice Pardoned”. This book was very well known in confinement facilities. It was about a guy who was falsely accused and sentenced to two life sentences. He finds Christ and eventually gets released. Also they sent me a subscription to “Our Daily Bread” devotionals.

Many of the inmates that were members of other denominations or religions would want to have these long drawn out debates about who was right and who was wrong. Most of the time the discussions were civil. Other times they could get pretty heated. In the end, it never seemed like anyone actually budged from their point of view. I tried to not get caught up in these debates but every once in awhile, I would get drawn in.

Some of the African-American inmates would convert to Islam. They even had a program in which they could legally change their given name to a Muslim one. To them their given name was one that was passed down by slave owners and Christians. Changing one’s name was like a cleansing from this. One day I would be talking to John Smith and the next day the same guy would be Malik Shabaaz Mohammed. It was a pretty common occurrence. It was hard to make the mental switch sometimes and these guys would get pretty upset if you used their old name.

My friend Weeks had to have some sort of surgical procedure done on his nose. It couldn’t be done at Ft. Leavenworth and so he was escorted to Fitzsimons Army Medical Center in Colorado. Because he was gone, I took some time off from lifting weights. Didn’t really want to find a new workout partner. When he returned, we jumped right back into it. During a conversation, I mentioned to him that I was running out of people that could afford for me to make collect calls to. He said that he might have a solution for me but that I couldn’t share it with anyone. It was at this moment that I realized that Weeks actually trusted me.

Weeks said that when using the wing phone booths, dial zero. When the operator answers, I was to tell her that I was having trouble making the connection and if she could put me through. Then I would give her a number and she would make the connection. The long distance call would then be charged to the phone booth. Seemed simple enough and so the first chance I got, I tried it. Feeling very nervous and beginning to sweat, I dialed zero. The operator answered immediately and so I said what Weeks told me to say. She said to hang on a moment while she put me through. To my surprise, it worked. This was great, I could call whomever I wanted to.

Shortly after my first “free” call, I noticed that the phone booth lines were getting longer each day. There must have been more inmates that knew about the loophole. Eventually there was an investigation. All of the people that I had been calling, I told to say that they didn’t know anyone in Kansas and they didn’t know who called. Several inmates got busted and charged with larceny. They never approached me about it. Weeks wasn’t caught either.

A few inmates figured out how to make a tattoo gun out of an electric shaver. Weeks had been doing the artwork for the guy doing the tattoos. This practice was prohibited. If caught you would be charged with damage to government property. Weeks got a tip that his and a few other’s cells were going to be searched because they had been snitched on. He asked me to keep the artwork in my cell. After the phone booth scare, this request made me nervous. Since we worked out together, I thought my cell could be targeted as well. He said he understood and either found someone else to keep them or destroyed them. I will never know if this was a setup or not, but I’m glad I never found out.

We were not allowed to borrow other inmates stuff. Everything was marked with our reg number. One evening, I was loitering on the other side of 6 Tier because I was returning some magazines to someone. As I handed the magazines to the other inmate, I noticed a guard coming around from the back side of the tier. He saw me hand the magazines and started to quickly head my way. Thinking that he didn’t see my face, I ran as fast as I could back around the stairwell to the other side of the tier. Making it to my own cell before he rounded the stairwell, I dove into my bunk and pretended to be asleep. The guard never figured out who I was. Disciplinary and Action Board averted.

On my days off, I would sometime sleep in. The shift work was exhausting. David Dollar was an inmate that worked with me in the dining facility. Sometimes he would come into my cell and wake me up. This was very annoying because I needed the sleep. Telling him to knock it off did not work. He was relentless. I warned him not to wake me up any more. Other times, as I would be sitting on the toilet and as he would walk by and manually shut my cell door. Because I was on the toilet, I could not jump up and grab the door before it slammed shut. He would laugh and then leave me stuck in my cell. The doors would not slide open again until after the next headcount. This infuriated me. Being locked in a cell when you didn’t have to be was maddening.

