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Pete Spackman's Testimony
"Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new." II Corinthians 5:17
"I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind..." Romans 12:1-2
My name is Pete Spackman. I am the director of the School of Christ International Prison Ministries. In the late 1980s and early 1990s I was involved in the prison ministry in Alabama. I worked as a volunteer for about ten hours a day in those prisons. I worked on the yards, preaching and playing ball with the men everyday. Pastor B. H. Clendennen had been a friend of mine for several years. At one point he came to the prisons in Alabama and preached with me for a week. That week we saw God move in a mighty way. I think one thing that really touched him at that time was when he came in to the service at 6:00 that night, and over a hundred and fifty men had already been praying for about an hour for the meetings. I believe it really touched his heart, and he remembered that.
While Pastor Clendennen was in Russia, from 1991 to 1993, these things were on his heart. He called me in late 1992 and asked me to pray about the possibility of going to work with him in the prisons of Russia, presenting the School of Christ, which he had compiled throughout fifty years of ministry. Over the years his teachings had become an effective discipleship tool. For the past two years he had been teaching this to many young men and women in Moscow. Some of the students he had taught in the School of Christ had been in the Russian prisons. Among them were two young men named Alek and Oleg. One of them was from the Ukraine and the other from the Minsk area in Belarus. I knew that it was the will of God for me to go.
When I got to Russia, in January of 1993, Pastor Clendennen sent two young men to my hotel, the Hotel Russia in the middle of Moscow. I didn't know it at the time, but he had sent them to me because one of the men, Oleg, had had a dream. There was a knock on my door, and two guys stood outside, each one about six feet tall, one with gold teeth. The one with gold teeth looked something like Jaws from the James Bond movies.
They greeted me in Russian, I didn't know what it meant so I repeated what they said back, which simply meant, "Praise God!" After realizing that I didn't speak Russian, they went downstairs into the foyer of that huge hotel and found a young translator who spoke Swedish, Russian, and English. When they came back, the translator translated Oleg's dream to me. In his dream he said he was in dirty water catching big fish with his bare hands. Oleg had been in prison in Russia for eight years. He'd come through the School of Christ and now he felt that he wanted to go back into those prisons and preach Christ. He felt equipped now because he'd been through the School of Christ, but he just needed some help. So Pastor Clendennen sent him to me and on hearing his dream and desire I said, "Yeah, let's go for it."
Within the next month, Oleg introduced to me a Russian Major, a man in charge of many prisons in Central Russia. I remember that day very well because it changed my whole life. I stood facing this Russian Major, and he began to talk to me. I told him that I wanted to go into his prisons and preach Christ and teach them this School of Christ.
He said, "I'm an intelligent man. I graduated from Moscow University. Three years ago, when the Red Wall fell, I bought a Bible and began to read and study it", he added, "These prisoner's minds have been scrambled by alcohol and drugs. How can they understand?"
I said, "One thing I know for sure, sir, you don't understand. If you understood this book, you'd know who Jesus Christ came and died for, and why he sent the likes of me into all the world to preach the gospel."
I testified to him for about an hour and a half about how Jesus had saved me, and how he transformed my mind. How, formerly, I was in prison in Britain, but got wonderfully born again. How God, through me hearing the preaching of His Word and studying His Word, had transformed my mind.
After testifying, this Major looked at me and said, "In Siberia, we have 200 labor camps at least. Could you go and take this message?" We left, at that time, delighted. The Major gave me total access, and opened every door for me to go into those 200 labor camps. That was the first of many great miracles that happened from the moment I committed myself to the School of Christ and to teach this school in the prisons of the world.
We went into about 100 of the prisons in Russia. They were some of the most incredible experiences I'd ever had. I remember the first time I went to Siberia. I went to a women's prison. When I got there, I stood outside and watched women shoveling snow in thin cotton dresses. They had cotton gloves and a cotton head scarf on. The snow was three to four feet deep, but there they were in the freezing cold. Every single one of them were blue. At first I thought it was just the freezing weather, 60 below freezing, but I began to notice that every one of them were very very thin. There was hardly any meat on any of them.
They escorted me into an auditorium where they gathered about 600 women. They had on these navy colored cotton dresses with their head scarves, all their faces blue from the cold. I stood there and I thought, "My God, I've got no food. I've got no clothing." I had nothing. I began to weep inside as I looked at this. I'd never seen anything like this in my life. It was a shock to me that God had brought me to this part of the world. It was a tremendous shock to see women like this, living in such conditions. A lot of them had their hair shaven, and a lot of them were very very sick. Many of them were probably dying. I was later to find out that many of them were in different stages of tuberculosis. There were no medicines. There were no doctors. There was nothing there.
So I stood before these 500 to 600 women and began to preach from John 4, concerning the women at the well. About half way through the message, their hands began to rise, and though the color of their faces didn't change, there became a radiance about them. That day many of those women committed their lives to the Lord. At that point I really knew why Jesus came, to rescue and to save the destitute and the broken. It was a tremendous experience! After I'd preached, the Major of that prison, a woman, took me around the facility. She showed me the hospital ward, and as described earlier, there were many women in various stages of tuberculosis.
