Finding God in the Back of a Cop Car- Kyle Hebert

The first voice in our new Stories of Redemption series belongs to a man who once called prison “heaven on earth.” Meet Kyle Hebert: 98 arrests, five felonies, a 40-year sentence—and a heart remade by grace. From a childhood house fire that left lasting scars to a sudden loss that detonated his teens, Kyle’s life spiraled into addiction, rage, and violence. The turning point arrived not with a plea deal, but with a prayer. Handcuffed in a squad car, he finally asked for a Bible.

We walk with Kyle through Angola’s gates and into a land of new beginnings: installing ductwork in prison chapels, maintaining the on-site Bible college, enrolling in seminary, and learning under mentors who saw potential where the world saw a lost cause. Kyle became a father inside those fences, meeting his son through Awana’s Returning Hearts and choosing to parent through apology, Scripture, and steady love. Years of discipleship reshaped his desires—no write-ups, no shortcuts, no hustle—just the slow, steady work of the Word. When a legal change opened an unexpected path, he stepped into parole after 22 years, greeted at the gate by the son he had raised from afar.

Today, Kyle serves as chaplain at the Livingston Parish Detention Center and teaches reentry and fatherhood while working in manufacturing, helping men learn to stand on their own. He speaks frankly to families about enabling, to those drowning in anger about godly sorrow, and to anyone who feels too far gone about a Savior who meets us at rock bottom. If you’re loving an addict, fighting shame, or yearning for a second chance, this conversation offers practical wisdom, biblical clarity, and living proof that transformation is real.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Launching Stories Of Redemption
• 0:27 Meet Kyle: 98 Arrests To Chaplain
• 2:57 Childhood Fire And Lifelong Scars
• 7:16 Violence, Football, And Father’s Death
• 11:34 Spiral Into Crime And Addiction
• 19:06 Rock Bottom: Arrest And Awakening
• 23:35 Taking Forty Years And Owning Guilt
• 28:02 Angola: Work, Seminary, And Mentors
• 34:24 Becoming A Father Behind Bars
• 39:12 Ministry Inside: Chapel, Reentry, Awana
• 45:08 Law Change And Unexpected Parole
• 49:10 Reentry Life: Work, Church, Chaplaincy
• 53:45 Unrestored Ties And Patient Hope
• 56:25 Hosts Reflect On Justice And Grace
• 58:40 Counsel For Families And Addicts
• 1:03:53 From Anger To Godly Sorrow
• 1:08:35 Hope For The “Too Far Gone”

Transcript

Gianina: 0:00

Welcome back to the Walkthrough Podcast. I'm Gianina, joined by my amazing co-host Kiley. We're kicking off an exciting, brand new series today called Stories of Redemption, where we explore the incredible journeys of faith and how God pulls people out of the pit of despair and sets them on a firm foundation in him. There is no better person to launch this series than our very first guest, Kyle Hebert. Kyle has a story that begins with a staggering 98 arrests and five felony convictions. His life took a dramatic turn while he was serving 40 years in a Louisiana State Penitentiary, a place he now calls Heaven on Earth, because it's where the Lord awakened his heart. After 22 years, Kyle was released in 2021, and today he's the chaplain for the Livingston Parish Detention Center and a dedicated preacher traveling the country, sharing God's mercy and grace. Join us as Kyle shares his transparent, powerful, and humbling story of how God gave him new life in him and what it took to trust him fully. Let's walk through this very first episode of Stories of Redemption with Kyle.

