Old Man/New Man Podcast - Duane Brecheisen & Stephen Canup

It's time to put off the old man, which is corrupt, and to put on the new man, which is created in righteousness and true holiness. It's the Old Man, New Man podcast with host Stephen Cannap. Hey, welcome to the Old Man, New Man podcast. My name is Stephen Cannap, and I have my guest here today, Duane Breckhuyzen. We're here today to talk about what's happened since Duane put his testimony in the book Lepers Know More that came out in early 2021. The testimony of Duane Breckhuyzen is in here, and you might not have read it yet, but hopefully after today we're going to give you a little bit of a summary. But the main thing that we want to emphasize today, Duane, is what's happened since then. People can go and right there on their tablets in Edovo and Pando, both, they can search for our ministry and find this book and actually read it right there on their tablets. So they're going to be able to, if they're interested, check out your testimony in a little bit more detail. But what I want to do is kind of just start out and give them a little bit of a taste of it and a little bit of a summary of it. And I'd kind of like you to just maybe start with, tell us just a little bit about your background growing up. And first of all, I know you were in prison, and how long were you in prison and what sent you there? What was the, what circumstances did you find yourself in that led you to prison? I was incarcerated in the state of Texas for aggravated sexual assault for 33 years. You were in there 33 years. Wow. Wow. So tell us about how you, your home when you were growing up, what was that like? Well, it was, it was a kid's life. I mean, it was, it was good and it was bad. In retrospect, there were some things that, that needed to be addressed. Yeah.

I mean, I had to take care of afterwards in my life, but for the most part, I was, I was loved by my parents. I was taken care of by my parents. My father worked hard all of his life. My mother was a good homemaker and provider. And they were, they were a great team together. How were you when you went to prison? I was 29 years old when I went to prison in Texas. So did you go more than once or was that on? I did go more than once. I did time in New Mexico as well. Okay. So you were 29. So what was happening in your twenties that, that might've contributed to, to getting in trouble with the law? My road to prison started in my teens. In your teens? In my teens. Yeah. I had some, I had some issues. Some of the, some of the minor incidences in my youth, they cascade and they build up and I became rebellious and I became promiscuous as well. And I was pretty much just running wild. I was a middle-class kid with too much money and too little sense, really. I think that applies to a lot of us. Yeah. Unfortunately. Yeah. But I mean, mom was a stern disciplinarian and dad was, was pretty laid back. He just spent most of his time working and making money.

And I just became, I started running the streets with my friends. Then I got introduced to drugs and alcohol and I started drinking and using drugs and that only made the problems worse, really. Yeah. Because, I mean, it lowers your, it lowers your inhibitions. My moral sense really went out the window then and I had some problems in my relationships because of things that were out of my control. And being a youth, I would, I internalized those problems. I made them my problem. And I acted out on that. And that's what led me to prison for sexual offenses. So when you got to prison, now some of us, I wrote a book, a lot of people might recognize jailhouse religion from Park Avenue to Park Bench to prison. And, you know, the point is that we, you know, there is a jailhouse religion is, is that a real deal or not? And for me, it was. You know, when I got saved in prison, for me, it was the real deal. But some people, you know, they don't want to follow Jesus in prison. And so what was your story for – were you actually living for Jesus or were you living for the world most of that time? What was – just give me a little flavor or the viewers a little flavor of what was that like inside for you? Well, Stephen, we're all living for Jesus, no matter where we're living and what we're doing. Come on. That's right. Yeah. And it says in the Word that all things worked good for those who love the Lord. That's right. And all of us know Jesus, and I think all of us love Jesus.

It's just there's this enemy out there that gets in my mind. He got in my mind. Yeah. I'm not going to say I shunned religion when I was in prison, but I didn't – I wasn't a Christian while I was in prison. Yes. I wasn't living the Christian life. I knew about Jesus, and I was investigating the churches and going to the services and stuff like that. But the worldly things that you find in prison and in the world would get in my way. I would let them get in my way. Yes. I would let these thoughts come in. Well, all the stuff that goes on at the church services, all the stuff that goes on in the Lord, it's difficult, I imagine, to live a Christian, truly Christian life in prison. I can just – I mean, I've seen it. I've seen it. I've seen the persecution that goes on for their belief and their faith and their discipleship that goes on in prison. And that put me off, too. Yes. And it was – I mean, it was hard enough in prison, being in prison with a sex offense. And you can't hide these kind of things. They say you can, but you can't hide these kind of things. They have ways of finding out. So, I mean, you just get so much stuff piled on that pretty soon you just – I just found a rock and kind of crawled under it for many, many years. And you had a life sentence, is it? Do I read that right? I do.