Many of the women would give birth in the prison and keep them in that environment. Many of the children had no teeth because there was no dental care for them. They just rotted out. There'd be no doctors, no dentists, nothing. Of course, I'm not a mercenary, so I hadn't brought food or clothing, but I looked at that Major and I said to her, "Lady, next time I come, I'm going to bring you some medicine and some food, whatever I can do to help." She looked right through me. I didn't understand her look, but she'd heard that many times before. That month I preached in twenty-eight prisons in the Perm region and Siberia and all across Central Russia with tremendous results. It was a wonderful experience.
When I came back home I told my wife, Angie, what I wanted to do. I told her that I had a tremendous need to meet. These women have got nothing. I explained to her that they were hungry and cold, and that I'd promised them medicines. I told her that when I'd promised it to them that I didn't even know where the words had come from. They just came from my heart, but that I knew that I couldn't provide what I'd told them I would.
I met some men from the Perm region and other places in Russia, who ministered in the Ural Mountains. God had given me a team of great young men. One of the men, who was in the Perm region, needed a four wheel drive vehicle to go over the mountains because that's where all the prisons were. There was nothing but snow and ice there in the winter. They absolutely needed a four wheel drive vehicle. There were over 100 prisons in that area. They'd reached a few, but they needed better vehicles to reach most of them. So I told them that I would get them two four wheel drives, one for the minister in Siberia and another for this particular ministry in Perm, which had four men ministering in the prisons. God have given me these men for the work, and so I promised those vehicles to them.
When I went home and told my wife of the promises I'd made to provide these men with vehicles, and to bring the prison Major food and medicine for the inmates, it dawned on me how powerful a commitment I'd made. I'd left Montgomery, Alabama totally on faith. I had no church support, and my own family with four children to support. We were really believing God. With about two weeks to go until my next trip, which was sometime in the beginning of March of that same year, I was again committed to go for a month. I had no money whatsoever. At the time I didn't have any way at all of providing the medicines, or any way to provide those two vehicles. Out of nowhere I got a call from Brenda Turnage (Pastor Clendennen's daughter, who I knew very well). She said, "Pete, do you have a need for any medicines?"
"Oh, I sure do," I said, "In fact, in two weeks I'm going to be in the Perm region."
"Well, I've got a container of medicines in Moscow."
"I need it in a village in Perm!", I replied.
She said, "Okay, we'll see what we can do."
When I got there the next month that huge container of medicines and food and clothing was there. It was a tremendous blessing! To this day, I don't know where it came from.
With about three or four days until I was to leave Alabama, I still didn't have the money for the vehicles. I didn't even have the money for my own ticket. Although, by faith, I'd booked it, I hadn't paid for it. I had $10,000 for one of the vehicles, but I needed $11,000 more to fulfill my obligation, which was for the two vehicles, and of course, my fare there. I got a call from Pastor Clendennen on a Saturday morning (I was leaving on the following Tuesday) and he said," Bro. Pete, how is it going?"
I said, "Pretty good Pastor Clendennen."
He said, "When are you going?"
I answered, "Tuesday."
He said, "How are you fixed for money?"
So I said, "Well, I've got $10,000, Pastor, but I need about $11,000 more." Of course I told him of the commitment.
He said, "Okay, look Brother, I don't have that money. I don't have that money at all. We've been living on faith, but I'm preaching out on the west coast this weekend, so let's see what God can do."
Well, early Tuesday morning the FedEx man came with a package. (I'm supposed to be leaving at 11:00am that day.) I quickly opened it. Inside the package was a check for $14,000! It was $11,000 for the commitments I'd made and $3,000 for Angie and my four girls. God had wonderfully provided the vehicles that we needed for the school!
When we got back to Russia we presented them to the ministers. That was the beginning of a tremendous journey with God in the prisons of that nation, living and operating by the provision of God. Of course it also made me realize the kind of people I was working with in the School of Christ. People that were totally committed to doing what they said they wanted to do, and that was to go into the dungeons of those prisons and into all the world preaching the gospel.
So we set off with that work in Perm. I began to travel the region and Siberia. Everywhere we went we had multitudes of men commit their lives to God. Then we would enroll them and put them through the School of Christ. As the four years went by that I was in and out of Russia, the amazing changes that took place in those prisons and those men's hearts were awesome. I remember going to one prison in Siberia. I had complete access to the whole prison. I found myself in the gymnasiums playing volleyball and things with the prisoners, and even with the guards. I saw multitudes of guys get really born again. It was just amazing.
In some of the prisons that I went to the men that led the School of Christ for us were military men, or were soldiers working for their government. I remember one man, who was a Major in the Russia military, and was in charge of several prisons. I went in his house one day and he had furniture that was made of food boxes: oranges boxes and apple boxes, and little homemade cots for his children. He was running one of the Schools of Christ with the prisoners. It was just amazing. The men that he gave me were awesome men of God, Oleg and Alek, to name a couple. Oleg had spent eight years in one of the prisons of Russia.