He knew that I couldn’t really do anything because we would both go to the hole. Even though I warned him not to mess with me anymore, he was relentless. While passed out on my bunk, I felt someone shaking me and saying “Mike, Mike, wake up, I’m bored.” In a half stupor, but full fury, I leaped out of my bunk. Reaching out to my desk, I grabbed a pencil and jabbed it directly into Dollar’s gut. He made a weird noise and looked down in disbelief at his stomach. As he lifted his shirt up a small hole was visible, with a little blood beginning to drip out of it. He said, “You stabbed me.” His eyes shifted to the pencil I was gripping and then he bolted off to his own cell. Luckily for him, I wrote a lot and the pencil was short. Even so, this was not good.

He did not turn me in, and he never bothered me again.

Distractions (Click to Tweet)

Hot

Prison was Hot

The beginning of Summer brought some intense Kansas heat. The DB wings were not equipped with any air conditioning units. This made prison very hot. Located at the back end of each tier were tall oscillating fans set up to circulate the air. There were also some fans attached to the walls of the wing. The fans didn’t cool the place down, they just moved the hot air around. At 2:00 a.m. it would already be seventy degrees outside.

Sometimes the temperature would reach ninety degrees inside the wing. If I drank a cup of water and counted to sixty, I could watch the water come out of the pores on my arm. It was a miserable existence. Someone told me that the temperatures in the dining facility would get up to one hundred fifteen degrees in the summer. This could have been an exaggeration, but I believed it.

Working in dining facility was not my first choice but I tried to make the best of it. In this place you do as you were told or you go to the hole. The hours were kind of crazy. We would work four days on then two days off. During the four days on, there were two schedules that alternated. Morning shift was from 2:00 a.m. to 10:45 a.m. and the evening shift was from 9:45 a.m. to 6:30 p.m.

The best part about having shift work, was that I was able to take a shower with virtually no one sitting at the “viewing table”. I had to get up a 1:30 a.m. before the morning shift. Before the second shift, most of the other 3 Wing inmates were at their respective work details. Another good thing about shift work was, since the schedule was a six day rotation, my two off days were often during the week. This meant that I had free reign of the wing most of the time and it was quiet.

Pots and pans was not a terrible job but it seemed to never end. Cleaning up after cooking for five hundred people was a serious chore. After I had been there for a couple weeks, I was moved up to the short order grill. This meant that I cooked eggs and omelets for breakfast. For lunch it was hot dogs and burgers. Working the grill was hot and greasy. I’m not sure I was ever able to get the grease smell out of my uniform.

While serving chow one day, I noticed an inmate with a familiar face. Sure enough, as he came through the line, I recognized the name on his badge. Clayton Lonetree. He was a Marine and used to be a U.S. embassy security guard in Moscow. His involvement with a Russian woman, who turned out to be K.G.B. got him into trouble. Lonetree was the only Marine ever convicted of espionage and was serving a 30 year sentence.

When we weren’t serving chow to the wing we were prepping for the next meal. Cracking hundreds of eggs and putting them in bowls, chopping up vegetables for the omelets. Surprisingly they let us use large Chef’s knives to do most of our work. We would turn in our badge to get a knife out of a locked cabinet. In the wings, there were always military guards around. In the dining facility the soldiers that supervised us, were NCO’s that were regular U.S. Army cooks. I’m sure they had self-defense training, but they wore body alarms just like the guards. They weren’t all happy slappy to us, but they did treat us with more respect than some of the guards. Especially when we had the knives.

When we turned on the light in the kitchen, early in the morning, the first thing we would see was mice. Lots of them scurrying around to find a dark hole to dive into. There were sticky traps set up in various places to catch them. This worked sometimes but it wasn’t uncommon for us to see one running across the floor during the day. If you saw one you had to kill it. The bread rack was one of their favorite places to hang out. We constantly had to throw out full loaves when we found evidence that a mouse had nibbled through the bag. One morning an inmate was pulling out a bread rack when a startled mouse ran from one of the shelves, across the guy’s arm and leapt from his shoulder to the ground. It scared the crap out of him. We all had a good laugh because he screamed like a girl.

For my first custody board, I sat across a table of Officers and NCO’s. These soldiers would decide if I would get to move up in custody as well as change my work detail. The time that I served in the other facilities did not count towards this board. They only looked at the two months that I had served in the DB. There were some questions about how I thought I was getting along and what I planned to do while I was serving my time. Telling them about all the classes I was signed up for did not do any good since I had not taken them yet. Because I didn’t have enough presence in this facility they literally had nothing to go off of.

