00:01 – Jesse

Man, I just knew you were going to go, Man. You were going to go places. And I knew it. When you’re happy, I’m happy. And when you win, I win.

00:09 – On-Screen Text

In the early 2000s, Jesse and Quovadis met while serving time in an Iowa prison.

Twenty years later, they sat down to reflect on the beginning of an unlikely friendship.

00:22 – On-Screen Text

An Unlikely Friendship Behind Bars

QUESTION 1: “WHAT WAS YOUR FIRST IMPRESSION OF ME?”

00:23-01:08

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Jesse

What was your first impression of me?

Quovadis

You had all the answers. You were super … I would say the word “pretentious,” but I don’t know if that’s the right word. You’re just very matter of fact about everything. Like you—

Jesse

“Like whatever, Man.”

Quovadis

Yeah. No, you were—you still are!

Jesse

My first impression of you is that you were loud, and you gave bad advice.

Quovadis

I’m still loud. I hope that my advice got better.

Jesse

No, I think your advice has changed. But you were a-know-it-all, too. I don’t know, “pretentious” is what I think. Maybe we both had the same opinion of each other.

Quovadis

Probably. Probably why we got along so well. Two peas in a pod.

QUESTION 2: “WHAT LED YOU TO PRISON?”

01:09-01:18

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Okay. What led you to prison?

Jesse

I robbed a bank.

What led you to prison?

Quovadis

I robbed a store.

QUESTION 3: “WHERE DID WE MEET?”

01:19-02:36

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Jesse

Where did you meet me?

Quovadis

Yeah. I met you in the library of the Prison Fellowship Academy. I was in there studying in a large library.

You know, I don’t know if I ever told you this. The reason I used to go to the library is because I made a commitment to the Lord, I will learn everything I can about the Bible, so that I could answer all my daughter’s questions when she had them. I probably was doing more talking than I was learning, but it was in the library is when I met you.

Jesse

No, I remember that too, it was the library. I was working the library, and you’d come in and do that. I think it’s so interesting because I mean these assumptions that we make, right? I mean, Man, he’s in here jawing all the time—

Quovadis

Yeah, jawing.

Jesse

—and reading half a book, which I know you still do.

Quovadis

Very much. You saw my bookshelf.

Jesse

Yeah, I know. But it’s like—but I mean, but you had this other motivation that I’d made an assumption about, that I had no idea. So, I mean, I think it’s just—assumptions can really do a lot of damage.

I think that’s mainly just one of the benefits of us just having these conversations. If you push those assumptions aside, you get to know the real person and how they’re making decisions and things of that nature. So, you assume the best about somebody versus the worst.

QUESTION 4: “WHEN DID YOUR OPINION OF ME CHANGE?”

02:37-5:34

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Quovadis

When did your opinion of me start to change?

Jesse

I don’t think it was a moment in time. Because I think what kind of started—what forced us together was that I worked in the library, and then you were in the library a lot.

So, I think what—I don’t remember what it was, but I remember we just started having [conversations]. I think it was probably about dinosaurs or something, but something silly or stupid like that. I don’t remember a point in time, but I just remember it was this consistency, and then we just started having conversations.

But it was more organic, it wasn’t like this, “OK, we’re going to meet every Tuesday.” So, it was this—and I probably laughed at you trying to play basketball or something.

Quovadis

I’m horrible.

Jesse

I know. It was interesting because I mean, you’re a Black guy, and you’re bad at basketball. I mean—

Quovadis

I know, there you go. I can’t dance. I’m bad at basketball.

Jesse

You’re breaking my stereotypes, Man.

Quovadis:

I have no rhythm, I can’t sing.

Jesse

I know. Like dude, are you Black?

Quovadis

Right, exactly. So only you could get away with saying that to me.

Jesse

Yeah, I know. Right. But I can’t do any of those things either, so—

Quovadis

No, that’s right.

Jesse

You have these certain bonds that may break some racial divides, like if you’re white and you’re good at basketball, or like—

Quovadis

Yeah. That’s very good, that’s very good.

Jesse

[If] you can throw beats, you’re like Eminem or something. There’s those types of things that you can kind of [be like], “Yeah, Man, he’s cool because he’s like us,” or whatever. But you and I—I don’t know. We didn’t have any of those things.