Now he was on fire with God, so much so that as the years have gone by he's still in the Belarus area, almost fifteen years later, running a prison ministry. He's also been able to build a humungous church there in the Ukraine, and has several churches that have come from that one. His church is also involved greatly in prison ministry throughout the Ukraine. They run a halfway house that holds about 200 men in the Minsk area. It's been an incredible experience watching God continue to touch lives. It's was an amazing journey in Russia, but it was just the beginning of a phenomenal time with the School of Christ, for me and for the multitudes of men that I was going to meet throughout the world, and the amazing miracles that have taken place.
In 1996, I was invited to go to South America by Pastor Clendennen and an evangelist, who he introduced me to, named Robert Mason. We flooded the prisons in Russia with the School of Christ, and we wanted to do the same in South America. Bro. Mason and his family were missionaries to Peru, so we felt that was a good place to start. In June of 1996, Bro. Mason introduced me to the military men who were in charge of the prisons there. I met with a General by the name of John Nacantacary. He answered only to the former president of Peru, Alberto Fujimori. He was in charge of all the prisons in Peru. General Nacantacary asked me the same question as the Major who was in charge of the Russian prisons, "What do you want to do?"
To which I replied, "I would love to go into your prisons, preach Christ Jesus and set the inmates up in school where they will know Christ, and where they will form a relationship with God through the Word of God." I began to talk to him about them being transformed by the renewing of their minds and being new creatures in Christ. That these men who were now living in impossible situations could be wonderfully saved. I told him about how the men in Russia had been powerfully transformed, and that now I have the answer for every man in his prisons.
He looked at me and said, "You want to put a school in my prisons?"
I said, "Yes sir."
He said, "I have the worst prisons in the world. Lurigancho has recently been documented by ABC (or one of those big TV companies in America) and they deemed this prison, called Lurigancho, the worst in the world." In my heart I chuckled when he said that because I had seen the most abominable situations that you ever put your eyes on in the prisons of Siberia. (One time, in Minsk, I was standing outside a prison and I saw a woman in what looked like a white doctor's uniform picking up grass. She seemed to be sorting blades of grass out from the rest. I found out at lunch time, because I ate with the prisoners, that we had grass soup. Another time I was way up in Siberia, in a prison in Kemerovo, and for lunch they gave me fish soup. It was just minnows in water, nothing else.) So, when this General Nacantacary tells me that he has the worst prison in the world I had every reason not to believe him.
The next day he took me himself to that prison. I told him what I wanted to do, that I wanted to go on the yards and preach Christ. I told him that he didn't have to set up anything for me, just let me go. But one thing I asked of him was that he gave me a place to run the School of Christ on a daily basis. I told him that I would get some volunteers to run it every day. So he said okay.
When we went into the prison the next day, there were many guards with machine guns on the outside perimeter of the prison. When we went inside I honestly could not believe what I saw. You talk about culture shock. I'd never seen anything like it in my whole life. Men were naked and half-naked. There were 6,000 men in Lurigancho, a prison built for 1,000. There were no bathing facilities or toilets. Every man had a dirty face. They washed outside with hoses. It was so unreal. The prison wings stank of urine and excrement, which was scattered all over the place. There was not one window intact in the whole prison. Many of the men had dogs running around, scrawny and scruffy. It was filthy, no grass, nothing. None of the men worked. Every day they would be gambling with dice for each other's bodies. I could not believe what I was seeing.
The man I was with, Bro. Mason, my translator, said, "What are we going to do?"
I said, "Son, we're going to do what God's called us to do!" There we were in the middle of that prison among the worst heathens that you ever did see in your life. They looked it. I never saw a scene like that in the movies. It's not an easy picture to paint. Some of those prison blocks were about five stories high. There were men on the roofs, and men hanging out of the windows naked, half-naked, and filthy. There were men on the yard standing there as I began to preach.
None of these men had worked. One of the scariest and most horrible things that we saw in that prison was that about 6,000 wives would come on the weekends with their children. The visiting room was each man's cell. This doesn't leave much to the imagination. They had only rice for food supplied by the prison during the week. Any other food they had was brought in by their families on the weekends. It was a world that I never knew existed. It was so filthy; how a man could go so low. How sin could bring a man down! I was looking at the sin, and it was open. Drugs were freely available in that prison. Men with amputated legs were grabbling around on the floor in the filth, begging. Only fifty percent of the men even had beds. The rest of them slept in the streets of the prison because they didn't have money to buy beds. It was so appalling.
Within about two weeks of us preaching there we had over 200 men who had committed their ways to the Lord, so I approached the General and he gave me a room to put the men in school. The School of Christ bought the chairs. We got electricity running via a wire that stretched about 200 yards from one place to the place they had given us, which had been totally abandoned, no windows, just bars. There were no doors on the place. We cleaned it up, put the chairs in, got the TV and set it up to play the DVDs, which is how we ran the School of Christ there.
Every morning from 9:00 until 12:00, eighty-three men would come. They would sit and watch the DVDs, and then they would take the School of Christ manual, that we'd provided for them in Spanish, and study the Word of God. After three months when the first school had finished, every single one of those eighty-three men were washed. It was amazing! They looked different. They were changed because something had happened on the inside. A work of God had begun in each one of them.