Shortly after the board, my assigned counselor informed me that I would not be moving in custody or detail. No surprise, although I was still pretty disappointed. He did tell me that if I stayed out of trouble over the next six months, I would move up to minimum custody and maybe, just maybe, I could change my detail. He also told me that I was eligible for a parole board on the fourteenth of June, 1991. If I didn’t have a good parole packet before then, I wouldn’t probably get parole the first time around.

When I arrived at the DB, I had fifteen dollars on me. It was placed in a PDA or prisoner deposit account that they kept for each of us. This money could be used to order things through the mail. It was much easier to have someone from the outside mail me things from a commercial source. That way, I did not have to fill out the paperwork.

For health and comfort items, I was allotted thirty-five dollars a month in the form of a credit, to buy what I needed. It was always more than enough. If I didn’t spend the entire amount, the remainder would disappear, meaning because it was a credit, we didn’t get to keep any of it. It was wise to use up the whole amount. The type of items I could select were; soap, shampoo, toothpaste, chips, candy, mints, Kool-Aid, tea, coffee, etc. Everything I needed to function was provided. Actual cash was prohibited.

If anyone was ever caught with real money, they would be charged with attempted escape. The premise for that was, you only needed it if you were planning on escaping.

The last time I called Dee collect, she mentioned that the phone bills were getting too much for them to handle. Especially since she was three-way calling to Germany for me. So, until my parents moved back to the U.S., I would not be able to call them anymore…

Prison was Hot (Click to Tweet)

Weights

Proposition

Having gone to a couple of NA meetings, I realized that they were kind of bogus. Most of the inmates were attending this class because they had to, or they would not be eligible for parole. There did seem to be some that took it seriously, but those inmates were in the minority. Most of the conversations that went on didn’t pertain to drug rehabilitation.

The most frequent topics always centered on racism in the DB. It always seemed to be just a big meeting for people to get things off their chest. The only help I was getting from attending, was the preparation for attending NA when I was released. The other benefit, was that I was able to hang out with a couple of the guys from Ft. Polk. Since we were either in different wings or custody levels, we could only meet in these meetings or during rec call. I was also able to meet a couple of other guys that seemed pretty decent.

Every once in a while I would have some side effects from the drugs. Sometimes I would have a total nervous system shut down. Kind of like a tremor that would cause me to blank out for a second and drop whatever I was holding. At times words would get tangled in my mouth and I would stutter. Other times, there were the LSD flashbacks. For anywhere between five to twenty minutes, I would feel like I had taken a hit of acid. Everything I looked at would have a pink and green hued shadow or aura. Sounds that were in front of me would feel like they were behind me instead. It was very strange, but only seemed to happen when I was exerting myself like running up the steps.

Sometimes, I would use the phones to call collect to some of my friends on the outside. Dee and Sid were gracious enough to make three way calls to Germany for me so I could talk to my parents. It was expensive and so I didn’t do it too often. It was nice to communicate with them. Mostly we just talked about the conditions I was living in and I reassured them that I was doing fine. I also got word that Eddie was still at VPSO in Louisiana. Being in that place was one of the worst experiences of my life. Was feeling sorry for him, but glad I was not there.

In 3 Wing, a tall blond muscular inmate came up to me and introduced himself as Bill Weeks. He said that he wanted to talk to me about a few things and that I should meet him on 4 Tier. He told me which cell was his and we headed that way. Weeks was from Los Angeles, but came to the DB via Ft. Campbell, KY. He was serving maybe a ten or twelve year sentence for arson. He was well known in the DB because he was one of the body builders. These guys tended to be pretty well respected for obvious reasons. The other reason he was so well known is because he was one of the few inmates in the DB history to ever attempt escape.

The previous year, Weeks had climbed to the top of the tiers in 4 Wing and entered the ventilation system, where he gained access to the roof of the Castle. From there he crossed over to the roof of 7 Wing and went down the ventilation system into the catwalks. Once down to the lowest level, he forced his way into the 7 Base ventilation tunnel where he attempted to to dig through the wall of the tunnel with a homemade drill. While crossing the roof, a guard spotted him and reported it. The entire DB went into lockdown and headcount. Weeks was found and his stay at the Castle was extended.

