INMATE Day in the Life | Mark at Angola Prison

So these are the cell blocks. These are where guys are locked up whenever they are in disciplinary problems. So when they were they are disciplinary problems. Actually, CBD cell block D is where I gave my life to Christ. That's where I finally came to a spot. I was going low enough cell nine. [BLANK_AUDIO] Come on over here. I was in low enough cell nine whenever I realized I wanted something else with my life. I was 140 pounds and I got on my knees and I said ask God if he was there, man, just talk to him. I didn't believe in anything at that time. And I was just hoping that maybe somebody was there that could talk to me. I got on my knees and I asked God if he was there to show itself to me. He did and the first thing he let me know was how much he loved me, man. And God is indeed a level of the world. Whenever I first come to prison and whenever many of these men first come to prison. I remember I got into an argument with a guy. A guy said something to me and the guy next to me said, you know you got to kill him now, right? Blew my mind, I'm in here for all of Robert three counts. I did not know that this was the procedure. I have to kill him now because he has offended me. That was the advice that men were being given in the prison at the time. Now seeing a new group of men coming and the advice that is being given to them by the guys that came before them is, man, get a trade. Man, get into school, man, do something positive, come to church with me. That's a brand new thing. That's a thing that only Jesus can affect. I believe that everything that has happened here on the West Shore has only been by the favor and grace of God. So what you're seeing is the area of the prison that has always been the worst area until about six years ago. And what changed it was God gave him a message and the message was that you could change everybody if you just told them about Jesus.

The West Shore was the worst part of the prison. The West Shore was where all of the drug addicts were at. The West Shore was everywhere. Everybody was dark. When you go into a dormitory, they kept the lights off and they were doing all manner of things in the darkness. Man, we can start something here. We went talk to security. God gave him favor. Security gave him a dormitory. In that dormitory, they collected all of the drug addicts and they had a group of men that were committed to those guys for that three month period. A lot of guys that men never thought would be sober, God's sober, it infected the entire West Shore. Men that were seeing it looking on and knew that something different had happened. So usually our community meeting is something that we have every Monday morning at six o'clock. And we get all the guys from every dormitory, from every phase of the program, get them in there and just kind of get them ready for the week and courage of them. You know, change is horrific in the life of recovering drug addicts. And so everything requires us to be very encouraging, letting them know ahead of time what's going to happen. Let them know ahead of time how it's going to go, everything that's expected of them. That's an encouragement meeting, but everyone has an opportunity, anything they want to ask or any questions they have, anything that they want to tell the community. Maybe I lost something, I can't find it, I don't want to think one of y'all stole it, but did you? Or guys, I'm going through this problem right now, I have this going on with me and I was just one of the community to know, to be on the lookout. The whole man accountable in this area right here. My back is a little big, so I want to encourage you with that, please give it up for our head coordinator, Mr. Mark Smith. I remember, man, when I came to the new man program, Walts are good when you said get up in front of the dorm and for one motivation, you said y'all don't know how big this is going to be at the time of one dormitory, and you had a bunch of record tech guys that didn't have a lot of structure. But there was a lot of love in the dorm and you don't know how big this is going to be at the time, the West Y'all was crazy, man, y'all know how it was. That time was unbelievable, we were looking at it as we said, man, these guys are crazy. You had guys standing close to the door, and if anybody tried to come to the door, they'd send them back out, man, you can't come to this dormitory. They had men that were standing there and somebody put some drawers on the door and kicked it back out. He said, hey man, give them a chance. They want to live, they will call the worst names in the dormitory. Jeffers can't get back from rats, they went through all of that for me, but I can be standing right here right now. >> He the bench man, he like the leader man, he wanted the dudes that really got him positioned and changed his life like the rest of us.

