"From Incarceration to Inspiration" - Louis Dooley’s Life Transformation

Join host Omar Calvillo in this inspiring podcast episode featuring Louis Dooley. Once entrenched in the hardships of drug dealing, crime and violence, Louis shares his incredible life transformation through faith and perseverance. As a young man he gets arrested and sentenced to life in prison plus a hundred years. Right when he feels that his life is over is just the moment when he truly begins to live. Listen to Louis share about his childhood upbringing, the hardships of being bi-racial, the loss of his father at a young age, and the defining moments which changed the trajectory of his life forever.
He is now the executive director of Philemon House, a non-profit aiding formerly incarcerated youth. They have created a supportive community for young individuals post-prison. Discover the challenges and triumphs of Philemon House and the powerful testimonies that highlight the power of God's love and God's grace. Learn how you can support their mission and make a difference.

https://philemonhouse.org/

https://www.facebook.com/louis.dooley.33

https://www.facebook.com/search/top?q=philemon%20house

Transcript

0:15

From the city of Chicago, a city most recently known for its crime and violence. On this podcast, we will be sharing stories of redemption from individuals raised in the tough streets of Chicago and from around the country. Some of them were gang members, drug dealers, incarcerated victims, and perpetrators of violence. Listen to my guests as they share their experiences, struggles, trauma, but also the strength, hope, faith and perseverance, these have developed in them to keep pushing and moving forward in life. Tune in to hear how their lives have gone from darkness to light and from wrong to strong

Omar: 0:56

I'm your host. My name is Omar Calvillo. And tonight, I'm doing a podcast on the road. I believe it's barely the second one. It's called Wrong to Strong. Uh, that I do on the road, so I'm out here in Bartlett, Illinois. First time I've been out here, I never, I don't think I've ever driven out here. Uh, but man, I want to thank my brother, Louis Dooley. Uh, I met this brother, had to be maybe two, three weeks ago. Uh, I was coming out of uh, Division 11 after doing uh, prison ministry. And one of the brothers that I was with Uh, Gary, uh, knew Louis and they started talking and he, uh, he introduced me to him. Uh, so I was able, we were able to exchange numbers. I seen this brother's, uh, testimony. I seen actually, like, a couple of his testimonies and I, man, right away I reached out to him. I'm like, man, I gotta, I gotta get him on the podcast, you know, for him to share his story. Uh, so I want to thank him. We're actually in, uh, in a home. We're, we're the, uh, house men, I believe we're going to get into that. Yup. Yup. And, uh, I'll let him share a little bit about that, but man, I just want to thank him for his hospitality and welcome to the podcast, brother. Thank

Louis: 1:55

you, brother, man. It's an honor to meet you, to have this opportunity to share, you know, what the Lord is doing, right? Cause anything I'm doing is not worthwhile here, you know, but everything he does, everybody needs to hear. Yes.

Omar: 2:06

Yes. Yes. And it's, uh, what the Lord is doing through you, you know, so hey, you're doing, you guys are doing great work. Uh, actually, let's get there. I know, uh, we'll eventually get into how you got into doing this, but you, you want to talk about what you guys do here at this place? Yeah.

Louis: 2:20

Well, if you don't mind, I just kind of three things that we do as a organization, our organization is called Philemon house based on the book of Philemon. And the one thing we do Bible correspondence courses for free. For people all over the state of Illinois and many other states where we send a Bible study book out, there's an exam for people to take. They mail it back to us free of charge. We grade it. If they pass, they get a certificate and they get the next book. And so there was over a hundred courses actually in over like a hundred countries. Translating over 90 different languages. So we use them for emails worldwide that's in Dubuque, Iowa. Um, so that's one thing we do and my wife kind of spearheads that. A second thing is, um, we do ministry in Cook County Jail. So we've got like seven different Bible studies that we're doing over three different days. And there's a few youth prisons out here in the Western suburbs, one in Warrenville and one in St. Charles. And we go in there and we do lunch, we do snacks, we play games and we get in the Word. You know, we try to meet them at the level where they're at. And so we'll have anywhere from five to like 18 youth at one time. Like, you know, we'd be in there chopping it up. And then lastly, a handful of years ago, like right before COVID actually, my wife and I were coming from Warrenville. We thought, man, some of these young men in here just got so much potential. They just need a safe environment, some resources, and some good golly people, and they can do great things in life. And I thought, man, I wish we could bring some of them home. And my wife was like, yeah. And I was like, hmm, man, she don't ever agree with me. Not right off the top. So I circled back with her on that. She said yes. And, um, that's when Philemon House was kind of born. And so we bring young men specifically out of those juvenile prisons. Who I get to meet and spend time with. Um, we vet them. They have application, a list of rules. Um, they actually, we got the whole blueprint pretty much from another ministry. I know, you know, of Koinonia house going away. And so, um, yeah, they said, man, use our blueprint. So we went through there, we use probably 80 percent of their stuff. And then we added our own like 20 percent that's conducive towards the youth population that we're dealing with. And, uh, if they make the cut. Then they come here and they have to go to school. So we have a, uh, going to be a senior in high school this year. We got another young man that just today got enrolled in welding classes at Elgin Community College. Um, they got to go to church, but they don't have to be a Christian. Um, but church, they're going to youth group tonight, college age group to be around their peers and to hear the word. And then we help them with all of the kind of communication skills, hygiene, uh, banking, so finance type stuff. So everything that a person really needs to know. To be successful and specifically a successful man of God. Uh, we try to help

Omar: 4:56

them with here. Okay, you know, that's good. I like you mentioned, uh, it's not just the spiritual, but also the financial. Man, that's, that's, uh, big there too, man. But, uh, thank God for what you're doing. Amen. Uh, but eventually, you know, we're going to get what led you into that, you know? So, we usually like to start, you know, at the beginning. You know, so if you could, if you could tell us where did you grow up, uh, what's the name of that city? Maybe, you know, if you could describe it for those, maybe that, that never been there, you know, that never been out there.

Louis: 5:23

So, um, I'm from East St. Louis, Illinois, not from Chicago, uh, which most people know once I get talking, cause I don't sound like I'm from Chicago. Most people think I'm from like Texas or Mississippi. I'm like, nope, don't sound like them either. So I guess we have our own kind of city. Southern, Midwestern twang in that area, but East St. Louis, I mean, most people have heard of East St. Louis, believe it or not, even though it's a little small rundown kind of crime infested area, much like some areas like in the South side and West side of Chicago, um, because they got a lot of strip clubs there, you know, so a lot of people that was in that life before they was running drugs or things like that going on down in East St. Louis, but that's where I'm from, born and raised down there. Okay.

Omar: 6:03

How far is that? Like from Chicago?

Louis: 6:04

That's about four hours. Four hours. Just go straight down 55, man. Right before you get ready to cross the Mississippi, you can just hang a left and boom, you're right downtown East St. Louis.

Omar: 6:13

Right there. All right. Now, now, can you tell us how it was like for you in those, those young years? You know, it

Louis: 6:20

was, it was a unique experience for me because it was all black area and my father's black and my mother's Italian. Yeah. So I didn't fit in because all my peers were black and because I looked different, my skin was lighter, my hair was straight. Um, I didn't fit in. They used to make fun of my mama because she was white. So I got into a lot of fights early on in elementary school. I was also like, My mother tried to shelter me because I was her only child. And so she really spent a lot of time with me with reading, comprehension, pretty much all the subjects. And so I was in gifted classes in elementary school. So that opened up a door for more fights and stuff like that. And so growing up, I just wanted to fit in, man. Yeah. You know, I didn't want to be fighting, man. I didn't want to be defending. in my honor. My mother's honor. I just want to play some baseball, some basketball, some football, some stuff like that and fit in like the rest of the kids. So it was very difficult and challenging. And then you had, um, my, my later years, you know, seventh grade, eighth grade. You know, a lot of gangs were around and so the area I was from a lot of Gangster disciples, that was the whole area. So all my peers, pretty much every one of them were Gangster disciples. I chose to say no, not because I didn't want to, but because I didn't want somebody telling me what to do, you know, and the more I resisted, the more they like wanted to get me. You know, so they would beat me up and try to pull me and I just kept bucking the system, man, because I thought if I'm not gonna listen to what my mama tell me what to do, why I'm listening to this dude down the street, tell me what to do. I ain't with that. I want to be my own person. So I was just hard head and strong will like that.

Omar: 7:52

Okay, gotcha. So you said, man, you, you, you, you, you, you're getting your education, you know, like, and you said even that, you know, like they go against you because You're gifted. So like, no, no matter which way you go, you know, it's like you can't win, right? I couldn't find no common ground, you know, for nobody really accept me for who I was. Gotcha. Now you, you know what, as I was listening to your story, uh, you, you want to talk about, about your dad and the, the relationship. Cause I know as I've interviewed like, uh, a lot of these men, the relationship with their father is very important and very, uh, formative as well as with the mom. Yeah. Uh, but, uh, You want to talk about that? Maybe your relationship with your dad? Yeah, my

Louis: 8:29

father was a typical street dude. You know, he sold drugs, he used drugs. I mean, he taught me how to play cards. That was like really the only thing he ever taught me. So we'd sit down and play gin and rummy. That's what he taught me how to play. Be rolling up joints, smoking joints. He liked drinking Hennessy, ENJ, stuff like that. So he'd drink in front of me. And then as I got a little older, like he would be snorting cocaine, you know? So he did that while my mother was working two and three jobs trying to support us as a family. And right before she would get home, like off her shift late at night, he made sure he leave about five minutes before she got there and he'd be out in the streets. And then of course, days later, he'd come home. They didn't get into an argument, was turned into a physical altercation where he would. would like put his hands on her. If I was just happened to be standing around, he put his hands on me. So he was a very, um, not as much verbally abusive, but definitely physically abusive, you know? And so it was a weird dynamic because one, I was scared to death of this dude, but two men, I love this dude more than anything in life because I kind of saw like the respect. That he commanded amongst his peers, you know, he was a very likeable person, but people respected him. And as a young boy, like, I didn't know what you're supposed to be like in life, but I thought, man, this was my example. And I wanted to be like that, minus the violent part. And so I was like, I want to be the good stuff and not the bad stuff. Actually at 15 when I was like in my freshman or sophomore year of high school, he got murdered in a drug deal gone wrong. And that's where things took a huge turn for me because before that I wanted to be a lawyer. I grew up watching Perry Mason with my great grandmother and I was like, I want to be like that guy because he wore a suit. He was articulate. He carried a briefcase and I heard lawyers make a lot of money. So I was like, that's what I want to be. And so I was pursuing that. And, uh, as I transitioned from East St. Louis school district to Edwardsville school district, where I went to Edwardsville junior high and senior high, man, I found out I went from being one of the smartest kids in school to like one of the dumbest kids in school, because I was learning stuff in elementary school that these like Sixth grade stuff I was learning. These kids learned like second or third grade. So I was just lost, man. I was trying to catch up academically and I always was good academically. So now I was failing in that. And then my father gets killed and it rocks my world and it rocks my mother's world. And I just feel lost and all alone, man. And like I was staying away from the drugs and drinking, although all my friends were involved in that, I was scared that my father found out he had kill me. So that's what kept me away.