Kyle: 1:13

I'm so excited to have Kyle on today. So I met Kyle at a conference a couple months ago. And as soon as I heard his story, I was like, this is so powerful. And I knew that it was something that I would love to have on the podcast, but I didn't really think anything would come of it. And then we ended up running into each other at the front of the sanctuary. And so I was like, okay, this is my opportunity. I'm gonna talk to Kyle and see if we can connect and if he would like to be on it. So I'm just so excited that you're here. Thank you for taking the time to spend with us, and we really appreciate it. So, Kyle, I would love it if you can just start by sharing a little bit about who you are and your story and your journey with the Lord. Yes, ma'am, absolutely. Well, I'm honored to be here. It's a privilege and all glory to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. And uh my name is Kyle Aber. I'm currently living in Denham Springs, Louisiana. I am a chaplain at the Livingston Parish Detention Center, and I teach re-entry three days a week. Also work at Dell Tech Manufacturers, where we we build anything from 40-ton air conditions to pieces to the space shuttle. So we do a lot of welding, fabricating, fitting, lasering, and I get the I get the privilege and the honor of having the work release guys from two different correctional institutes here, one from East Baton Rouge and one from East Feliciana, right here in Louisiana. And I work in specifically the shipping, receiving, and quality control area. So it's it's a blessing and uh and an honor, and I just give the Lord all glory and honor for uh you know just making this new life in him special. But my life didn't begin like that. Born and raised in a little town south of New Orleans, you may hear the accent Shawmet. Uh it's right below New Orleans. And I'm born to a precious family of three of us. My mom, my dad, and uh my brother John, who was you know 10 years older than me. I I was the the child that came in 10 years later. My dad, John Sr. was an uh engineer, my mother, a uh a school teacher. So um they had me in their 40s, so I had the best of both worlds. I had a mom and a grandma and a dad and a grandpa. I always like to say that. I mean, because my dad was in World War II, and uh my mom grew up in Shaolmat. She was fifth-generation Shaalmatian and just, you know, farmland and hard workers, and uh they both ran businesses as well as their regular jobs. And uh I watched, I watched him just work really hard. My dad, being an engineer, really developed in me a heartbeat and a work ethic to be really vocationally sound. The downside of it is I never saw a Bible in in my household. You know, we would we were considered Catholics, we would go to church periodically when it was holidays. But that was about the extent of it. I had no relationship with the Lord Jesus. But I watched my dad just love and honor my mom. And let me tell you, anytime my mom needed something done around the house, my dad was quick to do it. And I love being with my dad. I love being with my mom, but me and my dad was very close. But at age five, while my dad was remodeling the kitchen for my mom during Thanksgiving, she wanted to have the house nice and he was putting in countertops. We had uh we had Christmas coming, Thanksgiving was coming, you know, all the holidays, and she wanted new countertops. And so while my dad was installing them, he was using a highly flammable adhesive called foamica glue. And he was on the last piece of the foamica. I'm five years old. I'm just a little boy hanging out with my dad. It's late at night. And I can remember, my dad turned off back then we had floor furnaces, you know, along with the hot water heater and all those gas appliances that had the little polypht gas um flame on it that stayed lit all the time. And he forgot the main one where we were working, the the pollen light on my mom's stove. And air fume mixture does not work well. Before I even realized that there was a flash, I heard my dad hollering, and I immediately ran out the house onto the front porch. But when I got on the front porch, I realized that my dad was inside. So I turned back around and ran back in the house. Thank God my brother was sleeping at a friend's house, and my mom was outside tenting to one of my dogs, uh a little bitty uh Chihuahua that had been sick. And she heard, she hears screaming and yelling. But that's not that's not unusual. Me and my dad played a lot. However, when she smelt the smoke with the screaming and yelling, that mama went into gear and she came in through that back door and uh she did not stop. Later on, I would find out when she opened the door, my dad ran out the house, went and rolled in the grass, grabbed the hose, came back in. I can remember, y'all. I mean, I'm I'm I'll be 60 at the end of this month, and I remember it like it was yesterday. I went and laid between the refrigerator and the deep freeze. And let me tell you, I just want to say this. Man, the Lord, how he has created our bodies is amazing. Because I felt the flames, but there was a period that I didn't feel anything. It was like we have an automatic shutdown. Because I was burned three-quarters of my body with third-degree burns. And my mom literally ran, talk about the love of a mom. And when you connect that with the love of Jesus, and we're gonna talk about that in a minute, I got a I got a taste of that right off the bat of a love of a precious mom coming after her baby on fire. And I had a I had a turtleneck on and the glue was on me. Because what happened when I ran back in, my dad was getting rid of the can. And when he threw the can, it hit the ceiling, and he didn't know I was running back in. And I ran right into the fallen gallon can of formica glue that was on fire, and it hit me all on the side of my face. But I went and laid between the refrigerator and the deep freezer. My mom, she literally, she had blankets ready. She started putting the flames out. And and I'm gonna tell you, the the blankets caught fire. And so she was literally using her body. Well, we would, you know, she would get the flames out on me and we would go out on the front porch. But that that would send my family into a chaotic path that I had to, I wounded up having to stay in the hospital. It was like 46 major skin graph operations over a year and some months. And I had to go through all kinds of physical therapy. My mother was an outpatient, and then she had to take care of getting the house put back together. And my dad was was in there uh for about eight months, you know, so he wasn't working, and it was just horrific. You know, I had to go through all these whirlpools and everything, and I just was angry, you know, as a little kid going through all of this, and and I'm gonna tell you, the the the blessed side of it was there was uh school teachers, you know, my mom being part of the school board and all of that and working with the school system. She was able to get my school because I was in kindergarten, but I had to stay like kindergarten and part of first grade. The school teachers were coming to the hospital and working with me with my studies that would keep me up with my class. So, and I had a really great doctor, Dr. Robert Meade, and and some of the skin grafts that I had to have, he didn't want to keep putting me under. He's like, this is too much, too much anesthesia for this kid. And so a lot of my operations, you know, when I was learning to walk, learning to talk, and they were concerned that all my cognitive skills, you know, would be depleted because of the heat and everything. I had to have localized skin graphs. They would take skin from one part of my body and put it on another. So just a lot of pain and a lot of torment. And I was just angry. I blamed my dad, I blamed my mom, and there was no kind of discipline there because I'm all bandaged up. So I would finally come out the hospital and be able to be put in a classroom at school, but because of the germs and because of all the burns and the open soils and everything, I had to be put in a class by myself, a sterile class. So there was a lot of special care. And I can remember the kids. Kids could be cruel, y'all, gawking at me and making fun of me. And again, add that to everything I've been through. And um, you know, my dad would sit down with me and talk to me. You know, I can never remember a time my dad never being with me at the hospital, never, you know, he's in pain. He would come visit me in the room, you know, he would sit me down and spend time with me, my mom too, but my dad felt guilty, you know, apart from Christ Jesus, you know, godly sorrow brings about repentance without regret. No more guilt. My dad didn't have that. And we're gonna talk about that in a in a bit. But he blamed