Unlike Russia, I was having a close-up view of what God was really doing. In Russia I'd left the men and the School of Christ, but here I was staying with them, and watching God do His amazing work. Just to see them washed, presenting themselves clean every morning, was amazing.
After those first three months the only building at Lurigancho that was clean was the School of Christ. They'd painted, with professional skill, a School of Christ International mural on the wall. It looked so wonderful compared to what it was before. I told those men upon graduating them, that "In the next week or two we were going to have another revival on the yard like I did a few weeks ago when you guys got saved. We're going back on the yards."
Those men looked at me, and they said, "Brother, we have sixty converts of our own." In those three months they had witnessed and shared Christ, and already had those sixty converts to start the next school. And so it was, for months on end. Every few months we'd start a new school, our volunteers going in everyday conducting that School of Christ. They would pray for an hour before the lessons began every single day. It was just amazing! Every time I'd come back, from month to month, I'd see tremendous changes taking place.
I remember Pastor Clendennen going in (I think it was for the second graduation), and at the entrance, where once was filthy and rotten, they had planted rose bushes and formed a kind of a garden. It smelled really good. As we walked through the gate we could hear the bongo drums out in the distance coming from the School of Christ. You could hear the worship. It was sending up a tremendous aroma of praise to God. As we got closer, tears began to run down Pastor Clendennen's face, not a man to openly weep. He looked at me and he said, "Son, I've waited for this all my life." When we got to that graduation he was absolutely astounded at what God was doing. The men sat and listened to him as he taught. He couldn't believe the amount of work that God was doing. The presence of God in that vile place was truly awesome. Men were being saved and going out to peach every single day.
Through four years, 1996 until 2000, at least ten or eleven times a year, I'd be in the prison with our workers. It got greater all the time. During the third year that I went into that prison, I was met by the psychiatrist, whose name was Sesser Boganira. He was in charge of fifteen other psychiatrists in there. He asked, "Can I speak to you, sir?"
I said, "By all means."
He began to tell me, "I've been a psychiatrist in this prison for fifteen years, and every day we put men through psychological therapy, then we evaluate them when their term has expired." He said, "Everyday we have about 500 men in a class where we put them through the psychological therapy, and about a year ago I noticed two men who were different." The psychiatrist said that he'd never seen any man's character change in all the years that he'd been there, but now there were these two men who he noticed were different.
He said, "I asked them why they were different." They told him that they had been washed in the blood of the Lamb! The psychiatrist said, "We rejected them on the grounds of nonconformity, but today there are 3,000 of them, and twenty churches in this prison." He said, "Could you please teach me the ways of Christ?"
For three days I sat with him and his fifteen other psychiatrists. In fact, the first day, Pastor Clendennen and Pastor White with some other men from the U.S were with me. It was just like in Acts 26:28 after we'd finished, were King Agrippa tells Paul, "You almost persuaded me to be a Christian." This psychiatrist said just that. After which he added, "One thing I ask of you, Bro. Pete, would you go into all the prisons, including the terrorists' prisons...?" He listed many of them.
He said, "You have a high power", that's what he called it, "would you teach Christ? In fact, I have a class this afternoon with about 500 men. Most of them are sex offenders." He said, "Would you come and teach Christ, and invite them to know Jesus and to come into your school?"
I said, "Yes sir!" That afternoon I went into that auditorium and I preached Christ. The psychiatrist introduced me as "A man of high power".
He said, "I don't have power to change your life, but this man has power to change your life." So I began to preach Christ, and led many of them to God. In the next school we started, we had at least thirty of those guys out of that one meeting. I could tell many incredible stories like that.
Mr. Boganira, the psychiatrist, described to me the things that had changed. Buildings had been changed. Big ol' prison blocks that were once filthy and wrecked, the men had now cleaned them up and painted them. Now there were gospels texts all over the place. There was nobody naked anymore, and now, when their wives would come in they would have open-air services on the yards. The men would be teaching their children, hundreds of them, songs and hymns. It was the most amazing thing! That's what Pastor Clendennen was saying. "This is what I've lived for all my life. I've wanted to see this!" It was awesome!
From there, General Nacantacary approached me and asked, "Pete, I would like you to go into the terrorist prison, Castro Castro. Would you take this message with you? It's high security, but we'll make a way for you to go in and teach."
I said, "Yes sir", and within weeks I was in Castro Castro. One of the things he told me was that I could go into every wing, but don't go in B-wing. So I just agreed to do what he said. I was so thankful for the opportunity. God gave us great opportunities like that one. In fact, he gave us the opportunity to go to every major prison in Peru and preach the gospel and start the School of Christ. So there I was, at Castro Castro the first day. We were standing outside waiting for the guards to let us in, but they were reluctant because it was maximum security. From the outside it looked formidable, just a huge concrete place. They kept us waiting and were disputing that we weren't allowed to come in, and how dangerous it was, giving us all that kind of talk.
So, I asked the translator that was with me to call General Nacantacary's office and tell him that we were having problems getting in, after he'd already said that we could go in. I told him that we'd been standing there for thirty minutes now and that they were very reluctant to let us in. So he said, "Okay, one moment. Just wait outside." And within five minutes they took us in. The man in charge there asked me what I would like to do.
