"From the Gang Book to the Book of Life" - Julio Mercado

In this emotional and transformative episode, Julio Mercado from New Life Community Church in Cicero shares his astonishing life story—from a tumultuous life of gang violence and near-death experiences to finding salvation through Jesus Christ. This testimonial was recorded at a "Radical Time Out" meeting which is hosted by "Koinonia House National Ministries" in Wheaton, IL.

Julio's journey is a testament to the power of faith, prayer, and the unconditional love of family and community. Hear his heartfelt gratitude for the spiritual mentors and brothers who helped him turn his life around, and the divine moments that led him to serve others in prison ministry. This testimony is a compelling reminder of the redeeming power of God's grace.

https://koinoniahouse.org/

Transcript

0:15

From the city of Chicago, a city most recently known for its crime and violence. From 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 guest 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: 0:57

Alright. We we're gonna pray for, uh, Julio. If you guys could close your eyes, just join us or maybe even extend your hands towards him. They, to

Arturo: 1:03

pray for him,

Omar: 1:04

right? Many, many more. Oh yeah. Heavenly Father, we just come to you this evening. Father, we come to you in the name of your son, Jesus. And I just. Thank you Father for this opportunity to gather here. Father, it is evident, father, that, that I'm just, we're just joined by living, walking, testimonies, miracles all around, all around this place. Father, what's what you've done? Uh, as I was coming here, I was thinking about the Apostle Paul when he, when he saw an Ephesians chapter six 19, after he finished talking about the armor of God. He says, and pray for me also. That whenever I speak, yes sir. Whenever I speak, wherever we speak, yes, that words may be given me so that I may make clearly known the mystery of the gospel. And that's what I pray over my brother Julio right now. Father, I pray father that even as he shares his story, his testimony. It'd be evident that your hand was with him Father. That his story, father, that, that the story, the greatest story ever told of Jesus. Yes, sir. Is interwoven, interwoven father in his story and our our stories. Father. Amen. So I just pray, father, that you give him the words. I pray your anointing, your hand upon Father. And when it's all said and done, father, may you be glorified. May you be exalted Father for, for what you have done, what you are doing, and what you're gonna do in the life of our brother. In Jesus name I pray. Amen.

Arturo: 2:26

Hallelujah. Yes, Lord God, we come before you Lord God. And we thank you for this evening. We thank you this time, uh, to honor you and glorify you, Lord God. So we lift up your banner. Hi Father God. And we want to, uh, bring praise and honor to your name through my brother's testimony, the, the work you've done in his life. Father God, uh, we just pray, Lord God, that as. You have worked in his life, uh, that as he shares right now, Lord God, that he, as he shares being led by your Holy Spirit, that it would also, uh, grab hold of hearts, father God. And so we just pray, Lord God, that your word comes through, uh, through His, uh, uh, what, what he speaks tonight, Lord God, uh, that he would just humble himself before you right now and just allow you to lead Father God. And so we give you glory, honor, and praise in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. God

Omar: 3:06

bless you brother. Thank.