You know what I'm saying? Told him that his calling man, he got a calling to be a preacher. And Mark comes from the darkness and a lot of dudes look up to him. So, man, I'm proud of Mark and Mark, he the keys to the puzzle man. He the keys to the puzzle. He got a hard job, bro. Cuz tomorrow you gotta go pick 30-some dudes that come into the program. You know you be want to save everybody, but you can't save everybody. You know what I'm saying? So, you gotta let God lead you to the, to pick the dude that you can feel that you gotta get. It's a lot, bro, it's a lot that you go through dinner with the program. But, God got a call for him, bro, that's why we all play our part, you know what I'm saying? So, I love it, man. I'm being a part of new man, like the best thing that ever happened to me. I remember being in the dorm and I was on my drug run. And I looked around at everybody, it was hustle. And everybody was getting high. And everybody was talking to their families and hitting me like a ton of bricks. They don't have, they don't have me. I said, man, at the time I was just thinking about a dorm or two. And I said, man, in two hours, there's a lot to do. You're gonna be right inside of me. All your legal plans and all my drug plans, none of them matters. Because in an hour, you're gonna be sitting right there and you ain't gonna be able to move. We love them, because all of the stuff that we try to do can come to nothing. And I'm thinking out, but if I have to move my girlfriend on my part to do it, whenever that happens, I'm there. I can go in front of him with a clear heart, knowing that I was obedient, knowing that I wasn't serving, knowing that I did you because God, you put a love in there that I didn't offer to you.

And so, man, I just wanted to use this time to just encourage out with that, amen? [APPLAUSE] So right here on the wall, this is our new man, Priya. This is what we teach the guys we are trying to live by. We are faithful, loving, obedient children of God. We are kind, generous, we give, expecting nothing back. We tell the truth, we are responsible, we respect all people. We are humble, always preferring others over ourselves. We are strong, we work hard, we don't complain, we just get it in. Our old ways have passed away, it is now God's way. We are love, we are light, we are free, we are new men. This is the creed that we teach the guys whenever they come in, and we teach them what each part of it means. We teach them that you can't do this without Jesus. This is something that is unattainable without Jesus. However, with God, these are the things that he has changed in the sense of the image. Now, the obedient children of God, we are bound, generous, we give, we give, expecting nothing back. We tell the truth, we are responsible, we respect all people, we are humble. Our old ways have burned, none of us are ourselves. We are strong, we work hard, we don't complain, we just get it in. Our old ways have passed away, it is now God's way. We are love, we are light, we are free, we are new men. Celebrate Recovery is one of the curriculums that we teach here at the New Man Program. The guys that are in this class have been sold before at least five months. They are in phase two of our program. They have about seven months of Celebrate Recovery Love. Celebrate Recovery is done over a 10-month period. And so in that time, the guys that facilitated stay with them for 10 months. I don't believe it's an easy thing to disciple someone. I don't believe that you just tell them about Jesus and drop them off.

I believe you teach them along the way. You stay with them, you stick with them, you teach them all the principles. And that's what's going on here in the building. The guys are learning from guys that have been through it just like them. He is going out of the woods up there. He is actually going to give you the desires that he is wanting you to have. He is constantly constructing you to be the individual and the man that he wants you to do. What are we talking about right now? No. So we are on the question too. How has your definition of will power chains since you have been in recovery? And what is your question? I have engaged in all my will power chains. I have been held on to a few times. Good job. Yeah. But I am going to say, individual, is just out of here alone. I repent for it. I pray. - So look, I haven't been here to thank God. - So look, I understand that, right? So in the scriptures, it says we go from glory to glory. Okay, and from glory to glory means that it's the glory of God and he teaches me new ways every day. He teaches me things every day that he takes out of me. Man, I heard a preacher in a parish named Pastor Tommy. And Tommy said, he had just come from DCI, he had done a jokes, he had been down. And he was the only one I wanted to hear from.

