I need to start from the beginning so that you can know where I started from to see how far God has brought me. When I was maybe 5 years old my parents, my sister and I started going to the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. My dad’s friends that he grew up with went there and I believe they talked him into going. I hated it, I was miserable! At one point I got baptized there, I didn’t know what I was doing, other kids were doing it, so I joined in.
When I was 15, I asked my dad if I could go to a Baptist Church with my best friend, dad said “as long as you live in my house you’ll go where we go!” That didn’t help my hatred with that church at all! At 16 I started running around with the “Wrong crowd”, I started drinking beer, smoking marijuana and sampling other drugs. I’m not sure if I hated God or just didn’t like him but I blamed him for any bad thing that happened in my life, but of course all the good things were my doing (so I thought)!
One day at the age of 17 I stopped by a local fireworks stand, I met a pretty blond girl and we started talking, then I asked her out. She was a Christian I wasn’t, she and her family went to the Church of Christ. It wasn’t much better than the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Lds in my opinion. But I was with my girlfriend so I could handle it for a few hours a week.
At the age of 18 we got married, we moved into what was called a cabin, it was a small 1-bedroom apartment at Mallard Bay on Fort Gibson Lake. I immediately quit going to church with her, I hated it anyway. She would sit and read her bible which was okay at first but as time went on, I felt that she was paying more attention to reading her bible and going to church than to me, so I began hiding her bible. I had quit smoking pot and drinking because she didn’t like me doing that, after a short while I started smoking a pipe, it was okay, but it wasn’t marijuana, so I began putting marijuana in the pipe. She didn’t know the difference other than what she called an awful smell.
Later we moved into a FHA home in Wagoner. It was much bigger than the cabin! I was working at Prestolite, a factory in Wagoner that made electric motors, and she worked with her mom at her mom’s restaurant. In our off time I would sit around and listen to hard rock music on the radio. Periodically a good friend of mine (Mike) and his wife (Debra) would come over, Mike and Debra were Christians, and they went to a charismatic church (Hillcrest Christian Fellowship). They loved their church and would talk about it often. They would come visit and immediately Mike would walk over and change my radio station to a Christian station, it would upset me, but I wouldn’t say anything because he was a good friend. But as soon as they left, I would change it back.
When they would talk about their church it would sound much more interesting than any church that I had ever been to, and they would invite us. Finally, I decided to go with them, I don’t know if I really wanted to visit there or just wanted to shut him up (as if he would quit asking!) But we went one Sunday morning. It was nothing like any church that I had ever been to! People looked happy! They were smiling, raising their hands, praising God, and looking up as if they were singing directly to their God! I had never experienced anything like it in my life. For the first time I saw people happy to be in church and in love with their God. I went back the next week! At the end of the service the pastor (pastor Large) asked if anyone wanted to receive Jesus into their heart as their Lord and Savior, and I raised my hand. He walked us through a prayer and my life was changed. People think I’m crazy when I tell them this, but when I walked out of the Church that morning the air smelled different, everything seemed more vivid. My life changed in an instant!
After that I never went partying with my friends anymore. I needed time away from them so I wouldn’t get caught up in how I lived before! I had a radical transformation! I haven’t heard of anyone else having quite that experience, but I know it was real, and it changed my life forever. I went from hating church to loving it, from pretty much hating God to loving him and being so thankful for what he did for me, from hiding my wife’s bible to reading it myself.
We started going to church together at Hillcrest but after a while because it was so different than the church she had attended for all her life, it didn’t seem right to her so she started going back to her old church and I still went to Hillcrest, I just couldn’t handle going from what I thought was amazing services to boring services again. I believe that was the beginning of our problems.
We had a son (David) and we would take turns taking him to church with us. Even though we had a different perspective on church we definitely wanted our son to know that church was important to us, and we wanted him to learn and grow with us. Unfortunately, our different views on religion and other issues continued to drag us apart. When David was around 12, my wife and I separated and later divorced. I started dating a woman that I worked with and soon after we moved in together. David would split his time between me and his mom. We moved to Broken Arrow and started attending a Nazarene church there. The pastor of the Nazarene church married us. We moved to Pryor Creek to be closer to work and started going to a Pentecostal Church of God where some of our friends from work went.
