My Testimony

By:  Manuel Theodore Castañon

My name is Manuel Theodore Castañon Jr.  I know you guys don’t like to hear when older people talk about how you should change and try to do good for yourselves.  “Stop doing what you are doing to yourself.”  Well, that’s what happened to me!  I didn’t listen until I took my first class of “Life Above Reproach.”

When I wrote my first testimonial and saw that my life was out of control with drugs and gangs in my life, I wish that I could have asked for help at that time.  But no, I thought I could do this on my own.  So by me thinking like this, I was wrong.

I committed a big sin.  I took a life.  I took someone’s son, brother, husband, uncle, father, or grandson and I said, “so what!”  That is how my mind was so messed up.  I did not care about anybody in life, including me.  Since the age of 16, I have been serving 18 years to life in prison.  I am thinking that I am never going home and that I am going to die in prison.  “So what can I do for myself and how can I better my life in here?” I ask myself.  How, and yet, I was still in the gang and doing drugs.

Then I begin to think that I needed something better, so I took the class and got a lot out of it.  By reading the Bible, I saw that God can forgive me for all of my sins, and believing in that gave me hope for my soul.

On my 40r^th birthday, I got baptized and welcomed God into my life as my Father.  I’m saying all this to tell you it is up to you to ask for help if you want it.  That’s the first step in your life.  I asked for help and took it into my heart.

With all of the help I got I will be going home to my family.  God gave me the faith to trust in Him to believe Him.  That’s when my faith and trust got stronger.  I hope that you will look at your life and see if all that you are doing is the right thing for you and your family.  Just pray about it and God will answer your prayers.  God loves you and I do too.