Julio M: 3:11

Thank you, brother. So I just wanna start out by introducing myself. My name's Julio Ricardo. I attend New Life Community Church in Cicero, part of the Round and Strong Network, uh, the ministry. I just want you to know, when I look out here today, all I see is light. I see the lights that shine into the darkest places, the Ray of Hope that. That remember the forgotten and go and visit them day in, day out, day in, day out, giving them hope and letting them know they're not forgotten. I'd like to thank all of you for coming tonight. I appreciate you all taking time outta your day to come and, and, um, hear my story. I hope that, you know, something I say could maybe help somebody here. If not, maybe you could pass it out to somebody, but much gratitude and appreciation for everybody showing up here today. So today I'm gonna share my, uh, my story. The name of my story is from the Gang book to the Book of Eternal Life. What you guys are looking at right here today is, this is a picture of me in the gang book. This is about, I don't know, five or six years ago. So it wasn't that long ago. Um, I was at work one day and I got a text message and somebody decided to send me the picture. Of me and the gang book, you can't really see right now, but there's a guy to the right of me right there today. As I was coming home from work today, I seen on a big LED billboard on the highway. I seen that brother's face on there. It was the FBI's most wanted billboard. He's wanted for murder, conspiracy, and racketeering. So when I say that God saved me, God truly did save me. It's all glory to God. It's all his glory. Mm-hmm. I'm from the Westtown neighborhood of Chicago. I was born, I don't remember where I was born. I was so little. We moved here when I was about two years old though. Um, my parents bought a home there. I come from a two family home. I don't have no horror story of my life growing up. I grew up in a great home with great parents. I lived on a nice quiet block where the kids came out. They played every day. Kickball kicked the can. We all hung out. It was a nice little block. Nice growing up. Nice little family was. It was a great, it, it's a great childhood. My block was in the middle of a real quiet, was a quiet block. But on both sides of my block was a war zone Every night, although we were kids, we didn't know, but there was people being murdered on the blocks every day. You heard gunfire, erupting, nonstop. I would end up there later on in my life drawn for some reason to that very thing, that very thing that everybody was so scared of. About when I was little, I just had a normal childhood. I would go to the park, like I was saying, play ball. Everything was normal. When I got to about 16, 17 years old, I found the Neighborhood Boys Club. I would go to the Boys club. I loved it there. We played ball, we did Handcrafts, um, played pool. Drew, they had a rec center. It was amazing. Only problem was, was that that recreation center, that Boys and Girls Club. Was right on the borderline of two of the major gangs in Chicago. So every day as I would walk up that street to go to that Boys and Girls Club, I would walk through two, three neighborhoods. So the neighborhoods that were by me, they knew who I was. The ones right directly around me, they didn't gimme no no trouble. But once I passed Ashland Avenue, those guys only used to see me walking towards the other side. So every time I would get up there, these guys would be stopping me, asking me, Hey, what you be about? What you ride? All this and that. And you know, I was tell man, I don't, I'm not in no gang man, just going to the boys club. I was, you know, pretty much honest. But I also wasn't scared for some reason. I just, they didn't scare me. When I would get to the Boys and Girls Club, those guys would see me coming from the side where I was coming from and thought I was from the gang on that side. Them guys didn't know me. They gave me a little more pushback. But I was still okay. I still made it there. I made it back every day and it was never no problems until one day at the boys club. The, the counselor, her name was Meldy, she asked me, Hey, will you walk me to the, to the bus stop? It was kind of dark, so I was like, yeah, sure. You know, I'll walk you to the bus stop. So as I was walking her to the bus stop. This is what we came up on, and this is where my life changed forever. As we came past this place right here, a bunch of gang bangers were walking that way, and they started hassling me. So of course I just told'em like, Hey, you know, I don't be about nothing, you know, I just stood in my ground. I didn't have nothing to worry about, but they weren't having it. They were looking for something and they weren't gonna leave without it. So they kept, they kept going. They kept on going and kept on going and they ended up moving on me right there. And when they moved on me right there, I swore on that spot that they were gonna pay for that. And I dedicated my life from that day on to making them pay for that. And I just brought them war and my life stood at war at 17. So that was. I was just barely turning 17 when it happened. By my 17th birthday, I was locked up in jail. I