Another friend of mine that I worked with invited us to a revival at his church, he went to a country church west of Pryor. I told him yes; he was on fire for God and I wanted to support him. We went the first night, the minister had a young man with him. He introduced the young man and said that he had led the young man to the Lord and now he is traveling with him as he travels to different churches to preach. That impacted me so much that I couldn't even focus on the rest of his message. I have no idea what he preached about! All I was focused on was how this young man’s life was changed forever just because that pastor had taken the time to speak with him about the Lord. It's not like I didn't know that we could lead people to the lord, but in that instance it became so real to me that I, Dwayne-nobody could change someone's life forever by just taking the time to share with them, and the realization that one minute that person is heading to Hell for eternity, and the next minute they’re on their way to Heaven! WOW! And I was ashamed that all I had accomplished throughout my life was being a pew warmer! Yes, I was faithful about going to church every week, but I doubt that I’d changed anyone’s eternal destination!
But that night I realized that I could and should! That night after returning home I prayed like never before, I told God that I was turning my life over to him to do whatever he wants to do with it, to use it however he can. I told him if he wanted to send me to Russia to be a missionary, I would go. I was totally serious!
There was a church in town called Pryor Creek Community Church. I talked to my wife about going there to visit. She was willing to go so we went the next Sunday. I enjoyed the service. The Pastor was a policeman there in Pryor. He had a good message, the band were all teenagers, they were very good and their songs were uplifting. At the end of his message, he mentioned that that afternoon they were going to Camp Gruber and for those that were going to meet at the Church around 3:00 that afternoon to start loading the band equipment. I was so curious as to what was going on, I really wanted to ask him just out of curiosity, but when church ended people were leaving, some standing around talking, I wanted so badly to talk to him but he was visiting with various people in the congregation, we didn't know anyone there and I'm not the kind of person that just starts talking to strangers, so we went with the flow headed out the door and headed toward our car. All I could think about was that trip to Camp Gruber and how I wished I would have gotten the chance to talk to Pastor Derek! We were almost at our car and all the sudden someone hollers at us, I turn around and it was Pastor Derek! He approached us and asked our names and thanked us for coming, then I asked about the trip to Camp Gruber. He told us about Thunderbird Youth Academy and how they periodically get a new group of cadets. He later told me that there are 3 groups of cadets, “A” company, those are the boys that a Judge said either they go to TYA or they go to jail, “B” company, those are the boys that their parents said I can’t handle them anymore because they’re out of control (Their parents can take them out at any time), and the third group were teenage girls. He said that his church ministers to the cadets and twice a year they get a new group in, and they are allowed to go to Camp Gruber and have a service with them before they come to TYA. Then he said we could go along if we wanted to. I was very excited and told him I’ll be there.
Trip to Camp Gruber to greet the new cadets
I get to the Church, and we start loading all the equipment. We get into a couple of vans and take off. Derek drove a van and let me sit in the passenger seat. We had a nice conversation on the trip over there, I think he mainly just wanted to know where my heart was at. We get there, set up the instruments and a little while later the groups start coming in. This is the only time we will get a chance to see them before they go to TYA. There were like 80 of them, maybe more. Derek welcomes them then the band plays maybe 4 songs then he gives a message on why they need God in their lives, then an alter call and over 25 boys come forward to receive the Lord into their hearts. It was amazing, I got to pray with a few of them. I knew that God had set everything up for me to be there! We started attending that church.
Pryor on Fire Ministry
Every Sunday TYA would bus the teenagers to the church, and we would have a service just for them, they called it Pryor on Fire. Then after that service we would have a regular service for everyone else. On Wednesdays we would have a service for the cadets and break up into small groups. After a couple of weeks Derek asked me if I’d be interested in leading a small group and I said yes (As part of my commitment to God I decided to say yes to any ministry opportunity that came my way.) After a few weeks after one of my messages, I asked if any of them would like to receive Jesus into their heart as Lord and Savior, and one of the boys raised his hand! It kind of shocked me, I had to do a double take. I had never prayed with anyone to receive Jesus into their heart. I was overwhelmed with joy and so glad that God was able to use me to bring about change in someone’s life, that I could be the reason that he will be in Heaven some day!
After a year or so we moved back to Muskogee, my dad was talking about retiring, so I was going to move back so I could work with him and eventually take over the business (which never happened). He did building maintenance for banks in the area. We started visiting several churches around Muskogee trying to find one that we liked. Little did we know that God had it all planned out!
Pastor Derek would occasionally talk about going into the jail cells and witnessing to inmates, I thought that would be amazing to be able to do that, but I just didn’t know anyone that could help me get started with that, but that was the ministry I wanted to pursue.
We were at Pizza Inn one day, it was getting close to Christmas and there was a poster on the wall about a Christmas event at a church called Abiding Life Fellowship, I had absolutely no interest in going to the Christmas event but the poster looked so professional that I wanted to check out the church that made it. Sounds crazy huh? I looked up the address and the next Sunday we visited there, it was a small church, they were really friendly, so we started going there.
