Raul Baez didn’t feel loved as a child. He held in the bitterness he felt as a victim of abuse. But when he couldn’t contain his anger any longer, he hit the streets, self-medicating with drugs.
Raul married young, and his oldest son fell into the trap of drugs, as well. In 1993, his 17-year-old was killed during a drug sale.
“I saw all the signs and I totally ignored it,” says Raul. “I had a lot of guilt from that.”
Six years later, Raul’s daughter got into a domestic violence situation, and Raul shot the attacker. Thinking he had killed a man, his guilt level skyrocketed. He spent the next seven months living on the streets and shelling out about a thousand dollars a day to buy drugs. To fund his addiction, he started committing robberies on the daily.
But soon Raul would find himself in a situation he couldn’t run from, and he would learn that God was his only source of true freedom from his crime, his guilt, and his anger.
Carrying the Burden
Raul was tired of his lifestyle – always on the run. He thought about the many years he would spend in prison and was certain he’d rather die than face a lifetime behind bars.
While escaping from his last robbery, two police officers came on the scene. Raul pulled his gun and fired three shots, hoping to provoke the officers to shoot him. They returned 32 shots, but not one hit Raul. He fled to an alley where, with a SWAT team surrounding him, he sat pointing his gun to his own head for the next five hours. He was too scared to shoot himself. He hoped someone would do it for him.
The cold New York weather started to get to him. His hands were numb, and he was disoriented from drug withdrawal. Suddenly, his finger slipped and he accidently pulled the trigger on his gun. He heard a ringing in his ear and his head ached intensely, but there was no blood. He had missed.
“I heard a little voice that gave me peace and comfort that told me to put the gun down,” he recalls. “God was definitely in control. I just didn’t know it at the time.”
As Raul was taken to jail, he learned that the man he had shot seven months ago had survived. The man refused to testify in court, so the police could not convict Raul. He spent the next few weeks in line-ups for about 75 robberies, but not one victim could identify him, and so the police couldn’t charge him for those either.
Raul was sentenced to 14 years in prison for armed robbery. Still distraught by his past, he continued doing behind bars exactly what he had been doing on the outside: getting high and acting violently.
“I was literally trying to kill myself,” he says.
Finding Rest
One cold night, Raul and other prisoners were walking the yard. They heard music coming from the chapel, and one prisoner suggested they go in for warmth, coffee, and doughnuts.
As they entered, a Prison Fellowship® volunteer read Matthew 11:28: “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.”
Raul was so tired of acting tough that he heard this and began to cry – something he hadn’t even done when his own son had died.
“The words pierced through my heart and the floodgates just opened,” he says. “God was starting to change me.”
He spent the next two years torn between old habits and following Jesus, and he feared what his fellow prisoners would do if he changed. But then, one day, he found himself forced to choose his master.
Raul had a fall-out with another prisoner that would result in a majorly violent confrontation the next day. Raul was exhausted by this pattern, so he prayed in his cell, asking God to get him out of this mess. And when Raul peacefully confronted the man, he apologized to Raul.
“This was unheard of,” says Raul. “He was considered a wolf in prison” and apologizing was a “sign of weakness in prison.”
After seeing God’s power, Raul surrendered to Jesus. He got baptized and started attending Prison Fellowship programs. Even though other prisoners ridiculed him for his faith, he stayed strong and slowly gained their respect.
He says the Prison Fellowship program “was the one place I knew I could close my eyes and connect my spirit with God’s sprit and just feel empowered, fell safe, feel loved.”
This was a revelation for Raul, who grew up without encouragement or examples of how to be a man of God.
“I was in a physical prison, but for the first time in my life I was free,” he says.
Sharing the Freedom
Raul with his children, Yelitza, Brenda, and Isaiah
After Raul began following Christ, God laid it on his heart to start a program for the young men in the prison. He saw many guys return to serve another sentence after being released because they didn’t have the skills to support themselves on the outside without turning to drugs and violence.
Raul taught the men entrepreneurship and money management skills mixed with character development and included the Gospel whenever he could. Although he was incredibly scared to talk in front of people, he stepped out in faith and God always provided the confidence when he needed it.
Because of the positive influence his program had, Raul was released from prison two years early. Other prisoners still teach the program based on a manual and curriculum that Raul created. In September, Raul officially launched a nonprofit to teach his program to incarcerated men and women. Although he cannot currently volunteer in prison because he is on parole, Prison Fellowship is helping to get him clearance so he can go back in soon.
Raul has been out of prison for three years now and has created two businesses that teach financial literacy to minorities and drug prevention to nonprofit organizations. He has an associate’s degree in real estate appraisal and is finishing his bachelor’s degree in personal finance while working as a medical case manager and sharing his faith with his coworkers. Raul’s children have seen him become a new man and have come to know Christ through him.
“I’m ready to answer God’s call,” he says. “I just want to dedicate my life to prison ministry. That’s all I want to do.”