was in Cook County Jail for an attempted murder. I got out of Cook County Jail. Way worse than when I went in. Yeah, and then this is where my life became gangs, violence, funerals, drugs. Death watching people that I knew, I loved that. I woke up in the same house with them. I sat at the same table with them. We shared meals. We even shared clothes like my, that either were my brothers to me, and I would watch them literally in front of my eyes, lose their lives. I would watch the life leave from their face. I would watch them perish right in front of me. Not once, not twice just became almost regularly'cause people were just dying. I've seen more death than I've seen births. I've been to way more funerals and I've been to weddings. As I was out there watching all of this, I was seeing guys getting locked up all the time. I would see guys get locked up, get sentenced to 90 years like it was nothing. There's still guys from when I was a young kid that are still in prison right now. Sentenced to 90 years at a hundred percent. They're never coming home. That's where they're gonna die out of appeals, unless they find God, they don't have a chance. Only God gives'em the chance that they need. I watch guys go through prison. 20 years, 30 years, come home, come back to the neighborhood and get killed. Where does it end? What? How much do you give? I remember there was times when I felt almost guilty. Christmas would come. Thanksgiving would come, I would be with my family. I'd be with watching my kids, and I remember the lives that were lost in the streets and I would cry sometimes just thinking about them and their kids. Sometimes you just cry thinking about what you did. And just thinking, man, sometimes you look at yourself. I get up in the morning, I'm getting ready to go outside and I'm just putting on clothes and I'm literally wondering like, are these the clothes I'm gonna die in today? That's how, that was the life that we lived. But then you would go outside and you would start drinking and you would just, you would, you would hide the pain. You would get rid of the pain one way or another. I remember getting shot time after time. God nudging me. Every single time trying to get my attention. First time I got shot, I got shot in the hand. That was like my little slap on the hand. The second time I got shot, I got shot through the leg. You would think it's just a leg shot, but it wasn't'cause it hit the, hit The artery hit the artery and it hit the nerve. So it left my foot paralyzed and left me dead in an ambulance. The third time I got shot, I got shot in the arm and in the chest. I felt the bullet pass. Riding across my chest plate over my heart. I remember sitting in the car thinking about my friends that had got shot, getting up, running a block, and then falling dead because a bullet passed their heart. And I was thinking, I remember sitting there thinking like, is that what's going on with me right now? I'm driving myself to the hospital wondering, am I gonna make it there? Am I gonna get there? I remember. All the money spent on lawyers, bonds all the time in jail. Every summer I was at that little stupid jail man every summer, walking, getting naked at that yellow line every summer for a gun or some drugs or. I didn't like to go to court, so I just have a little, you know, some silly little misdemeanor. I don't go to court now. I gotta go see the judge, so I'm gonna go to the county for a week. House arrest. So much time, money, resources wasted, not just mine. My family too, that was just, it was just a waste from beginning to end. This went on for decades. This was not no little couple years little phase that I was going through and the years that I was in that street, I probably went to about 40 funerals. I spent 30 years on that block, 30 years. I dedicated to that more than my family, more than anything. I watched people go to prison and come home from prison. When they left to prison, there wasn't even cell phones. Now they're home. They're trying to figure stuff out. Yep. They're trying to catch up with technology. Yep. You know what I mean? What? What is Bluetooth? I remember one time being in Pontiac and the guy in the cell next to me had been locked up for 27 years, and I was talking to him through the cell and he telling me, he said, what's Bluetooth? And I was explaining to him what Bluetooth was and he is like, yeah, but I know that. They got that stuff now where they be like, pausing live television. Come on, man. That's crazy. He had no idea what digital was whatsoever. I didn't even possess the intelligence to explain it to him. All I knew was you could pause the TV and then you could let it go. I didn't even, I couldn't even think of how to explain to this guy, like how that worked.'cause I, truthfully, I didn't even know myself. So this was, that's what, that's what life was. Prison, gangs, drugs, hospitals. It never ended. It never ended. And you know what? Here you can see a picture. This is just a couple of years ago. Those are grown men. Some of those guys are 50 years old in this picture. Some of these guys are in their late forties, all right? They're still doing this. They take the till death through us part route,

