From the Cartel to Christ - JC Almanza - Revival of Hope 2026

I didn't even introduce myself at the beginning. My name is Christy. And for 30 some years, I water skied all over the world. And you know what I learned that as a water skier, victory never came unless I got off a dock, surrendered to the power of the boat and said, "Hit it." But yet as a believer, for 25 years, I stayed on a spiritual dock afraid of where God would take me, what He would ask me to do, what I'd have to give up. So I held on to the power of Christy, the power of all the things that the world offered. And trust me, I had everything the world would say, would just give you happiness, joy, contentment, identity. And I had a great life and I was happy, but I wasn't filled. I wasn't filled. And I wasn't living out my purpose and waking up every day, knowing that I'm not just a water skier. I'm a child of the living king and he loves me. And it was when I realized that there was power in the blood and there was this opportunity that he was inviting me out on to the waters to experience life with him, to experience something different than a trophy that rushed on the shelf and to go with him. And I said, "Yes, God, I'm gonna trust you "and I'm gonna slide in the water."

Just like I did as a skier with the alligators and the snakes. I'm gonna get in that water and I'm gonna trust that you've got me. And I'm gonna say yes to you and trust me, where you're, trust you, where you're gonna lead me. And when I did that, everything changed. Everything changed. I got to experience that there was power when I was weak, Stephen, where should I go? This side, okay, I'm staying over here. I don't, I love y'all, but I got to stare on this side. Oh, I can move now, okay. So anyway, tonight we're gonna share stories of people who, like me, was raised in the church. My friend, JC, who's getting ready to come on up, JC, JC did not raise, he was not raised in the same home that I was. Our lives are completely different. But yet God crossed our paths. Come on up, JC. God crossed our paths for such a time as this, for us to be able to go in and tell our stories. And I can promise you, you're gonna find yourself between me and him, somewhere. And I pray tonight as JC, he's come all the way from Arizona. He's come and he's made a lot of sacrifices to be here. And he has become one of my dearest friends, one of my husband's friends and I love you, my friend. - Thank you.

- And I'm excited for you to tell all my friends here what happened when you surrendered your knee and made Jesus Lord of your life. Welcome to Greenville, North Carolina. (audience applauds) - Thank you. It's not over, it's my middle name now. At four years old, oh let me introduce myself first. My name is JC Almanza. My government name is Julio Cesar Almanza. But you guys should call me JC. I was born in Chicago and at the age of four, I decided to take on the responsibility of protecting my sisters and my mom. Some really bad stuff was happening at my house. I didn't know what it was, I didn't know it was bad. And someone had to do something about it. So I volunteered. In my house, we were being raped, we were being drowned in water and we were being isolated in the closet. That was punishment. So I would volunteer so my sisters wouldn't go through it. And it started to change me. I started to build my own blueprint of what a man should look like. Sound like, talk like, show no fear, trust no body. If someone hurts you, make sure they never hurt you again. And that led onto my life, to the streets, to the gangs. And by the time I was 16,

I was already working for the cartel in Mexico. My life was completely dark. I ended up going to prison in Mexico at the age of 17, getting arrested by the Mexican military. And I survived. I survived four years in some of the most dangerous prisons in Mexico. When I came home for the very first time in 2014, it was only a couple months and I was right back. I just didn't know how to function out here. I kept telling myself, "Well, that's how you're built. That's just how you are." I got violated and I got sent back to one of the most dangerous prisons in California, Victorville, USP. And I remember just pulling up on the bus and there were already stabbing a guy to death in prison in the lunch area. And I said, "Man, this is what prison is. I'm back again. This is where home is." I came home in 2017 and I was desperate to stay out. I just did not want to go to prison no more. I was tired. I was an old man now. I was 16 when I started and now I was in my late 40s. So when I got to the halfway house, I made myself a promise. I said, "Man, I'm going to change. I don't know how, but I'm going to change." And my very first mentor was a street light. Because at the halfway house, when people would sign their names, they would run out, run that way, run that way, run that way, like running out to the free world, I guess.

But I told myself, "That's not going to work for me." So I would walk up to the street light every day and I would press that button. That button says, "Wait, wait, wait," and keeps saying it over and over again. And I would not cross until it said, "Go, go." And everybody at the halfway house would make fun of me. They thought I was crazy. I am a little bit crazy, but it was my first mentor where I did something, when nobody was telling me to do it, nobody was watching me. And I started building my first piece of that freedom I wanted. Went to work for the gym. I got a personal train certification. I was in, became a personal trainer, was decent at it, made it a living. But I was still living a very, very dark life because this was empty. Success, nothing, nothing filled it, it was still an emptiness. In 2019, a woman walked into my gym and she got my attention. Not because of her looks. She is beautiful, but not because of her looks. She had something I had never seen before. She had joy in her face. It was like a real smile, I couldn't explain it. I don't know what it was, but I wanted some of that. And I would wait by the door just to watch her come in and see that smile and that join her face because it was like that every day. I was convinced that I was going to catch her one day and it was going to be fake. But no, she was like clockwork every time. I remember the one time she was doing cardio and I was like, this is my chance. I said, I'm going to slide in real quick. I asked her, I was like, what's up? That's how you pick up girls, you know? And she's like, you need Jesus.