I said, "I would like to go to every wing, preach Christ, and give them an opportunity to enroll in the School of Christ."
So he said okay. I told him that I needed at place that we could set up for the guys to meet every day to preach Christ and run the School of Christ. So he said okay, and we went into a wing that day and I begin to preach Christ. That afternoon I was passing the wing that Gen. Nacantacary told me not to go in, B-wing. A man had hung himself out of the window, waved to me and shouted (being translated), "You'll not come in here! You are scared!"
So I answered back, "No, I'm not scared. Tomorrow afternoon I'll come in at 2:00!" I said, "Do you play soccer?"
He said, "Yes, I play soccer."
I said, "I'll teach you how to play soccer English style." So the next day I bought a pair of shoes and a soccer ball.
Those words that I said to him just came from my heart. There was no religion in them. They just came from God. That afternoon I went in, and they allowed me to go into that B-wing. There were about 120 men in that wing. They were all sitting on the concrete floor. The recreation yard was all concrete, about the size of one and a half soccer fields, with huge thirty foot concrete walls all the way around. So I went in and played soccer with about twenty of them for about an hour or so. The rest sat curiously watching.
I was also with a couple from England, called Lillian and Brian Taylor, who I had invited with me. They began to sing to the hundred or so guys sitting on this concrete floor. Then I said to them, "Now I'd like to tell you why I really came." I began to preach Jesus Christ and him crucified. That day forty of those terrorists gave their lives to Jesus.
These terrorists were the worst kind in the world. They weren't like the common prisoner. Many of these men were educated. They'd come through universities and colleges, and were doctors and psychiatrists, police and politicians. Praise God, we had led over forty of them to the Lord!
Within a week I started the School of Christ there. We had an awesome time with those guys! While we would be conducting the School of Christ, the Shining Path terrorists would be marching the goose-step march outside. They were very threatening. Over the period of about two years the first group of men that we put through the School of Christ put the school in all that prison. They were allowed to go in every wing and preach Christ. We saw tons and tons of the vilest men give their hearts to Jesus.
We went in there (Castro Castro) one morning and had a time of worship, then I began to preach on the baptism of the Holy Ghost. We had no chairs, so the men just sat on the concrete floor. After a while I noticed a big guy with both hands in the air. He was crying his eyes out. When we were leaving I said the translator, "Let's go figure out who he is and why he's crying."
So we went to him. He said his name was Kachita. He began to tell us his testimony. He was a terrorist. In fact, he was a major threat to the Peruvian government at that time. He worked in the jungle with the Peruvian Army bringing narcotics out in helicopters. He made a lot of money. He began to tell us how he had got caught, and that he was responsible for taking 300 lives. Now, here he is crying with both hands lifted up into the air, telling us how, after being caught, he'd been born again. He said that when he'd got to this prison a nun had given him a Bible, and he began to read it, and he cried out to God. He said, "I don't know how long I was crying, but when I stopped I began to speak in this language.
Every one of those men in that prison thought I was crazy because none of them knew what I was saying." He said, "An unknown tongue came out of me. It was an awesome feeling, and I couldn't stop speaking in this language!" He said, "And when you preached today I understood that I'd been baptized in the Holy Ghost like those disciples on the day of Pentecost. I also received that power!" And he sure did. Every year he'd be transferred from place to place, and every prison they'd put him in he would preach Christ. He would take the School of Christ with him. He became a tremendous man of God.
Gen. Nacantacary called me one summer to tell me of the following story about Kachita. He had previously received two life sentences, but at this time he was in the Supreme Court of that country for other charges. He was there testifying of how he was working with the government to bring drugs out, and how he'd implicated the government, including the president of that country. Needless to say, he was under close watch by armed guards all the time.
I remember when Gen. Nacantacary called me, he said, "Bro. Pete, were you watching the TV today?"
"No sir", I replied.
He said, "Kachita gave this story on the TV. 'The reason I've come clean is not because I've worked a deal with the government. I'm already doing two life sentences. The only reason I'm coming clean is because I'm a born again Christian, and full of the Holy Ghost. I gave my life to Jesus.'" That was the General telling me that incredible story. Of course, the rest is history. We know how that government was implicated and of the crimes.
From there it was so amazing. Gen. Nacantacary called me one time because he knew I was in the country. He said, "Mr. Pete, when are you going home?"
I told him I was going home on that Friday.
"Is it possible for you to stay until next week?" he said.
I said, "Why?"
He said, "You have not been to the prison in Callao. We have great problems there, and I would love for you to come. I would set it up so that every man would come to hear you preach."
I said, "When could you do that?"
He said, "On Monday we could have mass meetings on the yards. You could bring singers in and then preach and introduce the School of Christ."
So I said, "Okay, I'll do that."
Nacantacary said, "But I've got one condition."
"What's that?" I said.
He said, "On Friday afternoon I'm going into Callao because there's been some illegal activities going on, and I want to get to the bottom of it. I would like you to come in with me. I want to go to some of the main gang leaders there. I want to cut a deal with them to come clean about the corruption involving the guards."