Omar: 14:24

like a marriage.

Julio M: 14:27

Some of them lost. Family members still out there doing that. They'll never stop. If God doesn't come and touch them, they won't stop. So this went on for, like I said, for decades and decades and decades until everybody went to jail. Actually, almost everybody, except for like about eight of us, went to jail. Now? We'll fast forward to 2022. This is my cousin Chris. love this guy. This is like, like my brother found out he was sick, said he had cancer. He said, you guys need to come and see me. He lives in Atlanta, lives down in Georgia. You need to come and see me. He wants to say his goodbyes. So we got in the car, we drove out there or we, we planned a trip and then we drove out there. Right. So that's us. We're there drinking, partying. Right. You know, it's a party of your life, right? You think it's the last one? The last hoorah. So we get out there, we start partying. He tells us, man, I got some great news. They can't detect, they can't detect, uh, cancer in my lungs anymore. But I got a little bit in my brain. But this cancer, that's how it works. They were already expecting it to do that, so we're already got ahead of it. You know, I think I'm gonna be all right. It looks like we're gonna make it through this. So we partied, man. We were so happy. We had a, it's a time of our life. Then the next year, well it wasn't even a year later, it was about in, in March, my cousin calls me up, his sister. It's back and it's back worse than ever. We get in the car, we go back. This time it really was our goodbye. Uh, Chris had declined dramatically. The cancer had spread everywhere. No treatment was helping. He was just, it was just getting worse and worse. They just abandoned the treatment. It was making him worse. Went out there, we hung out with him for a few days. I remember I left and I was there. I was gone for an hour. We were one hour on the road, and his wife called me to tell me my cousin passed away. It's like he was waiting for that last visit, that last goodbye. An hour after we left. He passed away. And he passed away and it was, that's Chris. That's my cousin, Chris V, and that's the little baby Pato. We went back after that trip, we had to go back to bury, to bury my cousin. While we were there, I was gonna be a pallbearer, so we made all the arrangements. We got another Airbnb. Pastor Carlos Garcia, I don't think he ever is gonna know the words that he said. The change that he made. Come on. That's awesome. It was a seed that he planted and, and the Lord says some, we planted seeds. We don't get to always watch'em, but when they come, it comes true. They come to fruition. They, they grow, they bloom. So he was up there giving the, you know, doing the service for my cousin. And the crazy thing is he don't speak English and I don't speak Spanish. I'm barely keeping up with what he's saying. But I was in the front sitting and my wife was sitting in the back. I was sitting in the front because I was a pa bearer. So I asked Pastor Garcia speaking for the first time in my life, I felt the spirit. I didn't know what it was. But I know it was weird. It was weird and it was deep. I remember feeling this. I kind of just shake it off. We go ahead and we finish up and we go back to the room and we're drinking and, and my wife, she calls me to the, she calls me to the room. She tells me she's crying now. Babe, I don't know what was going on, but when the, that pastor, when he was speaking, I had this feeling, I'm telling her, what are you talking about? What, what are you feeling? She's explaining the same exact thing I was feeling. Now I'm no, I'm no stranger to religion. Like I said, I, I came from a good home. My father preached the word to everybody. He could see, he would come by while we were sitting down, eating in the house, whatever, just to remind us, there's no rice and beans in, in, in, in, um, in hell. There's no TV in hell. He was a Baptist. He preached hell, like he preached heaven, and he wanted us to know that none of that stuff was gonna exist if we didn't find God. So I knew about God, but I never really knew. I didn't know God. So we started talking and when we, uh, when my wife was talking, we talked about it and she's like, man, I feel like we need to make a change. We need to change our lives like this. This can't, we can't keep doing this. And I remember feeling it too and being like, yeah, yeah. So when we came home, and of course when we came home, nothing changed. We just kept doing the same thing that we were doing before. But then one day it was maybe just a couple of weeks later, it was a Sunday morning and I woke up early in the morning. I don't know why, but inside, and it was a spirit. I know that now. I told me, go to church today. You're gonna go to church. So I got up and I found a new life by me. And I started getting ready for church and my wife woke up and said, well, where are you going? What are you, what