Once I got up to 4 Tier, he said he had some questions for me. First he wanted to know if it was true that I was a snitch. I told him about Specialist Bell overdosing in Panama, Tessler freaking out because he had been doing drugs with him and decided to turn in Bell and Vann. This had pissed me off and so I felt like it was my duty to bust him. To my surprise, Weeks thought that was admirable. Honor among thieves so to speak. He never brought up any of the other testifying and so neither did I.

Now that that was out of the way, he said he overheard me talking to another inmate about the kind of music I listened to. As in all walks of life, musical tastes can be a great equalizer or divider. He was also into the same bands as I was and was interested in talking to me about some of the concerts I had been to. We compared stories about Depeche Mode, the Cure, New Order and other similar bands. We seemed to be hitting it off.

The last thing he wanted to tell me was that, some of the other guys in the wing were calling me “Fembieman” because I was so skinny. Weeks also knew that I was going to be working in the mess hall. He proposed that if I hooked him up with extra food whenever possible, he would show me how to bulk up by working out. Sounded like a good trade to me, so I accepted. It was getting close to the guards time to make their rounds on the tiers and so he said I should go. I didn’t want to get written up for “loitering on the tier” and so I made my way up to my cell.

The first time I worked out with Weeks, he pushed me a little too hard. The next day, my arms swelled up like sausages to the point where I couldn’t even bend them. It would be a couple of days before I would attempt that again. He thought it was funny, I did not. If I injured myself and was not able to perform my duties out of negligence, I could get written up for damage to Government property. This was a real thing.

After completing the Day School requirements and taking a sanitation course, I finally started my job at the dining facility. Detail 44 inmates for 3 Wing and 4 Wing shared a kitchen and so as a team, we shared in the responsibility of serving about five hundred inmates. 3 Wing had it’s own dining area and 4 Wing had a mirror image on the other side of the wall. They were conjoined by a door leading into the kitchen.

New guys didn’t cook. New guys did pots and pans. So, I was stuck doing that for two meals a day. It wasn’t too bad, but it wasn’t my favorite. I could move to a different task when another new inmate was assigned to the dining facility. Until then, I wouldn’t be hooking anyone up with extra food.

Proposition (Click to Tweet)

 Next post, prison was hot.

USDB

On Monday, after breakfast, most everyone headed out of 3 Wing, to their respective work details. My destination was Detail 6 or Academic Day School. The building that I had to go to was located outside the Castle, in the courtyard but still within the walls of the prison. Making my way out of the wing, I stepped onto the highly polished floor of the rotunda, simultaneously merging with the mass of brown clad inmates from 4, 6 and 7 Wings. We all headed towards the front door that opened to the courtyard.

Stepping outside was wonderful. It was early and the smell of fresh air and green grass was a welcome change from the stale scent of the one hundred and fifty year old prison wing. The building I had to go to was a short walk, but I took my time enjoying the sun and morning air, as I made my way through the courtyard and towards the school building.

I noticed something peculiar on my stroll. A small group of women were being led by a guard towards the Castle. They were all wearing a uniform similar to the one we were but they were a light blue. I found out later that the DB was co-ed. The female inmates were segregated from the males but had some interaction here and there. Mostly in situations like the chapel and the movies. When being led around the DB in a line, the female inmates were affectionately called, “The Blue Bus to 4 Base.” This meant that if any male inmate even thought of getting near the females, you would be sent straight to the hole.

There were quite a few inmates going to school, and most of them were new arrivals to the DB. They were all coming from different wings and other custody levels. It would be here that I would study and be tutored in math. A score of 10.9 from 9.8 is all I needed to be eligible for college classes. My other scores were good enough and so I only needed this one class. Once inside I was directed to go upstairs to a specific room. Each classroom had an instructor that would be available to answer any questions you had pertaining to the subject. The instructors were inmates that were former officers. There is a phrase in the military, “Rank has its privileges.” I guess this was true even in prison. The officers were segregated in domicile and in work detail.

As I entered my assigned class room, and took one look at the instructor, I was so shocked that I almost fell to the floor. The officer inmate who would be tutoring me in math was none other than Captain Steven Tessler. Obviously whoever set this thing up, had no idea that I had testified against him during his court-martial. Saying nothing, he glared at me with complete contempt. By the way he reacted to seeing me walk through the door, I believe he had no idea that I would be in his class either.