I am going to hear him know what a pastor but him. And Pastor Tommy said, man, whenever God calls you out of the darkness and God calls you into a new life, he doesn't, so they say God accepts you how you walk. Amen, he does, absolutely. He doesn't leave you there though, all right? And so whenever God calls me out of the darkness, God calls me to him and he says, come on, walk to me, come here, and as I'm walking to him, he takes stuff out of me that cannot be with him. He puts stuff aside, and it hurts, oh, it hurts. And so I'm walking to him right in there, oh, that one there hurt, just keep walking to him, all right, Lord, I'm just keep walking, I'm just keep walking, oh, oh, that one hurt too. And as we get closer to him, the things that have stripped of us, all the things that we can't have with him. But he doesn't, the great thing about it is, is that he gives us the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit gives us self-control. Self-control means that he gives us the power. He gives us, he freed us from bondage, I was in bondage to drugs, I was in bondage to all of the different problems, right? He said, look, I'll strip all that off of you, but I know that the devil, he tells you how to do all of that. And it's a brain in you, it's a habit that you have with you. I'm gonna teach you a new way of living. We learn to do things in the dark, and then the same way the Holy Spirit teaches us

to do things in the light. And if you don't have it yet, guess what? You got to focus on him, keep walking toward him, he's gonna take care of that. And that's just for my personal experience, right? I struggle everything, I remember I was on the walk one day and I told the guy, I said, he said, man, how you doing? I said, just being disciplined by the Lord, I remember I was aggravated while I was feeling it right there. I said, but just being disciplined, he said, you're still going through that? I said, that? You ain't? - What's that? - Yeah, I'm still going through it, I don't know. - That's right, so I'm not gonna buy my strip. - No, you're not gonna buy your strip. - Yeah, I'm going through that. - I'm with you. - Yeah, I'm loose. - So, Donovan, I'm on something. There you go, not right. So, Donovan, what you mind telling me? What's been going on with you? - Before I come to this program, I was miserable, depressed, sad. So much, I lost my mom, I lost my sister. I've lost everybody in my family. And I came into this program to help myself. I tried to back out of it,

but Mark pulled me in and he said, look, it's time to go. Best decision I ever made. I was still messing up in the beginning. I had a problem taking medicine. I was taking medicine prescribed and I was still taking extra medicine. So, I got a little trouble and instead of Mark kicking me to the curve and saying, look, he sent me down, helped me. - Now, just to be clear, your medicine, why did you have your medicine? What's your medicine for? - Depression, bipolar, schizophrenic, and anxiety. - And how'd you get it? - Going to a psych doctor. - All right, so just to be clear, it's medicine that he came and he said, man, look, I just told him what I had to tell him to get this medicine because I like taking it. And to tell you the truth is now that I don't take the medicine and I'm talking to God and I got a relationship with God, I was thinking I needed the medicine to wake up in the morning to feel good or I needed the medicine to go to sleep. Now that I'm not taking the medicine and I put my life in God's hands, I feel better than even taking the medicine. I wake up more happier, more good, I go to sleep better. So, the whole time I didn't even need the medicine. (dramatic music)

- So, if you see this group of men right here, this was the first group of mentors that they came to the program. - My dad was a truck driver who was never at home. He didn't spend a lot of time with me. The men who raised me in prison were telling me all of the wrong things. They were children, themselves, and that was that you have to make a statement with people, you have to hurt people, you have to fight in order to get them to leave you alone, to earn your respect, these prison codes that they taught me, the first one who said, "Man, you don't have to do all that to be a man." Well, that's not necessary. They were coming around with anointing oil. They were praying with you. They were going through the detoxes with you. That was different. Everything was different than the rest of the prison. They were men who had experience and who had truly given their life to Christ. And I know that that affected me and so I know that that's what affects God's. Now, when God's coming, tell me, man, all of these things, I tell him to stop. Stop, stop. Don't do that. Try to have the best relationship with God that you can have and he's going to make you the best mentor. He's going to make you the best husband. He's going to make you the best brother. He's going to make you the best friend, the best facilitator.

