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Carving out new LIFE
By Carlos Antiono Velasquez

Editor's note: While recently having lunch at Asbury Theological Seminary, I met Carlos Velazquez from Colombia, South America. He is a friend of Jeannine Brabon, an OMS missionary. He was sculpturing a life-size statue of "Jesus, the Good Shepherd," in front of the seminary dining hall.

 Carlos had been drawn in by a family member to work for the notorious drug lord, Pablo Escobar. For nearly a decade, Carlos worked processing pure white cocaine. He was finally arrested and put in prison, then transferred to Bellavista Prison, one of the worst prisons in the world.

But that was before Jeannine Brabon began a powerful, anointed ministry that has changed the whole character of the prison (see page 22). God has worked in lives of inmates and now there is a church of more than 800 in the prison! When Carlos was transferred to Bellavista, he soon met a group of believers and came to find Christ as his Lord and Savior. Carlos is now free and back with his wife and four children and is a powerful witness for Christ.

 As a master wood carver, Carlos was working on an eight-foot maple wood carving of Jesus Christ, the Good Shepherd, which he had given earlier as a gift to Asbury Seminary. It had dried up and split and some of the wood had rotted. As he was doing this restoration, making it look new again, he said, "There is nothing struck by disaster or disease that cannot be transformed by the master's hands." And Carlos' life is a living example of that. We offer his testimony as further evidence of the new life that can be found in a relationship with Jesus Christ.

-James V. Heidinger II, President and Publisher of Good News

 

From serving a drug lord to serving The Lord
I grew up on a family farm in the Andean mountains where we raised cattle and grew coffee and bananas. I loved the smell of cooking "panela" when we boiled the sugar cane to make brown sugar. But my paradise was shattered at age twelve. My mother was getting some grain from a wooden bin when the lid came down upon her head. Within a matter of days she died, and so did my world.

I took refuge in my father, but he took refuge in the bottle. Even at my young age, he introduced me to alcohol-which I did not like. But the men in the bar laughed at my reaction, and I decided to be a "man." Sadly, this led me down the road of addiction and wrong companions. When the drug lord Pablo Escobar recruited my uncle to process cocaine, the whole extended family became involved in the drug business. I served as a bodyguard for him, but I earned my reputation at the laboratory processing pure white cocaine.

I focused my energy on trying to drown out my deep pain inside and filling the void I felt. Nothing satisfied. I had money, alcohol, women-but only emptiness inside. My values were so distorted that when I got married, my new bride and I spent our honeymoon at the laboratory.

Those distorted values seeped into our marriage. When our second child was born, we fought and my wife, Aleida, took off with the baby. During a party at the lab, I tried to drown out my sorrows. I was showing off my latest weapon when a shot went off and, to my horror, my two and half year old son, Giovany, lay limp on the ground. The bullet from the high powered weapon had entered close to his spine and went through his tiny body.

My cousin leaped up to take us to the village clinic. Several times in my despair I tried to swerve the jeep over the precipice of the mountain roads. "Why live?" I asked myself. Then Giovany groaned. Perhaps there is hope. I tried to say the Lord's Prayer and the rosary-nothing came. I screamed, "God, save my son."

A young medic in the village attended to my lifeless son. When he put a scalpel into his little body, I immediately put my hand on my revolver. I was determined that the doctor would not live if my son perished. But God used that doctor to save his life, and I saw the glory of God before I ever really knew him personally. God hears when we talk to him!

At the hospital in Medellin, the doctor did not give Giovany much chance of ever walking again. But he walked three days later. Upon his release from the hospital, I turned my back on this miracle of God. After all, the mafia needed me to move a shipment of cocaine. But God had not given up on me. The drug agents captured me and I found myself in the prison in Urrao.

My skill as a carpenter allowed me to use my craft inside the prison walls. With the other prisoners we planned an escape, but God had a master plan. The day we intended to flee, a massive earthquake destroyed the prison and all of us prisoners were shipped to Bellavista maximum security prison in Medellin.

