BVOV Magazine 2013 - present

NOVEMBER Read Through the Bible Old Testament / New Testament Thu 1 Lam. 4-5 / Jas. 2 Fri 2 Ezek. 1-2 / Jas. 3 Sat 3 Ezek. 3-4 Sun 4 Ps. 119:89-136; Prov. 27:1-22 Mon 5 Ezek. 5-7 / Jas. 4 Tue 6 Ezek. 8-10 / Jas. 5 Wed 7 Ezek. 11-12 / 1 Pet. 1 Thu 8 Ezek. 13-14 / 1 Pet. 2 Fri 9 Ezek. 15-16 / 1 Pet. 3 Sat 10 Ezek. 17-18 Sun 11 Ps. 119:137-176; Prov. 27:23-28:14 Mon 12 Ezek. 19-20 / 1 Pet. 4 Tue 13 Ezek. 21-22 / 1 Pet. 5 Wed 14 Ezek. 23 / 2 Pet. 1 Thu 15 Ezek. 24-26 / 2 Pet. 2 Fri 16 Ezek. 27-28 / 2 Pet. 3 Sat 17 Ezek. 29-30 Sun 18 Ps. 120-126; Prov. 28:15-28 Mon 19 Ezek. 31-32 / 1 Jn. 1 Tue 20 Ezek. 33 / 1 Jn. 2 Wed 21 Ezek. 34-35 / 1 Jn. 3 Thu 22 Ezek. 36 / 1 Jn. 4 Fri 23 Ezek. 37-38 / 1 Jn. 5 Sat 24 Ezek. 39 Sun 25 Ps. 127-132; Prov. 29:1-14 Mon 26 Ezek. 40 / 2 Jn. Tue 27 Ezek. 41-42 / 3 Jn. Wed 28 Ezek. 43-44 / Jude Thu 29 Ezek. 45-46 / Rev. 1 Fri 30 Ezek. 47-48 / Rev. 2 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * article from p. 23 continues * * * * When he was 14, Ronnie and his cousin stopped in a 7-Eleven® to buy a soda. As they were leaving, the clerk yelled out a racial slur at them, screaming the N-word and ordering them to “Get out of here!” Ronnie and his friend left, but soon returned to the store, where they beat the clerk and stole money from the register before they ran off. Now, two years after being arrested and convicted, Ronnie was finally being sentenced. He didn’t deny committing the crime. What infuriated him was the fact that he had been incarcerated since the crime was committed—when he was 14. Authorities had held him in jail since then without a trial, waiting, he suspected, until he turned 16 so he could be tried as an adult. In the courtroom, Ronnie shouted at the judge. “Just give me 20 years! I’m tired of you!” The judge slammed his gavel. “Twenty years it is!” Doing Hard Time “I was sentenced to the Draper Correctional Facility, in Elmore Ala.,” Ronnie explains. “It was a horrible place. I was 16 years old and good-looking, which meant that it was almost certain I would be raped. All the guys who went in with me were raped or killed or both. “I became a Black Muslim for protection. Everyone knew that if you messed with one Black Muslim, you messed with all of them. Even so, I was still in constant danger. There were places in the prison where men got trapped, raped or killed. The threats and danger never let up. I got messages like: We’re coming for you. It was very hard. I didn’t have anyone on the outside. No letters. No visitors. All I had was Islam. “The Black Muslims taught a lot of good life lessons, which I needed: things like the importance of personal hygiene and dressing well. They taught us to respect ourselves. The Black Muslim don’t use drugs, but I didn’t stop. During my third year, I got busted with drugs. I was transferred to a bigger prison in Mobile, Ala. There, I became an imam, which is a Black Muslim leader. I made a near-fatal mistake when I bought drugs on credit from a gangster killer. I wrote my family asking for money, but no one sent any.” One night Ronnie saw the gangster and two other men slip into a nearby cell. They wore gloves and had meat cleavers strapped to their hands. Ronnie watched in horror as the three inmates in that cell were chopped apart like slaughtered animals. The killers left behind their hit list. Ronnie’s name was on that list. On the Run After serving five years of his 20-year sentence, Ronnie escaped while in a work-release program. He would be on the run for the next six years, eight months and 28 days. For a while, he lived in the basement of his cousin, a Baptist preacher. It was there that Ronnie discovered and began reading books from his cousin’s library. Among those were three books by E.W. Kenyon: "What Happened from the Cross to the Throne;" "The Father and His Family;" and "The Hidden Man of the Heart." As he took notes, there was something on those pages that drew Ronnie’s attention. Was Jesus the Son of God? he wondered. It had never occurred to Ronnie that the white man’s God might be real. Now he suspected it was true. A few years later, Ronnie pursued a relationship with a woman who was a Christian. The only way he could spend time with her was in church. Although his motives had nothing to do with God, he heard more about Jesus. “There’s something about you,” she told Ronnie. “God’s got His hand on you.” No one else saw God’s hand on Ronnie’s life. “I was a stick-up man,” Ronnie says. “One cold, snowy day, I was driving with another man when we were ambushed with gunfire. I didn’t realize I’d been shot when I jumped out of the car and tried to escape. The man who’d ambushed us came to finish me off. “My life passed before my eyes. I saw myself as a small child. Scenes from my life passed by so fast. Three words welled up from deep inside and I screamed, ‘Jesus, help me!’ Then I passed out. “I woke to see a policeman standing over me. I was thrown in jail and charged with armed robbery and attempted murder. My arm was broken in two places and I still had two slugs in it. I lay in my cell in such pain. There were no meds, nothing to help. I watched as a bright light came into my cell and touched me. Every shred of pain left and it didn’t come back. The next day, all charges against me were dropped, and they let me go.” 24 : BVOV

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