are you doing? I told her, I'm going to church today. I need to go to church. She said, well, can I go? I wanna go too. So I'm like, of course. So my wife gets up, we get the kids up, everybody, we go to church, and that was the end of it. That was the second change in my life. I remember spiritual warfare began almost immediately. The devil was not gonna let me go. Not that, not like that. He wasn't letting go without a fight, but the spirit really had a hold of my wife more than me. As much as I want to say it was me, the spirit was in my wife, and she would pray over me. She would pray for our marriage. I remember there was a woman's retreat coming up and when that, for that retreat coming up. Spiritual warfare was alive and well. Arguments fights every day over nothing insanity. These fights were crazy, but they were deep because they were spiritual. And my wife would come and she would pray over me and she would pray and pray and pray. And I remember she was going to her woman's retreat and it was raining and she came and she said, I want to pray over you. I want to pray over you. And she grabbed my hand and I didn't want to, I didn't want to. And she prayed over me anyway, and she went to her woman's retreat. Then I had a, I had a men's retreat with Brother Omar. I remember it was out of town. It was in Michigan and it was overnight. It was for the weekend. So we went to the retreat and I remember walking in and the, the spiritual warfare, even leading up to that retreat was crazy. Crazy again. I remember walking into this retreat, into this law cabin. We got there kind of late and everybody was worshiping, and I remember walking in, made it to the front and I remember just falling on my knees and just worshiping God and had never did that. It was like almost like I, I was too proud to do something like that, but that day I just fell on my knees and I was just. Through the whole thing, just crying. I was weeping, just weeping and just praising God and just worshiping him with everything that I had. I came back from the retreat it, I was a different man plugged into the church. When they say iron sharpens iron, it's not just a saying. I found a strong group of men, men of God, that. Changed my life. That made a man of me, that made me hold myself accountable. Yes sir. Yes sir. You gonna start, man, that gave me something to look up to that they didn't even have to tell me. Just by looking at them, I would become ashamed of my actions and what I was doing. I knew what I was supposed to be through that circle. I became a better man. I became a better father. I became a better husband. I became a better son, but most of all, I became a man. Mm-hmm. I became a man. I became a man of God that day. Man, those brothers are here too, by the way. These brothers are all here. I go sharpen my ax with all these guys every week. So then when I had, um. So after retreat, one day I was, I was going downtown and I had to do a job. And again, it's raining. This stuff always happens in the rain. I don't know what's going on, but it was raining, it was pouring down rain, and I remember I was under attack, but it was, I don't know if I was under attack or if I was coming out of it. And I was starting to get my senses and I was starting to see everything that was wrong, but I was complaining that day. I was so angry. I was driving and it was pouring down rain. And I was so mad about everything in the world. I was sick of my wife. I was sick of my job. I was sick of my car. I would, I was just sick of everything in the world. I was not happy about nothing. I was so sick about everything. Mind you, it was just a year or two before that when I prayed for everything that I had that I was complaining about when I prayed to have a job like I have where I just go and work at a desk. When I would pray to have, you know, a nice car when I would pray to have nice things and a nice place to live and a and a family and all. I prayed for those things and now here I was ungrateful cursing them. I got to the job where I was gonna go, to go. I was so irritated. I didn't even do it. I just went back home. On my way back home I put on some music and I was just listening to some music I was worshiping. On the way back, angry. Still so angry, but worshiping. I still put on the music and I was still worshiping, and I had my first full blown encounter with the spirit that day. All of a sudden, as angry as I was, the spirit just descended on me from the top of my head to the bottom of my toes. I felt it. I felt everything go away. All of a sudden it's like, if this like just smacked me into reality, I realized everything that I had, I realized that I was complaining about everything that I prayed for. I realized all of my dreams coming true and me not recognizing me, not accepting them. Yeah. All of a sudden I could see the tricks of the enemy just so clear. Like if. Like he was just right in there. Like the spirit was right there letting