So I said, "Okay, I'll come in with you." So we went in on that Friday afternoon, and he introduced me to these gang leaders, about thirty of them. Nacantacary had told them that there would be no implications, and that none of them would get in any trouble if they would come clean about the corruption. So they began to confess and talk to about the corruption in the prison. They would have to pay the director of the prison $50 to get a visit, and so on. After speaking with the men we left.
I got a call from Nacantacary on Saturday night. He said, "Pete, we have a big problem."
I said, "What is it?"
He said, "These men who I promised would suffer no implications have been beaten and thrown into isolation cells." He added, "I don't know what to do."
"Are you asking me what I would do?" I replied.
He answered, "Yes."
I said, "First of all, I would go there right away and I'd apologize to them if you want to win back the respect that they had for you, otherwise you'll lose their confidence. You have a great opportunity to affect these men."
So he said, "Okay," and not much else.
On Monday we started the revival in Callao. Every man in that prison was on the yard. Gen. Nacantacary had brought the TV cameras and the newspapers in (I have a giant copy of the article describing all of the events that went on that day). He brought every one that you could think of: guards, every director of operations, the Chief of Security. I preached and we had hundreds commit their lives to the Lord. Through that revival, we had many schools start inside that prison.
The amazing part of that testimony is that I asked a prisoner what happened over the weekend, and he said, "What Gen. Nacantacary did when he came in for us was fire one of the directors of guards on the spot." The prisoner said, "He won our hearts when he did that."
It's amazing what the power of this gospel can do. Men are transformed by the renewing of their minds everyday in these vile places. That day we had hundreds saved, including the Chief of Security. It was amazing. One day I was in that prison teaching the School of Christ. I didn't know all the men by their names, but there was a man who they called Samson.
He wasn't a great big tall man, but he was very broad and it was obvious that he'd been around a bit. He had a chest like a barrel, and was very strong, so they called him Samson. He got up to testify in the class, and I promise you, it brought tears to my eyes. It melted me. He said he'd been in prison for twenty-two years and escaped four times, once from the terrorist prison, Castro Castro. He said, "Each time I escape, they break my hands or my legs, but they couldn't break me." He continued, "Just a short while ago, Jesus broke me. I gave my life to Christ." He added, "I wanted to do good in that prison, so I decided, because I had heard the preaching of the School of Christ in Spanish and in English, that I wanted to learn English. So I went to the School of Christ just to learn English." He picked up the book and learned English through the School of Christ. He'd written everything down and translated it himself. Now, here he was telling us this story. He said, "One day, as I was listening to the man of God, God broke me, and I gave my heart to him." Amen!
One day I went into that prison, and as I passed a stairwell, there Samson was sitting underneath with about twenty young men, preaching Jesus to them. They gave him so much favor, (remember, this is the guy that escaped four times) that they allowed him to walk and preach in every wing of that prison called Callao. It's amazing what God has done!
I can tell you many stories. There was a man in that prison called William. I don't know how much time he had done, but he didn't have long to go there when I met him. He was one of our first enrollees in the School of Christ, but he left the prison before he could graduate. Before he left though, I asked him what he wanted to do. He said, "I want to win my wife and my sons back. We're all estranged from each other. Nobody knows where any of them are." Well, about four or five months after he left the prison, I was preaching in a church in Lima, and who do you think was there but Willie. He had heard that I would be preaching in town, so he came with his mother and one of his sons. His mother, an elderly woman, gave her heart to Jesus that night. After the service I went to him and asked him again, "Willie, what is it that you want to do?" and he said, "I've still got to get back with my wife and children."
About a year after that I brought my wife, Angie, to Peru with me for the first time. I took her in the prison, so she could see exactly how we operated. We found out where Willie lived, so we went to his house. By this time, Willie was back with his two boys and wife. They had one couch, that's all the furniture they had in their house. I asked him, "Willie, what are you doing?"
He said, "Brother Pete, I want to build a church." It was amazing. He had no furniture, but he wanted to build a church! He said he wanted to reach this world for Jesus. Willie was an amazing brother. Over the years, he had built a forty foot long boat. It took him four years to build it. In it he goes up and down the Amazon River and preaches Christ in all the villages. He's also built a home for young men and women that don't have a place to go.
Just recently I was back in Peru. I ate with his son, who is now seventeen years old and in college in Peru. Willie's oldest son is a missionary in Brazil. Brother Willie is doing an incredible work with a young man named Pepe. Pepe spent eight years in Lurigancho, but now, right in the middle of the jungle of Iquitos, he has a ministry for little children who are starving. Every week he feeds eighty to a hundred kids. I've been out there with him in his little church, preaching this gospel. This is many years after me first going into the prisons of Peru. It's amazing what God does all across this world.