I do. I have a life sentence. You have a life sentence. You have a life sentence. So, did you think you were ever going to get out, or what was your – No, I never thought I was ever going to get out of prison. They can read this in your testimony, but I just kind of wanted you to hit that a little bit. Yeah. I just – well, you know, you don't act the way I was acting and do the things that I was doing and really have a reasonable expectation of ever being able to rejoin the community. And I was certain I was going to live my entire life in prison. I lived my life like I was going to live my life in prison. Yes. I mean, I was manipulative. I would game the system. I would game the other incarcerated men. I would game anybody that I could get a hold of to survive, especially in the state of Texas. They have such an oppressive and dysfunctional system that it creates a lot of dysfunctional – it aggravates the problems that you bring with you into prison if you don't take care of them. So, how many times did you come up for parole before you made parole? I came up for parole four times before I made parole. And just kept getting set off after set off for three years and five years? Five years, three years. Long setoffs. Yeah. Yeah. Which means they're not going to consider you again for that length of time.

Yeah. Yeah. It took me 11 years to make parole. Wow. It took me two years to get out of prison once I did make parole. Because you had to go to a program. I had to go to a program and I was evaluated for civil commitment in the state of Texas. And I mean, it just took me 13 years from the time I made parole or time I came up for parole to. I think I remember in your testimony that you actually wrote the parole board a letter saying something to the effect – what did that say? This was the last time you wrote – Well, I basically just told them that when I came up for parole at this time, by 2007, I had begun searching for some answers to change. And I started my journey in Alcoholics Anonymous. Okay. In prison. And Alcoholics Anonymous is an inspired program. Yes. The big book of Alcoholics Anonymous is an inspired writing. I'm not going to say it's part of the Bible or anything like that. Right. But the men who wrote that have touched millions of lives and led millions of people to the realization that God is the one true truth in the universe. Amen. And that's where I started. Amen. I was still under the impression that I was gonna live my life in Texas because it doesn't change what you did to get there.

In a Texas prison. In a Texas prison, yeah. It doesn't change what I did to get there. Yeah. So when I wrote the parole board, they told me to write them a letter. I wrote the parole board a letter and basically just told them, look, the one thing my rehabilitative efforts have convinced me of the most is that it's okay for some people to die in prison because I really thought I was gonna be one of those people. I was out of control. I mean, at this time, I hadn't had any sort of a transformative experience. And I was just intellectualizing everything and trying to do it my way and stuff like that. And the secular programs are all great, but they're not, they don't complete you. They don't, there's still the void in there, all right? That can only be filled by Jesus. Amen, amen. And I just basically, the parole commissioner, when he came down to see me right before I made parole, he told me I was my own worst enemy. A lot of us are that way. I couldn't do anything but agree with him, yeah. Yes, a lot of us are that way in life, we found it.

In fact, many of us end up in prison because we were our own worst enemy, right? Yeah, and I've found since my release that that self-destructive tendency that some of us pick up is one of the biggest obstacles to my reintegration into society and to my Christian walk as well. So you made parole, you must've been shocked. I was, yeah, that's a good word for it. I couldn't believe it. I mean, actually up until the time they dressed me out at the walls unit, I was expecting them to tap me on the shoulder and say, well, sorry, God. You mean right before they gave you some civilian clothes and you were still conservative? Yeah, up until the time they dressed me out and gave me a bus ticket. We made a mistake. Yeah, and I walked out the door at the walls unit and you have to walk down the street to the bus station. And that was the most stressful time I have ever done in the 33 years I was locked up. Really? Well. Because you thought that maybe they would- Tap me on the shoulder and I'm out. You know what I mean? I'm walking down the side of the street. I'm looking at the houses.