Omar: 11:10

So that was the deterrent for you? The deterrent, right? But now

Louis: 11:12

he was gone, the deterrent was gone, and like that group of people who were involved in that, them was like the ones that had their arms open. Here you go, take this. Here you go, take this. This will make you feel better. And when you want to feel better, like when you're not thinking straight, Like you would do those type of things and start smoking weed, start drinking. That stuff was good. I always liked nice things. I wanted nice things. Couldn't necessarily afford nice things, but like I knew people that liked getting high. And I always been a guy, my father owned a used car lot. My father was a salesman. And I'm kind of liking myself to be a salesman. I used to sell watermelons in front of his car lot in St. Louis. And so I guess I like to have an outgoing personality. I like talking to people and I like trying to make deals. So I'm like, well, here's how I can get money. It's people that want weed. I just got to find a source to get the weed that I can sell. And so I found that by my senior year of school, I couldn't sell weed no more because now I'm smoking it all up, you know, I used to be don't get high on your own supply or don't do it at all, but it was too good. Yeah, yeah. It was too good to me, man. I became a weed head. So I had to, I either could stop selling weed or I could graduate. to start selling something else. And so this was the late eighties, we're talking 88, 89. Okay. So the crack epidemic was just now in the St. Louis area, along with the bloods and crips coming from California to St. Louis, that stuff was blowing up. So there was tons of gang stuff going on in East St. Louis where you had, you know, Basically, I grew up around GDs and vice lords. Now you got Bloods and Crips. I don't know nothing about none. And I knew about this other stuff cause my peers was there. So I knew literature. I knew gang. I knew all that kind of stuff. I got into gang drama because if I'm with my friends, even though I'm not connected, they shooting at me too, if they shooting at him. So now I got drama from that stuff. And so now you got these other people coming out here wearing this blue and this red, and like, it was just different. Yeah. And so now that's going on, I'm selling crack and I'm like by myself, you know, I ain't got a set or a hood or a gang behind me. I'm a one man show. So I'm out here tipping around like in dangerous areas trying to make money. And um, I was, I actually was doing good, man. I had a Corvette. I had some Cadillacs when I was in high school. I had some big dookie ropes ring. I mean, yeah, I was, I was making good money doing good things, man. But the cocaine sent me into a world that I wasn't ready for because it put me around a different breed of people, man. You know, we had some people smoking weed. That's, that's low key. That ain't no big deal, but you messing with cocaine. You messing with dudes that appeal your cap real quick. And so I didn't, I didn't, I wasn't thinking about that. I didn't really care. I just wanted that money. I was on a paper chase. And so, um, I got, I got, I was at gunpoint a few times, um, where by the grace of God, I don't know why they did not blow my brains out. I don't know why, man. And so I knew that my life was spiraling out of control during my senior year of high school. And I had my family, my father's side of families from Alabama. And so I had an uncle that lived in Atlanta. And so I talked to him Christmas of my senior year when we went down to Viz and I said, man, like, can I come stay with you so you can help me figure out what I'm gonna do with my life? And he's like, yeah. So at the semester of my senior year, I told my mother, like, I'm going to Atlanta to finish high school. My mother was like, no, I'm not letting you go. I'm like, I'm not asking you, I'm telling you, you know, so me and my mother was so tight when I was young, but when that situation with my father happened, we just grew so far apart and I, I disrespected her and treated her so bad. Like it's incredible how I treated my mother, man, and she didn't deserve none of it. But I felt like I need to do this cause I wasn't a dumb guy. I know how drug dealers end up, they end up doing life in prison or end up being dead in the ground. And I didn't want to be none of them. Yeah. So I went there because my uncle, like out of my father's siblings, he was square, you know, he worked for the city of Atlanta. His wife was a physical therapist. They lived in the same town, Evander Holyfield, Oprah Winfrey had a house. So like in a nice area, right. So I go down there and get enrolled in school and, uh, you know, I don't have anything negative to say about that situation other than it didn't turn out like I hoped because, um, I couldn't figure out what I wanted to do. I didn't have as, I didn't know what kind of help I needed. I just thought if I cry out for help. That surely some adults that care about me will help and it just didn't pan out and because it did not end up finding the same crowd of people that I had at home down there. Uh, I got suspended in high school. I managed to graduate high school. Um, almost got killed down there by mistaken identity. Um, I got kicked out my aunt and uncle's house, so I had to come back home and I got back home, call it the end of May of 1990. To for the next rest of that year, just on a crime spree, the beginning of 93 now to the point to where I'm paranoid, I'm smoking weed and crack Primo, you know, and I'm, I'm out of my mind. I'm paranoid. And so I'm getting people robbing me, trying to rob me and I, I'm a one man show. So I got this bright idea. I need some guns. I need a whole bunch of them and I'm not buying them off the street cause if they got a body on it, I gotta have an alibi. So I started robbing gun shops in broad daylight with no mask on. You talk about the dumbest idea in the world. So I was doing that while I was selling drugs, man, I was just out there crazy, man. I was out there crazy and that all caught. Eliminated of February of 1994, where I got convicted of attempted murder, first degree armed robbery, and I got sentenced to life in a hundred years in prison. In the state of Missouri, right? Yeah, because of where I was at. Because of all the stuff going on with the bloods and Crips and just crime being incredibly, incredibly bad in St. Louis. They wasn't playing, they was throwing the book at you. They was trying to lock you up and throw away the key, which later old heads told me like, they, they gonna lose you. That's what their goal was, to lose you. I mean, and lose you to prison and you never get out again. So that's what they, that's what they did. You know?

Omar: 17:37

Man, so you go through the trial, they give you that sentence. What what are you feeling on the inside at that moment?

Louis: 17:43

Man, Omar, I was messed up, man. Like I did. I felt like I was dead, but I was still alive. I felt like my soul. I mean, I don't know how a person can describe like what a soul is being ripped out of a body, but I felt like a shell of myself. And that the me wasn't in there anymore. Um, that, that's the best way I can describe it, man. It was, it was actually crazy cause they had, I was on bond for seven months waiting to go to trial. And I'm out there, I was smoking primos before trial every day. I was in court high as a kite every day. And so when they convicted me on one hand, like because I felt like I was outside of my body, I was high as a kite. So I don't know if I'm hallucinating, I don't know what's going on, but I know I'm hoping it ain't real. And so they sat me outside the courtroom in a chair and they closed the door closed. And there was another dude sitting in the chair on the other side of the door. And I'm, I'm crying profusely, man. And it was this young white dude. And he looked over and he said, man, it's going to be all right. And I said, how the F is going to be all right, man. It just gave me life in a hundred years. I just wanted to ride. I'm going to choke this man. How dare you disrespect me by telling me it's going to be our, I just lost my life, man. You know, I, yeah. I don't know if that was an angel. I don't know if it was the Lord using somebody, but definitely it turned out to be the best thing that could ever happen in my life, man. The best thing that ever could happen.

Omar: 19:04

No. What, what way is that? I mean, like since,

Louis: 19:07

since a hundred years, like, yeah. So, so that was probably call it. 3 p. m. on a Wednesday in February of 1994, they take me, they process me. You know, I had a suit and stuff on. They took that stuff. They gave me a jumpsuit. They ain't give me no socks, no underwear. Just I'm butt naked in a jumpsuit. Now they put me in a dorm room. Now I have been arrested, you know, quite a few times in the past and spent three, four, five days in some city or County jail for something. And then I pay and I get out. You know, I never stayed there for any length of time, but I know, okay, you go in, you find the bug, yeah, you're going to probably have to bust somebody's head or you get your head busted. Like, that was the protocol, right? So, that's what I was looking forward to. So, I go into this dorm area. Is this in the county? This is in Clayton County Jail in Missouri. Right. In Clayton County Jail. So I go in there. It's a big dorm. It's raggedy. It's old. They got bunk beds in the day room because of overcrowding. They don't have doors on the cells. I later found they had took the doors off because dudes were jamming the locks and killing people and raping people in there. So there was nowhere you can get to where the guards couldn't get to you. And so I found an empty bunk and I just like, okay, I'm claiming this. So I sit down. As soon as I sit down, man, this dude with the orange, we had orange jumpsuits, this other dude with the orange jumpsuit on comes to me with a cardboard box about this big with a lid on it and just put it on the floor and he just walked off. And so I'm kind of looking around, you know, I'm nervous, I'm scared. Every, every negative emotion you have is going through my body, man. And I just want to be gone from here. And if gone means dead, I'm okay with that because I'm thinking I don't want to spend, I really thought highly of myself. You know, I thought I was a smart guy, a good looking guy. I can talk good. I got everything a person can have to do whatever they want to do in life. That's what I thought. And now that was gone. So I was humbled. Never had been humbled before, man, very conceited and arrogant. And this humbled me big time. And so I'm sitting here. I'm wondering what's going on and what am I gonna have to do because somebody probably gonna try to do something to me that I don't want and like it's easy to pull the trigger and shoot somebody. I mean, I've done it, but to lay your bare hands on a man and try to take his life, that's something I hadn't done. And I figured, or if I can made a weapon, like I hadn't done it with some kind of cruel barbaric weapon, like that's probably what's going to have to happen because I don't want these things done to me that I know that happens. Right. And call you people as incarcerated. So, so I feel like in the game of chess, this dude just moved his pawn by setting this box on,

Omar: 21:41

you know, can you explain that for, for people that maybe don't know, like, what's the, I guess, man, somebody drops off like a gift. I guess you could say the

Louis: 21:50

well known thing that people talk about at least one from is the honey bun. Like if you want to sell or whatever, somebody put a honey bun or a little Debbie cake or something on your pillow on your bed. Like, don't take it. Like that's a hook, right? That's bait and they trying to get you. So I didn't know that in that moment. And I didn't even know what was in the box. So I was, I opened it and there was snacks and stuff. There was also underwear and socks and stuff too. And so the thing that, That kind of made me think about this was where I'm from ain't nobody giving you something for nothing. That's right. Right. So I was trying to use the little bit of street knowledge that I gained to help me survive in prison. I got to use something and probably like academics ain't going to help. You know, and so I'm thinking if I take this stuff, then I'm going to owe somebody something that either I don't want to pay or I literally can't pay. So I got the bright idea. I mean, I, I tried to be a pretty slick type dude and um, I love the lie. I love the power that it can give you when you tell a person to lie and you can get them to believe it. And so I thought, let me trick this dude and I'm going to eat some of this food and put on some of these clothes and make him think I took the bait. Because if I don't. Touch it. Then he might be thinking, I know what's up and now they may be tripping on me. So I'm, I'm trying to be a psychop, you know, use the psychology with it. I'm trying. I'm 19. You know, I think that's smart.