He's going to do it. Stop trying to focus on that, like that's your problem, that's not your problem. If you have truly given your life to Christ, that's his problem. My only problem is staying in constant contact with him. That's what giving my burdens to him looks like. It's not my problem to be the best mentor or the best coordinator. It's not me. I just got to have the best relationship with him that I can have. We've gotten high together and he seen me in all of my mess and he wanted to give me a chance to come to the program. So that was the first class, that was the first trial and they really wanted the worst drug addicts that way that they could show everybody else, man, this works. You know, it's not like it's not a game. I didn't come to the first class though, because of that, because of the deal with security. On the next class, that's whenever they came and got me, the day that OD'd, it's the same day they came and got me and they seen that I owed $1,100 and that I wasn't stopping and that I died and still was getting high. And so they came to give me the rest is history. So now we will be going to Hickory three, which Hickory three is our phase one that is empty right now. But we are going to have a lead mentor meeting. A lead mentor meetings are just to get all the leads on the same page. We do this once a week, we get any situation that we need to counsel, any ways that the guys need to know how to handle the issue. We don't just say these are the rules of the program, follow them or else. We say these are the rules of the program and this is why. We always want to have an explanation for why that is a rule. The guys in the program, they understand that if there's any rule that they don't agree with or they don't understand, that's it not because I said so type of thing. This is explaining why we do this this way.

That's part of the program. Part of the program is being able to have a conversation with somebody, being able to communicate. We want to teach the guys that it's okay to ask questions, it's okay to say why. It's not okay to respond badly or to hold it in and just talk about it behind someone's back. This is our way of helping the guys understand that no ones above approach, we are all able to be held accountable for any situation, any rule that they disagree with, we get them to come on and open up to us about it. This is phase one, paper three, the space one of the program. The thing is, it's not that you can't hold them accountable, it's that you are not there to enforce the program policy. You are there to remind them. It makes it very easy for you to build a relationship whenever you don't have to go say, "Hey man, let me talk to you about recommending your removal." It makes it very easy for you to build that relationship with them and not worry about the rest of it. Whenever you say, "Hey man, you know that the rule is not to go over the line." If you remind them of that and he steps back and says, "All right my man, good." "Oh, I'm a five." He says, "Man, watch out." That's not for you to mess with it, you take it to the lead mentor. What happens is a formal counseling session is set up to where it's not a unprofessional situation where we're counseling right here at the door and it turns into an argument. Now a formal counseling session is held, we bring them in, we set them down, and we ask what's bothering you, man. What is it that is making you say, "I don't want to live by the rules of the program no more. I don't want to be here anymore. I don't like the rules of the program anymore."

What is it that's making you go contrary to what you've agreed to when you come in? So it's not just that, that's just our way of saying, "You don't have to be the bad guy." But we're not trying to be a bad guy either. Let's get that straight. Whenever that counseling session comes up, it's going to be a lot more structured whenever a willing one's doing it. Oh yeah, right. I don't want to know what's going to come up. If you look right here at the counseling session and find out, he just has a definite thing. Right, right. Everybody in his room that's spent time with him, man, and sometimes the whole fact is some things in the life we just got to go to. You get the best of the books out there, right, how to move it. Look, while the parents only write it on hard hour, I've got a question. All your shoulders genetic, or did you work with them? So, this is usually the case whenever I come in. Somebody's always there already. Okay, somebody has already beat me to the seat, I don't know if you're on the floor. Y'all need any end? So, typically, I get up in the morning and in the program, don't my toys, they're starting morning motivation, but I have to make sure that I'm down here in case anything happens between the three dorms, they don't know where to be able to find me. So, I come in here and start getting myself ready for the day. If you see on the board, there's all of my stuff to remember to do. You know, different categories for different things. A lot of times, not fall behind on the board, and sometimes things I can't do at that moment, and I'll forget, but I'll come back, and I mean, puts me back on the board, he reassesseses, he says, "Remember the board," and I said, "Oh yeah, gotta come back over here and get myself straight." So, this is where I go in the morning time to see what I got today. I come in here, typically, I'm gonna go right there, to that coffee pot, which is the elixir that keeps this ministry running, but I come, I get the coffee home, that's not just for me, that's for all the leave mentors that come in here. They come in, they start with a cup of coffee, they just turn the news on, and well, no, I don't, the first thing I do when I come in is read my devotional, which is really good, which is what I read earlier. So, this book, "Go Forward in Love" with Timothy Keller, was a gift by Michael Elles Timmy, and it is really good, it's just a devotion. Now, I don't actually stick with the day that it says, I never do it, I just open it up and whatever, I land on, that's my devotional for the day. What? It is a really good book, so this is how I start off my day, help me in and I read, go forward in love, get my day started. Pray, amen. I came to prison when I was 11, I came to jail, my first time getting locked up when I was 11 years old, and I kept them now, I'm 40 years old, I've had a little over five years, on the street, so I've spent the majority of my life in cross area. I know all of the rules of prison, I know that there are clear cut lines, security, and inmates.