Yeah, and I'm like, man, you know, any minute now they're gonna come get me. When I got out of prison, I didn't do, I did one 10th the time you did. I had a six year sentence. I only had to do a little about three of it. But when I got out of prison, I yelled, free at last, free at last. Thank God Almighty, I'm free at last. And I believe that was Martin Luther King Jr., I think. And I yelled that out and I'm thinking for someone that was in there 30 years, man, that must have been your spirit was when you finally figured out that they weren't gonna tap you on the shoulder, you got on the bus. Did it, once you were on the bus, did that, what happened when you were on the bus? Well, when I got on the first bus I got on was from Huntsville to Dallas. I spent the night in the Dallas Transitional Center. And even up till then, I was, I mean, I was certain that I was going back. I mean, they've been known to make that mistake. But when they put me on the bus from Dallas to Lubbock, yeah, I was looking out the window and it was a beautiful day, Texas, beautiful Texas days. And the only way I've ever been able to understand it, I still can't really explain it, but the grace and the mercy of God will settle on you, okay? Amen.

He will, I mean, His presence, He is grace and mercy and love and His presence settled and just kind of wraps you up like your favorite jacket. And I knew that was my moment. That's when I knew that there was nothing I did to get out of prison. There was nothing anyone could have done to get me out of prison. But that God in His mercy and His grace had got me out of prison. There was still the question of why He would do this. Right. You know what I mean? I was... And part of it's that grace and mercy you were beginning to... I was 63 years old. I had been in prison for most of my adult life, over half of my life, period, at that time. And I mean, my social security statement still looks horrible. I have no savings, you know what I mean? I had all of these obstacles, plus I had this conviction, this criminal history now. But was that the point where you just surrendered? You finally surrendered and said, you know what, I'm going to seek God and serve Him. And there's so many ways that you can do it. I just... I literally had a conversation with God and I said, look, I don't have any idea what to do here. Amen. And I know that what I'm doing isn't working. So we're going to try it your way.

I had a Bible that my father had given me in prison. I still have it. And that's when I began reading it in earnest. Everybody reads it when they go to lockup. I did enough disciplinary lockups to read the Bible a couple of times. But it's just... And you know, the promises in the Bible are true. So that was really your submission, your surrender moment, selling out to God and saying, I'm going to trust you one day at a time. And so that's kind of gets us to the part of this discussion that I really wanted to get to, is that's almost where the book ends, I mean, the testimony ends inside the book. But what I want to do is share with people what's happened in your life since. So I know that you went to a Christian residential transition center in Lubbock. And what was it like? You applied for jobs. We want to give people the real life follow up as to, well, what's going to happen when I get out? Because there are a lot of people that have all kinds of offenses. But the ones with sex offenses, of which mine involved solicitation of a minor is what I signed for. But the ones with sex offenses especially feel like they're particularly discriminated against. I mean, it's bad enough to be a felon looking for a job and everything. One of the things that we talk about in this book is we answer a whole lot of questions from people that were still locked up about what's it like in the free world. And so at the time, all three of the people that contributed to this book, along with my testimony, had been out for several years. And so we answered a whole lot of questions from each individual perspective, each person's individual experience as to what that was like. So in the book, we talk about, you know, how hard is it to find a job and whether churches

will accept you and whether you're a felon or if your crime even involves a sex offense or whatever, you know, how hard is that? So from your perspective, can you just speak about that a little bit about what did you find because you've been locked up 33 years? You have not only a felon, but you have this other thing on your record. What did you find in the real world and then getting started when you got out? And even now, it's been almost five years. So can you kind of what sticks out in your mind that you would relate to those that are tuning in to this podcast today to give them hope and encouragement and, you know, and to be real, too? You know, there are there are challenges. Mm hmm. What would you how would you get started on kind of that part of our discussion today? Well, the biggest challenge I faced the first month I was out was was fear. All right. It was a fear of my own making, because all fear, all fear comes from comes from the mind and the enemy puts the enemy's number one. Right. It's his go to bullet. Yeah. And I mean, I was having yeah, I had a lot of I mean, it took me two weeks to learn how to turn the TV on and off and change the channels and stuff like that because the technology had changed so much. So much. And, you know, I mean, 33 years, never had a cell phone, never even you never had a debit card. They didn't. They didn't. It didn't exist. Never used a gas pump where you had to use a card.

Yeah. Or self-checkout. A lot. Yeah. Self-checkout at the store. Apply for a job. up online, or even getting on a computer. I had some computer experience, but they didn't have the internet. So you were kind of overwhelmed at first. They took me and I ended up on Venus somewhere in an alien culture that, you know, I didn't even speak the language, you know, and the social norms changed a lot of the way in relationships and in professional things. I mean, just over time, everything changes. And that's a good thing. But you got a job. I did. Pretty soon, like, was it 30 days or so? Yeah. Then you got a better job. I had to overcome the fear and all the self-talk that I was doing. I mean, I told them I'm 63 years old. Who's gonna hire me? I've got this horrible sexual history. Who's gonna hire me? Yeah, the enemy's in your head. And I'm on a SISP monitor.