Omar: 23:16

You're thinking about all the moves, like the moves and counter moves. So he made a

Louis: 23:20

move. So my move is I'm going to eat this stuff and put on some stuff and make him think, I don't know what's going on while I get a chance to figure out what my next move is. And so I did that later. I've nothing. They didn't do nothing. Didn't say nothing. And so I figured. I'm watching. Nobody said a word to me. I didn't say a word to nobody. I'm watching people moving. Some people look at me. Most people just doing their thing, but I see this sale. He keep going in and out of something. And okay, this must be where he at. So I thought, and I sized him up. I'm like, he's smaller than me, probably a little older than me, but I think I could probably get him, you know, cause that's what my plan is. I'm finna go look, I don't know if I'm gonna be able to kill this dude. But I feel like that's my only option because if I kill him, look, I already ain't going, I'm already not going home. So it can't hurt that situation. But if I'm going to be here the rest of my life, the last thing I want to do with somebody like chasing me, trying to do something to me, I don't want them to do like, I ain't trying to be a tough guy, but I ain't trying to be a punk either. And so I figured I'm gonna go try to kill this dude and if I do or at least I come close like maybe people have respect because I feel like a lot of people will respect you if you stand up and like do something to protect yourself. So later that night came and I creeped over to his cell and they had really bad sheets across the doorway just for privacy. So I made my way over there and I rushed up in there to get this dude, man. And when I got in there, him and two other dudes in there and they had these books open. And later there was a Bible I didn't know at the time. And so when I rushed in there, I kind of just like was startled because I ain't even know no other dudes was in there. It's like, yeah, what a good criminal I am by casing and say, Oh, you know, I ain't even see nobody else go in there. And so I just stopped and they kind of looked at me for a second and went back looking down and the guy went to get, he continued to read and then he stopped and he looked up at me and asked me if I believe in God and I said, nah, man, I don't believe in God. I believe in evolution. And you know what? All I remember seeing is pictures and the talk about evolution. Volution with like a eight. Eight, turning into a Neanderthal, turning into what we are today. That was the extent of my religion. Didn't grow up in church, didn't go to church. No influence with the gospel. No, none of that stuff. Mm-Hmm. And so he handed me a little pamphlet, which later on I learned was a Bible track. And I took it and they kind of looked at me like they was saying, okay, you can leave. So I left, man, went back to my bunk and that's where I would say two things. I feel like set in. reality and the drugs wore off because I got back to my bunk and things felt different.

Omar: 25:49

I

Louis: 25:50

mean, I don't know if you ever been high, but when you be high, when you, when you come off that high, you like, you can sometimes think clear and sometimes things are different. So things just felt different for me, um, in my body. And I was like, I couldn't even do nothing to this dude and not a fear stars creeping in because I'm scared. Like, I done seen American men, I done seen all them movies, right? Like, I don't want to get raped in my sleep or get, my luck, I'll hit the daily double. They'll rape me and kill me in my sleep. So at least they'll put me out of my misery. Because you're already in the open. I'm in the open dorm, yeah, and everybody's open, right? It's all of them, it's like, 20 some dudes against me. Yeah. That's what happened. And you're

Omar: 26:31

not like a plug for like a gang either. Cause a lot of times that helps. That can be like on one side or the other. At least, you know, you got your little group.

Louis: 26:38

Yeah. And in that jail, they put people in dorms according to their gang. And I was in the crip gang. I was in the crip. They was all crips up in there. Gotcha. You know? And so I wasn't nothing. So they could put me anywhere, but they put me there. And so, um, I sit there on the end of my bunk, man, I cannot sleep. I'm wired for sound. I'm scared. And I'm just thinking, man, I wish I had a gun so I could blow my brains out. Like I just went to go take a man's life. Cause I thought that was the best thing to do. I didn't really want to do it. I felt like I had to do it and I didn't do it. And it's probably going to cause me my life. So at least I can be in control by killing myself. Instead of leaving my life to whatever fate has. That's what I was thinking. And so man, Omar, it was a surreal setting, man. Like you would think that this is, I'm making this stuff up, but I happened to be in the only bunk that was open, which was next to the bars, right next to the catwalk. The catwalk would be an area where the staff could walk around so they wouldn't have to go inside. And then on the catwalk, the only area that was lit. Was right where my book was, which was maybe why nobody was in that book because the light was all right. But for me, I can't sleep. And I got this Bible track in my hand. It's the perfect place to be so I can read this Bible. So it started talking about creation with Adam and Eve. Now this stuff it talked about. I literally had never heard of the creation of everything. The first, you know, six days, um, the creation of man, the fall with Adam and Eve and God's instructions not to eat the tree, um, fruit from the tree of knowledge and good and evil. The conversation between the serpent and Eve, um, this word sin coming into play. Now, if you look online and see some of the. times I've shared my testimony, I actually later as I thought, I actually shared something that wasn't true, but it wasn't intentional. When I told people I had never heard the word sin before, but actually when I thought about it years later, I had actually heard of it and I couldn't believe I forgot when I was in high school and we'd be out drinking. We used to drink that bumpy face. That's Seagram's gin. Okay. We call it a bumpy face. And people would say, gin make you sin. So I thought gin meant party and have fun. That's what I thought the word. So I actually had heard the word. So I would, I was like drinking all the time and I'll be sad. I would, I would drink gin, Seagram's gin, which tastes nasty as all get out. I was drinking it anyway, because I was saying, Jim, make you sin. And I'm thinking I'm a party animal. Like I'm kicking with me. So that was your definition of that word. Little did I know that this Bible track talked about seeing being a direct disobey against God and they're all sinners, you know, so all of sin, Romans 3. 323. All have seen it listed some scenes, murder, rape, theft. Well, I'm thinking, yeah, a lot of people has done that, but not everybody. But then it said disobeying your parents telling lies. I'm like, man, everybody didn't did some of that stuff. So everybody is a sinner like that was kind of blowing my mind and then there was another verse in Romans 6 23 So it's basically the Romans road. Okay, come to learn later where it says the ways of sin is death, right? So I'm putting this together and reading and comprehension was my strength spelling. I just do spelling Spelling bees in elementary. So words was always my thing, right? So I could comprehend at a, you know, a little bit higher level than my age at one point. And so I'm putting this together as I'm reading and I believe the Holy Spirit is working as well because things are clicking in my head and it's clicking in my heart. And so I was thinking the wages of sin is death. Then that means that because everybody's a sinner, everybody's going to die, right? I didn't know the full implication of that, but I'm thinking everybody's going to die. Yeah. And it says, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ. And then it started talking about a man named Jesus. The only time I had only heard of Jesus was on the TV commercials, Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, the Mormons. Okay. That's all I heard. TV commercial. So I didn't even know who this dude was, none of that kind of stuff. So it talked about him and then it talked about his miraculous birth. It talked about his sinless life. It talked about the purpose in which he came was to offer forgiveness of sins, to teach people about the kingdom of God, to lead people into righteousness. It talked about his own people killing him, right? It talked about him resurrecting. I mean, it shared the gospel in this track and it talked about another verse at the end about God having a plan and purpose for everyone's life. And it mentioned Jeremiah 29, 11, which meant very popular verse, but my first time here And I thought, man, two things. If this is true, then it's got to matter. And two, if God has a plan and purpose in my life, I got to find out and I got to have that because I have no plan and no purpose of my life right now. I'm existing for nothing. And I wanted something desperately to hold on to. I wanted to have a life, you know, everybody that's sitting in a jail or prison, oftentimes they wish they could have a do over, but you don't get do overs, right? It's rare you get forgiveness, let alone a do over and God wasn't offering a do over, but he was offering forgiveness, right? And a whole bunch more, not just to forgive you, but a place in heaven with him and to be there with you. I mean, it just, I mean, I didn't learn all this stuff right then and there, but that was just the tip of the iceberg, right? And so there was a sinner's prayer on the back. I prayed that prayer. I went to sleep that night. Nothing happened. I woke up the next day. Those guys came, brought me a Bible, which I still have, by the way, on my back. Gideon. What year?

Omar: 32:16

94

Louis: 32:17

you

Omar: 32:17

said?

Louis: 32:17

This was 94.

Omar: 32:18

Wow. And you still got it. I got it upstairs. How many years is that?

Louis: 32:20

40 years ago was it? How many years ago was that? 30? 30 years. Man. 30 years. I still got it, man. It was in my property. I had sent it home because it meant something. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. And so, um, They'd start teaching me how to pray. We started reading the Bible together, like three or four of us just right here in this dorm. And I was there roughly 30 days because I, so that was the recommended sentence, but I hadn't been sentenced. Okay. So 30 days comes to sentence. I go to sentencing. The judge has the power to do what he wants. He gives me every bit of life in 50, years. I got life for shooting somebody with four different guns. He didn't die by the grace of God. His body was robbed. I got. Uh, 20 years for that in Missouri, they have a crime called armed criminal action. If you commit any felony with a dangerous weapon and it's like, it's not just a gun or a knife. It could be a baseball bat. It could be if you were golden gloves boxer, they can say your hands or day with weapons and give you an arm criminal action. And that holds three years up to life. So I got life for shooting the guy. I got 50 years cause I used a gun, which was challenged in court as double jeopardy. Cause how could I get convicted of shooting somebody unless I use a gun? But that's what Missouri do. Then he got robbed after he was on the ground shot, not by me, by some other people. And I didn't know nothing about it, but um, they put that on me 20 years for that and 30 years for that armed criminal action. So 50, 30 and 20 is a hundred. And I had life for the shooting. They gave me all of it. Um, and so then I went to prison in Missouri, which is just like Stateville here. You go to Stateville and they like figure out what prison they going to send you to to do your time. At the time it was Fulton Diagnostic Center in Missouri. I went there, I was there about 30 days and like I got, there's tons of stories, but I know we ain't got time for all of that, but, but my first cellmate happened to be a Christian. Now a lot of people I learned later is fighting faith. And it's not all Christianity. If you're black, it's almost always some form of Islam. Yeah. Now would be black, Hebrew, Israelite is very popular. Um, but then the rest is just all gang stuff. Right, right. You know, that's that most people come in and clicked up already. Yeah. So. Um, he left and went off to his prison. They moved another guy in. He happened to be a Christian. And I'm like, wow, Lord, like, what better could I ask for? Right? You could get into a lot of drama and static dealing with people in a cell. Oh, no. Right. And here's the,

Omar: 34:43

here's the. And now you are. Yeah. With a door, right? Yes. With a door. When you lock down

Louis: 34:48

23 hours a day. So it's just you and that individual. And there's another dynamic at play here. I'm from East St. Louis, Illinois. I'm in Missouri, different state. Missouri people, specifically St. Louis people, do not like East St. Louis people and vice versa. Now,

Omar: 35:06

Is it that bad? Yes, it is.