I know that we are against them and they're against us, who would have found that out and I realized that this is the way it is, and I've preached it to every man that I came in contact with, every person I come in contact with. I knew the law, the code, all of that, I taught it well, I knew how to do all of the things that made me stand out as somebody who was hard, a hardcore, and 100, and real in prison. I knew how to build my inmates, so I had a nickname, polo, everybody calls me polo around him. I got that nickname from Pray, my mother named me, Mark, Mark means warrior. I changed my name from warrior to polo, a clothing label that a crackhead branded me with, and I thought that was just the coolest thing. They know that polo will fight, they know that I'm on a cowl, and they know that I stand behind them, many times it's an altercation with security. And so now, whenever I have learned something new, and what I learned was that I was so petty and so small minded. It was so, I was living inside of this box, and forgetting that there was a whole world out there. When that with God showed me how it really wasn't, how much he loved me, and it opened my eyes to how stupid and how ignorant I was. Why am I acting like they did something wrong to me? I grabbed a gun, I went on the look for somebody to rob, I found three people, I put a gun in their face, I cocked it, I cocked a gun, and held it in three men's face. I don't know what kind of trauma I caused them, I don't know if they have a aversion to death. I don't know how they come home from work. I don't know what words they have. I don't know how I affected them. And that's something I never thought about before. And God, show me, you know. I just was numb inside. I was dark inside. I didn't care about anyone. - And so in 2019, to 2012, this is what I look like. (soft music) - Right after that, I was looking for drugs. It was about six o'clock in the morning. The doors had just been unlocked for breakfast and I was all up and down to walk, looking for something to get home. I couldn't find anything. My day was not writing this outside. My entire life were walked around, looking for something to get high.

I would look for something. I'd get it. I'd get high. I would be high. I would come down. I would look for something. I would find it. I would get high. I would be high. I would come down. That was my life. That was it. It was all that I did. All day, every day for years. And actually, you know, you think, you know, it's prison. How do people get drugs in prison? But think about this, that I was a drug addict that thought about nothing other than getting drugs all day long. And I had other drug addicts who were around me. Just because they're in prison doesn't mean they're not intelligent. We had ideas and thoughts and ways to do it. While security is thinking about feeding us, keeping us from killing one another. While they're thinking about all of these things, all our day is consistent. I was thinking about how to get drugs in. So eventually we do it.

And we find ways to get them in. I mean, I was no different. I got packages in, which were large quantities of drugs. I pumped them to the population. I did more than anybody else because I was the one that had it. I ended up with a drug habit that nobody could satisfy only I could. If I got a package, I would have to get large quantities to do this. Whenever the prison system changes a little bit and message your flow up, you're not able to get it. And now you're on a rock bottom. I remember sitting on a toilet in one of the dormitories and looking down. It was two, three in the morning. I looked down and I seen a synthetic marijuana roach on the ground of a prison bathroom. I recently grabbed it and I smoked it. And I shared needles with everyone. I mean, it's amazing. And God, God's race is the only thing that has me sitting here without hypnotizing us or AIDS or anything else. Because I shared needles with the prison population. In the midst of that, I was looking for drugs one more. I couldn't find them and I was in a TV room.

The captains came, the security came in and wanted to shake us down. I was not worried about being caught with something. What affected me was you're stopping me from getting high. You're in the way of me and getting high right now. I was 140 pounds. I came out on security and pushed them. They locked me up and they put me in the dungeon, what they call the dungeon, which is just from their cell blocks. They put me in there with another guy that was called Stinger. But at that time, he was in the cell with me and I looked up to him. I knew his record, I knew his rep. He was one who followed the code. He was one who I knew. This is a stud right here. Everybody in the can knows he's about his business. And so I was in the cell with him and I asked him what kind of man, you got anything to read? He said, yeah, I got a Bible. Yeah, I don't want to read that. You got anything else? Yeah, I think other than that I really got James Patterson or something and I'm trying to, and he said, no man, all I got is a Bible, man. You can read it though. You're welcome to it.