I'm on parole for life. I know my parole officer's gonna talk to my employer. I know that the registry is gonna talk to my employer. I know that there's no way, you know, of getting around it. You can't wait until you get the job and then try to make it better later kind of deal. You have to disclose that up front pretty well. That's what I adopted. That's what I adopted. Because I've known many guys, they will slide in there under the radar with their criminal history, not just their sexual offensive history. But they'll slide in under the radar and then the employer will find out later. And then suddenly they have an issue at work. And that was, it's devastating. So it's been my best results. But my experience was God still works when you get out. All right. Don't leave him behind, huh? Yeah. Well, you know, yeah. I mean, everybody has those moments where you hit your knees when you're down and out and you're desperate. And then suddenly when he lifts you up and your attitude improves and your situation gets a little better.

And I mean, I finally realized I'm out of prison. I'm on, you know, I'm good. Then you're right back to it. You know what I mean? And I mean, been there, done that. And, but if you persevere, if you continue to follow God, and if you just continue to love God, all things work to good. I literally just walked across the street and got the first job I applied to. Wow. That's incredible. When I woke up one morning and I says, this ain't working either, God, you know? And I was looking out the window in my apartment and I saw the, you know, there was a dry cleaners in a tire store. And I don't know, a couple of other kind of stores. Within walking distance, right? Yeah, it was right across the street. And it was the only thing I knew to do. I mean, I have to have the address on my schedule to go there. So I put them on my schedule. I told the guy what I was doing and I walked across the street to the dry cleaners and got a job that day. Started the next day. Wow.

And you worked there, had a good record and you worked there for how long? A year? Yeah, I told him I didn't have any training. I didn't have anything, you know? And he says, well, give me a year and we'll see how it plays out. And that was the same thing I told God. He says, well, we're gonna go your way and see how it plays out. That's literally, that was my sinner's prayer. Wow. It was not so much a prayer, it was just a statement of surrender. Yeah, it was surrender. Yeah. That's the key. Yeah. And repentance, turning from your old way of life. You have to change. Yes, repentance is change. It's not just being sorry for what I did or feeling regret. These things are good, but yes, you have to change. You have to allow the transformation to occur. That's how the change happens. That's how it happened with me. So a lot of people are on a monitor when they get out, regardless. It doesn't matter what your charge is.

A lot of people now, a lot of the states are putting people on monitors, not just in Texas. So how long were you expected? How long did you think you were gonna be on a monitor? Oh, well, I was SISP from the jump. So is that a maximum? SISP means? S is Super Intensive Supervision Program. And for sexual offenses, murder, some horribly assaultive behaviors, it's a year. A year, okay. And they tell you. They do. They tell you, yeah, the parole board. And were you on there a year? I was on there for 15 months. 15 months. For 15 months, I was on there. And how has been the parole? I know it's different everywhere, in every state, every jurisdiction, but in your case, did you? Did you get along with your parole officer? Did they try to work with you? Did you find that the system wasn't set up to make you fail, that they were doing their best to help you, or was that kind of neutral? What would you say to the men and women that are still locked up about how to cooperate or how to make the best of what might be a bad situation with parole? Well, we're going to run right into one of them hard truths you warned me about, and they always get me in trouble, all right?

But my experience with the parole board and the parole office and the parole officers that I've had, because I've had many of them, have been supportive, helpful, and there's no other way to say it, but loving, loving not in the sense that most men think, you know what I mean, or that I used to think, but they're concerned. They care. They will help you. The flip side of that is you have to be honest with them. Come on. You have to have a good attitude. The Bible says to confess your sins to one another so that you may be healed, and that's how it works. And I listened to all of those stories in prison of what Texas was like on parole. Well, and I'm not from Texas, guys. They caught me going through El Paso. I wasn't, and so all I had, the picture I had of Texas was from prison, and it was from the guys that went back, all right? And- Oh, yeah. From guys that got out, were on parole, failed, and went back to prison. Or like me that just- Or picked up another child or something. That just came to prison, and it was always somebody else's fault. We're talking about parole. So the guys that got violated and went back, it was always the parole officer hated them, this, that, or the other thing. It was always somebody else's fault. And Texas is awesome. I have been supported in my journey and my efforts. My parole officer tolerates me, but I submit to the parole officer. The Bible says to submit to those in authority over you, all right?

