A man who served 33 years in prison for a murder he committed in 1987 has since helped lead hundreds of other inmates to faith in Jesus Christ through his work with a prison ministry.

Stanley Stever, a 52-year-old former inmate, has worked with Kindway, a Christian prison ministry based in Westerville, Ohio, founded in 2009.

In an interview with The Christian Post, Stever said he believes that God has forgiven him for the murder he committed and that there is hope for others who have committed crimes to be reconciled to God through Jesus Christ.

“Becoming a Christian was almost like being a recipient of a heart transplant, and it gave me the ability to come to the understanding that I have a new heart. And with that new heart, there’s a new responsibility,” Stever said.

Stever became a Christian in 1999 while still imprisoned at the Marion Correctional Institution in Marion County. Since he started telling other inmates about his testimony, Stever said he found healing. He said it’s amazing to see how many lives he has changed through his redemption story.

“I’ve heard it said several times that ‘forgiveness is not forgetfulness.’ This means that you overcome the enemy by the blood of the lamb and the words of your testimony,” Stever said.

“But, don’t ever forget the things that the enemy did through you, in order that you might show the power of Christ to others in the Word through Him.”

Looking back on his troubled past, Stever believes that many factors led him to kill another person.

He said he had deep anger that he kept bottled inside as a teenager. He said he was also bullied, which meant he was isolated from his peers in school.

“It was always the name-calling. I was a bigger kid. My name is Stanley Stever. So, they called me ‘Stanley Steamer.’ I became the joke of the school. And every day I went to school, I hated it,” Stever recalled.

“I would physically get sick walking into school because of the anxiety that I had about going to school and knowing that I was going to be teased and belittled the whole day. And really, that’s when the anger and the rage first started, which changed my mindset as a child.”

‘Sticks and stones will break your bones’
Growing up in Northern Sycamore, Ohio, Stever had six sisters and one brother. He remembers his mother and father were workaholics. He considered them “old school” because they thought that the more money they could bring in, the better off the family would be.

In his younger years, Stever said the relationship with his mother was great, and he looked up to her as a role model because of her selflessness.

“But to have a role model, you have to be a willing vessel in that also, and I wasn’t a willing vessel,” Stever recalled.

Stever said his father was another role model who respected women and loved his family. However, Stever said his father never disciplined him.

“Whenever I would fall short or do anything wrong, it would be, you know, ‘boys will be boys’ [or] ‘he’ll grow out of it.’ He didn’t have a clue what I was going through,” Stever said.

“I guess you would call it a normal childhood, except for the different things that would happen at school,” he added. “I felt like everybody was always making fun of me and was always belittling me. … I was always in turmoil.”

Being raised in the ’70s, Stever said, didn’t help his life at school because counseling and in-school intervention for bullying were not common during that time.

“The tagline for that generation was ‘sticks and stones will break your bones, but names will never hurt you’ and ‘knuckle up and be a man.’ And these are the things that they would tell the young boys that were going through it,” Stever said.

“I alienated myself. I didn’t like people. I didn’t like being around people. I brought a lot of that on because of what I was going through because I had no idea how to deal with it.”

As Stever reached his mid-adolescence and started attending high school, the bullying continued. To mask his pain, Stever turned to drugs and alcohol.

“I would do just about anything that was put in front of me: from marijuana to beer to whiskey, cocaine, LSD, weapons and wet. I hated myself and I hated everything about me and I would do anything to get rid of that pain,” Stever detailed.

‘I could be whoever I wanted to be’
Doing drugs and alcohol, Stever said, made him feel as though he could leave his pain behind for short periods, telling CP that “it let me not be the person that I hated.”

“And not being that person, I became someone that I could make up. At the drop of a hat, I could be whoever I wanted to be that day. I could be the mean, hateful, resentful guy. I became a chameleon,” Stever recounted.

“And then, there was also the selfishness, the self-desires — everything that goes along with that part of a life attaches itself to you, and it attached itself to me.”

About two years later, at age 17, Stever’s bottled-up anger turned to rage and led him to commit a murder. After his arrest and during the trial, Stever turned 18.

As a result, he was tried as an adult and sentenced to 20 years to life in prison. He wound up serving 33 years before his release in October 2020.

When Stever thinks back on his crime, he thinks about how he didn’t have an outlet to properly release his anger during his youth, noting that he “had no idea what life was.”

“I said in my testimony that ‘I wasn’t born a murderer.’ I didn’t wake up one day thinking, ‘you know what, I’m going to take someone’s life today.’ That’s not who I am,” Stever shared.

“The reasoning behind what I did is [that] I was a child with no sense of direction, with no supervision, with no identity, with no respect for life. And if you add all of that up, it’s a recipe for tragic results. And that’s what happened.”

