After 12 years in prison, Eagle was finally going home. He rode in the truck next to Novo staff member, Jeremy, who had offered to drive him back to the reservation upon his release. Eagle was from the Ponca tribe, which his people described as “the least of all the tribes.” As Jeremy and Eagle drove onto the reservation, the poverty was obvious. Jeremy was reminded of the scripture passage that had been spoken over his life: “The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me … to preach good news to the poor … to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners.” He knew he was here, with Eagle, because God had brought them together. It had been a surprising path, walked out with one small act of obedience after another…
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Jeremy had spent the last ten years working in finance and business, fixing problems for the corporate and government world. However, he had a burden for people in poverty and “hopeless” situations. So when someone suggested he use his fixer abilities to fix a different kind of problem—the nearly impossible situation ex-offenders face after getting out of prison—he felt the Spirit moving his heart.
Statistically, a prisoner’s risk of re-offending and going back to jail is very high. The odds aren’t in their favor because there are a lot of factors stacked against them. The big one is employment, and that was a problem Jeremy figured he could help solve. He organized a work release program at the nearby federal prison. And that’s how Jeremy eventually met Eagle, one of the inmates to come through the program.
Many of the men who joined the work release had lost a decade or more of their lives in prison and had never had a real job before. When they got released from prison, they’d be at the bottom of the job-market barrel and just getting started, while other people the same age would be in management positions. These prisoners were all incredibly hard workers because of their motivation to make up for lost time and excel on the job.
When one of Jeremy’s big-dollar clients hired him to fix a construction problem—a 10-story building demolition that had been dragging on for years—Jeremy brought in his work release crew, and they demoed an entire floor in just eight days. The owner immediately went to the other crew slowly working the floor above and told them, “You’re fired.” He entrusted the rest of the demolition to the prison crew.
That demolition site was a place of incredible building and growth in the work release guys. The men would meet individually with Jeremy for coaching and mentoring, and he’d ask them about their goals for life: “Where do you see yourself five years from now? What do you want to be doing?” They’d brainstorm ways to move toward those goals. Several men who had graduated from the program were now out of prison and running their own companies, using the leadership skills they’d gained working on the crew.
Jeremy had been successful at fixing the problem he’d hoped to solve: in a population of 20-year offenders, where statistically 90% of the guys would reoffend and go back to jail, 8 or 9 out of 10 work release guys were making it. That was worthy of a celebration all on its own. But there was so much more.
Jeremy wasn’t content to just meet practical needs. He wanted to see the good news of Jesus totally transform these guys. So without fail, he’d find an opportunity to talk to each inmate one-on-one about the gospel and see where they were at with Jesus. It was a very relational form of discipleship that, combined with meeting practical needs, was opening a lot of peoples’ hearts to the gospel.
As Jeremy had spiritual conversations, he was constantly on the lookout for “people of peace”—guys who were hungry to learn more about Jesus. And he found a lot of them—but they weren’t the people he’d expect. There were people from all different ethnic backgrounds in the program, but time and again, the people of peace God was bringing to Jeremy were from the American Indian community. Cherokee. Kiowa. Delaware. Lakota. Ponca. There was a huge history of hurt associated with Christianity in that community that generally made it a very difficult group to reach with the gospel. God was obviously up to something.
When Eagle joined the work release program it became apparent that he had a spiritual gift in evangelism. This gifting really blossomed during his time on the work crew, as he stood next to Jeremy and shared the good news with coworkers. It was a delight to Jeremy to invest in Eagle’s development and watch the ways he gave glory to God in everything he did.
Now, as he drove Eagle home, Jeremy was stoked to see what God would do through him among his own people. It was possible that Eagle would be a gatekeeper to the entire community—someone who would open the door for many others to follow Jesus.
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As they traveled onto the reservation, Jeremy noticed that Eagle was well respected there. He was actually one of the language holders—someone entrusted to pass on the native language to the children so their heritage wouldn’t be lost. Eagle knew everyone they ran into that day, and introduced them all to Jeremy. He also spoke boldly to several people about Jesus. He hadn’t seen any of them in 12 years, and at the first opportunity, he was sharing Christ.
Eagle and Jeremy were able to meet with one of the chiefs, who they called Grandfather. This chief heard about the work Eagle had been doing with Jeremy, and said, “What you were doing there, you can do here.” Eagle immediately took on the responsibility of running the grounds crew for the entire reservation—101,000 acres. He’d been well equipped to take on a management position through his work release training.
A few months after Eagle’s release, Jeremy was able to visit him to see how things were going. Eagle had a lot of inroads and favor with the leaders on the reservation, and had been sharing Jesus and discipling people through his lawn care business. He particularly had a lot of influence among the senior citizens who couldn’t mow their own lawns. He’d bring in his big machines and mow their lawns for them—and talk about Jesus. Eagle was also leading a Bible study on his front porch for family and friends.
On a future visit, Jeremy learned that Eagle was now known as a spiritual leader on the reservation. He was conducting wedding ceremonies in the native language and bringing his faith in Jesus into the ceremony. Despite having two near-death experiences—one due to Covid, the other from a car accident—Eagle continued to give God glory, especially for sparing his life. Several people on the reservation had begun to follow Jesus as a result of Eagle’s influence.
Eagle isn’t the only one from the work release program God has equipped and called to bring the good news back to their own tribe. God is using this ministry of meeting needs to start a movement of the gospel among Native American tribes. Multiple people have gone back to their tribal lands with a call to share the gospel. One Cherokee inmate who led a ministry to the homeless immediately after his release, was now moving to ancestral land he’d inherited. He told Jeremy, “I’m going to do what you did for me. I’m going to organize labor and reach out to guys who are unreachable.” Other guys sensing a call to the “ends of the earth” took a ministry trip to the beach towns of California. They prayed over the land because that’s what they sensed God wanted them to do, and not long after, a revival broke out on those very beaches.
Jeremy didn’t plan to start a gospel movement among Native Americans. He didn’t set out to reach that group of people at all. But God had plans for him, and all Jeremy had to do was listen to what the Spirit was prompting him to do and be obedient.
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A couple of years after their paths first crossed, Jeremy and Eagle rode across the reservation together once again. This time they were in Eagle’s truck, and Jeremy witnessed something that moved him deeply. A red-tail hawk—the closest thing you can find to an eagle in Kansas or Oklahoma—swooped down right next to them. It grabbed a 4–5 foot snake in its talons and flew off. The snake tried to fight back and bite the hawk as it flew. But it was a losing battle. Even down to the attempted attacks, Jeremy knew he was seeing a picture in the physical realm of something taking place in the spiritual. Eagle was bringing the gospel to his people and defeating the serpent, Satan, in his own land. It was a remarkable thing to behold.
Want to watch a full-length movie about another incredible gospel movement taking place within the prison system? Pardoned by Grace—which tells the true story of Scott Highberger, an inmate turned prison pastor—was just released. Scott is now part of the same Novo ministry team as Jeremy, Catalyze. You can learn more about the movie here: https://faithcontentnetwork.com/host/pardoned-by-grace
ABOUT THIS STORY
Jeremy Alessi is part of Novo’s Catalyze team, which pursues disciple-making movements among the incarcerated, their families, and communities. He and his wife Amanda live in Wichita, KS, with their three girls.