Whether you like it or not, because there's a lot of stuff about parole that I don't like. Even since I'm off the monitor and I can freely move around, sort of, you know what I mean? Just there's a lot of, they still keep their foot on your neck pretty tough sometimes. But the parole office is supportive, considerate, and helpful. So it's all been good for me. Every parole, and I've had the one everybody loves and the one everybody hates, I've had them. Well, let me ask you this. I know it may not be just for sex offenses, but sometimes you're required to go to counseling on a regular basis, like a weekly basis and everything. Has that been drudgery for you, helpful for you, just kind of neutral? How has that been for you? And are you still required to do that? Yes, I still see SOTP counseling. I have worked my way down to once a month. I started out four times a month with therapy sessions. And sorry guys, but you get to pay for it. In other words, you have to pay for it yourself. I pay for the counseling myself, yeah. I have to provide my own transportation. I'm free. I'm free. Ain't nobody going to bring me a lay-in. They're not going to pull the van out front. You know what I mean? I'm free. You got to show up. I'm free to do what I got to do or not do what I got to do. Come on. All right.

And I had to walk. My favorite mode of transportation was the girl's bicycle, bright yellow, the bicycle. Bright yellow girl's bicycle. Little basket on it. Yeah, it's cool. It was such a cool thing. I'd be tooling up down the road, but yeah. Has that helped you generally? It has. I learned in Alcoholics Anonymous that it works if you work it. And they say that in Alcoholics Anonymous because you have to put effort into it. Repentance is all well and good to be spoken, but when God starts working on you, he's going to expect you to act. Yes, walk it out. He's going to provide. The same thing that led me to do my criminal history leads me to do good things. All right. At the same time I was plotting and planning my crimes, there was a voice in my head. They'd say, hold up, this ain't gonna work out good. Which we ignore that voice for a long time, didn't we? And that was the Holy Spirit trying to help us even when we weren't serving God. Yes, yes, we are made in the image of God. We have a spirit, creature. They call it a spirit creature. I don't understand any of it. But I also know I don't have to understand any of it for it to work. I don't really understand how the sun works either. That's right.

But I know every morning it's gonna come up, the plants are gonna grow, the cows are gonna eat the plants, and I'm gonna eat the cows. Tell me about relationships. Did you have a lot? So you were locked up for 33 years. I think I remember maybe from your testimony that you didn't have a lot of good relationships left in the free world among family and stuff. Can you give us kind of a little summary of what that was like and what it's like now? Well, my relationships have improved. I have friends now that are truly friends. They're not just somebody I can call on when I've made a mistake and I need some help or something. Although you can do that, but I'm more comfortable with myself, so I have a better relationship with myself through Christ. Okay? And for me, that's what I'm still working on even after five years. I don't have any- I think we'll all be working on it. Yeah, well, I think it's a forever thing. But I don't have any, I have a relationship, I have a wonderful testimony on the restoration that God will do in your life if you're obedient. If you're obedient. If you're obedient.

I hate that word, okay? Because it means I gotta act. It means I gotta surrender, I have to sacrifice, I have to do my part to further the kingdom of God in the world, because this is the enemy's territory, and he's the enemy. But you had a son that you had, did you ever, so how old was he when you got locked up? He was six years old when I got locked up in Texas. And he never came to visit, so you didn't have a relationship really with your son. No. But now you do, so that shocked you, right? I mean, how did God work that out? Well, when I got out, I had a cousin in Kansas, and we were talking, we spoke. I never heard from my son when I was in prison. I got one letter and a Father's Day card. I still have those, okay? I still have those. And I still have some of the letters from my cousin, because she would send me these, you know, girls, they send you the, you know, they make these things. But you kept them. I kept them, yes, I did, I kept them. I'm not gay, but I kept them. Right. But when I got out, she offered to help me find him, because we talked about that. Oh, yeah?