himself. And and the way he expressed the outpouring of that is he spent a lot of time with me, you know, which he did before, but even more so now. And so I would get so angry at the kids, I can remember smelling blood. And I said to myself, you know, I get out this classroom and I'm able to play on the yard with the other kids. The first time somebody says something to me, I'm gonna punch them in the mouth. And that's not good, you know, for a youngster to be thinking that way. Violence, violence, violence. Well, it happened, y'all. When I got out, finally was able to go and play in the yard and with the other students and everything, somebody made fun of me and I just went off on them. And it felt good. And that began to happen consecutively. I would fight every day, I would beat people up, and then I've got the crew behind me saying, get them, Kyle, get them. You know, you got that group. So now I'm being applauded for doing evil. And so, you know, and I'm I'm a wretch. I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm a I'm a mean kid that, yeah, I'm burned up and I've been through a lot, but I'm hurting people. So my mom has to have this talk with the with the principal and everything. And what they come out with was that let's start putting Kyle in sports. Maybe that'll help him, you know, exert some of this anger. And I'm gonna be honest with you, it helped. You know, I started playing football, was able to get out there and and and hit other people, and I wound up getting kind of good at football. So I went I played in middle school for two years, and and then I went to Shawmet High School. Show Met High School, I don't know if y'all ever seen the program Friday Night Lights. Friday Night Lights is big. You know, that's a Show Met football is 11 quad A football. We got a hundred-man roster, and we got a we got a big old stadium and a nice band, and you know, we play all the Catholic schools, and it's it's pretty big time. And so as a freshman, I got to play on the varsity. I mean, I they was preparing me. I started on defense, but I became a running back, and I got good at it. Matter of fact, we ran a wing T. I wasn't real big, but I was fast and uh I was strong. So uh coach Coach Bill Cimento developed me into a really good running back. And not only did I have to make good grades, I had to stay out of trouble to play football. And I can never, again, I can never remember my dad never being out of practice, never being, you know, at a at a game. My mom would be at the game, but my dad was, I mean, 1,000 in my life, supporting me with everything I did, and and teaching me all these various vocational skills, just really making me into a vocationally sound man. Not you know, the the biblical man is prophet, priest, and king of his household. But I only knew the king role where I could make money and support my family, which is really the least important when it comes to uh a biblical worldview. And we'll talk about that in a minute. But my senior year in 1983, now I done I done came through on playing ball, I'm making a name for myself, and I I broke a couple of you know Russian records at Xiao Met. I had the fur I was the first thousand-yard rusher at Xiao Met. I'm doing everything for myself. I don't know God, I don't know his son Jesus, I don't know anything. You know, like I said, Catholic, and I'm not knocking Catholics, but we would just go to church, periodically. I knew nothing about the Bible, nothing about a relationship. So everything I'm doing, I'm doing for myself. Well, lo and behold, 1983. Uh we've got LSU here, that's a big-time college here in Louisiana. But I wasn't, I I didn't want to sit the bench and I didn't want to go to LSU. I love LSU, but I wasn't really big enough to play for LSU. The Raging Cajuns is like a little bit of a smaller school, and I wanted to go to school for agriculture anyway. I wanted to, you know, my parents own some land, and I learned how to use a chainsaw, and I love being out in the country and everything. And uh so I was gonna, you know, go learn about agriculture, and and um UL had a really great agriculture program, and they offered me a four-year fully paid sports football scholarship, and I took it. So, my senior year, we uh we we actually we going undefeated and we play in in the Superdome, and it was in November of 1982, and we playing in the Superdome against St. Aug. And uh we had never beat St. Aug. This was a big game for us to go to the playoffs. My dad was there, even my brother came to the game, and we beat him. We wound up winning that game. We go into the playoffs, we come home, we celebrating. I got all my family with me. I was blessed that my brother, John, because me and my brother wasn't really close. We were 10 years apart. I loved him, but we didn't hang out or anything. But he was at the game, and I came home in November, it was November of 1982. Never heard my parents argue, never heard them fight, never heard them scream. And this night, after the football game, we we all went to sleep. I heard my mom yelling. And what would happen was my life would be drastically changed completely. When me and my brother heard my mom yelling, we both got out of our beds. He his room was across from mine, and we ran to their room, which was in the back of the house. My dad had closed in a carboard, and that they had a huge bedroom. It was gorgeous. And so I ran down there, and as I got closer to my mom and dad's room, I heard my mom yelling, Daddy's dead, daddy's dead. So here, my little G God, I love my dad. He was my god, my idol. Everything my dad, if my dad would have stopped short, y'all would have lost me. It would have taken a month to dig me out of him. I mean, that's how close I was with my dad. And uh, they called this baby bear papa bear. And um, because my last name being A Bear. And uh when I I saw my dad's limp, dead body in the bed, and that changed my life. Now I had perfect attendance. I was carrying a 4.0 GPA in high school. I was on my way to go to UL and play football, and I I walked away from everything from that point forward. So from 1982, 83 really, 1983, I didn't even cry at my dad's funeral. 1983, from a kid that's scholastic, winning the scholastic award, most likely to succeed, he now begins drinking, drugging, everything that you could name debauchery. I I wind up riding with biker gangs, fighting. From 1983 to 1999, I would accumulate 98 arrests and four felony convictions, 97 arrests and four felony convictions. And it was from uh drunken public to second-degree battery to aggravated battery, but a lot of drug charges, fighting, this, you know, just chaos in and out, in and out, in and out. And I really became a menace to society. And I would do a total of nine years in and out of the local jail. And my mom couldn't handle me anymore. I mean, it was I'm running with all these different women and bringing them home. I wasn't raised that way, but I was not raised in a word. But I'm in and out of prison. I'm doing a life sentence on the installment plan. And then we pull up on 1999, and I'm I'm living, I mean, wretched. I'm I'm downward spiral, heading to hell. I hate this God that burned me up. I hate this God that I'm blaming God, that a God that I don't even know, blaming people, took my dad, and I'm just an angry kid. All that anger that started from the fire is now multiplied now that I'm older. But here's the beauty of this entire story that the Lord has not only ordained, but he is caused and he never left me his sovereignty. God was sovereignty. Where was he at in the fire? He was there. Where was he in my family? He was there. While I was learning all these skill sets and vocational skills, my daddy was teaching me, working with my uncle, my uncle owned A-Bear alignment and football, team sports, and not that team sports is everything. I mean, it's a piece, but I I learned how to work with people. That God was preparing me for the man that I am today in him. Because in 1999, I'm at Layman's Bar. I had just come home from doing like a three-year stint for unauthorized entry of a movable, and I think it was a weed charge. And um I got out, I wasn't out a hot month, and uh I'm at Layman's bar drinking. Look, one beer was too many, and a thousand wasn't enough for me. I would drink, I would drug, and then I would fight. I was an angry drunk. I'm in Layman's bar, and I'm fighting, playing pool, and betting money, and we want to, there's a there's a shootout, and I don't, I don't even know how it started, but I'm right in the middle of it. The cops come, I wind up running from them. I get to the house, and I'm I'm living with a with a with a young lady from the West Bank, and she's as soon as I get home, she's aug in with me. And so I'm living with I'm living with my aunt and my mom. I had just come out of jail