A pastor gave me information to post on NOLA’s Faith Blog about an outreach program his church was sponsoring. I wasn’t able to post the information before the event, so I attended the outreach to take photos and write an article. When I arrived, gray‑haired men wearing black shirts announcing Jesus Outreach Ministries were showing a handful of curious young men scriptures in the Bible.
The setup was impressive. A lunch truck served free food while a band played worship songs from a flatbed truck. Even the seating was covered to shelter the audience from the sun. I sat under the shelter across from Donald, the guest evangelist, who told me an intriguing story. The humility and lack of bitterness in the ex‑convict sitting in front of me was striking.
Donald’s parents divorced when he was three years old. Unable to care for Donald and his siblings, his mother left them in the custody of Catholic Charities. Three years later, she returned to claim her children. Desperate to reunite her family, she had accepted a job as a barmaid, and the state returned her children to her custody.
Donald’s mother had never tasted beer before she began pouring them for patrons. She died an alcoholic in denial. “I remember sitting on the steps of our house that my mother was too drunk to walk up, and watching her relieve herself in the garbage can. I was ashamed,” said Donald.
Donald’s greatest hurt came not from his mother but from the father who abandoned him. He didn’t understand why his friend’s father visited his son, but own father never spent time with him. One day, he tagged along like a stray dog so he could see what it was like to have a father. The man graciously allowed Donald to join them, but he also made it clear that the next time only his sons were welcome.
The rejection deeply wounded Donald, so he sought out the company of older boys in his neighborhood. Yearning for acceptance, he quit school and joined his new friends in illegal activities. The authorities picked him up for truancy and sent him to juvenile court.
The judge stared down at Donald. “Will you go to school?”
Before Donald could answer, his mother shouted, “Don’t give him another chance. Lock him up. That’s one less mouth I’ll have to feed.”
The judge sent Donald to a reform school, where he received an education in drug use from the other residents. He learned how to shoot up heroin when he was fifteen. His friends called him Spike because he was so good at hitting their veins with the needle.
Donald went from one juvenile institution to another until he became an adult, and then he made the rounds in the local parish prisons. In 1980, he was sentenced to three years in federal prison for mail fraud and credit card theft. The day he was released, he returned to heroin in a quest to numb the emotional pain in his life.
Three years later, Donald returned to jail for simple burglary. “When the door slammed shut on cell number seventeen, I rolled up in a blanket and slid under the bunk,” said Donald. “For four days, I lay in my own filth as my body went through withdrawal, and then I showered and cleaned my cell. The following week, a guard came to our area and announced, ‘Church service.’ I decided to see what happened in church and stood against the wall with nine men.”
They followed the guard to a small room with a broken desk and some metal chairs. He listened to Johnny, an eighty‑year‑old former Gideon, tell a familiar story that began during Prohibition. Johnny became a sailor when he was seventeen. Whenever his ship returned to port, he bought two bottles of illegal whiskey, picked up a woman, and partied all night. One night, Johnny awoke from a drunken stupor to an empty hotel room. He sat on the edge of the bed and contemplated suicide. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a Bible on the nightstand and picked it up. Once Johnny started reading, he lost track of time. When he looked up, the sun was shining through a split in the curtain. As the light washed over his face, he suddenly understood that God offers sinful people a new life.
“Johnny’s story sounded like mine,” said Donald. “The only difference was booze instead of dope. I went back to my cell determined to find Johnny’s God.”
Donald began reading the Bible, but shortly after his decision to find God, he was released from prison. When the guard called his name and told him to pack his things, Donald threw the Bible on his bunk and hurried out the door. Three days later, he stuck a heroin‑filled needle in his arm. “I was like a dog returning to his vomit,” said Donald. It wasn’t long before he found himself in prison cell number seven, rolled up in a blanket under his bunk. As his body shook with convulsions, he listened to the other prisoners mock him. “There is no God,” they shouted. “The Bible is nothing but fairy tales.”
Donald slid out from under his bunk to shower. When he returned, he saw a Bible lying on his bunk and became enraged with God. “Why have you made me like this?” Donald seethed. Then he broke and began sobbing. “I didn’t care who heard me. I wanted to find God, and I prayed, ‘God, if you are really a living God and this is your word, reveal it to me. If not, leave me alone and let me die the way I am.’” Excitement built in Donald’s voice as he continued his story. “God heard my cry. I heard him say, ‘Donald, turn to the book of Proverbs.’”
Donald used the index to find Proverbs chapter 1, where he began reading. When he reached chapter 2 and read “My son,” something exploded within him. “God chose the most devastating hurt of my life to reveal himself to me,” said Donald, “and then he told me how to find him in the first five verses of chapter 2.”
‘My son, if you accept my words
and store up my commands within you,
turning your ear to wisdom
and applying your heart to understanding—
indeed, if you call out for insight
and cry aloud for understanding,
and if you look for it as for silver
and search for it as for hidden treasure,
then you will understand the fear of the Lord
and find the knowledge of God.’ —Proverbs 2:1–5
Donald looked me in the eye, his face beaming. “Most treasure hunters look for treasure their whole life and never find it. I found my treasure in cell number 7 on May 13, 1987, at 9:36 p.m.”
Some people find their way to a better life, and others don’t. Donald wasn’t the only one who had heard about God. His fellow prisoners mocked God’s existence. Jesus said, “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find.” Donald asked, and God answered. He sought God, and he found him. Those who mock God never will.
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