Yeah, and I wanted, I mean, I wanted to see my son. I knew I had two granddaughters, because my oldest brother would send me some pictures that he would get from online. And so she found him on the internet. He was working at a college in St. Joseph, Missouri. Wow. And scared me, scared the crap out of me. All right, what do I do now? What do you do now? Yeah, because that fear of rejection, that wanting to belong. And, well, I just told her, I says, look, contact him, give him my phone number, and tell him he can call if he wants to. Oh, wow. All right? Yeah. I didn't want to make any mistakes, so I left it all up to him. And so you were praying during this time. Yes. And talking to God about all this. You were, if I remember right, you were just, you were trying to trust God to just guide you as to how to do this. Mm-hmm, yeah, and he was, I mean, he was the inspiration for letting him make the decision, don't jump out there like you usually do.

Yeah, force. Don't contact him. If I let him know that I've got his contact information and I know where he lives, and he doesn't want this relationship, then it's going to cause more problems. And that revelation led me to tell my cousin to just give him the phone number. And he called. He called? He called. We had a wonderful conversation, and I got to talk to my granddaughters. Then it wasn't long before you got to go visit them? I got to go visit them. I mean, you had to get permission because they were out of state. Yeah, they were out of state, so I had to get a travel permit. I had to wait until I was off the monitor and stuff like that, but waiting until I got off the monitor was actually a good thing because I was able to get a job. I mean, I had a job. Saved some money. Yeah, I saved up some money at my first job. You have to do stuff like that, guys. You're going to have to buy your stuff, I'm sorry. The Lord provides, but if it falls out of the sky, it's usually a big boulder and it's not really not always what you want. But I was working at that dry cleaners, and I'll be honest, I didn't care for that job at all. I was pressing pants. It was hot, sweaty work. I was working for low wages, and the more pants I pressed, the more money he makes.

Here we go. But I saved up some money, and I got my truck, and I had some help with that from your ministry, and I'm grateful for that. So there are, God is still working. If I did my part, I mean, God puts in more than I did, so that was all good. He finds ways to help. If we're willing, you know, the Bible, people like to say God helps those that help themselves. That's really not in the Bible. It's really more like God helps those who realize they're helpless. So on that bus that day, and I've had it my own life, I finally had to come to the point where I can't do this, and only you can, and if you can do it, I'm going to follow you. But still, we have to cooperate. We have to have a good attitude. We have to have a seeking heart, a searching heart. Manage our resources. Manage our resources. Be good stewards. In the manner that God wants us to. That's right. Yeah. That's right. So I know you got to go see them, and now to make this a little shorter, you actually have restored relationships on a friendship basis with even your ex-wife, who you thought that would, you probably thought that would never happen. I never thought that would ever happen, yeah. And now you get to be with your, your son actually ended up, he got a job in Lubbock, Texas, of all places, at Texas Tech University, so he was able to transfer, and I don't know how all that worked out, but I know that you still, well, it's all God, right? But are you, you still spend time with him every- I do.

Every week, right? Mm-hmm. Several times a week. I spend as much time with him as I can. In fact, I spend so much time with him, he's kind of trying to get me a, he's got me on a leash for a little bit, but yeah, I do. What a blessing to have the restoration. It's awesome. Yeah. It's awesome. And get to see your granddaughters. Yeah. Now I don't have to just try to imagine what it would be like. I can live. So in, kind of to bring this, getting ready to bring this to a close, so we've kind of talked about what it was like when you got out with the Lord, and what about church? We didn't talk about that. Did you have trouble finding a church? Have you been able to get involved? How has that been, and do you recommend that to others? No, I didn't have trouble finding a church. I went to about five churches before I found one that I was, that I kept with. And no, I mean, God will lead you in that like he does in everything else. When you know you've found your home church, then you'll know that you've found your home church. So a lot of times felons, ex-convicts, don't feel as welcome in some churches, but you found a church where you just felt comfortable, and you weren't, you didn't feel like you were discriminated against and that kind of thing. So that was not a hard task. They don't like my criminal history, you know, and there are some that probably have trust issues with that, but they are able to overcome their self and see me the way he sees me,

which is what a church is. Because we are the church, guys. We are the church. The body of Christ. The body of Christ. And yeah, there are some churches, and you know, there's a lot of dissension within the body. The left hand keeps trying to take over the right hand, you know what I mean? And the left foot keeps kicking the right foot. And so Jesus prayed for unity, right? In the garden. Yes. John chapter 17. We are all the body of Christ. And yeah, I've had a great experience at my church. I attend Church of Christ. And you're part of a Bible study too, or at least you were for a while. Are you still doing that every week? Yes, yes. I still do that. And these are people mainly – well, they are mainly from your church, right? They are all from my church. And many of them, because I met with you one time over there, many of them are our age, so they're mature believers. So that's kind of neat to hang out with mature believers. I had never been around people who married their childhood sweetheart, been going to the same church for 80 years, had the same job until they retired. You know what I'm saying? Stability, right? These people are awesome. And I never knew that existed.