Louis: 35:08

Now, I personally, It didn't matter to me, did not matter to me, but I was running a rare few that it didn't matter to. And so I'm in enemy territory doing time. So that's another dynamic, right? And look, I learned early when you like, for one, you lie about your case, you ain't going to have no respect and you're going to get a bunch of punking heads cause what you hide. But any type of lies you tell people, man, you're the Bible says your sin will find you out. Your lies will find you out too, right? So I already decided I'm not fitting a lie. Okay. Cause I learned that lies are sins, right? And there was a bunch I hadn't yet found out were sins, but I knew lying, stealing, hurting people and fornication, adultery, sexual sins. I learned it was a sin and I did all of them. And I knew God didn't want me to, and some of them I had to stop. Cause there wasn't no females there, but the line and the stealing didn't have to stop. But I was like, God, take that from me. I don't want to do that no more. But so I had these two cellies, told him where I was from. I got to the prison I was going to and man, guess what? The cell I went in, so I went to a prison that was built in just 89. So just five years. So it's the newest prison in Missouri to house the most dangerous inmates in the whole state of Missouri. And that's where Missouri's death row is housed and their death rows in general population. Meaning people selling, I could have, I eventually sailed with people on death row. No,

Omar: 36:28

no

Louis: 36:29

way. Oh yeah. So you, so you could have, let's say like 10, 20 years and be interacting with. Yeah, man, I, when I was, at the time I was incarcerated, there were about 76 people executed and I knew 60 something of them. I ate meals with them, went to church with them, played softball, basketball, handball with them, lived in cells with many of them. Yeah. Yeah. But that's a whole, that's a whole nother dynamic. So they were doubling up this prison because of overcrowding. They had at some point moved a bunch of Missouri inmates down to Texas because of overcrowding in Missouri. Yes. It's all the gang stuff. And so they were doubling up this prison. prison. And so the next available cell that had a bunk bolted on the other bunk and the rest of the sales haven't been doubled up yet. They moved me in that cell. I go in that cell. The person living there isn't there. What's on his bunk? A Bible with his name engraved on it. Reverend Marcus Atkins, he eventually died of sickle cell in prison years later. But I met him and I'm like, man, I'm in a cell with a reverend now. I didn't know what that meant. And he wasn't really a reverend. He just put that on, but he was a Christian and he turned out to be a solid Christian. And he was from East St. Louis. I'm like, man, Lord, like this got to be you. Yes. It's gotta be you. What's the chances? All three of my cellies like being Christians. And then there's one I'm gonna be in cell with who knows how long is from where I'm from. So the Lord was just blessing me, man. He was, he was showing up in a big way, um, because I, I wanted the stuff to be real, but I was, I was skeptical, man. I didn't know I was new to

Omar: 38:01

this. Definitely, but it sounds like he started answering some of those, uh, those doubts maybe that you were having. Oh, he definitely did. Like, what did you start seeing? Like, man, there's gotta be more than coincidence, right, as he starts putting the pieces together. There's a lot

Louis: 38:15

more. Again, I know we are, you know, kind of on time frame, but, you know, by the grace of God a handful of years ago, I was able to write a book. And so a lot of this is chronicled in my book. What's the name of that book? It's called Prison Saved My Life. I recommend it for everyone. Okay. Where can they find it? Yeah, I mean, it's on Amazon. It's, um, you know, the publishing company, you may ask the Bible Course publisher. They published it, but yeah, you can go on Amazon and get it. All right. No, sounds good. So, um, yeah, but so I'm, I'm in there doing time. And, uh, I end up, they told me, you got to get my cell, he said, man, if you don't get a job within a week, they're going to put you in the kitchen and that's the worst job you want to have. I didn't even ask no questions. I just trusted him because you got to trust somebody. And so, um, I got a job in the chapel by the grace of God as a porter. I'm just sweeping and mopping. But I met some Christian brothers that worked there that turned out to be really solid Christian brothers. Um, I got a chance to, I had to set up for all the religious services. So they had Wicca, Native America, Jehovah Witness, Catholic, about seven different. Islamic things for more science, temple, multiple temples of them, nation of Islam, the masjid, which is the Muslims, like we know from the Middle East, all these different services I had to set up for. So I got a chance to learn about a lot of these religions through reading a lot of their material. And even if they had a book like the Quran read, read almost the whole Quran before, um, You know, and as I was reading the Bible even more, and I probably had, I had read by the Bible through the whole Bible at least once by then. I mean, I probably retained 0. 00001%, but I had read through it. I retained a lot more of the New Testament than I did the Old Testament, especially like Deuteronomy, Numbers and Leviticus. I didn't hardly retain none of that. But, um, yeah, man, I'm doing my time and, uh, One of my other cases caught up with me one day. They just snatched me out of my cell five in the morning. Get up and get ready when it got ready to go back to the back to court back to the county. And one of them gun shop robberies had caught up with me and my lawyer was there. I was appealing my primary case and their lawyer showed up and he said, man, it got awful for you. That's it. All right. What is it? Two life sentences. I'm like, what's the worst I can get? Two life sentences. So it's like, why this supposed to be a plea bargain? I ain't stupid. Plea bargains usually is less time, so you don't process the case, right? And go through the taxpayer's money and this. The trial, they offer me the same thing that you already had break in the sense. Yeah. Yeah. I can go to trial and lose out and get that. Right. But they had me. They had video. I witnessed they had no mask or nothing. I had no mask on. They had my license plate, my car, eyewitnesses, look, everything, the evidence you will want, except them catching me with some of the weapons on me. They had everything. Right. But I still could have went to trial again. I wasn't dumb. I used to watch Perry Mason. Now, he wasn't necessarily prosecuting criminal cases, per se, but I knew what a hung jury was. I knew what a mistrial was and I know going to trial that them things were possible. And even though I'm guilty of sin, I can maybe beat that. But I decided I'm not going to do it for two reasons. The first reason I ain't want to take my mama through another trial, man. I was my mama's only child. My father had been taken just about four years prior. She hadn't even fully rebounded from that yet. Now her only child snatched himself away from her. You know, could I

Omar: 41:42

ask you, what, what did you see? What, what effect did you going through trial or her being or seeing you go through it? Like, well, what kind of effect did you see it? Man, it

Louis: 41:51

broke her heart, man. The little bit that she had life that she had left in her, it looked like I took that. Like how I felt empty and like just a shell living life, that's what I like, that's what I saw her it's kind of like the lights being on. It's like when my father got killed, if her eyes were the lights and one of the lights went out, when I went to prison, the other light went out. That's like the best I can describe it, man. I was like, my mother was a, everybody probably thinks, most people probably think very highly of their mother. I can guarantee you for a fact, as best as anybody can, if the courts would have asked my mother to switch places, she would have switched places with me. She have went and did that time. Yeah. If, if, if she would've believed that I would've did the right thing when I got out, she'd have switched plays with me in a heartbeat. Gotcha. You know, and my momma loved me. That's the closest thing to unconditional love. And I know, I don't think humans can really have that, like, that agape love that God has. But if any human had, my mother had to have close to it, man. And I just felt like, you know what? Now's the time that I've given my life to Christ and the second reason, which is the most important reason why I accepted it because I was guilty and I need to admit that I had already admitted it to God and I just felt the Lord wanting me to just say I'm guilty man and just do it. And I did it, man, but it was time to stop running. It was time to be a different person, man. And I really want it. Like all that bad stuff I did that I really learned to love. That really wasn't me, man. I didn't really want to do that. But, but. I end up kind of fumbling and bumbling my way into it, and it was something I was good at, and I wanted a different future, but I didn't know how to pursue that, and this gave me a potential future by selling drugs and stuff, and it was like, well, why not? What else am I going to do? I had a job at Little Caesars for like a couple months. What, am I going to work at Little Caesars for the rest of my life? Yeah,

Omar: 43:44

yeah, yeah.

Louis: 43:44

What am I going to do, man? Right. So I took it man, I took that plea. So knowing I was appealing my first case, which I won, and they took my first life sentence back and gave me 10 years for it. But it didn't matter because I got them two life sentences to back it up. So all right. So, yeah. So you take

Omar: 44:02

these two

Louis: 44:03

and after you take, I got three, that's a hundred years, but after you take the two, they, you, you win your appeal about three, four years later. Okay. I won that appeal. They said, because it was multiple people shooting, they said they could prove I shot, but they couldn't prove my bullets hit this dude. Gotcha. So they re sentenced me to 10 years. But they didn't take back the robbery stuff and they didn't take that 50 years away from the armed criminal action And you still had the ones you just come out to like

Omar: 44:29

yes that I copped out. Okay. So how much time did you end? up doing total Man, obviously we're here. We're talking so you Want to maybe take us through Through what begins to happen that eventually leads to your freedom. Well, I

Louis: 44:45

would say there is no, what eventually happened because what I was doing in prison was working a job at several jobs. I built a life, you know, I was leading by the grace of God, able to start leading some Bible studies. I was witnessing on a yard with other brothers. Like we was studying the Bible together. We was doing programs for like, there was church groups coming in that like prison fellowship. I know the lady that was the director in Missouri. Janice Webb, she would come in and she had a bunch of volunteers. We rewrote and wrote a bunch of new curriculum that they start using. And we started bringing Muslims and other non religious people, atheists into the groups, the weekends that they used to do back then with prison fellowship. We did game shows. We have all kinds of stuff to bring people in to be invitational and then just plant seeds. You know, without being full force with correct. We had a lot of Southern Baptists and stuff coming in a pound of spit coming out. I ain't got a problem with that personally. I like it all. If it's the word before non believer, they got a problem. You just want to

Omar: 45:44

like at least

Louis: 45:45

open the door. Get in there. Right. Build some love. There you go. So we started doing that, man. It was great. Man, I had a great time in prison, man. I had a great time in pri I had a life. And so after 13 years, I got a letter one day from the parole board, said they want to interview me. Now in Missouri, even though I got all this time, it's not life without parole. Which means it's life with parole. You gotta kill somebody to get life without. I didn't kill nobody. So that's a calculable, calculable, like offense that you can technically get out, but it's all predicated on what the parole board wants to do.

Omar: 46:24

And it also depends on you not getting into more trouble than that would imagine, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Louis: 46:29