A few days went by and I asked him again, man, you don't think you can get something? He said, no man, but why don't you try the Bible? We got into a little argument about why the Bible's not true and all of my infinite knowledge. I just knew that I know the Bible. I know why it's not true. And the truth is, man, that Satan had blinded me. I don't know why I thought that I had read the Bible. I had never read it. And really thought I had read it. And so I started reading the Bible in him off of an argument that we had. And before long he was telling me God has a name, God's name, Yahweh. And I said, well, look, I don't know all this thing. You saying that the house was not just 'cause you saying that the Bible don't say it. You saying the Bible's the truth. It don't say that. And so he said, well, why don't you talk to him and ask him? And so I said, man, all right, I'm gonna talk to him. 'Cause at this time, like I said, I was 140 pounds. When I thought about what I could pray for, there was nothing that I could do. It doesn't even get me high anymore. I do a bunch of it just to keep from withdrawals, that's it. I don't care about getting high. I don't care about my family. I don't care about going home.

I really am ready to just roll over and die. I don't care about anything anymore. And I got all my needs and I said, all right, what you want me to pray about? I don't know, I don't care to pray about anything. So I said, all right, my Creator, whoever you are. If you've created me, then you should be able to talk to me. You should be able to let me know that you're there. I shouldn't have to depend on everyone else to tell me you're real. If you've created me, if you have that much power, if you created the heavens and the earth, tell me you're real. Show me you're real and I made a commitment that I was going to talk to him for 30 days, the same prayer. And that's what I did, except for I got an answer in 15 days. Half of that 30 days, what I said I was going to do, it's like God said, well, you do half of that. You know, and I got you and I'm going to show up. And he did, man, and I can't. I can explain it to you. I can, I can explain it to you, but it's something that I tell people all the time, you have to experience for yourself. I was filled up with love and it came full circle. He had told Tina, just show me what love looks like. He said, yeah, it's going to be hard. He told her it's going to be hard. It's going to be difficult. He's going to be horrible. All I want to do is show him what love looks like. I haven't had a write-up since pushing the security guard up in the corner. And that's the thing, man.

A new record makes a difference, having somebody that I can tell you in. I can tell you all of that. I can tell you that Jesus is real. I can tell you that Jesus freed me from draws. I can tell you all of the great things, but if you don't believe me, I can't make you believe me. What you can believe is my record. Whenever you look at my record and I have write-ups, write-ups, write-ups, write-ups, write-ups, write-ups, write-ups, write-ups. And then something stopped. Something happened that I just stopped getting write-ups. And so if you see that and you ask me, you know, what happened? And I tell you, I gave my life to Christ. You know, if you can't come up with any other explanation, you know, what other explanation did I have? Now, after I gave my life to Christ, I got a new rap sheet in the mail. I have 162 years, by the way. 66, 66, 66, and 30 rank and current. And that's for three-arm writers. I was bored out of court twice. I couldn't get back in court. I used my transcripts, my law work, to heat up coffee. And to say, I set them on fire in a cell and use them to heat up coffee. That's how hopeless I was. I knew that this couldn't help me. My law work cannot help me. My legal papers cannot help me. And so I was bored out and I was on the act 0-0-0-0. That's a good time act. If you're under a good time act and it's zero, that means you have no good time. That's a rap. That means when they say 66 years, they mean 66 years.

That was my sense. And I felt that I would die here. I lost hope in going home. And after I gave my life to Jesus, about three months after I got a rap sheet in the mail that said, you now want to act 122, which is a 20-45 act means whenever you have 20 years incarcerated and 45 years old, they bring you up in front of a parole court and you can complete your case. So everybody was like, look what God did. And everybody said, Mark, everybody got that. And I was like, yeah, well, they probably got it on a string of meat, you know, because I know I didn't get it until I gave my life to Christ.