and they let me stay over there, and I brought a girl home, which they were totally against. But they wanted me home, so they let her stay there. So her and I is augment outside, and my aunt comes outside, and she's like, Y'all gotta hold it down out here. And so I did the unthinkable. I punched my aunt right in the face. And let me tell you, I had never put my hands on her, and my mama is standing right there. After I hit my aunt, my aunt, and and and listen, she's 72 years old. I put my hands on a 72-year-old woman, not only a 72-year-old woman, but a woman that loved me, a woman that that put up with me. This was my mom's sister, and my mom watched me put my hands, and then I beat up the girl that was with me, too. So I beat up both of them. And uh after that, and I walked inside, I was broken. I I just went to bed. I just went to sleep. And I when I woke up the next morning, the police didn't even come that night. I went to sleep, woke up, I see my aunt is all bruised up, and I'm like, my goodness, what did I do here? Something in me began to change. But I didn't, I didn't understand it. I didn't, I didn't I didn't fully understand everything, but I'm gonna tell you this. No doubt that the Lord had begun to work in my heart, and and I'm gonna get into that in a minute, exactly how faith comes by hearing. But my aunt looked me in the eye, and I'm I went and kneeled, I remember I went and kneeled next to her chair, and she says, This has got to stop, Kyle. You're drinking, you're drunk, you're not, this is not you. You've got so much going for you. This is look, I'm back, I'm I'm working at Jolly's, the local 11 sheet metal union. I got a good job, drinking. I come home and I I beat up a woman that loves me, that was a part of my life while I was in hospital. This is my mom's sister. She says, I forgive you. But you need to change. Now I didn't I didn't know how to change. This wasn't about good behavior. So 13 days go by, and I'm I'm going to school now for underwater welding. It's a part of the local 11 sheet metal union. But something in me is different. But I don't I can't put my finger on it. I'm still drinking, but I'm not drugging like I was. I'm just, I'm going to school, I'm going to work. Susan moved out, and she went back by her parents, and I'm just staying with my aunt and my mom. And the 13th day, I'm coming home from school from I would go to work, and then I'd go to the sheet metal school for underwater welding and Mattering. And on this particular night, when I turned down my street, I noticed police cars on both sides. There's no doubt that the hand of the Lord was on me. Because normally, when I would see all these police cars, I would turn around and go the other way. I didn't. I thought to myself, somebody's in trouble. Little did I know, when I pulled in the driveway, those police were waiting on me. The neighbor saw my aunt all bruised up and thank God, called the police. Because August 19th, 1999, Kyle Labar was not arrested. Death was arrested. And no doubt in the backseat of that police car, I was changed. Ma'am, what I didn't tell y'all was I was not mean to Christians. You know, we would be driving around, you know, I'm I'm from Shawmet. There's a, you know, they there would be kids out that we'd be at the cinema, we'd be at the park drinking or whatnot. And the Christians would come out and, you know, would want to talk to us and share the word with us while I got a beer in my hand. But I was never mean to them. I I was kind of fascinated that they would that they would walk around and they were nice. And and that's a that was the extent that there was no illumination by the Holy Spirit in my heart. But I'll never forget what Doc Robson, one of my mentors, told me. He said, Kyle, he said, that was the pre-salvation ministry of the Holy Spirit walking in, working in your heart. It had been working before birth in you. And the Lord was working it out. And then in the backseat of that police car, broken, handcuffed, tired of running, sick and tired of being sick and tired, sick and tired of hurting people, death was arrested, and the Lord gave me life. August 19, 1999. At night, when I would go to the St. Bonard Parish prison, I now wanted a Bible. I had never won one before. And the Lord had sovereignly had people on the tier that was there that would bring me a Bible that first night. And look, I had two attempt murder charges on me. I had battery on Susan, second-degree battery. Had uh, I had to, you know, because of the shootout at layman's and then, you know, beating up my aunt and then beating up Susan. All of that was on. I had I had a long list. And let me tell you, the list that was on me, I knew deep down I was never coming home. Matter of fact, when I pulled off in that police call that night, I looked through the back window and said, I'm never coming back to this house again. And I never, I've never been back yet. And so I would begin reading the word, and I didn't really know what I was reading, but the Lord put people in my life like Steve Bozant while I was in Sabinard Parish prison. But the difference in me now was I stopped blaming. I stopped blaming. I started. Faith comes by hearing all those seeds that from those Christians that would pray with me and share the word with me. Even though I'm drinking, it was the illumination of the information by God's revelation that began to work in my heart. And all those seeds in my life begin to sprout, and the Lord began to grow my heart for him through his word. And so when I went to my preliminary examination, I had Judge Garbarty. I didn't even want to go to trial. I I was guilty. I had put my hands on anime. I had started all that stuff at Layman's Bar. And I just wanted to be responsible now. I'm reading the word. I'm growing. I don't know everything. I'm a young, young, young Christian, but the Lord had changed me because I begin to hate the things that I used to love and now love the things I used to hate, namely him, people, but more importantly, myself. And so Judge Garbarty's like, well, I'm not here to stand on a soapbox, Kyle. You got 98 arrests and five felony convictions. He's looking at my jacket. He's like, I'm sending you away for the rest of your life. And I'm like, okay, I'm good with that. And he's like, Do you realize what you're saying? I said, I absolutely do know what I'm saying. And so he would take me back like two months later, and I'm I'm more in the word, and you know, we got Bible studies on the tier now. I mean, the Lord is sovereign. He's preparing me. I had no idea just how much he was preparing me. And uh I would, I would, I would plead guilty to one count of attempt first degree murder. They dropped everything, and uh, I took 40 years, and people couldn't believe it. And I would, it was the most freest thing that I had ever done in my life. Here he is. That's him. Kyle Bear, 256-437, 40 years. Uh, and I would be sentenced uh to 40 years and sent to the Louisiana State Penitentiary, that would become heaven on earth. All my trade skills and everything that I had learned, all my vote skills, when I got off the bus uh at the Louisiana State Penitentiary after going through the front gate and seeing a sign to the right that said the land of new beginnings, I didn't understand all that. How Angola, how a prison could become the land of new beginnings, but it did. Because when I pulled up at the Louisiana State Penitentiary after being sentenced in St. Bernard, Gordon Burrow Kane, the warden, would be building chapels in every camp. And in 2000, when I got there, he would be building his first chapel for the men at Camp D. And he needed a man to do air conditioned ductwork. And so, me coming off the bus, that's my skill set. They got all my jacket. And lo and behold, God is sovereign. Warden Kane and Warden Vernoy. Warden Vanoy is the head warden today. Warden Kane is running the state of Mississippi right now, and he's the commissioner out there. But I was mentored by some great men that love the Lord that was in the correctional department and was about men's souls, not just throwing men away. So Angola became a little bit of heaven on earth. It would become the land of new beginnings because I would go to work for Warden Cain and finish the chapel and put in all the agonish and ductwork. And there was a guy there by the name of Ronald Edison. Ronald Edison was a fallen pastor, y'all, from Slydell. And doing breaks, we would do Bible studies. Ronald was training me. The Lord always put somebody in my life to teach me the scriptures. And Warden Cain said, Look, Kyle, do a good job, and I'll put you anywhere you want to go. I said, I want to go to maintenance. I want to go to the main prison. I want to go to maintenance. Okay. So we finished, it took about four months. We finished the chapel and