Luckily the workbooks we had to fill out were self-paced and the material was not too difficult. My goal was to avoid talking to Tessler unless it was absolutely necessary. There were some times that I did need to ask questions. When I did, he answered with a smug look on his face. One thing for sure, I am glad that I don’t know how to read minds, because I would have probably seen myself die a million deaths. This was motivation to get my scores up as soon as possible. Thank goodness that just like everywhere else in this place, there were always guards within eye-shot.

According to my length of sentence, I was eligible for a custody board hearing in June. This was supposed to be after seven months of confinement. As a result of this hearing, the board would decide if I should be moved up a custody level or if I could have my detail changed from the dining facility to the barber shop.

The problem was that I had only been at the DB for a month out of the seven that I had been locked up. The majority of the time was spent in a civilian jail. So essentially, they had nothing to go off of. Most likely I would not get anything out of this board. I did find out that my parole eligibility date was in July 1991. I would have a parole board a month or two before this date. No guarantees on whether or not I would actually make it or not, but most people said you never make the first one.

My parents said they would send me some magazine subscriptions. They really wanted to send me Reader’s Digest and I wanted to read Spin and Rolling Stone. They set me up with all of them. In a letter, I said that I felt bad asking for stuff from them and I didn’t want them to feel like I was sponging them. They had sent me six hundred dollars for a plane ticket to Germany, to attend my brother’s high school graduation. Using it to survive while I was AWOL, I had never paid them back. This made me feel pretty guilty about making any requests from them.

Even though I had more to do at the DB than at the jail in Louisiana, I still enjoyed the letters I received. Recently some from my Aunt and Grandmother came in. My crime partner Eddie was not with me at the DB, but his mom sent me a really nice letter. She said that she had been praying for me with the women at her church. One of the women from the prayer group had been corresponding with me and took a real interest in keeping my morale up.

My youth group leader from Germany sent one thanking me for the letter I wrote to the group. To my surprise, I had received ten letters so far from the twenty-five middle school and high school kids that were there the night my letter was read. I never expected anyone to reply to me but, the fact that so many did, blew me away.

They were all very encouraging and it made me feel good to know that I made some sort of difference in quite a few people’s lives. I was ashamed of what I had done to end up in prison, but I was not ashamed to tell people about it, and how I was rectifying my situation.

This last sentence was from one of my letters and I can’t believe now, how arrogant I was. I literally thought that I was in control of my life while sitting in prison. Please let me clear up now, that I wasn’t really doing anything to rectify my own situation. All I was doing was serving out my sentence and fulfilling my program obligations that I thought would get me out. My ignorance to the fact that God had me there for a reason and that I would get out when he was ready for me to, is very apparent to me now.

 Next post, the USDB was hot during the summer and I started working in the dining facility.

Day School (Click to Tweet)

Chaplain

3 Wing

The next morning the cell doors opened up at 5:15 am. This was the normal wake up call. I got dressed in my brown uniform and went downstairs to eat in the dining facility. Not as many people were up and around because it was Saturday. Some inmates had to work so they were up and also there were the early risers. The food was great. They had bacon, sausage, eggs including omelets, pancakes, hash-browns, toast, oatmeal, etc. These were the choices every morning. If you keep inmates well fed, you have less problems. After eating and receiving my shake-down, courtesy of a guard, I re-entered the wing.

There were various things I could do to occupy my time. The DB had the largest library in the U.S. prison system. I could check out books if I wanted to. The athletic areas were much like a regular military installation. Outdoor recreation consisted of a softball field, a running track and weights. Weight lifting was very big at the DB and some of the inmates competed in body building competitions. Some inmates just went to outdoor recreation to be outside. The field was fenced and had razor wire as well as guard towers, manned with armed guards. We were only allowed to go out for two hours a day. If it was raining, no one could go outside. There was also an indoor recreation area consisting of a gym where you could play basketball and indoor weights.

