Rick Prather: Setting Captives Free

Rick Prather had a reputation, not of the good citizen variety, but the kind that comes with a police record. He began using drugs at age 10 and by the age of 14, had already done time in jail. By the time he was 30, he had been arrested nearly 30 times.

“I just started out by smoking pot, and then sneaking drinks off family members’ beers and mixed drinks. I was sneaking cigarettes and then started doing the chemicals, the acid, the cocaine, methamphetamines, crystal meth, and stuff like that,” he says.

When Rick was 21, he met Amber. She was a bit of a party girl herself and liked to drink and smoke pot. Rick introduced her to harder drugs, and their lives fell apart.

"We’d become crack addicts. We got real heavy into crack, and heavier into drinking, arguing, fighting, and living in motel rooms. It was always a party at our house. There was never a time that there weren’t 5-6 other males in the houses, shooting pool, and drinking beer all day long and all night long."

To add to the chaos, Rick started selling drugs from their home. Before long, they got busted.

"We were in bed, and they came in there with their guns drawn and their flashlights on us. They were telling us to get down. They arrested me,” says Rick.

Rick was charged with nine felonies, and his wife faced eight felony charges. With a prior record, Rick was looking at 27 years behind bars. Then in an unexpected display of leniency, the prosecuting attorney offered Rick a deal he couldn’t refuse. Rick's charges would be dropped if he plead guilty to a Class D felony -- dealing marijuana.

"He [prosecuting attorney] said the charges would drop from 27 years down to three, and I was going to do a year in prison,” recalls Rick.

Rick agreed to the deal, which guaranteed that charges against his wife would be dropped. When it came time to go to jail, Rick broke down.

“I fell into my brothers arms and I said, 'I am so dirty. I can’t wash this off.' And he said, 'You don’t have to. The Lord Jesus will.' "

The first few days in jail were unbearable, as Rick struggled to come down off methamphetamines. On the third day, he found some relief.

“An evangelist came into the jail. And he said, 'Anyone want to hear about Jesus?' I said, 'You know, I’ve tried everything else in this world. That’s failed me. I might as well try this man named Jesus.' I got up and went over to the bars. I said, 'Yeah, I want to hear about this Jesus.' ”

Gideon [the evangelist] recalls, “And he came up, and he seemed to be very hungry in his heart to hear more about a new way of living. So we talked, and he shared some of his life about the struggles and trials he’s been through and the problems he’s faced in his life.”

Rick remembers, “He started to tell how Jesus loves me and how the father sent His Son to die for me. I thought, 'Wow.' I was like, 'I’ve heard this before, and it never meant anything.' And then he gave me a little Gideon’s testament and he said, 'Would you like to say the sinner’s prayer and receive Christ Jesus into your heart?' I said, 'Yeah!' ”

Rick asked for forgiveness and accepted Jesus as his Lord and Savior. That night, Rick fell asleep for the first time in days.

"I fell asleep with the Bible on my chest. When I fell asleep, the Lord spoke unto me, and He called me by name.
He said, 'I’ve called you to preach the Gospel,' and from that moment, I changed."

The next day when Amber visited, Rick told her about his experience. She had news for him too!

She told Rick, "Last night, I gave my heart to Christ. And He told me that you were going to preach the Gospel."

“It was so exciting! It was like, wow, we have something good in common now. It was a high that we had never experienced before, and we were both on the high at the same time and a good high at that,” says Rick.

Rick used the remainder of his prison sentence to share the salvation message with his fellow inmates. He purposed to never return to the vices which put him behind bars.

“I had no desire to go back to that old lifestyle," he says.

Rick didn’t return to his old lifestyle. But he did return to jail. This time as a visitor doing prison ministry. Today, Rick pastors a church in Southern Indiana.