This month I want to share an incredible story of redemption from one of our newest staff members, Jason Ludwig:
Like a lot of the kids we work with, I come from a home with a very abusive alcoholic and drug-addicted father. This went on until I was eight. Finally when I was eight, my mother had enough of all the beatings and cheating from my father and she kicked him out. Now my mother had to work three jobs to afford the mortgage and all the other bills that came with raising 4 kids. In the end it was too much for her. Our heat, electricity, and water all got shut off. I remember taking shared baths and flushing the toilets with water we had bought from the store with our food stamps. I also remember huddling up together with a ton of blankets to stay warm, doing our homework by candlelight. I was often picked on and teased because of my dirty clothes and the violent incidents my father was still creating in our town. This is where a lot of my issues with insecurities, abandonment and trust stemmed from.
It wasn’t long before I started fighting back. I got into a lot of fights in school and started drinking alcohol to make me feel better. This started in fifth grade. With my father not around I looked up to a lot of my friend’s older brothers who were stealing cars, packing guns and robbing people. I wanted the same respect and fear of people they had, so I started doing things to make a name for myself. I learned how to steal cars and things from the malls to make good money, and sold stuff to mafia guys from Revere, MA.
My drug addiction went from drinking, smoking marijuana and taking pills to eventually main lining cocaine. I went from stealing cars and DVDs to doing masked armed home invasions and robbing drug dealers. I served time in juvenile detention and that’s where I met Straight Ahead Ministries.
The Bible study leaders would come in with a guitar and play songs and talk about God. They also brought in a kid with a similar background as me and he was serving the Lord. I remember seeing the peace in his life as well as the other men that were coming in. I said a prayer and gave my life to the Lord back then. I recall having an actual encounter with the Lord and I remember how they used to take us to a local church on Sundays. It was awesome and I always said to myself that one day I would live like those Christians do. They had a peace about them that I always wanted!
After I was released though, I didn’t have any support back in my home community. I picked up where I had left off, and ended up serving a total of 6 years in and out of the adult prison system between age 17 and 25. But God had begun a real work in me, and I could never go completely back to the old me. Finally, in 2003 I completely surrendered my life to God.
I have been out since 2004, serving in my church as a leader in many different ministries. I met my wife Dené there and we married 6 years ago. We have 2 beautiful boys Jason 5 and Josiah 3. I was a master barber for six years, and now with Straight Ahead one of the things we want to open in our new building in Lynn is a barbershop to employ guys coming out of jail.
I’m so thankful for those two Bible study leaders who sacrificed their time to come in and love on me way back in detention. I’m so excited to give back to kids who are in the same place I was in!
By God’s grace, Jason has come full circle. He’s now back in lock-up but this time as a minister, not an inmate. God is in the business of transforming lives and He continues to do so, bringing new life to many of the troubled young people we serve.
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