Something ‘contagious’
During Stever’s time at Marion Correctional Institution, he joined a neo-Nazi gang called the Aryan Brotherhood to find protection and a sense of community behind bars.

After a decade of being a gang member within prison walls, Stever said the gang leader came to know Christ through a four-day Christian retreat for inmates from Kairos Prison Ministry International.

Stever said there was something “contagious” about the change he saw in the ex-gang boss, which led him to attend a Kairos four-day Christian retreat.

For the first time in his life, Stever learned about the concept of forgiveness. Shortly after that, he accepted Christ as his Lord and Savior on Oct. 31, 1999.

Stever began working with Kindway while in prison. He eventually met his wife, Amy, through the prison ministry. The couple married in 2012.

Stever will continue to disciple inmates through Kindway for as long as he can, saying it’s “awesome to bring the love of God into other people’s lives.”

“We’ve actually expanded the prison ministry into a reentry ministry that helps the men and women transition from prison out into society and become successful,” Stever said.

“My job involves going in and working with incarcerated men and women, and we meet them where they are and help them work through their past. And then, we help them transition back into communities. It brings peace to my spirit to know that I am making a difference, one person at a time.”
Sources:Christian Post

http://theendtimeradio.com

ഡോസോ: പടിഞ്ഞാറന്‍ ആഫ്രിക്കയിലെ ഇസ്ലാമിക ഭൂരിപക്ഷ രാജ്യമായ രാജ്യമായ നൈജറില്‍ ക്രൈസ്തവര്‍ കനത്ത വെല്ലുവിളികള്‍ നേരിടുന്നതിനിടെ ഇസ്ലാം ഉപേക്ഷിച്ച് ക്രിസ്തു വിശ്വാസം സ്വീകരിച്ച പരിവര്‍ത്തിത ക്രൈസ്തവന്റെ ജീവിത സാക്ഷ്യം ശ്രദ്ധ നേടുന്നു. ഡോസോ മിഷനില്‍ നിന്നുള്ള സൊസൈറ്റി ഓഫ് ആഫ്രിക്കന്‍ മിഷന്‍സ് (എസ്.എം.എ) .വൈദികനായ ഫാ. റാഫേല്‍ കാസാമേയറാണ് ഡോസോയിലെ കത്തോലിക്ക കമ്മ്യൂണിറ്റിയുടെ ഭാഗമായി പ്രേഷിത ദൗത്യത്തില്‍ ഏര്‍പ്പെട്ടിരിക്കുന്ന പിയറെ എന്ന പരിവര്‍ത്തിത ക്രൈസ്തവന്റെ സാക്ഷ്യം ‘ഏജന്‍സിയ ഫിദെസ്’മായി പങ്കുവെച്ചത്. ക്രിസ്ത്യന്‍ വിശ്വാസത്തിലേക്ക് പരിവര്‍ത്തനം ചെയ്തതില്‍ തനിക്കൊരിക്കലും ഖേദിക്കേണ്ടി വന്നിട്ടില്ലെന്നു പിയറെ സാക്ഷ്യപ്പെടുത്തുന്നു.

“പിയറെയേ കണ്ടെത്തുവാന്‍ എനിക്ക് അധിക സമയം വേണ്ടി വന്നില്ല. അധികം സംസാരിക്കാതെ തന്നിലേക്ക് ഒതുങ്ങി ജീവിക്കുകയായിരുന്നു വിവേകശാലിയായ അവന്‍. ഞങ്ങളുടെ പ്രേഷിത ദൗത്യത്തിലെ ഒരു നിധിയാണ് അവന്‍. കാരണം നമ്മുടെ വിശ്വാസത്തിന്റെ കേന്ദ്രത്തിലേക്കും, ദൈവത്തോടും അയല്‍ക്കാരനോടുമുള്ള സ്നേഹത്തിലേക്കും നമ്മളെ നേരിട്ട് കൊണ്ടുപോവുകയാണ് അവന്‍”. മുസ്ലീം വിദ്യാഭ്യാസത്തില്‍ വളര്‍ന്ന പിയറെ സ്കൂള്‍ വിദ്യാഭ്യാസം കഴിഞ്ഞപ്പോള്‍ ഖുറാന്‍ പഠിപ്പിക്കുന്ന മദ്രസ്സയില്‍ ചേര്‍ന്ന്‍ തന്റെ സമപ്രായക്കാരോടൊപ്പം ഇസ്ലാമിക ആശയങ്ങള്‍ പഠിച്ചു. കൗമാരപ്രായം കഴിയാറായപ്പോഴേക്കും ഒരു വെല്‍ഡറായി ജോലി ആരംഭിച്ചു. ഒരു ദിവസം ജോലിക്കിടയില്‍ മേശപ്പുറത്ത് ഉപേക്ഷിക്കപ്പെട്ട ചില പുസ്തകങ്ങള്‍ പിയറെ കണ്ടു.

