Kevin Minski: A Journey from Crime to Redemption

Kevin Minski:

Well, for me to testify is to give evidence of facts and in my life. The testimony is really evidence of the fact that God is gracious because I don't deserve to be here right now. At least one thing that I have in common with Moses, King David, and the Apostle Paul is that like them, I too am a murderer.

The night of my crime, I'd been drinking, using drugs throughout the day. When it got to be later at night, I went to my father's house. I got one of his handguns and proceeded to the restaurant that I had planned to rob that night. Went up to the door. The door was locked, but I could see the clerk at a table nearby the door.

And she was counting the money. So the money was right there. My desire was to go in, get her just to back up, grab the money and run type of thing. So I knock on the door to get her to unlock it, she unlocks the door, and I immediately stuck the gun between the door and the doorjamb. She tries to slam the door on my hand, and then tried to reach out for the gun, and in all that split second of time, I fired the gun and ended up killing her.

I left that place and turned myself in to the police. The guilt that I was feeling for that was immediate.

You know, it's been said, there's like three major decisions that people make in their life. That will direct the whole course of their life. Obviously, a decision like that is one of them. And there is no coming back from that. That's what I thought at the time. God had other plans. God is a God of redemption.

My encounter with Christ happened two years into my sentence when I was incarcerated in Green Bay Correctional Institution, I got caught on a routine search with marijuana in my cell. I was put down in what's called segregation, the hole. So, I'm in the prison within the prison, underneath everybody, the very bottom of life.

There's no further way to go other than the future Lake of Fire. So, got down on my knees in that segregation cell floor and it's like in the movies; literally it was, well God if you are real, I can't keep living this way, I can't keep going this way, you have to do something. And it was literally that overwhelming sense of peace.

Filled my heart, filled my soul. I had no reason to be at peace. I'm serving the rest of my natural life in prison, life plus 60 years of a sentence. That was when God's supernatural peace came in. I was supposed to have spent a year in segregation. The security director himself came down and heard my conduct report and he said, I don't know why I'm doing this, but I'm going to give you three days in, three days out.

And I had already spent three days in segregation. So, I yielded my heart to Christ and that midnight, the very next day, my conduct report was heard. He released me from segregation. I thought, okay, if I'm a Christian now that, you know, I didn't know anything from anything. I said, I guess I better start going to church.

So, on my way back to the cell hall, I stopped by the chapel and I met Reverend Paul Emel. He spoke to me for about an hour. He said, I've got a guy who comes in twice a week. And he says, I really would like for you to meet him. His name is Dan Brigger. He works for Campus Crusade for Christ. And I came and I met Dan a couple of days after that.

And Dan made sure, first of all, that I understood the tenets of the Gospel. So, he led me through the Gospel message. Then he invited me to begin a mentoring or a discipleship relationship with him. And the main emphasis for him was what he used to call watch one, do one, teach one. So, he would take me through a section of scripture or a biblical principle, then I would relay that back to him.

Then I would go teach that to someone else, teach them how to disciple someone else. So, he instilled in me that principle of spiritual multiplication. So, I took that with me to the next prison I was transferred to. Then I got a job in every chapel in each of the seven prisons to which I was transferred.

So, I served under 13 different chaplains over the 32 years that I was incarcerated. The need was to share the Gospel with the lost and the dying who are around me in those prisons. They truly are without hope in the world. And you're giving them this sense that life is not about these walls and life is also not about the other side of this wall.

Life is about your personal relationship with Jesus today, where you are, and you can have that perfect peace that surpasses all human understanding. There were a lot of people in the system that did not want me to ever get out, nor did they think I should be released. God began to change the hearts of the staff members around me over those years.

And eventually my, my harshest critics, the people that opposed me the most, God turned their hearts, and they began to work on my behalf to see me eventually get a parole.

We have no reasonable expectation for God to ever reveal himself to us individually in our lives. But He is good. He is loving. He is gracious. He does have a purpose and a plan for each one of our individual lives. I know now that God always knew me from eternity past and He had this purpose for me in spite of my sin.

I'm that one who's been forgiven of that insurmountable debt and God's love for me will never be in doubt. I know what he's forgiven me of. And when you trust yourself to Him, He's going to gift you, equip you and send you out in ways that you never imagined. He'll do that work through you. Trust Him with that work.

I've never regretted that and I'll never shrink back from that.