"Cheetah" is his jail and street name...
Most of the men in prison are known by their nicknames. I could spend years living next to another inmate and never know his real name, only the name he goes by in here.
I happened to speak with Cheetah this morning. I was sitting in the waiting area of the prison's Infirmary as I had to take a handicapped individual to the Nurses station. This is where I ran into him. He and I had never spoken before.
He's a tough character. A bona fide "gangbanger" with a "good" reputation among his peers. In here the word 'good' has a different meaning than it does in society. But I'll leave the readers of my journal to figure it out.
Cheetah looks the part of a hardened criminal. But I know the truth. Even the hardest of felons has soul and a conscience. As it so happened, he asked me about my faith. He told me a little about himself. As a kid his mom took him to church, but now the devil has been trying to take him to hell.
His hard exterior melted away as we spoke. He told me that he was happy for me that I seem to have found peace. I told him I have a relationship with Jesus Christ. He didn't scoff, he listened. We had a few laughs, too. Then he had to go.
We tapped the knuckles of our right hands together as a sign of respect. Cheetah is a new arrival to Shawangunk having transferred here from a facility upstate. He's doing a life sentence for "two bodies." It was gang related.
This was what I like to call a "God-ordained” appointment. I experience these quite often, and I'm thankful for the opportunities the Lord gives me to plant the gospel seed into hearts. What will become of our ten-minute encounter, I don't know. But God does.
D. B.
I happened to speak with Cheetah this morning. I was sitting in the waiting area of the prison's Infirmary as I had to take a handicapped individual to the Nurses station. This is where I ran into him. He and I had never spoken before.
He's a tough character. A bona fide "gangbanger" with a "good" reputation among his peers. In here the word 'good' has a different meaning than it does in society. But I'll leave the readers of my journal to figure it out.
Cheetah looks the part of a hardened criminal. But I know the truth. Even the hardest of felons has soul and a conscience. As it so happened, he asked me about my faith. He told me a little about himself. As a kid his mom took him to church, but now the devil has been trying to take him to hell.
His hard exterior melted away as we spoke. He told me that he was happy for me that I seem to have found peace. I told him I have a relationship with Jesus Christ. He didn't scoff, he listened. We had a few laughs, too. Then he had to go.
We tapped the knuckles of our right hands together as a sign of respect. Cheetah is a new arrival to Shawangunk having transferred here from a facility upstate. He's doing a life sentence for "two bodies." It was gang related.
This was what I like to call a "God-ordained” appointment. I experience these quite often, and I'm thankful for the opportunities the Lord gives me to plant the gospel seed into hearts. What will become of our ten-minute encounter, I don't know. But God does.
D. B.
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