had the ceremony and all that, and they dedicated it. And so uh Warden Cain. Kept his word, and he put me in the main prison, puts me in the maintenance department, and guess where I'm maintenance maintenance at? The New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. I'm the maintenance man at the Bible College. Now, how does that happen? God is sovereign. So now I'm working at the Bible college as the maintenance man and fixing all. There's not much. It's a brand new building. There's nothing much break in there. And Dr. John Robson, the one that shared with me about the pre-salvation ministry of the Holy Spirit, would become my mentor. And he is a director of the Extension Center of the New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. And so I did that for about a year. And then in 2003, I was welcome with open arms to go through my first semester in Bible college. While all of this is happening, I um I get a letter in the mail, y'all. It's from Melissa, and I have to say it this way. I don't remember Melissa. But oh Lord, when I opened that letter, Ronald was with me. Matter of fact, Ronald came to Bible College with me. A little picture of a baby boy fell out the envelope. And it hits the floor. I don't see that, y'all. Ronald does. He's like, hey man, you dropped something. I'm like, what is that? I pick up the picture. He picks up the picture and he hands it to me. And he says, Look at it, man. Look at it. I'm like, okay. I'm not even reading a letter yet. On the back of a three-week-old Matthew. Hello, Daddy. I'm like, what? Right look in between, right when I come home from that last stint, that three-year stint before I moved in with my mom and them, I had gone to spring break. And I met a girl in the elevator, one night stand, maybe a half a night stand. I got her pregnant and she found me. God is sovereign. She was married and separated from her husband. Sleeps with me. Goes back, I sent, you know, she goes back home. I come back to Louisiana, and she had, they get back together. And she has to tell him that she's pregnant from another man. Now, in a day where abortion is rampant, God is sovereign, he agrees that she can keep the baby. And not only keep the baby, allow me to be a part of his life. So from that day forward, I would, there was a phone number in the letter, and I would call that number. And Matthew and I would meet face to face for the first time. I don't know if y'all are familiar with Iwana. Gordon Cain, with a with a precious man of God named Manny Mill, who's from Wheaton, Illinois. We get with Art Rohan. Art Rojam was the back in the early 2000s, was the president of Awana. Gordon Cain says, We got children of these inmates. Can we do something for them? And Art Rojam and Jack Edgar said, Absolutely. So with Manny Mill, they would orchestrate and we would have our Returning Heart celebration in our rodeo arena at Angola. It's an all-day Christian event where we would spend a day with our children. And Matthew got his mom and his and his grandma, Melissa's mom, I got real close with Miss Peggy. She's passed away now, would allow him to come. And there was churches. Matter of fact, one of Ronald Edison's churches, he knew a bunch of pastors. One of his pastor friends contacted Melissa and they drove and went and got Matthew from Panama City and brought him to Louisiana to spend a day with me. And let me tell you, that that's the picture y'all saw. That was the first time meeting Matthew at the end, and matter of fact, Awana Lifeline is still broadcasting that. That was the first time I got to apologize to Matthew. The first time in person that I got to tell him that I loved him. And because I as soon as I found out in early 2000, because he's born in March, March of 2000, I began writing him letters. I begin praying. The Lord's working on my heart. I'm in seminary. You know, I remember the love of my dad, you know, but um, this is different. I'm gonna raise my son, unlike my dad, in the word of God. And I did just that. So for 11 years, you know, I got to meet him face to face in 2009. And every year, Matthew came to Returning Hearts. For 11 years, seminary studying, ministry in Angola, the land of new beginnings. I had a full-blown ministry, the Lord blessed me with. I got my BA. I wound up working on my master's while I'm incarcerated. And look, I'm never getting out of prison, y'all. I got 40 years, 2040. At best, I would come home in 2034. But for 11 years, it was just me and God. And I come to this conclusion, y'all. You truly don't know who God is until God's all you got. I beat up my aunt. Look, my dad's from a family of 12, 12 brothers and sisters. All my cousins turned their back on me. And very rightly so. They were sick and tired of me. I forgave them. My brother and I was at odds. He wound up selling everything. And he had um, there's no forced airship in Louisiana. And the lawyer sent me paperwork to sign. I signed everything off. I'm like, I'm spending the rest of my life in prison. Look, whatever y'all want to do with it, my father, God the Father, the head of the Trinity, owns everything. I don't need anything from this earth. I'm raising my son. I'm I'm gonna raise him in the word. I'm building multi-generations of godly children through him, and and all I want to do is glorify the Lord in ministry because prison, honestly, y'all, it was a mercy. How many people get caught up in stuff and just slide by? I was never that guy. Everything I did, I got busted. And I would complain, I would, I would cry, I would be like, man, what's up? Why I'm always getting caught? Because the Lord loves me. I'm his son. I've been his son since before the foundation of the world. Those, the, and I'm, you know, the politicians who get away with stuff, whoever it may be, you can know who I'm talking about. They just look at Esau. Esau got away with everything, but Jacob didn't. Jacob left with a limp. I live, I got a limp because of God. Let me tell you, he busses me up. I don't get away with nothing and praise God. Because Angola became a mercy. Man, I got busted, got broken, and got saved. And and the land of new beginnings. They got to raise my precious son in the word. Had to do right at 22 years raising Matthew, and he, you know, becomes a young man, and and then I become a mentor. I get my masters and I get to be a part of the, you know, we got the re-entry program, and I become a mentor, I become a part of the Angolite, the prison magazine. I mean, just ministry after ministry, and the Lord put me in front of, you know, people, and I'm traveling, and I get to speak at church while I'm incarcerated. I was a statewide trustee. I never deserved to get out. I never focused on getting out. It was never about the front gate. It was always about them 12 gates. Then COVID hits. Now I'm I'm not only, you know, working all these programs, and I didn't work the programs to pad my jacket, y'all, because I never believed I deserved to get out. I pled guilty to 40 years. As a matter of fact, I was multi-built and wound up with a life sentence. I had life, which is how Angola, but Raymond Bender, who was in the Angolite with me, looks at my sentence and says, this is illegal. It's an illegal sentence, God. They got some of the best lawyers in prison. They got some of the best preachers in prison. Let me tell y'all, it ain't just jailhouse religion, I promise you. You got some men that really love the Lord. Better place to get saved. I had nothing else. We got nothing else. And uh he got the life sentence taken on, and I got my 40 years back reinstated. So in 21, they running mad trying to figure out how they can, because of COVID, how to lower the prison population. I got five felony convictions. I got 97, 98 arrests. I'm never getting out. God is sovereign. John Bell Edwards, our governor, passes a law. Act 122, that reinstates the 2045 parole eligibility. You had to serve 20 years and you had to be at least age 45. What that means is in criminology language, uh, it's called criminal menopause. They figure at age 45, a man is not as wild as he used to be. The testosterone levels drop. Okay, I can go with that. Well, the Lord Jesus had removed the heart of stone, replaced it with a heart of flesh, and given me a new spirit. I no longer desired my old life. I no longer desire to go drink, to womanize, to hurt people, to fight. My heart now is bent, you know, as Ephesians 2 says, but God, what, being rich in mercy, I was dead, but now I'm alive. I now want to glorify the Lord, and I truly understand the depth of what it cost him on that cross to forgive me. So I'm living a new life. But John Bell passes a law, and I fit it with all the regulations and all the restrictions. I'm gonna use that word because you had to have like 100 hours pre-release, you had to have victim impact and all