At night the gym was turned into a theater and whatever movies were playing on post were rotated to the DB. If you went to the movie, you entered the gym which was set up with folding chairs. The gym was then locked so you had to stay there until the movie was over. No one could leave and there were plenty of guards around to maintain crowd control. This is what I did with the majority of the weekend evenings. The movies I saw were pretty current in the U.S. but would not make it to the bases in Europe for about six months. So I became an unofficial movie reviewer for my parents. I would give them advice on what to see and what not to see once it got to them.

None of the inmates that I knew from Fort Polk were in 3 Wing, so I had to just start some new relationships from scratch. I met a guy who said that he taught a guitar class and so I thought I would sign up for that. My dad played guitar and so I thought I might be good at it. It was an eight month course and it started in July. I had plenty of time to learn. I actually went to two classes and right away I could tell that my hands did not want to play guitar. It just wasn’t for me. However, this was a non-issue because the instructor was sent to solitary confinement in 4 Base, affectionately called, “the hole”. I don’t know what he did to get sent down there but the class was canceled.

Everyday a document was posted that had any custody or domicile changes listed on it. If you were moved up or down your name would be on it. Good conduct and passing a board would get you moved up. Bad conduct would get you moved down in custody or even sent to the hole. 4 Base was also used for protective custody. The document never stated why an inmate was reduced in custody however if two names were on there it usually was a fight or two inmates were found in a cell together. If only one name was on there it could be for any reason.

As I was walking around the right side of the wing, an inmate came up and introduced himself to me. His name was Charles Johnston and he said he needed to tell me something. We moved over by the wall near the wing entrance to be out of earshot of other inmates. Quietly he whispered, “You need to move down, right away.” Wondering what he meant by this I asked, “Why?” Again in a hushed tone he said, “You have been noticed and you are not safe on 8 Tier, especially on the left side of the wing.”

The wing seemed to be somewhat self-segregated. Charles was black and the left side of the wing seemed to be mostly of that persuasion. Because the showers were on that side of the wing, as I mentioned before, certain inmates positioned themselves there to watch other inmates in the showers. Skinny white boys were the favorite to observe. He overheard conversations, that prompted him, to inform me to move down. I thanked him and immediately made my way over to the guard cage to request a form allowing me to change cells.

The guard that I handed the form to, grabbed a master list and ran his finger down until he found an empty cell on 6 Tier. I was so relieved when he motioned to me, that it just happened to be on the right side of the wing. I ran up the staircase to my cell on 8 Tier, and packed up all my belongings. Making my way down to 6 Tier on the right side, I felt much safer already. My new cell was not too far from the back of the wing, but it was only the fourth tier up from the ground level. All my belongings were redistributed to their respective places and I organized my cell to regulation standards.

Even though I wasn’t really in the Army any more, I was still in the Army. Our cells were visually inspected daily and if it wasn’t right you could get written up. Randomly and unexpectedly our cells were completely searched in order to find contraband. Too many infractions for any reason would result in a Disciplinary and Action board. A variety of punishments could come from this board. Usually extra duty would be assigned or a loss in custody level. If an actual crime were committed, an inmate could be court-martialed again.

As far as church went, the DB catered to 14 different religions. This included various Protestant denominations, Catholic, Mormon, Jewish, Jehovah’s Witness, Christian Science, Muslim, Buddhism, Hinduism, and even a Wicca service. On Sunday’s they held traditional Chapel services. I went to the Chapel for the Protestant service. The Army Chaplains that facilitated the services were rotated each Sunday. This meant, I would hear a calm tempered sermon on one Sunday. The next Sunday, what I listened to was so over the top that it might not have even been a sermon. Everything was so much different than what I grew up with. It was very disappointing and it didn’t feel right to me. But it was one more thing to get me out of 3 Wing, so I went anyways. There were also Bible studies happening before lunch, but I didn’t join any. Just wasn’t interested I guess.

As I look back, I feel like I was so arrogant to God. There were so many opportunities for me to interact with Him. Even when He made His presence known to me, I dismissed it or took Him for granted. It seems as if I only wanted a relationship on my terms or if I were in serious trouble. Even though I was reading the Bible, I couldn’t even tell you what it meant or what I was really reading. I think I was reading it just because I felt like I was supposed to.

Even though I was locked down, confined, with no where to go, I was still running…

Running from the One who could really set me free.

Next post, I run into someone from Fort Polk at the Academic Day School.

3 Wing (Click to Tweet)