I mean, there is breathing room, a lot of breathing room for you to get in trouble because they do understand it's prison and it's men and you got testosterone and they understand all of that. But when you're like manipulating staff or if you're like stabbing people, Then that's the, that's the bad stuff or escaping. That's the super bad stuff. But if it's just fight, so you still have stuff out the kitchen, little stuff like that. They don't even blink. I left. I wasn't doing none of this because like I was trying to honor God and I wasn't perfect. I got a dirty urine when I was in prison smoking weed. Like I still had challenges and things that the Lord had delivered me from. But, but I went to the parole board. And it was crazy. It was, I was going to a class that taught you how to prepare for parole from a guy from Ohio that was a pro officer for 30 years teaching us. I didn't miss a class and I went and it was unlike anything he said or any guys in the class that had been up before. I went in there and it was just like they said, the amount of people and what they were doing. And the first, the only guy that talked, he said, after looking at your file, it seems like, um, You're not really that bad a guy and I'm thinking like, and my mother was there, they let one person come. So my mama was there and I'm thinking, I wasn't prepared for this. Like what were you expecting? I was expecting them to say, you like a no good piece of crap. Why did you do this? Like they told me they're going to try to, and they're, and they're looking to try to draw you out and make you be antagonistic against what they're saying. And my attitude was, man, I'm guilty. So I wasn't going to lie. Yeah. But I was just going to come clean and say, man, I was guilty. I'm guilty, man. I did what I did. I am sorry. And I'm like, what I'm doing in here can't take away what I did, but I can change my life. And if I can show you, I can change my life. If you believe I deserve a second chance, then I'll be ready for that second chance. That's what I was prepared to do to be accountable. But, and then that, you know, but that didn't happen. He just said, it didn't seem like you was that bad a guy. And I'm thinking like, do I say, yeah, I was terrible. Do I say no? I was just like, no, that's the best thing that came to me. Then he said the next thing, which was, it seemed like you was just hanging with the wrong crowd. And I'm like, dang, like I'm thinking, am I related to this dude? Like am I being punked? Is this guy my lawyer or what? Yeah, is Aston Kutcher, am I being punked or something? Like what's going on here? So I was like, yes, sir. He said, all right, you'll get an answer in six weeks. That was it. That was literally it. That wasn't like a long conversation. That was it, man. No way. I got up, hugged my mother. She left. I left. And as I walked out, there was a line wrapped around a visiting room of people waiting to go up. So then it dawned on me, they're not going to let me go. Why waste their time? They gotta go through the motions. But why waste their time? They rush me just to get to the next guy. There's like 60, 70 people waiting to go. And so I knew dudes that had been where I was at. First conviction, one life sentence, and they was on year 20. Yeah. And in Missouri, they give people five, three, and two year setbacks. So like, you go up, they give you five more years to do it, come back and see us, or three years and come back and see us, or two. And eventually, if they're going to let you go, they give you like a one year setback. Or two year out date that you got to do one or two more years, then they release you. So, I knew a dude named Scott. He was on year 20. He had went up for parole twice. Got a five year setback. He went up after 13 years. Got a five year setback. That put him at 18. He got a two year setback. That put him at 20. And now he was waiting to go up again. Right. He had one robbery and that was his first time something and I got two lights and a hundred years So I might if they make me like if I was lucky And did to do 20 on one life 20 on the other life and 20 on 100 years That's 60 years. I was 20 when I got there. I'll be 80 when I get out So your hopes were low basically, you know, I'm thinking if I do get out, I don't want to get out of 80 Everybody I know going to be dead or what I'm going to do. I'm a senior citizen. I can't take care of myself. I ain't never worked a job. I ain't got no social security. I might as well stay here. Right. Exchange one nursing home for another. You know, kind of the Shawshank thing. That was my thought. Right. So, six weeks later came. And they gave me a two year out date. And you were like 13 years. Okay. Yep. So I had to do two and a half more years. So they transferred me to a lower level prison to finish my sentence. And after 15 years, my mother, my stepfather, and my fiance, who was not my wife was in the car to pick me up. That was 2009. You want to tell us about that date? How did it feel, man? Man, it was bittersweet, man. Bittersweet in what sense? Well, it was sweet because I'm out, right? And I'm my fiancé here, and we're gonna get married. I didn't even recognize my mother. She was so ate up with cancer. Oh, no way. And, at the time, I felt as if it was my fault. Because she had a easily treatable skin cancer that she'd had to have a couple minor surgeries for. I had to threaten to take her off my visiting list to get her to have the first surgery. Because she was scared that if she went under she might not come out. And this was before I even went up for parole. Yeah. But then she had that one and she prolonged the second one. And then I got an out date within that two and a half years. And she said I definitely ain't getting the second one. And I don't care if you take me off because I'm going to see you come out. Yeah. Um, I didn't fight it. I said, okay, fair enough. Well, because she didn't have that second surgery, the cancer spread all over her body and she died. I got out August 5th, 2009. She died December 26, 2009. Oh no, man. Just a few months. Just a few months, man. So it was, it was, it was bitter, man. See, I literally, I didn't even recognize my mother, man. And my mother was 55. Yeah, yeah. Young. Still she was 55, man. Like I'm 50, you know? So that ain't too much farther. No, I outlive my father in age. I got five more years if I can make it in one. Yeah. The day past that, then I outlive both my parents, man. Yeah, that's, but yeah, so it was bittersweet, man. It was, it was about a five hour ride home? No, no. Maybe about two and a half hour ride at home. And, uh. It's just hard to get excited, man. It was difficult to be. I mean, part of me was excited. Another part was like scared and sad, man. You

Omar: 52:45

know, one of the interviews you did, you shared you were trying to To get a job, you know, basically build a life and you found it hard to

Louis: 52:55

establish yourself. You want to talk about that? Yeah. So my wife lived in Carroll stream. I had actually heard of Carroll stream because it's like, I guess the hub for the post office or something like that. So people all over the state of Illinois have heard of Carroll stream. So that's where she lived. And so I got met, I got out August 5th. I got married September 18th, so a little over a month after we got married, I moved up here around November, around Thanksgiving of 2009, up the Carroll Stream, and I was like telling everybody I'm gonna get a job in my favorite two places, Burger King and McDonald's. I'm gonna work at one in the daytime and one at night. Like I said, that was me saying I'm setting the bar really low. So I realized I have little to no skills. I have no work history. I got all these felonies like Apple or Microsoft ain't trying to hire a brother like me. So I'm setting the bar extremely low. They wouldn't hire me. And I kept going to all other kinds of places, man, and nobody would hire me. And so I just was like, dang, man, like that was going on while my wife was going to a fairly large church in Naperville. I wasn't really feeling that. And it wouldn't all of them. It was partially me. Cause my only context of church was being in prison. Right. And the brotherhood and camaraderie we had there is way different than things out here. And I was seeking and I was missing that. And as I was going through temptations and trials, I didn't have my guys I could go to to help me bear this burden. I was kind of left on my own. So the walls were like closing in. So I called my mentor who had been a mentor of mine since. When I first got to prison in 1994, and he, I said, I just want to go back to prison, man. Like I had a life. I had people that look forward to seeing me. I have responsibilities. I got Jack out here, man. Couldn't figure it out, man. He said, don't do nothing stupid. I said, man, I'm not committing no more crimes. Like that's over with, man. There's

Omar: 54:41

bonds that are built, man. Like, uh, I'll be, uh, talking to a few guys that have been behind bars. It's almost like, um, I'm, I'm not to compare'cause I, I've never done it, but like, when guys go to war, it's almost like yes, you are going through the same kind of storm or that's the, that's the thing we have, you know,

Louis: 54:56

like it

Omar: 54:56

military,

Louis: 54:56

it's that man of brothers, man. It's that, that, that blood, sweat and tears that you shed together, man, that creates a bond that can be stronger than family.

Omar: 55:04

Yeah. And then you come out here and then you miss it. I don't have none of that because, you know what I, I like with me, like I, I did only three years, but some of those guys. That was in the way that when we got out, like we're still like, I don't know, like it just, there's something that we, I don't know, there's just a bond

Louis: 55:20

there. It's a few dudes out now, man, that I've been trying like heck to get the move here and be helping me with what I'm doing. And about 25, 30 percent of that is just like be around them because I miss them. These my brothers, man. Yeah. So, okay. So you were saying. You're talking about going back to prison. He tells everybody don't do nothing crazy. So, man, well, you know, God showed up just like he always does, man. And unfortunately for me, a lot of times he shows up when my faith is like so weak, you know, I would like to say I'm a superman of faith, you know, but actually I'm probably really weak because oftentimes God has to intercede on my behalf. And, you know, I'm just thankful he does. I don't feel the greatest about it. I'm trying to increase and grow in faith. Um, faith come by hearing, hearing the word of God. So it's getting in the word, praying, studying and stuff like that. Um, but, um, there was a prison ministry at a church called Willow Creek in South Barrington that a friend told a friend told me about another guy. He casually knew I called him. He gave me a staff members person at the church to call as a gigantic church. I called his number and happened to get the staff person, which I found later was almost like a minor miracle. And that upcoming Saturday they had their monthly meeting. Every first Saturday, so I go as I near the area, I'm scared to death with all these gigantic houses around me. I get to the church. It's like a mall and I go there. I've managed to find where I'm going. I'm like an hour and a half early, which part of that is if I'm 10 minutes early, I'm 15 minutes late. I'm a super early person, but I'm there like an hour and a half early, but I wanted to get the lay of the land. I was excited. I go just so happened that day. Just so happen, right, as chance would have it, there's a speaker who's there to talk about a coffee roasting company in Wheaton that he creates that only wants to hire people with felonies. I'm like, what? Like, what's the chances? I'm here this day for him. It could have been the prior month and I never would have heard of this guy. I go up to him afterwards. I lay it all out there. Here's my age. This is where I live. Here's the crimes I had. Here's the sentence I had. Here's the time I did. I'm giving them every reason to tell me, no, don't even worry about applying. He says, come over to the plant Monday and get application. That was Saturday. I go Monday for the application out. They interviewed me Tuesday. They hired me Thursday and Friday. I'm roasting coffee at a company called, I have a bean. That's kind of like, I have a dream and it's a, I have a bean. I

Omar: 57:48

got

Louis: 57:49

a job there and that was guy providing my first job. The owner of that company, Pete Leonard was a huge mentor slash in a lot of ways, even a father figure and definitely a role model for me. I learned a ton from him about the year and a half. I worked for him from working coffee to selling coffee to driving, you know, to the West loops, like to all the whole foods in the Chicagoland area, South suburbs, all the way up like Lake Forest and Libertyville. I'm going up to those Whole Foods, there's a chain of stores, um, up in like Highland Park area. Um, I was going to those and demoing coffee, giving samples, trying to encourage people to buy bags that the store had. Wait, wait, wait. So I'm doing that. I'm going to restaurants, cafes. So I'm trying to sell coffee. I'm doing the farmer's market in Wheaton, selling cups of coffee, bags of coffee. So I'm learning a lot about myself, but what God was doing, he was preparing me because about a year and a half after that. Somewhere around July, 2012, my mentor that told me don't do nothing stupid invites me to come to Emmaus Worldwide in Dubuque, Iowa, that publishing company that published the Bible studies we use, because they have an every two year prison ministry conference where they have people for every state in the U. S. and people out of the world. Remember I said over a hundred countries. Right. Oh, yeah. Yeah. For the workers. They had all these international people. They had domestic. Yeah. Um, United States people coming for, there's a lot of people using for prison ministry. Right. And they came for me to share my testimony. So I went up there sharing my testimony and him, who has been definitely a father figure, still my mentor and he's in his early eighties, offered me to work with his ministry called Set Free Ministries. In Missouri. I used to work for set free ministries when I was in the inside. So I knew him. He actually told me after I was in prison about seven, eight years, he said, man, I'd like for you to come work for me when you get out. Now, if I didn't know Randy, I'd have took it as a huge slap in the face. Cause I ain't think I was getting out, but I knew that wasn't where Randy was saying it. He saw something in me. I said, Randy, man, like I'm probably never getting out of here. He said, don't worry about that. Let the Lord worry about

Omar: 59:51

it. He probably had faith for you back then. He has some. Yeah.

Louis: 59:55

And so he offered me a job to work with the ministry. I quit the coffee job and said, yes, and there was no paycheck attached.

Omar: 1:00:04

I know I was watching the interview. You did like, man, you said you offer a person's job and no paycheck, but he said, you got to raise your body. I should've asked that before you quit your other

Louis: 1:00:13

job. I should've, I should've, but I could've went back to the other job anyway. But I thought of this with the Lord once he'll provide. And so my first ask. Of a person, and I met one time for 15 minutes at a picnic, donated 10, 000, my first ask, first ask. Wow. I thought, wow, man, if the Lord, if this ain't the Lord, I don't know what it is. Right. That was July, 2012. Now, I'm currently in July of 2024, so that's been 12 years. So, okay, so right now, do you have a job, like paid job? Yeah, so we have our own non profit now called Philemon House. All right. And we do all the stuff I mentioned earlier, and we're a 501c3 non profit. I'm the executive director.

Omar: 1:00:57

Gotcha.