I was recently informed of two men who were incarcerated at Castro Castro, Brother Darwin and Brother Santos, two friends. Both were very educated men, however, both of them were terrorists as well. I learned of a letter from the Argentine that was directed to a missionary there. It said something like this, "Dear Missionary, my name is Santos. Thank you that you're in the Argentine with the School of Christ. I also am a missionary to the Argentine, and have also been through the School of Christ International. However, I would like to go through a refresher course...If you need to get any information from me, call Brother Pete Spackman in Montgomery, AL. You see sir, it was Brother Pete that came to Castro Castro many years ago, that funny little English man, and he preached Christ Jesus. Many of us gave our hearts to God. Then we preached, and put the School of Christ in all the wings of that prison. Four years ago we were granted amnesty by the new president, and today I am a full-time preacher in the Argentine. My brother, Darwin, is a pastor in Calgary, Canada."
Some of the testimonies were incredible. How the vilest had gotten wonderfully born again of the Spirit of God. One particular man was an evil, wicked man. He was a drug dealer, even on the inside of the prison, but some of our young converts were living in the same block as him and they'd gone to him witnessing about the love of God. He would always tell them, "I'll come to church on Tuesday", or "I'll come tomorrow night", but he'd never come.
One night he was doing a drug deal on the roof of the prison block. There were a bunch of guys wheeling and dealing up there. (Keep in mind; this is during our time of being in the prison, the time of the School of Christ.) He said, "The police came in their helicopters. There were ten killed. One of my best friends was one of them. I fell off that roof, which was four stories high, running away from the guards. I hit the bottom and I woke up in the hospital." He said when he woke up in the hospital there wasn't a scratch or a mark on his body. (The reason I know this testimony is because one Saturday morning this guy was sitting in the yard, and I asked him to testify. I just saw the glow of God on him. I'd met him, but I'd never talked to him. So there he was testifying on a Saturday morning.)
He went on to say that he knew right then and there in the hospital that God was trying to get his attention. He said he still didn't go to church, but on that Saturday night there was a blackout in the prison. He said, "All of a sudden, I sensed it was symbolic of me being in hell. I ran downstairs and into the chapel of one of the wings, and I lifted up my hands and began to shout 'I want to be saved! I want to be saved!'" Some of the men that were in there thought he was messing around again and were trying to escort him out, but he said, "No. I want to know God. I want to know God." He said, "There and then I gave my life to God."
He added, "Now that I'm born again, I want you to pray with me, because I've destroyed my family. I have several children and a beautiful wife that I lived with for years, but I destroyed them by living like an animal. I broke their hearts." He said, "A couple of weeks ago I called my wife. My daughter answered the phone. She said 'Dad, don't call again. You've destroyed us." He then began to cry as he told the story. He said, "Please pray for my wife and my family."
The day after he testified I got up to preach. Many visitors gave their hearts to the Lord that day. Among whom was his wife. She'd gone in with her daughter to see her son; that day her and her son gave their lives to Jesus. It was awesome to see things like that.
I mentioned before that nobody ever worked in that prison. It was filthy, rotten, and lazy. They laid down in all the mess. One day I had another guy testify. He'd come from a Roman Catholic family, all devout Catholics. He said they had all kinds of idols in their home. He said, "My father and my brother would come and visit me once a month, but I gave my life to Jesus one day. When my father and brother came, I told them what I'd done, and they both said to me, 'We're never coming back again.'" He said, "You see, I lived with them up north before I moved into Lima, Peru. While I was in Lima I met this girl, and lived with her. I'd get drunk all the time and beat her up badly. One day she told me that she'd given her life to Jesus, she was saved."
He said, "I'd wait for her every Sunday after church, and I'd beat her." He said when he came into prison he was scared to death because of the rumors that he'd heard about the place, that he'd be raped and beaten and any money he had would be taken from him. He said, "But when I came in I met a man who told me that he was a preacher. He allowed me to share his cell with him. Everyday he would get up in the morning and read his Bible and pray. I gave my heart to God, and since that time I've been reconciled back to my common-law wife and to my children. They come in and see me now."
One day I was in the prison yard and the same guy who gave us that testimony shouted me and said, "Mr. Pete, I want to show you something." He took me to a huge dormitory. When I got into that wing I saw that the men had transformed it into a workshop where they had cut an old Volkswagen Beetle in half and enlarged it, and made a beautiful convertible vehicle out of it. They were doing this everyday with old wrecked vehicles. They had created a garage to take these old wrecks and make them beautiful. They'd also opened the other half of that dormitory where they worked all day and slept every night. They made it into a furniture shop where they could make their own furniture. I'm telling you, they made some of the most beautiful stuff that you'd ever seen in your life. These testimonies are absolutely awesome!
It's amazing what God is doing through the School of Christ. I could tell you many, many, many stories, but the testimony is that I know God isn't finished with us yet. There's great work going on through the School. In the year 2001 I began to put the School of Christ in the prisons of Alabama. I called the Commissioner of the prisons, and he allowed me to call the Chaplains together to meet with them about what I wanted to do. After meeting together he agreed to let me put the School of Christ into his prisons.
In the beginning we had great success in those prisons, but God had other great plans for us as well. Due to problems with overcrowding in Alabama's prison system they sent many of the men and women prisoners to private prisons, called CCA (Corrections Corporation of America). CCA manages approximately 75,000 inmates including males, females, and juveniles at all security levels, in more than 60 facilities in 19 states and the District of Columbia.