me know like, this is what's going on. This is what he's doing. Telling me this is the job that you asked for. I got all that stuff when I didn't deserve it. I was not following Christ when I got that job. I was not following Christ when my life started to come together. I was still in a world just being ungrateful piece of garbage to be honest. But God still was blessing me. He was setting me up. To put me where I needed to be because he's the greatest planner. Yeah. That's why anything, don't pray for what you want. No. Just pray for what God wants for you. Promise you it's way better than what you want it. It will blow your mind. Amen. Yes sir. So of course the enemy, in true form, he keeps on. Yep. My wife was planning on getting baptized. When she got baptized. I ended up. Out of nowhere with with AFib, all of a sudden my heart would just start going bananas. Never had problems with my heart in my whole life. All of a sudden now I'm in the hospital. I get a surgery, I come back, it goes crazy. I gotta go back. I gotta get a second surgery. I'm in the hospital. My wife has to cancel her baptism. We praise God, we don't give up. Get out the hospital. The Lord delivers me once again from the jaws of death. He never stops. He's faithful. You can always depend on him. Yes, he is. His grace is never ending. We get out, my wife ends up getting baptized. After all, then I want to get baptized. So when I start scheduling my, my, my baptism, we get an incredible rainforest that floods our church completely and knocks out all the electricity in our church. Wow. Saint Full. I wanna get church. I want to get baptized at my church. I want to get baptized in Cicero. That's where I'm, I'm from New Life, Cicero. I want to be baptized in my church. I'm gonna wait. I say I'm gonna wait. I'll wait until it's back and then I'll wait and then I'll get baptized in my church. Man. Months pass. Everything's, I'm back ordered. There's fires in Florida. I mean, there's fires in California. Covid depleted, everything stuffed months and months behind. I finally say, you know what? I'm not gonna wait anymore. I'm not gonna wait anymore. I need to be obedient. And I don't follow a church. I don't follow a building. I praise God and I need to be obedient to God. So I go ahead and I schedule my, my, um, my baptism, and I wanna share this verse with you. Second Corinthians two five. He reads this means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone. A new life has begun. Praise God. I got baptized at Berwyn Church. I wasn't waiting no more. Those are my two mentors. I was honored to be mentored by those brothers, for them to put me in the water. It was a gift. It was a gift from God. And it was a new life. The old has gone away. The new is here. I stopped smoking. I stopped drinking. I started going to church two, three days a week. I was fighting with, I was addicted to weed. I couldn't stop smoking. I would smoke on my way to church, on my way to Bible study of smoking weed. I'm getting out. I'm getting in my car and smoking as soon as I get in there. I'm so sick of the guilt of doing this. One day I asked, said, brothers, man, will you? I let them know. I confess I'm smoking weed on my way here and I'm smoking weed when I leave from here. I need prayer. So the brothers come around me, they put their arm, they put their hands on me, and they all pray over me. After they pray over me. I get out, I go into my car and I start smoking some weed on my way home. Smoke for the whole week. It's win next Wednesday. Now I'm on my way to church, smoking weed. I pull out my, I pull out my vape. I'm getting ready to smoke. And all of a sudden it happened. Amen. The deliverance just fell on me. Amen. I took my pipe, I went to hit it, and instead I rolled down my window. I threw it out the window. And never smoked again. Amen. I'll delivered from that. My wife was delivered. Our family, our home became a house of God. Our house serves the Lord. Amen. I watched my 6-year-old pray. She prays over our meals. She has church and her room with her babies. Come on. That's what she does. That's, that's our home now. That's nothing I did. That's the power of the Spirit. The Holy Spirit did that for us. There's nothing that the spirit can't do. There's nothing he can't fix. There's no predicament that you could be in. We go to, we go to the prisons, we talk to the brothers in the jails. We've seen people that were never supposed to get out of prison. Get out and walk for free that are out there preaching. God's word in the world. Never should have been there. My new game, that's my new gang right there. I wanna share another Bible verse with you. That being with these brothers, following God has brought onto me when things get hard and they're always hard. Deuteronomy 31, 6 says, be strong and of good courage. Do not fear nor be afraid of them. For the Lord your God. He's the one who goes with you. He will not leave you or forsake you.