After a couple of weeks, the Pastor (Pastor Callahan) asked us out to lunch after church. While we were visiting, he asked me what area of ministry I would like to be involved in. I told him Jail ministry, he said that he knows the guy that is over that at the Muskogee County Jail, and I would just need to watch some videos on what we can and can’t do at the jail. Then he said he would get the videos for me and give me the phone number for Danny the head chaplain that is over the jail ministry! Wow! It was obvious that God had set up that meeting!
Muskogee & Wagoner County Jail
I started going to the jail every Sunday afternoon, several of us would meet and pray then disperse into different locations within the jail.
This is a random image that I downloaded just to give you an idea of a jail pod. This one is much bigger than a Muskogee Co. Jail pod.
There were several pods with Tables in the middle and cells around the perimeter for adult males, there was one for adult females one for male youths and one for what they called detox. Detox was where everyone that got arrested would go first. Most of them would only be there for the weekend. That's the area that I wanted and that's the area that God gave me! Since most of them are only there for the weekend it is so important to reach them with just one message!
Every week I would try to come up with a message that would connect with them and hopefully draw them in. Almost every week one or more inmates would raise their hand to receive the Lord into their heart or to come back to the Lord after they have strayed!
It wasn't a pleasant place to go, plus I'm kind of a germaphobe. It stinks in there, the inmates and loud, cursing, fighting, the guards are hollering at them, it can get quite chaotic at times! A few times the guards would get into a fight with an inmate and spray them with pepper spray. That stuff just floats in the air, after a while we're all coughing and it makes it hard to talk.
In detox there are cells surrounding the room, some of the inmates had to stay in their cells during my message. One Sunday after giving my message one of the inmates in one of the cells asked me if I would come into his cell and speak with him privately. I buzzed the front desk and asked if I could go into his cell, they asked their boss then opened the cell for me to enter. It was a small cell, fortunately I'm not claustrophobic! He expressed what he had been going through and I shared some scriptures with him and prayed for him. Unfortunately, the shift change took place while I was in there. I buzzed the front desk and said, “okay, I'm ready to get out now,” they responded, “I'm sure you are!” I buzzed them again and said, “I'm a chaplain!” they said, “sure you are,” I buzzed them again and gave them my name and they checked the chaplain check in sheet and finally opened the door and let me out. I was starting to get a little worried!
I know that some of you are thinking “yeah, jail house salvation's!” But I have ran into several people that I had met in the jail and they would recognize me and come up to me and thank me for coming there and sharing how God can turn their life around, and just start telling me how different there life has been They would talk about where they're working and that they got married or got back with their wife, tell me how many kids they have and where they're going to church. It's amazing to see how some of them have turned their life around! But of course, there are those who I have prayed with and 2 weeks later they are back in there for the same reason, but those were kind of rare.
You meet various types of people in there as you can imagine! You might have heard about some of them on the news. I spoke with William. He’s the guy that they arrested for Impersonating an Army captain after the I-40 bridge collapsed after getting hit by a barge. He claimed to be Jewish, he got a little upset when they didn’t bring him a Kosher meal, he was friendly though.
I would also go to the youth pod when there were youths in there. I met Harley, a 16-year-old that physically abused his 4 month old son, Doctors discovered the babies arm, elbow, rib and both wrists had been broken and he suffered a bruised skull and legs. I shared the gospel with him, he didn’t respond. Some people might be thinking “he doesn’t deserve to go to Heaven,” but it isn’t my job do determine who goes to heaven I give everyone the opportunity then it’s up to them and God (glad it isn’t my job!)
I would periodically go to Wagoner County Jail and preach and share the gospel with inmates. I went there one day and met Daniel; he’s the boy from Porter that stabbed another boy on the school bus one morning. The other boy died. Daniel Got a 10-year sentence. Fortunately, the boy that died was a faithful Christian according to his mom. I met with Daniel a couple of times and shared the gospel with him, he decided to ask Jesus into his heart, so I prayed with him.
I met a youth leader in Muskogee that got arrested, we had a mutual friend, my friend Steve had a street bike for sale, and the youth leader was interested in it so he took it for a ride. You know when you test ride a motorcycle you have see how much power it has! Well, next thing he knew he heard sirens behind him, at that point he had 2 options, he could pull over and take his punishment then or he could try to lose the cop with his impressive driving ability! Well, he chose the latter and his driving ability wasn’t so impressive, especially to the cop, so he got to spend the weekend behind bars, and I’m sure a ticket also! Again, you meet all kinds of people in there.