these different programs. I was teaching all of this. I was even doing Malachi Dad's, which is our Christian father through a wana, it's the it's our fatherhood program. I was teaching that on Death Row, which we call Life Row. I had access to Life Row. I would go preach the gospel there, and I was living at Camp F. I was a trustee for 22 years, a statewide trustee. Warden King gave me trustee status right off right off the bus to work at the chapel. But think about this, and it's not about good behavior. Christianity is not about good behavior. It's not about checking the box. We can't be good. Only Christ Jesus can be good. I've tried to be good, y'all. Only Jesus is good. And only and it he must give us new desires because Christ Jesus not only died for us, he lives for us. And that's the beauty of this. I went from 98 arrests, five felony convictions, to zero disciplinary infractions while I was incarcerated. Something changed. But all of this, my jacket fit everything this bill asked for. And I was the first one to go on a on the parole board. I was in there for 10 minutes. And December 15th of 2021, Kyle Lab would make parole and be released from the Louisiana State Penitentiary December 7th, 2021. And my son would meet me at the front gate after having a 40-year sentence. And so while incarcerated, I met a lot of people, you know, coming in there because Warden Kane opened the door. Churches are coming in. That's how I wound up out here in Denham Springs. The house I live in is one of the church members that I met through Cowboys for Christ. I also learned how to cowboy while I was incarcerated. You know, Miss Lisa, you hear her, she'll always say, I met Kyle, first time I met Kyle, he was on a horse, a cowboy and a theologian. So that's what Miss Natalie Labour was second in command of Department of Corrections. Now she works for Miss Liz Morell, the Attorney General. Natalie was with me at the last Karugma, no, two years ago. The blind, she was with me. She works for the Department of Corrections. She looks like an LSU cheerleader. She's not, she's a very popular. She may now, I'm just gonna say this on the air here. She may be our next female governor. But she's my sister in Christ. I mean, she might say, Kyle, you shouldn't say that. God is sovereign, you know, and I love that. She's brutal. She's my sister, I'm proud of her. So I would I would wander about here in Denham Springs, and the Tates blessed me with this home. God is sovereign. Riverside Baptist, the church that I landed in with Pastor Larry Hubbard, was coming in Angola teaching Bible studies. Immediately when I got out, I went through parole project for six months, got both my knees redone. I mean from scratch. The Lord blessed me with two brand new knees. And I used my prison doctor, Dr. Rosenbloom. I got two brand new knees. I healed from that, and I walked in Riverside Baptist Church. They couldn't believe I was there. And so that was my church home until I was blessed to be put at Salem, which I'm actually the gifted brother there. I preach twice a month at Salem. And then Dell Tech. Dell Tech, Mr. Rocky, who owns it, is in the church congregation, knows to take God is sovereign. This is the body of Christ, y'all. Just this fence of love around me. I got the job at Dell Tech. The sheriff and chaplain Mark Carroll and Darrell Courtney, all these guys that work for the sheriff's office, they wanted to help the inmates. Well, they saw what the Lord was doing with me in Angola. So now today, I got me a little badge. I went from. Yeah, I went from that. Now I'm the chaplain of the Livingston Parish Detention Center. You know, Proverbs 16, 7, when a man's ways please the Lord, you make even his enemies be at peace. I got a daughter, y'all, Kaylin. Y'all be praying for her. She's in her early 30s. She don't talk to me. You know, so I mean, is all the relationships restored? No. But in God's timing, she knows that this door is open. I love my daughter. I want her in my life. You know, Kaylin is an amazing young lady, but I hurt her and she has not gotten over that. I left her when she was seven years old. And so that's that's a big thing in my life that I'm I know the Lord is able, and I know the Lord can and will, but it's going to be on his timing. You know, the main thing is for my son, and they're from two different moms. My son and her get along. You know, and and that that's about their relationship because my son likes to take up for me. And I'm like, no, don't do that. You need to just love your sister and help her with her walk with the Lord. And so today, uh, Matthew has graduated from Wheaton College. Man, I just did Returning Hearts, uh, where me and Matthew met for the first time. I was uh I was a volunteer this year for the first time. They just brought back, I got to go back and you know, since COVID. But um Matthew graduated from Wheaton. I got to go to his graduation, and I got to spend the uh a whole week with him and his mom. And so that was special. So I got, you know, I've never here's here's another key. His mom's not saved. She lives a very wretched life, and she don't mind me saying any of this because it's true. But I've never said an ill word about her. And Matthew's noticed all of that. He's like, Dad, you respect my mom. Well, of course. Because I honor the Lord, I glorify the Lord. And I let him watch me treat his mama with the utmost respect that whole week while I was in Illinois, at Wheaton, Illinois. And it was a blessing. And so Matthew graduated in May of last year. So I got to I got to go to that. That was special. I got to sit in the front with Dr. David Geezer, the is the president of Wheaton College with him and his wife. So I got to sit right in the front. It was I couldn't, I couldn't stop crying, watching my son walk. So uh a friend of mine, Kerry Myers, who actually got exonerated after 34 years, who was the editor of the Angle Light, and him and Andrew Huntley run the parole project in Baton Rouge, which helps men who have done extensively incarcerated years come out and got nowhere to go. They set them up with an apartment, a job, make sure they get their Medicaid, make sure they get, you know, what they need to survive out here and whatnot. Um Kerry and my son are very close. You know, matter of fact, it's like he's like an uncle to my son. Well, Kerry's got connections all over the country, you know, all these different attorneys and everything. So he, Matthew and four other Wheaton students wind up going to New York. And it was supposed to be something temporary, but it's been a year. And he is now in his fourth semester at NYU studying law. So Matthew, starting another college, uh, we'll see what the Lord does. You know, I just keep praying and I give God all the glory for that. I wind up, I wind up having a I buried my mom. My mom passed away, my brother passed away. But praise God. You know, I mean, um the the cycle of life. And the message is plant seeds, share this gospel. You know, the greatest evidence, the greatest miracle today is our transformation that the Lord has done in our hearts. Every time I look in the mirror, you know, here's this creature from the dirt, this wretch that the Lord didn't kill. He should have killed me years ago, but he didn't. You know, he sustained me and brought me through all the trials and tribulations to be the man of God. Every good. Romans 8.28, all things. Really, it does. The good, the bad, and the ugly. All work together for the good of those who love them. More importantly, are loved by him. And so Paul said, Christ's love compels me. It wasn't Paul's love for Christ, it was Christ's love for Paul, just like it's Christ's love for y'all and myself and every born-again believer. You know, so so here I sit, y'all. I'm I'm blessed to be on here, and that's uh that's really about all I got. That's so good and powerful. And I think it just to me, listening to your story and hearing about how you ministered to your son, you know, and taught your son about the Lord, and now he's walking a different path. And I just think about the redemption story that you get to have, and just to say, like, you got to you got to change the trajectory of your name for generations and what the Lord is doing in your family for generations. And so it wasn't an easy path for you to get there, but just to think about because of the love that God had for you, but you also opening yourself up to that. And I think, like you said, stopping from blaming everybody else. You said, I deserve to be here. I'm gonna pay the consequences for this. From that moment, you know, you really changed the path for we don't know how many generations, but Lord willing, every generation until the return of Christ, you know, because that is just so powerful. I absolutely love thinking about that. Yes.