I was terrified. We all knew the hellish conditions of this infernal place. What I did not expect was to find a group of six prisoners singing! I drew near and they opened the circle to include me. I wanted to disappear, but something gripped me. One of them said, "Carlos, Jesus loves you." Those words penetrated deep and I found myself returning to the group. In a matter of time I opened my heart to receive Jesus as my Lord and Savior. Jesus filled the emptiness inside with his precious love and I had never felt so happy in my life. I could hardly wait until my wife, Aleida, would return so I could tell her what God had done.

On her visit two months later, I enthusiastically shared the dramatic transformation I felt inside. "If any man be in Christ he is a new creature," the Bible says. But my wife protested, "Carlos, you cannot play with God. Do not be a hypocrite! I know all too well your evil lifestyle." In spite of the sincerity of my words, I could not get through to her. That night I wept in my tiny crowded bunk. God spoke to my heart, "Carlos, it is not words that are going to convince her, it is living the life that will draw her to Me."

That night I had a dream in which I found an ugly block of wood, and I carved a beautiful clock with an eagle perched on top in great detail. In the morning I awoke to find a block of wood on the patio. At that time no one knew of my craftsmanship, so I had no right to be at the artisans' workbench. I bought a small chisel, the blade made from the instep of a shoe and the handle from melted down plastic cups. With this five inch instrument I began my masterpiece. Everyone wanted to know what it was, but I said nothing. When it was finished I was thrilled to have a buyer. I called my wife, who was expecting our third child, to come visit me. On Mother's Day, I wanted to give her the twenty dollars from the project.

But the chief ruler in the patio came and took my work of art. He said he would settle with me later, but he never did. I had nothing to give my wife but my discouragement. Jose Giraldo, another inmate, encouraged me, "God will provide." So I started all over again, only this time to have the second-in-command steal my clock; I cried. I wanted to prove that I could provide for my pregnant wife. Why was God letting this happen? Again, Jose ministered to my wounded spirit. I made the third one and sold it. But before I could hand it over it disappeared, this time by the worst and lowest criminal inside. "I have had it," I cried to Jose, as I threw my Bible to the ground. "The Christian life is not for me," I said. "I turn my cheek only to be slapped again and again, and my wife is in great need."

"Let's pray," Jose suggested. "You pray.I cannot." After he prayed he said, "Well, let's report this theft." I knew the prisoner would be tortured if we did.

"No, Jose, I am going to trust the Lord and allow him to provide. I do not understand why life is so difficult now that I am a Christian."

That night God spoke again as I lay in our roach infested quarters: "Carlos, do you remember the ugly block of wood? What happened to it? Through blows from the mallet and chisel, you formed a work of beauty. I see your life in a similar process of becoming like my Son. These trials are blows to chip away your bitterness and hate. I desire to bring you into my image and likeness. I want my character to be formed in you."

From that day on, I studied the Word. I continued to face serious trials, even death. But I prayed as Moses did that God would not take me out of prison unless his presence would go with me.

Eventually, God set me physically free from prison. It has not been easy to start over again outside prison walls with a family to support. But as I look back, I can testify of God's great faithfulness to me and my family in the midst of much adversity and trails. My wife and my sons each know the Lord Jesus as their personal Savior. The most important moment in our home is our family worship time together every morning. We are growing in Jesus day by day, and love him with all our hearts. He is our reason for living!

Today from my own experience I am helping other young men who come out of prison, and need the encouragement to start a new life in Christ. I understand all too well the struggle and the challenge. It is a great joy for me to be a servant of the King of Kings, to see souls saved eternally, and to serve with the prison team in whatever way I can for the praise of God's glory.

Carlos Antiono Velasquez and his family live in Medellin, Colombia. Carlos Velasquez graduated from the Medellin Bible Institute in 1994. Carlos is on staff with Prison Fellowhip Antioqua, the key leadership regional branch of Prison Fellowship Colombia, since 1999. He is an ordained pastor of the OMS-founded Interamerican church with a heart for God and the lost.



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