Arturo: 32:04

Hall.

Julio M: 32:05

That's what I do now when I need it. My life is way different now. I'm involved in prison ministry and I love it. I fight every week to go into that jail. That enemy fights with me every week to go to that jail. I sometimes dread it. I don't want to go. I'm fighting. To get into that place, just to get my mind to walk into that place, to get in my car, to go, to commit myself to go is an insane battle. But the second I get in my car and I'm headed that way, the spirit always lands on me. And it takes it all the way. That's right. And when I go inside those jails, it's not, I used to think when I first started doing that, that I was doing a good deed for somebody. I'm gonna go and visit them and no, no, that's not what happened. I go inside that place and these brothers are a blessing. These brothers are an encouragement to see them come with their Bibles ready questions, ready, knowing their scripture, following God. You know, in the world, if you don't want to deal with something, you could just split. These brothers are inside these cells. Right, locked down. There is no split. There's stand and trust in your faith in God. That's it. You can't just leave. They gotta stay there and face it. Those brothers are an encouragement every single day. Every time I go in there, they're an encouragement. Those twice a week, I didn't even want to go twice a week. Now I want to go three days a week. I three days a month. I want to increase it because I know that I need it because I'm not giving anything. Right. I'm getting, these brothers are encouraging me now. We do volunteer work. Actually, this picture right here, we're feeding the starving children right here. Amen. That's us two. This life has changed my life so much. It's given me the opportunity to give back after everything I've taken, after so much destruction that I've wreaked havoc on this world to have the opportunity to give back to something I owe so much. I have so little to give, but so much to pay for. It's a blessing to, to just be around the these men of God and be able to go. And now I'm part of, um, the wrong to strong ministry. We do bible studies, do testimonies, we do devotionals. I wanna say that my testimon helps people, but their testimonies help me. So many times I've heard testimonies and been convicted hearing about, I remember I was struggling with tithing. And getting that and turning that around, hearing somebody else talk about it, convicting me on it. I wasn't qualified to do this, but God doesn't qualify. Call the call qualified. He qualifies the called I was not ready for this. I'm not ready for this now. It's not by my strength that any of this gets done. It's only through God's strength. Right. It's only through him that we walk through these, through those doors every day. We went to to East Moline. Prison and we walked through the front door with boxes of pamphlets and flyers. Like we were, C.O.'S God throws open doors. I'm not even supposed to be able to visit somebody in a prison. I was on a, a lifetime block from the warden of, of the prisons for some gang activity at Stateville Prison. And here I am walking through the front doors of this prison with boxes of stuff. They're not searching the box, they're not searching us. We're walking right through there. That's God. That's, that's the power of God. That is literally the definition of God opening doors. This room is filled with men, that God has opened the doors. It's nothing but men of God and women of God in this room. My time is up, but I want to let you all know that I appreciate everybody here. I appreciate the opportunity to share. And I appreciate this man right here.

Manny Mill: 36:20

Hallelujah.

Julio M: 36:21

Bless you.

Manny Mill: 36:28

No, no, no. You stay right here. You stay right here because whenever you give your testimony, you declare war to the devil. Amen. So we're gonna pray for Julio right now. I wanna tell you that. All the men, or I would say most of the men that you used to be around with for the gangs, they had no fathers. Most people in jail have no death either. You are a father, you see, and I believe that your father was the one that really planted the seed in you. Amen? Absolutely. Because he told you the truth.

Julio M: 37:12

Yes.