Kiley: 50:14

And your story is such a beautiful one because, you know, we talk about how we have free will. You know, God has created us to be in relationship with him, but he doesn't force it. He wants us to choose him. And despite you, you know, making certain decisions for yourself that landed you in that position, when you started seeking him, he used that for his good. He put all those people in your in your path. He put all of those, you know, he lifted all of those restrictions basically that he was preparing that path for you. And like Janina said, like it has changed the tra of your life and future generations because all because you chose to seek him and to to want to be in a relationship with him. And he really does want what's best for us. And it's such a good example that he has so much more in store for us than we could ever imagine. Yeah.

Kyle: 51:13

And it's such a good reminder that, like, like you said, he corrects those that he loves. And it's just such a just a good reminder of how much God loves justice. We think about the goodness of God and his mercy and his grace and all these things, but it's like he's equally just as he is good and great and loving. And so in his justice, he was able to use that to turn your heart towards him. And so that's also a really cool thing to think about. I I would love to know if there was somebody who is loving an addict right now, or somebody who was in your shoes prior to you going to prison. What is something that you would say to encourage them? Because I know um, I know for a fact for us, that's something that that I have from what we're listening to, or our listeners, we do have a lot of people who either have been addicted or who love somebody who's in that position. So I would definitely just love to know. Yeah. Right. Yeah, you know, the word, the word of God is is the only thing that that changed me. I'm, you know, reading the word and and don't don't be anxious. You know, this is this is a lifestyle that, you know, our sanctification, you know, is going to be in effect all the way until our glorification. So my my cheer, my advice is do not over-templarize our perspective. You know, Jesus, let me just, Jesus says, He says, therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life. What you will eat or what you will drink, know about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? We seem to want to over-tempor um temporal temporalize, you know, because we live in a temporal world. When the Lord calls us to himself, it's about the eternal, it's about the cross. Everything is filtered through the cross. Good father, chastising, drug addiction, all of that is a part of this world. But when when we come to Christ and the Lord removes the heart of stone, replaces it with a heart of flesh, and here's the key, y'all gives us a new spirit. The desires are changed. But in order to, the maintenance of that is the word. So my encouragement is don't be anxious. Get into the word. You must hit rock bottom. You know, 98 arrests, I was I was in that that cycle of addiction, that cycle of of you know, anger. You know what I mean? You can put whatever label on it, but until I hit rock bottom in the backseat of that police car, and it was so sad that I put my hands on my aunt. But it was rock bottom for me. So my encouragement, and here's an here's a big one. I love mamas, but mamas can be our worst enemies. Mamas want to enable their sons. They want to get them out of jail. They want to make sure they're all good. And that's the biggest thing that I go through with my guy. I got a lot of sons, y'all, with this prison. And I talk with a lot of moms. Some of them get really offended with me when I tell them, stop enabling him. He's got an addiction. You're sending him money in prison, and guess what he's doing with the money? Buying drugs. You need to let him hit rock baro. And that's what the hardest thing for him is. I get it. I just throw it out there. Listen, when my mama, my mama was an enabler. I know firsthand. Mama's boy. I'm the one she ran in the house with the fire. And so I was her baby. You know, here's this tattooed up gang member, you know, riding Harley's and everything. I was still her baby. You know, and look, I could do no, I was beating up police and everything. I was still her baby. But until mama said, I'm finished with you. Didn't mean she didn't love me. Maybelle got tired of me. And when she seen me whoop anime, her sister, that you know, that was God's mercy. She didn't go get a pistol and kill me right there. Because she told me, I gave your life and I'll take your life. My mom was tough. She wasn't no chunk, but she loved me. And my mom said, I'm finished with you, don't call this house no more. But you know, there was never once I ever thought she didn't love me. I knew she got tired of me. She got tired of me. So that's that's another little tidbit. And that's a hard one to tell mamas. Stop enabling your sons, stop enabling your daughters, you know. But the word, the power is in the word. I can't, I can't express that enough. This word, it's it's it's grace alone, faith alone, Christ alone, the scriptures alone, to the glory of God alone. That's enough. It's everything. I love what you said about filtering, filtering everything through the cross. I think that's that's yeah, so good. And I know when you and I first talked, one of the things that you said to me that really stuck with me was you said that anger really was like the gateway drug. It was that anger that you weren't able to forgive and let go. So uh what would you say to someone who's just angry, who's harboring anger or shame? Anger or shame, because I think sometimes those two can both have the same effects on people. How were you able to kind of let go of some of those things? You know, two scriptures come to mind that really affected me was the woman that was touching Jesus and and you know, was washing her feet. And what you remember what the Pharisees said? How does he let, if he knew what kind of woman she was, he'd never let her touch him. Jesus knew everything they were saying. And Jesus said, Though her sins are many, she been forgiven. Therefore she loved much. She'd been forgiven much, and she been loved much. But how did she get that? She understood that godly sorrow brought about repentance without regret. That word is no guilt. There's no more guilt at the cross. When I understood what it cost Jesus, the cross, the depth of that forgiveness, when we understand the depth of that forgiveness that it cost Jesus, the second Adam, that same depth of understanding of the cross is the same depth of love that we're gonna love others. And anger is removed. Godly sorrow, would have sorrow brokenness. Godly sorrow is seeing myself as a wretch and him as holy. Because he is holy. He is other. God the Father is whole. Look at Isaiah 6, where Isaiah said that was Jesus standing there. And look what happened with them seraphim. Touched his lips. Everything changed. The way we speak, the way we think, the heart and mind is the saying, synonymous with one another. That's cardiac where we get our English word cardiac arrest. Godly sorrow. It all boils down to understanding the cross. It all boils down, blessed are the poor in spirit. Petukas. We are not only spiritually poor, we are beggars. And we apart from him, we can do nothing. So someone who is full of anger, what point, at what point are we gonna give it over to the Lord? When we kill somebody, I would hope not. But sometimes that's what happens. It takes a tragedy, it takes an incident. You ever see when tragedies happen in families? Everybody come together. But prayfully, that would never happen. But before that happens, again, rock bottom, understanding the cross. The only way we can understand the cross is the word of God. Faith comes by hearing. It is the illumination of the information by God's revelation. Anger destroyed my life, but Jesus Christ brought it all back together. And that's the beauty. But God desire. At the cross, y'all, the power of sin, the penalty of sin, the wrath of God is no longer on the born-again believer, and neither is the power of sin.

Kiley: 59:33

That's good.

Kyle: 59:35

No power. I mean, look, the power. We don't have to tinker with sin. Sin has no effect on the born-again. That's Romans. Sin has been taken away. We want to play with it. We're now positionally, that's what's justified. We've been, we're now justified, never sinned. We are now positionally perfect, but guess what, y'all? We're still in the flesh. We're practically raggedy. That's the working out of our salvation. We're Fear and trembling. But what's the next verse? It is God who works and wills. It is Him that does it in and through us. And He will remove the anger. But the person that is caught up in anger, it's it's a surrender. We know how to surrender when they put the handcuffs on us. Surrender. I did that many times. But let me tell you what when the Lord opened my heart and I began to read the word, everything changed. And that's that's that's the best advice I can give. Rock bottom, batukas, beggar. I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired. Until a person hits rock bottom or some kind of tragedy, winds up in a place where there is no getting out, and all you've got is to look up. And that's why I do what I do today. I try to grab these guys, and I know I can't save anybody, but I can point them to the only one. And the evidence is here. I walk in these jails, I've been there. I sit the guys at the table, and I'm not trying to brag. I'm not trying to talk about how bad I used to be. That's that's that that that man's dead. That that that punk's dead. I'm I'm an I'm an in it I'm new birth, new man, new creature in Christ. But I can go around the table and say, how much time you got? How much time you got? How much time? And they'll tell me, and I'll say, add it all up, and I've done more time in a cell than all y'all put together. That's horrific. But I don't want nobody to have to go through, but if it's necessary, praise God. Because it became, God used all that time in the cell, all that time behind bars as a mercy, breaking me and molding me into the image of his son through his grace, through his mercy. But he removed all the anger. It doesn't mean that I don't, you know, at times, you know, my does my senses have been trained, as Hebrew says, to be able to discern good and evil. How do we work out how do our senses get trained? Through the word. Everything is right back through the word. He'll give you a taste for that. Once you taste and see that the Lord is speaking.