At this time I received a phone call from a young friend who was now in a CCA facility in Mississippi. I'd led him to the Lord, and put him through the School of Christ in Alabama, but he'd been transferred. He said, "Brother Pete, is it possible that you could come to Mississippi with the School of Christ?" He explained that it was at a private prison, owned by CCA. I told him that I'd call the Warden. So I called him, James Cook, and I didn't know it but he was a retired Warden from the Alabama system.
I said, "Mr. Cook, this is Pete Spackman."
He responded, "Pete, what can I do for you?"
So I explained to him how I wanted to put the School of Christ into his prison. He told me he'd see what he could do, and to call him back next week. The next week I called him back. He said, "Pete, we're having to send these men back to Alabama".
"Why?" I asked.
He said, "Because they [the state of Alabama] haven't paid."
So I said, "Ok, but could you help me out here?"
He said, "What do you need?"
I said, "Give me some information about this company because I want to write to them and give them the opportunity to accept this School into their prisons."
So he told me that the head offices were in Nashville, TN, and he gave me their names. The next day I called. I talked to a man named John Lanz, who was the understudy to a man named Dennis Bradby. I explained who I was and what I wanted to do. So they set up a meeting for me in Tennessee to present these things to them. Within a few days I was in the head office of CCA in Nashville presenting the School of Christ teachings via the manual.
They said, "We're looking for material like this to put in our prisons. We believe that God is the answer." Of course when they told me that, I was delighted. So I gave them the manual, and they asked me to call after a week. So I did, and they told me that they gave the book to a pastor there, and he said that it was incredible material. They told me that they wanted to see how far we could go with this. They said they were going to have a meeting with five other ministries from across the United States including the Chuck Colson Ministries, the Bill Glass Champions for Life ministry, Bill Gothard's Institute in Basic Life Principals, etc. So my wife and I met with them, and I introduced the School of Christ to an audience of about 200 employees of CCA. In attendance were Chaplains, Wardens, Programs Facilitators, and such.
After I spoke they said that they wanted to put the School of Christ into their prisons. So, we began to put the School into their prisons, over sixty across the U.S., and for the last five years that's what I've been doing. I started preaching in the prisons of Mississippi, and now go to Ohio, Pennsylvania, California, Tennessee, Oklahoma, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Texas, etc. Some states, such as Arizona, have six, or more prisons in them that are owned and operated by CCA. We've had tremendous results. It's the same wherever I go. We have the School of Christ running strongly in these places.
Through this, word has spread all across America regarding the School of Christ. It's been amazing! Men began to write into our main office wanting information, so much so, that we're now in over 1,000 prisons in America via the School of Christ Correspondence Course, which we developed a few years ago. Amen! We have over 40,000 men going through the School of Christ via this course.
I've recently been in five of the six CCA prisons in Arizona. It's phenomenal what God is doing in one particular prison in Florence, AZ. I went in and preached on a Friday. For the first meeting we had about a hundred men show up. What's amazing is that five or six years ago I met some of these men in different states, and they'd come to know the Lord then. Now they stop me to say, "Brother Pete, do you remember me from Diamondback in Oklahoma? You brought me to Christ and I've been through the School." We're talking about five years later.
I promise you, that first night's meeting in Florence was over a hundred men and each and every one of them were waiting for me to come. I felt like the Apostle Paul. The presence of God was so wonderful. The next day I did two more services with two totally different groups. All of them had been through the School of Christ and were born again. It was an amazing experience just to see what God is doing behind those prison walls!!! Indeed, he is building his church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.
When I was leaving that prison on the Saturday afternoon I began to talk to the guard who was escorting me to the front gate. I asked him where he was from, and he said, "Texas".
So I asked, "What are you doing out here in Arizona?"
He said, "Two weeks ago I got transferred."
So I asked him how he liked it out here and how things were going.
He said, "It's amazing here!"
I said, "In what way?"
He said, "Man, the respect that the men give you. It's unreal. And the peace that's in this prison. It's unheard of." He was an unsaved man.
God is doing a great and a mighty work in the CCA facilities. This week I'll be in Kentucky, where we have the School of Christ in three prisons. From there I'll go to Northeastern Ohio for two days, then to Indiana for a couple of days. After that I'll drive back down to Mississippi for four prisons, where we began working with CCA, one of them being a brand new facility in Adams County, which I've never been to. I'll be preaching Christ in each prison I go to.
I'll be back home at the end of October, then I'll be off to Peru for a couple weeks in November: to Lurigancho, Castro Castro, and hopefully to the jungle of Iquitos to see my Brothers. I'll be going to the CCA prisons in Oklahoma, Kansas, Colorado, and California before the end of this year. In January or February we'll be going into Brazil to set up the School of Christ, and in March or April we'll be going into the prisons of the Ukraine to do some work with Brother Oleg.
It's a great gospel! This is an up-to-date view of what's been going on throughout the years with the School of Christ Prison Ministry. It's a tremendous work and I'm very thankful to be a part of it and what God is doing through it. Praise God!
Pete Spackman
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