Manny Mill: 37:13

About heaven. And hell, which is only two choices. You either go to heaven or go to hell and they're both real places. But the moment that you meet Jesus face to face like you did right, uh, you are now in heaven. Amen. I mean, heaven is not just a place, although it is. I'm going to prepare right. A place for you, a honeymoon suite for you, right? But the moment that you meet Christ, he's heaven because you are secure. Because with Jesus you get to know your real father. So that pastor there from Utah, he was able to. Bring that seed back to life. Amen. Amen. Amen. And that's when your wife, so I like to call your wife over here. Come over here please, because she your human Holy Spirit, by the way. And, and I also want to say that not only your father, but also your wife. Continue to plant that seed for you. So I want to come before the father right now. Thank God for the brothers that have been there for him. And as you know in here, we believe about a face of love. So they are face of law because there will be days that you want to jump the fence. And go back to Egypt. Egypt meaning imprisonment, slavery, uh, gang banging. So I want to thank you tonight for your transparency. Yeah. That you even confess publicly here tonight. And now's on video here now, event that we used to smoke weed. Is anybody here smoking weed? Time to confess. Uhhuh. Time to confess. No more weed, no more smoking cigarettes. No more smoke doing cocaine or heroin once a week or once a month for your No, no, no, no. We are not clean. Amen. We are clear. This is the holy temple of the Holy Spirit, right?

Julio M: 39:32

Amen.

Manny Mill: 39:33

And the Holy Spirit is the Holy Spirit, and it's the gift from a Holy Father for us to represent a holy Jesus and to live a holy life. One Peter uh, one 15 says that we must be holy in all of our conduct the way we think we can. Now, I believe that you got it now in your home with your wife. You know, I say son. Brother to your wonderful sister over there that I just met, amen. Mm-hmm. To their brothers. So we wanna encourage you tonight. So you keep doing it. Amen. So he goes with us into the jail now, into Cook County Jail. So we are very thankful that you get to go because you are a testimony. So God used you in a mighty way.

Julio M: 40:25

Amen.

Manny Mill: 40:26

So, so what did God did for you? He surprised you.

Julio M: 40:31

Thank you. Jesus

Manny Mill: 40:32

surprised you. So we're gonna pray right now that he will continue to surprise you. Amen. All amen. So we're gonna pray. So thank you for the God for holy mecal. We thank you for the Father who. Was able to proclaim the truth, although he didn't understood it, then he did not do any work then, but he was already working inside himself, although he deviated and he departed. Father, that child right here, this is a good testimony to parents, was brought back and we thank you for the God that although he got shot. Uh, three or four times, even in the heart, he didn't die and went to hell. But your father heard the cry of his dad, of his mom, of his wife, and he was able to live and live for Christ. So we thank you for the God that it is true. Thank you Lord, that when somebody that care for somebody's praying, father, you will hear that prayer. And Father your ways and not our ways, not our thoughts are our thoughts. And Father, you use a very peculiar way to be able to bring Julio to Christ. So Father, we thank you. We pray now that he will be able to anchor his conscious on the cross that you were given the desire, father to proclaim Christ. Crucify Christ resurrected Christ coming back, the hope of glory that he will never be ashamed of the gospel. So we pray for the God that you will protect his marriage, his home, his children. We thank you that this couple right here, just a few weeks ago, they got reconciled again. They got, they went to church together. They were. Uh, be able to be dedicated again to you Father publicly. They are love for you and they are love for each other. So we pray that this cup of Father will be sealed with the Holy Spirit and that they will be able to shine for Jesus. Father God, that this will be the beginning of many more times when Holy will be able to share the testimony of his gospel driven conversion. So we pray that you will rebuke the devil Father. Against any plans or skins against this family and that you will father give them the desires of their hearts. As we say in your word in Psalm 20, verse four, and I ask that there will be cover Father with Christ's blood and that your angels father will protect them not only their home, but their vehicles and their work and their church, and that you will father continue to bless his ministry in the jail, prison, church, neighborhood, family, and anybody else that you will bring his way. Father, so thank you that holy is not ashamed of the gospel anymore. So Father, give him boldness. Give him courage. Give him consistency. I pray in Jesus name and God people say

Arturo: 43:45

amen. Amen. I

Manny Mill: 43:46

love you, my brother. Thank you. Thank you.

43:54

Matthew four 16 reads, the people who sat in darkness have seen a great light and upon those who sat in the region and shadow of death light has Dawn, I will be your host. My name is Omar Calvio, and I am. Wrong. Too strong.