Louis: 1:00:57

And so my wife

Omar: 1:00:58

When did you start that? Like, uh

Louis: 1:01:00

We started that, so, and we in college at this Conference called the CMCA is like a chaplain's ministry. I can't remember the acronym. So I'm sorry for anybody that knows me and I don't know what the acronym is. Um, but I heard a guy named Lenny Spitaly and I don't know if that was 2014, 15, 16, somewhere around there. He actually wrote one of his, his Bible course for, it was a prison course. So I knew of him before we even college and he was the speaker and he preached a sermon from the book of Philemon. And me and the first person I met at Willow Creek that got there super early too and came up and pulled the chair next to me and said, is anybody sitting here? And nobody else was in this big room but me. He was at that place with me. We went together to this conference and we sat there and I looked at him and I said, Ben, Philemon House, that's the name of the ministry that we need to create. Cause I had been encountering so many people coming out of prison that needed help and they're scattered all over. And I understand that being in the same area where you came from is not conducive towards change. It's conducive towards drawing you back in because the same people, places and things going to have you commit the same things you did before. So we need to create a different place, a safe environment again with resources and people so they can get out of that, get their head clear, not be tempted so much with that stuff and get their life on track. So I have met a guy who owns a. Um, he's a partner in a, um, uh, accounting firm and they did our whole 501c3 thing for free. Filed it with the state, got it going. We researched all the places in Illinois that did stuff. Cornelia house was a place and it was a bunch of others from the west side of Chicago and Lawndale to up in Waukegan, a place called fist formerly incarcerated striving together was the acronym for that. We researched all these places that put together our model, you know, cause we didn't want to reinvent the wheel. We just go, you need another place cause there ain't one. Enough places, right? We could use a hundred more Illinois to help people coming out. So we started, he got everything set. I got a board. Like we got everything. We just couldn't get a place. And the idea then wasn't for me and my wife, cause it was going to be any age man and my wife wasn't cool with that. So my role was going to be, we, we, we even had a couple that was doing it organically in Elgin. Just bring guys out of prison and live with them. They didn't have an organization or nothing, just their own houses doing it. They were going to be our first staff people. We, we, we, we couldn't find a place to do it. So after about four or five years, I told my friend Ben, who we started it together, I said, I'm out. I can't have stuff dangling in my mind, a loose end with nothing being done. So I left it alone. Well, during the pandemic, I met an individual. Who said he saw a video of me talking about doing this to this day. I don't know where he got the video cause it's not even out there in the public. Oh, no way. Yeah. But he said he saw this video and he wanted to help. So he bought a house and this is the house we're in and we live there, live in his house, not our house to do what we're doing, man.

Omar: 1:03:59

So that, that's, that's how you guys got this, this place through, through a guy watching the video. You said, man, he

Louis: 1:04:06

contacted me originally about my book. He's a wealthy individual that was been paying pals with guys in prison for years. And I knew him through some of his family, but he didn't know me. And I just talked to him about my book and he called me out of the blue to ask about this video. Yeah. And then here you are. Here I am doing it. So now we were DCFS approved me and my wife. We just got a contract with the state of Illinois so we could take any young person, no matter what, if they're DCFS and they're in a youth prison, we can take them. So now the floodgate is open. So they're constantly sent emailing us with youth. We're just specifically focusing on like 16 to 21. Okay. That's kind of the age range that can be in these juvenile prisons. Yeah. And the idea is for me to vet them and get to know, cause we want to bring the right people here. Cause they can blow up, you know, it could blow the ministry up if we're not. So we're trying to be wise and that praying for discernment for all the moves that we make..

Omar: 1:05:04

So, so how long have you guys been doing this? And what's, what's something like the, interactions that you've seen from the, from Yeah, so we've been doing

Louis: 1:05:11

it a little over three years now. And so, yeah, One of the youth facilities in St. Charles, I'll use it for example. I go there every Friday for an hour and a half and I take food. So like last week was Chick fil A, I'll take Taco Bell, McDonald's, Burger King, pizza. I mix it up every week. And I take a cooler full of soda, Gatorade and water and a bunch of candy and snacks. And we go into their teen center is what they call it. It's a room where we got a big table, like a conference table with chairs all around. And we sit there. And lately what we've been doing is we've been watching these videos on right now. Media. There's a guy named Jay Warner Wallace, who was a cold case homicide detective. He's an apologist. Yes. And so we've been watching these little, like this called quick shots. So these kids are all, it's a mix. There's Muslims in there. There's some that say there's Christian. Most of them say they ain't nothing, but he's bringing up all these questions. Is there a God? What do we think about the Bible? You know, and so we watched the video and then we dialogue about it, you know, and they're all in like St. Charles been segregated. For years, because of the kids who can't get along. So not race, but just getting along. So just in the last two months, they finally got everybody to blend together. Cause

Omar: 1:06:22

uh, for those that don't know, I mean, St. Charles from what I've known, I mean like growing up was a rough place, like a lot of violence. I mean, you got teenagers, different gangs. It's a, it's a,

Louis: 1:06:33

it's a kiddie camp now. Oh, is it? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, there's still fights and stuff, but, but, but not like it used to be. Nah, nah, nah. I mean, I don't know. I mean, I wasn't around back then, but I've heard the same stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's, it's, it's not like that anymore, but the kids are definitely gang members and they definitely will five or six jump on a person. And so they have all these cottages. They might have two or three kids in one and four or five in another and one and two in another because they can't get along. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, now they just changed the name of that to the Peace Center. Now only high school graduates can be at St. Charles and they have like forklift program, entrepreneur program, a carpentry program for these kids to try to learn some stuff before they get out. So now they're all meshing together.

Omar: 1:07:16

Man, this is the first I've heard of this, for real, like, as soon as you mentioned St. Charles, I mean, my mind goes to, like, the guys that I knew that have been there, and their stories and everything. Yeah, it's different now. But man,

Louis: 1:07:28

that's great news. Yeah, it is great news. So, I just had 18 kids last Friday. Turn some chick fil a up and some chips and some soda and Gatorade. And so out of 18, 15 of them is engaged. I got to say, hold on, like, stop talking at once. Because I can only answer so many questions or, or whatever. So like they're engaged. We just started a baseball program. Kids out of, out of, 20 kids we had last Wednesday, only one of'em played baseball before and he was actually the only white guy, that was there. All the rest of'em, you know, black and Latino, they didn't even know how to put a glove on. Man. That's, so we're starting to do that, just to teach them teamwork, discipline. It's so much you can learn from team sports. So me and the LTA, that's the leisure time activity. The head guy that runs that, me and him started that together. Wow. So every Wednesday from two 30 to four, if anybody watches this and they like baseball and they're available, we love to have you. In St. Charles, man, doing baseball and this, this ain't ministry per se. I ain't reading scripture, but I'm building relationships and relational equity. So, but what I'm looking for for these youth, when I'm vetting them for the house, how they treat me, how they treat one another, how they treat the staff. Um, how engaged are they with the subject matter? Um, and once I identify a kid that seems like he's kind of on the ball, then I kind of go in on a separate day, spend some time with him and say, Hey man, like one on one, like what's your dream? Like, what do you want to do with your future? And then depending on what they say, um, then we can explore more. And I say, where, you know, cause I'm not trying to learn about their case or none of that stuff. Cause that's personal. But up until that point, I will get a little personal one on one. I said, man, where are you from? You know, and they'll tell me and I'll say, Hey, where are you going back to when you get out? Right. And they'll tell me, some of them, I don't have a place. Some of them I do. And I say, well, tell me about this place. Is it where you came from? What kind of support, what kind of help do you have? So based on these questions, I may say, Hey. What if, what if there's a place you can go that's different than you've ever been around people that you may have never been around before that'll give you a chance that'll provide you with resources. You ain't got to worry about what you're going to eat, what you're going to wear. Um, but you, you, you will help you with a job. We'll help you with education cause we want you to have a career, not just a job. We'll make sure you get to the doctor, to the dentist. If you do have family, we'll help build bridges with family. But, um, You know, what if, what if, what if there's a place like that existed that, that you go to, would you be interested? And if they say yes, and I feel like they're sincere, then I say, there is a place. And then I give them more details about my Lehman house. And I'll say, Hey, if you ever get serious and you want to take a next step, let the chaplain know, and he'll give you an application. We got about a 14, 13, 14 page application with a list of rules, a covenant, all that kind of stuff. Fill it out. Get it to me. They get it to me. I go through it pending what's there. If it's good stuff and it's filled out properly, then I go meet with them and then we'll talk more. And if they're still interested and we're still interested, then we do a web X like a zoom call at the facility with myself, my wife and some of our board members. And then I just sit there and observe and they ask them questions. And then afterwards we debrief. Got you. And then it's up to me and my wife, but we're getting their opinions and what they saw. And then we make a decision whether to bring them in. And if it's a yes, then I go there, I pick them up and we go to one, we go to two places, whatever order they want, we can go eat first or we can go shopping first. Cause they ain't got nothing when they leave. So, Sometime we eat first or whatever, but we go to the Aurora Olive Mall because you can find a lot of good deals there. And get them some shoes, some pants, some clothes. And then we go to Walmart or Target and we get some socks, some underwear, some t shirts, and some toiletries. We come back to the house, I show them to where their room is. And then they get to meet my wife and anybody else that's in the house. And then they go to sleep that night and they wake up and There's a 90 day probation period. Okay, they can't be in contact with nobody except there They call it aftercare instead of parole, but they got to be in contact with them many times. They got to come get a Ed electronic monitoring device on so they can't leave until they get that so they're stuck here But then we got You know, biblical programming here. So we get together, we read books together, we do Bible study together. They got to go to church. We go to church when you came today. We got a young lady that's tutoring a high school student in math. So she comes every Wednesday for about an hour and a half to tutor him in math. So we, we do need other volunteers, man. We're lacking because it can't, it's all on our, me and my wife. And we work at seven days a week round the clock pretty much. I mean, when we're asleep, we're not working, but if something happened, we got to get up in 10 to it. Man, so, so you guys live, live here. You, you and your wife? Yeah. Yeah. You live in the home. So four bedrooms here in one of'em. Ours,

Omar: 1:12:15

man. So this is, this is your life. The, I mean, your ministry is your life in a sense because you're, it is, it's not like, let's say for me, I'll go to work, go home, and then if I go do ministry, I'll go to church. I go to Cook County and go home, man, that I,

Louis: 1:12:31

when I'm not, you are, when I'm not doing ministry is when I'm out the house. When I'm in the house, I'm in ministry and most of the time, 90 percent of the time when I'm out the house, it's in a jail or a prison or I'm the executive director. So I'm a house parent, which is a full time job and I'm the executive director and that's a full time job. So I'm the only fundraiser. So I had to raise funds to do what we do and I got a vet client. I mean, you know, and I'm not a person that wants to do all this. It's easy to like. Be generous with this stuff and let other people be a part. And God is good. Like he's given us the strength and the energy to sustain us thus far. And we're at a point in ministry where we're growing. And so we just hired a grant writing company that's writing like 14 grants for us. And we're praying that that'll yield some substantial funds.

