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| RECRUITING FROM THE OPPOSITION |
| A former bounty hunter breaks through to the Gentiles. |
| All those who heard him (Saul) were astonished and asked, "Isn't he the man who raised havoc in Jerusalem among those who call on this name?" 9:21 |
| With a touch of theatrics, the Indianapolis judge shook his head very slowly back and forth as his clerk read off John Erwin's offenses from a red record book. He had skipped school too many times to count. He had stolen petty items, like flashlight batteries, only to discard them. He had stolen bicycles, ridden them to the junkyard, and destroyed them. Most recently, twelve-year-old John had joined a gang of young toughs and threatened his foster parents with a .22 rifle. The judge leaned forward and announced, "Young man, I don't know how any one boy can be as mean as they say you are. But I'm convinced you'll never change. I'm going to send you to a Manual Labor Institute for correction, and I predict you'll spend most of your life in institutions." Voluntary Life Imprisonment Three decades later the judge's prophecy has been partially fulfilled: in all, John Erwin has spent over 25 years in a large, notorious institution - Chicago's Cook County jail. But not as an inmate. The judge was mostly wrong: John did change. Remarkably. During a stint in the army, Erwin met a family who adopted him, determined to show him the same love they had shown their own children. The defenses he had built up in a childhood of violence and sexual abuse slowly melted. He experienced God's love and forgiveness, and he became a new person. As a free man determined to help set others free, he founded and led the PACE Institute, one of America's most |