അതിലൊരെണ്ണം എടുത്ത് വീട്ടില്‍ കൊണ്ടുവന്ന പിയറെ അത് വായിക്കുവാന്‍ ആരംഭിച്ചു. അന്നുമുതല്‍ ഇന്നു വരെ ആ പുസ്തകം താന്‍ കൈവിട്ടിട്ടില്ല എന്നാണ് പിയറെ പറയുന്നത്. ബൈബിളിലെ പുതിയ നിയമമായിരുന്നു ആ പുസ്തകം. “ആ പുസ്തകം വായിക്കുന്നത് എനിക്ക് ഇഷ്ടമായിരുന്നു. അത് എന്റെ ഹൃദയത്തെ സ്പര്‍ശിച്ചു, അതേക്കുറിച്ച് എന്റെ മുസ്ലീം സഹപ്രവര്‍ത്തകരോട് സംസാരിക്കുന്നതും എനിക്കിഷ്ടമായിരുന്നു. പാവപ്പെട്ടവരോട് കരുണയും, അടുപ്പവും കാണിക്കുന്നതിനെ കുറിച്ചുള്ള കഥകളായിരുന്നു ആ പുസ്തകത്തില്‍, എന്നാല്‍ ഇവ യഥാര്‍ത്ഥ ജീവിതവുമായി എങ്ങനെ പൊരുത്തപ്പെടും എന്നതിനെ കുറിച്ച് എനിക്ക് അറിയില്ലായിരുന്നു, എനിക്ക് ഒരു ക്രൈസ്തവനെയും പരിചയമില്ലായിരുന്നു” .

“പിന്നീട് അഗാദെസില്‍ ജോലിക്ക് പോയപ്പോഴാണ് ഞാന്‍ ക്രിസ്ത്യന്‍ സമൂഹവുമായി അടുക്കുന്നത്. ഞാന്‍ അവരുമായി ചേര്‍ന്നു. സുവിശേഷത്തേക്കുറിച്ചും, ക്രിസ്ത്യാനികളുടെ ജീവിതത്തേക്കുറിച്ചും എനിക്ക് കൂടുതല്‍ അറിയണമായിരുന്നു” പിയറെ പറയുന്നു. അഗാദെസിലെ ജീവിതകാലത്ത് വിവിധ ക്രിസ്ത്യന്‍ സമൂഹങ്ങളുമായി ബന്ധപ്പെടുവാന്‍ തനിക്ക് കഴിഞ്ഞു. അതാണ് സത്യ വിശ്വാസത്തിലേക്ക് തന്നെ നയിച്ചത്. ക്രിസ്തു വിശ്വാസത്തെ പ്രതി തനിക്ക് ഒരിക്കലും ലജ്ജിക്കേണ്ടി വന്നിട്ടില്ലായെന്നും തന്റെ മക്കള്‍ ഇപ്പോഴും ഇസ്ലാം പിന്തുടരുന്നുവെന്നത് മാത്രമാണ് തന്നെ അലട്ടുന്നതെന്നും പിയറെ പറയുന്നു.. ഇന്ന്‍ തന്റെ കൊച്ചു ജീവിതത്തിനിടെയില്‍ കര്‍ത്താവിന്റെ വചനം മറ്റുള്ളവരുമായി പങ്കുവെയ്ക്കുകയാണ് ഈ സഹോദരന്‍. നൈജര്‍ ജനസംഖ്യയിലെ 99%വും ഇസ്ലാം പിന്തുടരുന്നവരാണ്.
കടപ്പാട് :പ്രവാചക ശബ്ദം

http://theendtimeradio.com

China – A global online forum has appealed to Christians worldwide to come together internationally for a week-long prayer for the Church and the people of China.

Global Prayer for China made the appeal in response to a request from Cardinal Charles Bo, president of the Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conferences (FABC), for a week of prayers across the globe for China starting from May 22.

Pope Francis has also called for prayers for China during this time.

Following the arrest of Hong Kong Cardinal Joseph Zen, Cardinal Bo has renewed and strengthened his call.

“I urge Christians of all traditions everywhere to pray for Hong Kong especially, and the Church in China, as well as the Uyghurs, Tibetans and others facing persecution in China, during that week of prayer,” Cardinal Bo wrote while expressing concerns over the arrest of Cardinal Zen.

The group says in addition to the prayers of the Catholics, it calls upon all concerned people to be informed about the plight experienced by many in China under repressive and unjust laws and policies.

“We call upon legislators and members of international organizations to take up the issue of religious persecution in China and work collaboratively to promote human dignity, freedom, and peace in China during this time,” it added.
Sources:persecution

http://theendtimeradio.com