Omar: 1:13:15

Yeah, I was going to ask you about that because I know you mentioned, you know, you, you go pick up the kids, take them shopping. Like who else? That's my question. Like who, who pays for that? And uh, people. Okay. If I met you

Louis: 1:13:25

just speaking at a church and you said, Hey man, let's have breakfast. I say, okay, then we have breakfast. And you say, tell me more. And I'll tell you, I can tell you this about 99 percent of the meetings I've had all these years, I've never asked nobody for nothing. I go meet with them in person and they usually say, Hey man, how can I help? Yeah. And I'll say, well, you can pray. It's the, it's the three, right? Pray, volunteer and give. Yeah. And 99 percent of the time they're a giver. And that's where 90 percent of our donations come just regular middle to maybe a little bit upper middle class people. That's donate 50 bucks a month, a hundred bucks a month, you know, and then we have, we'll have any churches. That donate anything consistently, which I'm not saying that happily, um, is actually, you know, uh, uh, it's a soft spot in a sore spot in me, but the Lord is in control, right? He's in control. It's his thing. It's not mine. I just need to be obedient to where he leads. So basically what you're

Omar: 1:14:23

saying, you're not funded by any ministry, like a church ministry or anything. So this is just you guys seeking the Lord and

Louis: 1:14:30

built from the ground up, man, started off with a little dessert. Where I invited five or six people from church and five, if it was six people there, five of them said yes. And they started off donating 50 or a hundred bucks a month and they've been doing it since 2012. Man. Yeah. So 12 years. I would say 90 percent of our donors been with us from day one. Wow. The ones that were with us from day one. We don't, we don't have many that leave. I mean, we've definitely had some leave, but for the most part, like, you know, I helped start two churches in the Chicagoland area. So I got to be very intimate with quite a few people in the beginning when this started. So I, you know, spoke at the churches and was first 50 people, the first 20 people. So people trusted me quickly because of me being in with people that they'd been knowing for years. Yeah. And they just, For, you know, God put it on a hard man to do what they do. That's all I can say. Right. Right. Cause I ain't like grabbing nobody or blackmailing nobody. Like people do what they do.

Omar: 1:15:23

Yeah. No, you know what, I think this is a perfect time for you to, anybody that's going to be, you know, they're going to listening to, to your testimony, to the story and man, the, the awesome work that you guys are doing, man, that's another reason why, why I love doing this is to highlight other ministries. Okay. We had a meeting with our pastor, with, uh, Koinonia house. Um, It was like two weeks ago, and I love what my pastor said that, uh, at our church, we, what did he say? We operate in a, in a spirit, what was the word he used? Cooperation. Operating in a spirit of cooperation, not competition. So like, like, like if, man, if you're doing the work of the Lord, man, sharing the gospel, man, trying to reach to you, trying to reach men in prison, man, how, how can we help? You know, that, that's, that, that, that's what I love. I love when he said that, like, man, that's great, man.

Louis: 1:16:11

Because I, what I encountered historically. And I say this, you know, sadly, is that it is a spirit of competition, competing for the same dollars. Oh, okay. Gotcha. For, you know, so, you know, especially when, look, there's tons of ministries, right? They ain't all prison ministries. They're all, I mean, think about it. If you've ever donated money, like we've donated money to five or six organizations every year. We're getting constantly getting emails and we're getting stuff in the snail mail. Oh, right. Yeah. Yeah. Or you give, like I just donated to a friend, bike ride to the American Diabetes Society. Yeah. Now we're going to be on their list. Oh yeah. Yeah. People are getting inundated with these things. How can they choose?

Omar: 1:16:49

Yeah.

Louis: 1:16:49

You know, and people that really give, they're really getting inundated with stuff. You know what I mean? So it would be tough to be one of those people. Then you got to rely on the Lord to do what you do, you know? So I'm definitely not in the spirit of competition. I'm all about working together, man. I wish that the people that cook County jail, like all the legit gospel preaching churches was not all of Maine. I'll say that they ain't all. Trust me, because I have to undo when I go in division 11, oftentimes I got to undo what's been done by somebody before me with this bad theology that they're teaching this name it claim it. Oh, gotcha. Charismatic stuff. Yeah. Yeah. And I just tell them, Oh, you believe you can call things that be not as though they were and call yourself a body here. You believe you can make a miracle in what you still sit here for man. Why are you still sitting here? Like, you know, from what they say, I believe that God still does miracles. Absolutely. Right. Every soul that comes to him is the greatest miracle. A soul that gives their life to Christ is greater than any blind man or lame man walking or seen greater in a worldly sense. That is great. But the greatest thing is your eternal destination. Heaven. That's the greatest miracle. You know, so great from

Omar: 1:18:04

a Charles Spurgeon. He said a quote about the, the greatest miracle is atheists coming to faith. That's right. Well, I

Louis: 1:18:11

believe that when Jesus said greater things in these you'll do because I go to my father, he ain't talking about making more blind people, seeing more lame people walk. He talking about sharing him with people and him turning their life to Christ. That's the greatest miracle. Walking on water, being in the lion's den, being in a fiery furnace, that stuff is miraculous. It is true. The miraculous, but the greatest miracle is a soul that comes to the same man. That's the greatest miracle right there. So that's what I'm about, man. Yeah. Yeah. I'm about that, man. I'm about Christ and Christ crucified. Yeah.

Omar: 1:18:43

Like I said, so uh, it's going back to what I was saying. That's another reason why I love doing this to, to highlight other ministries that are doing the work. You know, especially like just recently, you know, I shared with you when I got here, I just started doing a prison ministry and it's crazy because when, uh, when I got saved in October of 2004, man, my life radically changed. And for, I was going to East Chicago, Indiana. You mentioned something about. Not going back to your environment because it's easy to go back and I feel I didn't realize it at the time, but I grew up in Chicago my whole life and I started going to church in Chicago, Indiana. Let's say he's like 45 minutes an hour away. But still, I believe because I started going to service three times a week. That was like my escape in a sense to get away because I was thinking the other day. What would have happened if I would have got saved, let's say, you know, in a church in my neighborhood, it probably would have been easy for me to, to, to, to draw back. And it's not that you have

Louis: 1:19:40

to stay away. It's just that in my thinking, it's well, if these, this place causes this trauma, if you can be in a place that doesn't choose that place, you know, but you can go back and the Lord can protect you. He can preserve you. He absolutely can. And I encourage people that only can go back there or that want to, I said, Hey, if you I think in my opinion, it'd be better if you go over here, but your choose to go there. Take the Lord with you. He will be with you. Stay with the Lord. He'll protect you. He'll, he'll, he'll take the taste of drugs out of your mouth. He'll taste the wanting to be in the streets late at night out of you. He'll do all that stuff. It's possible. Oh yeah. But if you could not have to be tempted by that stuff and be built up more spiritually, be more sanctified, then then go be that. Right. And then go back.

Omar: 1:20:30

Right. And I felt in a sense that that's what happened with me because I went over there and like I said, started ministry serving. And then when I. Came back, like, not came back because I was always living in Chicago. But like I said, I was going out there, but then I started going to a church, you know, uh, in, in the city. But when I reconnected with, with my buddy who was in, we were incarcerated together and he got saved. And then the other guys that I was incarcerated go going back to, I was sharing, sharing earlier, like guys that wouldn't want to hang out with me because I got saved. Yeah. Years later. Start asking amen, pray for me, you know, like, so we reconnected. So that's, that's how, like, in a sense, like, it's almost like I forgot about my past. God's like, okay, it's time to go back. And then that's where I'm at now. And that's why, like, uh, I have a heart for, uh, the prisoners that go and go into prison, which is where I'm going back to where I met you. But, uh, uh, sharing all that, what I wanted to ask you, man, all a few minutes ago to share. Those that are going to be watching and man they want to help they want to donate is there a website a link where they can? Yeah,

Louis: 1:21:42

we have a we have a website. It's a philemon house. org So, you know just like the bible the book in the bible p h i l e m o n house h o u s e dot org So that's our website. You can go on there. You can see about us and you know, you can learn about us Um, there's a place you can contact I mean, my phone number is 618 520 6367. You can text me, you can call me. I'm willing to come out. We can meet, we can talk. Um, you know, I'm, I'm not asking for anything monetarily. Like I look to the Lord for any financial resources, but I would say that. If you feel the Lord encouraging you to get involved with volunteering, man, we have a unique opportunity. Cook County jail where they asked me to be a chaplain and they told me I can have as many Bible studies as I want. And if I want to have a hundred, but it's all going to be predicated on volunteers, these youth prisons, I got a unique opportunity. I'm in with all the upper staff, man. They love what we do. And I pretty much got carte blanche to do whatever we want to do in there. And so I got responsibilities here and I can't be in those places and I'm torn because it's so much great stuff where I'm seeing God working in both places, but I need help, man. We need help. You know, we need help. I'm not, I'm not, I'm not just saying that. I'm not saying we need your money. We need your help, man. We do need your help. So, so,

Omar: 1:23:02

so what are those? So most, I know you mentioned though, like a few things, but like, What, what kind of roles would they be stepping in and let's say, as far as our commitment, one thing we were talking about before we started recording, like, I don't like to just say, Oh yeah, I'm going to help. Like I need to know man, what day, how many hours of my day is it going to involve? Let's say somebody is going to volunteer.

Louis: 1:23:21

So I have a brother in Christ as a friend who was a top chef in New York at Michelin star rated restaurant, James Beard award winner. He's coming and teaching these guys how to cook, but like, like, he's super busy. If you like to cook, these guys like learning how to cook can save you money in a life, right? Because eating out is super expensive. So coming here, teaching them how to cook or maybe you don't want to teach how to cook. Guess what? We all got to do. We all got to eat. When I've been in the jail and in prison all day, and my wife been behind the computer and doing stuff, or she's ripping and running these guys at different appointments, like who feels like cooking when you get old like that? It be like the sister that comes and tutors, she usually bring a meal with her on Wednesday. She made a bigger meal and she brings some of her and that's our dinner for the night. So just once a, once a month you, I'd order the food and you can come here and cook it and bring your family. We eat together. We love to do that. The times we've had is somebody buys a food themselves. They cook it and they bring it. We're cool. Whatever how you want to do it. And we just want to eat. Yeah. You know what I mean? So that's something eventually when, when Edgar. Who is going to be going to welding classes in the fall, like it's 17 minutes from here to take him. Now, like if you live far away from here, this wouldn't make sense. But if you lived kind of in the vicinity to take him to school and you could just take him and maybe pray with him or just get to know him. Or maybe you'd like to play video games, like to play basketball. You like in the boxing, like sports, our guys like sports. We got a gym here in the house, like working out. Yeah. I mean, I'll show you, we got a gym in the house. Like you work out in the gym, come work out with the guys like mentoring, discipleship. Maybe you're a Bible person and you like spending time in the word with people. We got guys who don't want to learn the word. I mean, I like doing that too, but golly man, when I've been in a jail all day, I'm mentally tapped a lot. Am I energy levels low? I just lost a lot of weight, so I do have more energy. Okay. But man, you know, it just did a mental fatigue is real. You know, can I ask you

Omar: 1:25:21

something about that? Because I noticed when I, when I go in there, it, it, it. Yeah. I feel drained.