After 7 or 8 years the county quit allowing us to go into the jail cells. From what I understand, one of the chaplains gave one of the inmates some medication for a headache or illness and the inmate had a bad reaction to it. To prevent anything like that from happening again they felt that that was the only way to ensure that that didn't happen again. It was so sad because of all the lives that had changed over the years that we were able to go into the jail cells and speak to groups of inmates or even one on one. They still allowed a couple of chaplains to go to a room, and inmates were able to sign up to see a chaplain but it's the ones that won't sign up to see a chaplain that probably need it the most!
Gospel Rescue Mission
A lady from church (Laurie) and her husband (Bill) took over the Thursday night services at the Gospel Rescue Mission. She said that God sent her there one day, but she didn't know why. Her and her husband drove over there one day, and they set out in the parking lot asking God what he wanted her to do there. That led to her taking over the Thursday evening service each week. She sings and plays the guitar, she even wrights her own songs but she isn't a preacher, so she started recruiting people to preach. She found out that I was a Chaplain at the Muskogee County Jail, so she asked me if I wanted to come there and preach once per month. Of course, I said yes. I went there on the other weeks also and brought my computer and projector to put the songs on a screen for everyone while Laurie led the warship service.
Every week we’d have 30 to 40 people in attendance. I preached every 3rd Thursday, after every message I’d give an alter call. Every week between 1 to 5 people would raise their hand to receive Jesus into their heart and a few to rededicate their life to Jesus.
Laurie had other speakers that would come monthly also to preach or teach, and she had some that would come periodically. They all had a different style and God used them to reach people that maybe me or others couldn’t reach.
One man came and spoke, he told us that he was a welder and at his job they were working a lot of overtime and it was wearing him out, he was tired all the time. One of his work friends recommended that he try meth, his friend said it would help him to have the energy to go on. He said he tried it and was immediately hooked. He kept using it but it’s expensive so he learned how to make his own. He got to the point that all meth users get to where all that mattered to him was meth! He ended up separating from his wife and kids. He got a renthouse; he blacked out all the windows because one of the side effects was paranoia. He was constantly making more meth to keep up with his habit. One day he was driving in his car, and he stopped at a gas station because he began to realize how much he had given up for his habit, he was crying and depressed. He said God spoke to him and told him to go to church! He asked God, “which church should I go to” God told him, the church across the street. He looked up and sure enough there was a church across the street, and the service was fixing to start!
He goes over to the church and his wife and kids were there! He listens to the message and afterwards he goes up front rededicates his life to God and God restores his marriage. I guess like the prodigal son in the Bible, he had to hit rock bottom to get to the point where he could see that the life he chose wasn’t working and it was time to put God in control!
Laurie was able to get people with different backgrounds, different life experiences and different styles of preaching to reach different people. I believe a lot of people’s lives were changed through that ministry!
Lake Church
After Muskogee county sheriff banned us from going into the jail cells, I decided to have church services at Sequoyah Bay under one of the shelters.
My friend Steve and his wife Terri volunteered to help with the services. Terri had signs made up that said Lake Church and an arrow pointing to the shelter where we were going to meet and she had a banner made up to put on the side of the shelter. I drove a green van that I used at my apartment complex that I owned in Fort Gibson. I had Lake Church put on the sides of the van in large letters. I would use it to haul everything to the lake. My wife Rosa would help set up the coffee and donuts and watch over them during the service. We had our first service on Memorial Day, I knew there would be a large number of campers on that weekend. I came out the day before to hand out fliers to all the campers. The fliers had Lake Church at the top, it had this week’s message title, and it said, no shirt, no shoes, no problem. At the bottom it said free coffee and donuts. On the back there was a map of the campgrounds with an arrow pointing to the shelter that we were meeting at. I had a sound mixer, speakers and a wireless mic. Steve would help set up and Terri would lead us in praise and worship, and she would teach children if there were any. I would give a message and afterwards give those that came out a chance to accept Jesus into their heart. Our largest group was around 34, occasionally we would have someone receive the Lord into their heart. The most memorable was an Asian exchange student.
He spoke very little English, he was there with his host family, they could communicate with him a little. Sounds like an impossible task to introduce him to Jesus huh? But it was obvious that he was interested in the man that I was speaking about. After the rest of the crowed left we all set around with him trying to explain who Jesus was and why we all need him! Somehow, we were able to communicate enough that he asked Jesus into his heart. Wow! What an experience! It was obvious that God was working on that young man.
Lake Church ended when there was a blue-green algae problem. People were told not to swim in the lake, so most people stayed home.
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