I had to leave and come back because I had never gotten that answer before. It was a board mission and I had to come back. For the next six months, she became my friend. She started showing me what a friend really looked like. I thought I had friends. I thought I had boys, part of my organization. I thought and I was completely wrong. [BLANK_AUDIO] and I wanted everything she had. Six months passed by. I kind of felt like I had experienced everything that I needed to experience because I was tired, guys. I was tired of the life that I was living. And I felt that those couple of months that gave me joy, that's all I needed. I was ready. I knew I didn't want to go back to prison, so I decided that I was going to kill myself. I went in, I got a hot shot and I got my bed ready. Got everything ready 'cause I knew how I was gonna do it. Something in my heart made me text her to say bye. And she kept me on the phone all night. I fell asleep. And the next day when I woke up, I didn't have the guts to do it. So I threw it away. And when I walked into the gym that day, she came up running to me and gave me one of the biggest hugs that I've ever experienced in my whole life. And it made me so mad because in that one moment,

she destroyed all the walls that I had built my whole life. Those walls that had kept me safe. Not trusting nobody, not letting nobody hurt me again. Always lie, don't tell the truth. And that moment she hugged me and I remember I wanted to punch her. I started feeling like a little kid when I was around her. I got like gas in my stomach butterflies. I don't know what it was, but I felt like a kid in love. And I remember the day that I asked her, I was like, so you wanna be my girlfriend or what? I was kicking the walls, I was asking her. And she's like, yeah, I said, okay, are we making babies now? She said, nope. She said, you're gonna have to wait till we get married. I said, man, that wasn't in the fine print. I didn't read that. So she moved me in, I moved in with her. And for the next two years, she got to meet the real JC, the JC that was drowned, the JC that was raped, the JC that saw all that death, that JC, the JC that was diagnosed with schizophrenia, multiple personality disorder, all those things. She got to meet that guy. And in those two years, it took a toll on her. And she told me one night, you gotta go. She's like, I thought I could help you, but I can't. And you're taking me down with you. I felt like I felt my whole childhood, you know?

Everybody took a run at me, but when they couldn't handle me, they would hand me off to the next person. It was November 6th, 2021, a little bit past midnight. I got up and I went downstairs. And I got on my knees for the very first time in my life. And I asked God to teach me, because in my head, I thought that I didn't need God, 'cause I had already survived everything. But that night, I told him to teach me, and I don't wanna sit here and explain to you guys what happened, but I know it was a gift that day. That day, I received a heart transplant. I got up that day with a new uniform, 'cause I had been wearing uniforms my whole life, for my gang, for the cartel, for everybody. I had built an identity that the enemy had picked for me, and it really wasn't me. That day, I got up with a different mission, a different uniform, and I felt like a million bucks that day. I cried for hours, for hours. I think it was about four hours that I couldn't even get up off the floor. But when I got up, I knew that he was holding my hand. (audience applauds) I'm coming up on my fifth year of going to Jesus' school. I got to spend a summer camp with 150 kids from Ohio. I got to be a kid for a week because that was really for me, my camp. It wasn't for them. He started to educate me. He started to change my vocabulary.

He started to teach me how to love my wife. I even have three dogs now and a cat. He's taught me so many things that I really thought like it was over for me. I had counted myself out and here I was, gained a sign, a new job, a new mission. I ran with it. I ran with it because it felt good for the very first time in my life to be loved. And when I say he educated me, I work at ASU as a professor. I create programs for people that I experience in incarceration. God has taken my experience and made me a professor. I have to say that over and over again. I'm not going to sit here and say that life has been so easy afterwards. It hasn't. But it's been great. He's taught me how to deal with things in a godly matter. Ooh, my vocabulary words are changing. You know, the day I got interviewed for this magazine, I'm going to share this story. I was going through some problems with my wife and I felt like someone else deserved the interview, not me. And I remember that morning I came and I shared it with the boss. That's what I call it. The boss. I'll take a bullet for her. I'll go to jail for her. Not too many people. I'll go to jail for her again. I'll go to jail for her. And I told her I think you should interview someone else because I think there's someone better for this because my marriage is just not working out right now. I'm a baby, I'm just learning. She interviewed me.

She believed in me. Thank you. I love you for that. She gave me a team. She gave me a family. I have a lot of white friends now. I'm very blessed to be here today. You know I cry so much because I remember how I used to feel and how I feel today. And it's only through him that I get to feel like this and that's why I cry because there's so many people out there still looking for it, still hopeless, still out there. And my goal is to just share Jesus. He's put it on my heart. He's put me in very uncomfortable situations because I hate being on stage. Go figure, right? I'm doing my first TED Talk next week. And only him can make something like that happen, take my messy life and make it into something beautiful. My name is JC and I love you guys. Thank you. Thank you for watching our broadcast. Are you an incarcerated brother or sister who needs encouragement? Wait to us at Victorious Living Correspondents P.O. Box 2751 Greenville, North Carolina 27836. To view Victorious Living Magazine in its entirety, please have your chaplain contact We are happy to provide our victorious living magazine free of charge in bulk with or without staples. (upbeat music)