And they accepted you into their group. They did. They have been gracious. Just what advice, whether someone has – whatever the person's charge is, murder or whatever it might be – what advice would you have to the men and women that might be tuning in right now as they – maybe they're – some of them, you know, like you, you didn't think you were ever going to get out, but you did, right? So what would you say about hope and encouragement – to give hope and encouragement to those that might be tuning in right now? It will happen. Someday for you it will happen. I believe that. I have lived that. I know this to be true because despite all my efforts, it happened to me. And I was my own worst enemy. I still am in some ways. But God has His plans. And His plans are going to prevail. His plans have already prevailed. I just haven't really quite figured it out yet, sometimes. But just in all things, give praise and thanksgiving. Realize that in your weaknesses are His strengths, that He will guide you and support you and keep you safe. He will not let you suffer more than you can endure, as bad as it may get. And it gets bad. It gets bad in prison, all right? And even out here, when the times are tough, just give thanks and have faith that if you follow the promptings of the Holy Spirit, He is the wisdom and the strength and the courage of God in you. Christ told us when He left that all the things I have done, the Spirit that is in me is in

you now. That's right. The Holy Spirit. Just figure it out. That's right. And He loves you. He wants you to come home. He's got the rest of us kicked to the curb until He can get you there. And we're waiting on you, kind of thing. So just, I mean, I don't, despair is a tool of the enemy. Anger is a tool of the enemy. Hopelessness. Fear. All of these things. The seven deadly sins, they're in His toolbox. And He uses them. He knows exactly how to get to me. Every day when I wake up, He starts. I think He starts when I'm sleeping, too, sometimes. It's not a fair fight, I'll grant you that. But He who is in me is greater. It's not a fair fight for the enemy, either. That's right. I don't know. The one that is in me is greater than the one that's in the world. My dad and I used to talk about me getting out of prison, and I would always tell him that I was never getting out of prison. And he would always tell me never to give up hope. Yeah. And you got to see your dad and be with him.

You had to get permission because he was still in New Mexico. And now he's passed on. But you never dreamed that you'd actually get to be with him in the free world again. Anything other than the visiting room. God made that happen. Yes. Yes. And I'm so grateful to God for that. And I want to throw a shout out to the parole office, too, because when it came to my family, when it came to visiting my son, when it came to visiting my dad, they were there. Amen. All right? They won't let me go out of state for any other reason now that my dad's passed, now that my brother is passed, now that my son lives in Texas. I'm stuck in Texas, which is good with me because I have found out that I kind of like Texas. I like it, too. They made a Texan out of me. I don't know how they did it. Well, Duane, I just want to thank you for sharing with everybody. And again, this is just part of the follow-up on this book. Where are they now? Duane Breckeisen is one of the contributors to this book that came out in 2021. It's on your tablets. I'd encourage you to read Duane's testimony in full, as well as the book in general. There's a lot of questions in the back that are answered that kind of come to bear on what your early experience was after you got out and how the real world was interacting with you and how you were interacting with the real world, and that's covered in a lot of these questions. So I just want to encourage you to don't give up hope.

And as we close out this session of the Old Man, New Man podcast, I just want to say God bless you and keep giving it up. Give everything to Jesus. Go all in. Be all about Jesus Christ. This temporary time that we're living in is temporary, but eternity is a long time. And think today to be, as John Bevere wrote a book, driven by eternity. Let's be driven by eternity each and every day, trusting God, and He will direct your path. God bless you. Yes. Have a great day. I would like to pray us out. Would you? I would. I would love. I think that'd be great. Pray us out. I would love. It is my prayer for you, whether you're incarcerated or not, whether you're succeeding or failing, that the Lord will bless you and surround you with the hedge of angels and keep you safe. I pray that He will shower you with His grace and His mercy, and that you will know the love of God in your life, that He will act on your behalf and intercede for you in the heavens and in the world. And I pray that you will come to know Him fully and follow Him. I pray this in the name of Jesus Christ, because of His sacrifice. Amen. All right. Thank you for that.

Thank you, Duane. God bless you. Amen. Amen. Amen.