Kiley: 1:02:10

I think it's such a good reminder for people to know that God will meet you in the depths of it, in your in your shame, in your guilt. There is no place that he will not go to find you. You know, after, you know, when Jesus died on the cross, he descended into hell for three days and he was separated from God. And God brought him out of hell. So there is no emotion that God hasn't felt with you, and there is nowhere that he's not gonna go to save you. So for people who might be in similar situations where they just feel like they're so far gone, so full of shame and guilt, and how could I ever come back from this? You prime example, you know, and God will use them in every every situation.

Kyle: 1:03:01

It's uh it's a beautiful, thank you for saying that. And and yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Think about the thief on the cross. One is hurling insults at him. What one man, his theology came clear. He saw him, he knew he had a kingdom, and Jesus was at his worst. And I get the thief that's hurling insults. You're supposed to be the Messiah, you're stuck on a cross and you're naked and beat. You're a sham. I get that. But until his spiritual, the other one, his spiritual mind was open to see Jesus as the God man who had a kingdom, because he said, Remember me, Lord, when you enter your kingdom. So here's great news for us who have been through the ropes, who have been, I mean for everybody, but prison, everything. The first man that walked in heaven with Jesus came off a death rope. Think about that. Jesus said, Not tomorrow, not next week. Today you will be with me in paradise. So we see in the Old Testament, open up, oh gates, oh ancient gates. And when you when Jesus, who is this that enters? That was Jesus. And I I have to believe right alongside of him was that as soon as he rose from the dead, he's walking through heaven's. He had the key for heaven's gates. I get I get chills when I think of this. That thief was with him, walking in. Can you imagine that? That's the good news. I love the image of um thinking about there was just a meme I saw just the other day, and it said um the people that were gonna be surprised to see in heaven, and then the people who were gonna be surprised aren't there. And it's like all these prisoners and people who we don't expect to see in heaven, and then there's some religious people who aren't gonna be in heaven. And so just thinking about how God redeems all things, and nothing is-I mean, if we think something's too far gone for God to save it, then we don't truly believe in God. You know, we don't believe in a divine God.

unknown: 1:05:12

Right.

Kyle: 1:05:12

Yeah. So I'm I'm excited to see, you know, people who we don't expect to see in heaven. Well, I would love it if you would pray for our listeners. Do you have anyone specific that you feel led to pray for? I've always got people to pray for. My guys at the Livingston Parish Detention Center. I've got I've got eight of them right now. We've uh we've been doing the FAIR program, Family Approach to Inmate Reentry, and Mark Carroll came up with the acronym. He's the head chaplain. We've done three years of this now. Been home. I've been home right at three, right at three years now. And it's been amazing. It's been precious. And uh we we've had 28. I do 10 for 16 weeks. So there's 60 that have come into class, but out of the 60, 28 have been comp they all graduates. And so out of the 28, we've had zero return back to prison. So the recidivism, and it's not me, it's it's truly it's all the Lord. So I always want to, you know, lift up the staff there at the at the detention center, my guys at Dell Tech, and you know, and I'm just I'm just grateful just about open my mouth and just play such a small role in in the grand scheme of of God's kingdom and his uh finished work on the cross. Definitely. Well, if you wouldn't mind um praying for anyone who's currently incarcerated that maybe doesn't see hope. And then also, I I just feel like anyone who is in a spiritual prison, they may not physically be in prison, but spiritually, something is something's got a hold of them, something's tying them up, whether it's anger, shame, fear, resentment, just something's kind of holding them back. So if you wouldn't mind praying, we would love to agree with you on those things. I'd be I'd be honored. I would be honored. What a privilege. Would y'all bow with me? Precious Father, just thank you for every opportunity that we get to come to your throne of grace, and I thank you for this precious time on this amazing God-ordained podcast, and thank you for your divine appointment and that we could come together today and just glorify you and by the blood of the Lamb and the word of our testimonies. And we're honored, Lord, and we are just so magnified by your grace that we no longer have to serve a high priest who cannot and will not sympathize with us. But you, Lord, were tempted and tested at all points, and you gave us the open door to come boldly to your throne, yet humbly. And Lord, I just want to lift up anyone who's in a spiritual prison right now, anyone who may be struggling with anger, anyone who may be struggling with sex addiction, drugs, alcohol, any label, Lord. Anyone who may think that they've gone too far that they can never come out of it. Or there's no hole too deep, Lord, that you can't reach down. Your arm is not too short, that you can't draw someone out of that and into the marvelous light. Darkness must dispel. The tomb is empty. And may we never forget, Lord, that you not only died for us, you live for us. No one can snatch us out of your hand. We thank you for your sovereign grace, we thank you for your mercy. We love, we thank you for your loving kindness. And my prayer, Lord, is to just touch hearts, open minds right now. Anyone who does not know you, not only caught up in addiction, but people who do not know you, Lord. Faith comes about hearing. Give them a hunger for your word, give them a hunger for you. Continue, Lord, to work in hearts and open minds. We thank you for this great salvation. We know, Lord, that the power of sin was dealt with on the cross, the penalty of sin. And soon, Lord, when you come back no longer as that suffering servant, you will come back as the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords, where every tongue is going to confess and every knee is gonna bow. And you'll separate your goats and sheep. And my prayer, Lord, is to call your sheep to yourself. This day, today is the day of salvation. We thank you, Lord, that you made a way out of nowhere. I thank you for what you continue doing in my life. I lift up all my guys at the Livingston Parish Detention Center, from Sheriff Jason Aud all the way to the lowest cadet. Everyone, Lord, is important at that jail. And I just thank you for making a way that I get to go in there and teach and just point them to you. I can do nothing apart from you. None of us can, Lord. I thank you for Dell Tac. Thank you that we are a praying company. And we we give all those, Lord, second, third chances. Those that the world has deemed unfit. You you you you lift us up and have used companies like Dell Tech to help people, to give them new life. But even more importantly, we preach Christ crucified. A stumbling block to the Jew and foolishness to the Greek. But it is the power of salvation to those who believe. And that's our prayer, Lord. Heal the sick today, hug the orphan, and pull close to you the widow. This is true justice. We thank you for such a great salvation. Thank you for this time on this precious podcast, Lord. Oh Lord, thank you for every opportunity that you allow me to open my mouth. And all who hear this will know that you are God Almighty. We thank you, Lord. We praise you, we honor you. It's in Jesus' name we say.

Gianina: 1:10:58

Amen. Amen.

Kyle: 1:10:59

Amen. Praise God.

Gianina: 1:11:02

Wow. Thank you so much, Kyle. And what a humbling reminder of God's love and the reality of his transforming power. We're so excited about this Stories of Redemption series and truly believe God will use it to heal and redeem lives. If Kyle's story resonated with you, if you or someone you know is walking through a season that feels impossible, please share this episode with a friend and help us reach even more people with the grace and love of God. Join us next time on the Walkthrough Podcast as we continue to explore the amazing things God is doing in the lives of his people.