Louis: 1:25:27

Like it's spiritual warfare, man. It's definitely spiritual warfare, man. And, um, it kind of comes and goes. And sometimes it's up front in your face with staff or even with guys on the inside. Um, but I've just identified like for a number of years going to cook county jail, man. It just is unlike anything I do, man, to go in there and you're exerting yourself mentally and spiritually. And you just like, I'm, I'm fatigued. Yeah. Yeah. You know, like, like mentally fatigued and that can even, that can trickle into the physical too, you know, and so, um, it's, it's a real thing, man, but, but basically, like, as far as serving, our requirement for going into an institution is twice a month. If you can't do twice a month, then honestly, like I just say, we can't use you. Right. Cause building relationships, right? Is what's going to help a person open up and receive what you have. And it's not that big ass to me twice a month. It's 30 days. It's just two. And it's the three hour time commitment total that's in the jail hour and a half per Bible study and however long it takes you to get back and forth. So it was like a five hour commitment for me. Cause I'm an hour away. Okay. But somebody lives near the jail or if they live near one of these juvenile facilities then and I'm in there like hour and a Half, maybe two hours. So it's less time and it's not draining there. It's different. It's a whole different situation Got you. Now as far as like days and times, is that like yeah, so Monday Monday evenings from 5 o'clock till 8 o'clock We're in Cook County Thursdays from 10 a. m. Till 1 p. m. We're there and Saturday morning. It's 10 a. m. To 1 p. m So there's two Bible studies that's just duplicated back to back and like about an hour and 20 minutes for each one

Omar: 1:27:04

Gotcha, you know what? Oh, man, one thing you mentioned the emails courses that you guys I don't cook County They can't have books right you can't

Louis: 1:27:13

yeah, I can't you could yeah dudes I mean we probably got Two or three hundred students at Cook County. Oh, no way. That's doing it all through the mail. Yeah, they've been doing that since the 70s in Cook County. Okay. It's all through the mail. But yes, they can do books. The protocol is I have to send sample books to the jail. They look through them and if they approve them, then whatever I want to get the guys, I got to give it to the one of the sheriff deputies and they got to get the dogs to smell them for drugs and then they'll put them in a place when I go in and I can get them and hand them out. Oh, no way. Oh, I just, I just start mailing them. Yeah, yeah. It costs more. It costs more. I just put it in there, man. It go right on through. Man, cause you know what? I'm gonna, I'll

Omar: 1:27:49

be having like a lot of, uh, man, God's been like giving me a lot of things to do, man. Cause I told you I want to start a prison ministry. Yeah. Yeah. And I wrote something here. Look, I even got my little paper. I put, uh, to create our own system, like, uh, for biblical discipleship. Like, uh, clear steps and to be able to track progress. Okay. Well, look, before you leave, you know, let me finish the thought. So, something you said about reinventing the wheel. So, here I am, man. I want to, I want to start something where, but now, now I got to come up with my own curriculum, with my own, But when I, when I, when I heard your, uh, uh, story, when you're talking about Imeias and that, and you mentioned all the books. I'm like, man, let me ask, let me ask him about how do we get a hold of that? Cause that's, man, I think that's very important, man. Not just to go, uh visit these guys in person and talk to them, but. So this is what our, yeah, this is what our

Louis: 1:28:44

Bible study looks like. They have a Bible course and me and other volunteers have one. We do one chapter a session. The idea is they read through that chapter and they answer multiple choice questions. We do the same. We get together. We discuss the chapter. We tell them underlying highlights. Right. Right. Questions and stuff you don't understand. Or if it's something you really liked, you want to talk about. We do it as a group. There's too many people there. There's enough people going in and preaching and standing up teaching Bible studies. I learned more when I could be interactive and ask questions. So we sit together in a circle. We treat each other as equals. Our mindset is there's things we can learn from you just like there's things you can learn from us. So we create a safe environment where people feel valued and wanted and then we're learning together. And so that's what we do. We use the Bible studies like that. And then when they're done, I'll take their answer sheet back with me. And then my wife grades it. Then we have volunteers that handwrite responses because their essay questions for every chapter and they handwrite an answer. We got volunteers that we've trained to handwrite a response and back everything up with Bible verses. We got a whole guide that we created in prison. So, so just as a sidebar, He may answer as a hub and all 50 states is a spoke off of that hub and every state has a group of people. Sometimes there's a husband and wife sending Bible courses free to pre people in jail and prison in that state and they're writing responses, sending certificates and that's discipling people in that sense of helping them understand the Bible. And so we're doing that. With set free Missouri, have the state, Illinois and Missouri, and they got six other states because Missouri is the only state in the country where prisoners are grading those Bible studies. So every prisoner in Illinois that does one of these courses don't know there's a guy in prison that's typing in their multiple choice, printing their certificate. And if they ask, if a question says, Jesus Messiah, who do you say is, and a Muslim takes that course and he says, Jesus, a prophet, but Muhammad was God's only son. Then you got a pure person in prison. That's a Christian that's been discipled and trained to say, you're right. Jesus is a prophet, but he was God's only begotten son. He was the king of kings, Lord of lords, and he was the Messiah that came to save elders from their sin. And we're putting Bible verses to back up all of that stuff. And do they send it back? They absolutely, they send it back. I got all my courses that I got back and all my certificates for all the years. I did about 80 of them when I was in there.

Omar: 1:31:19

Oh, that's, that's, that's, um, amazing. Awesome. When I heard that, like, man, I gotta, I gotta find out more about that, man. I mean,

Louis: 1:31:25

it's, it's been going on since you're, I was born 1974. Wow, man. That's amazing. Yep. And so there's, we send out about 33, 000, about 35, 000 courses a year and grade about 33. So it was a huge, so we're not wasting money cause the books are being paid for in the postage by the ministry. Okay. So you want to get a good return rate. You don't want it to be sending books out and people throwing them in the garbage.

Omar: 1:31:47

Yeah. Yeah. Get no

Louis: 1:31:48

response. But 35, 000 and 33, 000 back. I don't know. I'm not a mad person. It's got to be in the eighties. That's high.

Omar: 1:31:55

No. Yeah. Great return. Oh, yeah, definitely, man. It's, it's amazing. Awesome work. Is there something you want to share? We didn't get a chance to talk about something that's on your heart, maybe a word, you know, like maybe anybody's going to

Louis: 1:32:06

listen to

Omar: 1:32:06

your

Louis: 1:32:06

story. No, I mean, the last thing I like to say, and thank you for offering me that opportunity is man, I think what you're doing is great. You know, that's something that I believe is missing in churches is the power of the testimony. Because people in church that's attending, they got something they struggling with at points in time in life. And what better way to be encouraged and increase their faith than to hear someone stand up and give a testimony about how God helped them overcome a situation. That was one of the most powerful things I experienced in prison, one of the most powerful things. And I haven't seen that happen in no churches I go to out here that I've been to a lot of. And it's sad to me that that's not a part of the church no more because church has to be so polished and because they got so many services, you got to be out at a certain time and you got the kids, you got to go get them kids cause the people serving, don't let them be in there five minutes beyond that mom was supposed to pick them up cause now they about to come unglued. They won't serve no more. Come on, man. Come on. But the fact that you saw a need to be able to capture people's stories of how God impacted their life, man, I appreciate you doing that, brother. I really do. And I love your zeal and your passion. This is the second time I've seen you. And the first time was like two or three minutes at Cook County. So I appreciate what you're doing, man. I want to encourage you to keep doing that. Um, be faithful to the Lord. Satan is going to do everything he can to try to stop you. Um, but that's okay. Cause that punk ain't won nothing!

Omar: 1:33:34

But

Louis: 1:33:35

that punk ain't one. So you keep fighting a good fight, man, and keep on with your podcast and keep being encouraged, man. You've been an encouragement to me getting a chance to do this as encouraged me. And I just want to thank you so much for that.

Omar: 1:33:49

Amen, man. You know what? I truly appreciate it. And it's all, man, it's all to step out in faith. Like I told you earlier, my, my buddy challenged me to do this. Uh, the first thing I told him, I ain't gonna do this, man, I got a stuttering problem, man. I stutter, I'm not a good communicator. He's like, man, people need to see what God could do through somebody who stutters, man, yeah. So, man, I just stepped out in. Man, it's been a blessing to me, to be honest, I've been learning and growing a lot, man. And it's the, you know, what's, what's really blessed me, men being, uh, what's the word of vulnerable men sharing, being open about their hurts, their struggles, their trauma. And, uh, I had a family member that reached out to me that he listened to one of the testimonies and it was similar to his childhood, similar to things that he went on with, with, with his family. And by him listening to another man share similar struggles, trauma, it made him open up and share his where he started sharing things with me that. Man, I've known this guy for many years, he never shared with me, but, uh, it's been bringing healing, and even to me, man, like when I, when I, somebody shares something, it's making me more vulnerable, and as far as communication goes, it's making me a better listener, man. Wow. For one thing, I struggle with communication. Yeah, me too. In my marriage. Yeah. You know, it's easy to talk, but hey, just to sit there and listen. But, man, I've been blessed by your testimony. And I know the, the listeners will too as well, man, but, and I always ask our guests if they could close us out in a, in a prayer, you know, yeah, yeah, yeah, let's pray.

Louis: 1:35:25

Lord, we just thank you so much for the day. Thank you for my brother Omar, man, and just what you put on his heart and thank you for him stepping up to the challenge. Lord God, no doubt you use his friend to, to challenge him and to get him outside of his comfort zone. And he could have just ran away from it, but he embraced the Lord. So I pray that you protect his heart, protect his, his soul. His spirit, Lord God, is the enemy. Um, only wants to steal, kill, and destroy. We know that says that in John chapter 10. And so protect him, Lord. And for the people who listen to this podcast, Lord God, that do struggle with different things, Lord, I pray that they be open, as he just talked about the brother who was vulnerable, because he heard someone else being vulnerable. And that's true. We have a tendency as people, um, that when we have hurt and pain inside, um, and we're able to be vulnerable, man, it just affects and impacts a person that causes them sometimes to feel like they have to be vulnerable. So I just pray God, um, that you will bless the listeners, that you'll help them to be vulnerable to get the healing that they need to get rid of the pain that they have, Lord. And I just pray that you bless them, Lord. And I pray moving forward with this program. Podcast that your name can be glorified, that your name can be lifted up. The mighty name of Jesus, because there's no reason to do any of this. If his name isn't magnified and his name isn't glorified. So thank you, Lord, for what you've done in our lives, even for the listeners, for the watchers, for everybody, Lord God, let us give him praise Lord, because there's much for us to be thankful for. And if we feel low and we feel like we can't see. See God and that God doesn't hear us. Let us have confidence in his word. When Jesus says, lo, I will be with you always, even to the end of the world. So thank you so much for your great and mighty promises that you have in your word, Lord. Thank you for our healing, for our deliverance and ultimately for our salvation, Lord, because we know. That if we've committed our life to Christ, then we have our names written in the book lambs, book of life, and we have a seat in heaven. So thank you so much, Lord, for everything that you have done, what you are doing and what you're going to do in our lives. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. In Jesus name. Amen.

Omar: 1:37:24

Amen. Amen. Thank you so much, brother. You know, one last time. Can you share that, uh, uh, the, the, the link? I mean the, yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Louis: 1:37:31

Yes. So it's fight. Lehman house. org. P H I. L E M O N H O U S E dot O R O R G and then my number is 618 520 6367. My name is Louis Dooley. If you want to reach out to me, shoot me a text. Text will probably be better because I can't always answer the phone because I can't take them into jail or prison, but feel free to do whatever you like and I will get back in touch with you. So thank you so much for watching. And let's talk. All right. Now, are you guys like on social media? You guys got any social media? Yeah. We got a Facebook page, Philemon House. We got an Instagram page, Philemon House, but we just got somebody just not working on that stuff for us because we just need to have it.

Omar: 1:38:10

It takes like a lot of time, man, just to get post on there. But that's good. Yeah. Uh, but that we're going to get ready to wrap up, uh, Matthew 4, 16 reads, the people who sat in darkness have seen a great light and upon those who sat in the region. In the shadow of death, light has dawned. Alongside my brother, Luis Dooley, I'm Omar Calvillo, and we are Wrong to Strong.