Quovadis

We didn’t.

Jesse

There was these other things that kind of brought us [together], which was more—I don’t want to say “academic,” but it was these conversations. I mean, you were really thirsty to learn.

Quovadis

I was.

Jesse

I think you’re still that way. But you just wanted to know as much as you possibly could.

Quovadis

And I became your roommate.

If the question is, When did it start to change? it’s when I found out you had fought for me because then I knew we weren’t just associates. But you went to bat for me behind my back, and then for me that was—

I know we had worked out together. I followed you a lot—I won’t say “to play basketball,” but I followed you a lot on the court. Remember we were on the same worship team? Bro, how did I get on the worship team?

Jesse

I don’t know, Man.

Quovadis

I can’t sing.

Jesse

You can’t, Man.

Quovadis

We had those things, but it was that moment where I went, This guy’s for me.

Even with the academic thing. In my opinion you are—and I’ve said this—you’re one of the smartest people I know. Your brain and the way you process and think, system, structure, put things together—I knew you were smarter than me. You’re older than me. We’ve always had this kind of—you’re like a big brother to me. You kind of ride me, you push me. You make me look up words in the dictionary.

Like, “I don’t know what that word means.”

“Look it up.”

But I welcomed that because you were safe. You had become a safe person for me.

QUESTION 5: “WHAT CAUSED OUR FRIENDSHIP TO GROW DEEPER?”

5:35-8:13

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Jesse

What caused our friendship to grow deeper?

Quovadis

I would say hope and suffering.

There was hope for something better. I think our faith was being tested. It was—in the moment you have to live it out, that [faith] is a present thing. [But] hope is, “Man, one day when I get out, I want to do these things.” And we both had that. We talked about it earlier, we had been captured by a greater vision of what life could be by this God we couldn’t see, but we could see His activity in our lives.

And then suffering. I mean, nothing produces intimacy like shared suffering. There’s just missing our families; regret; we had friends lose their children while we were in prison, and we had friends that died. I mean, you can’t replace that.

For me, it was the shared hope and the shared suffering.

What would you say?

Jesse

Yeah, I think it was when we moved in—when we became cellies. Because I remember [we were] having a conversation like, “Hey, we sure we want to do this? We got kind of this good thing going. Do we want to live together?”

Quovadis

A whole ‘nother level.

Jesse

Yeah. I mean I don’t think most people understand, you’re in a 6 by 9 with another dude, and you got—

Together

A toilet.

Jesse

So “Hey, come on in.” I mean, that’s a different level of knowing somebody right there.

Quovadis

Right, there is.

Jesse

So, I remember us having the conversation like, “Should we do this?” And we were in.

Quovadis

We were.

Jesse

But Man, I remember us … I mean, Man, the guards, the COs [corrections officers] coming by doing count checks at 2 in the morning. Man, we’d be up doing all types of things, Man—talking and crying and figuring life out. I think those things was when we were, like—spitting dreams, praying for people and for each other.

Quovadis

Oh, Man, Bro.

Jesse

I mean we’d—what, we’d fast every Monday.

Quovadis

No, it was Friday. Every Friday we’d fast on Friday—

Jesse

Yeah. We would do that, and we’d try to stay up all night.

But it was all those things, I think, that just really—I felt—brought our friendship to a different level. So, I think it was again, it’s that proximity, and—

Quovadis

We did life together.

Jesse

And just that transparency. I mean I wouldn’t require that for anybody, but I mean, when you’re in that situation, it can create, I think, that depth with somebody.

Quovadis

It strips it all away.

Jesse

Yeah, Man. It’s just. … You’re in this little pod and—

Quovadis

That’s right.

QUESTION 6: “WHAT WAS THE COST OF OUR FRIENDSHIP?”

8:14-13:23

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Quovadis

In what ways was your friendship costly? How did it cost you to be my friend?

Jesse

Man. Well, I think on a personal level it cost me—it was risky. I think anytime you put yourself out there it’s risky. But I had to be able to give some of myself away, which I think is hard for anybody to do. But you have to be able to let go of these beliefs, or—even about yourself—in order to do that. So, for me, I mean, that’s a risk.

I think just being, even from like a—just white culture. I mean, we’re very reserved. I might need a little bit of that in my life. I don’t need to be so reserved, or I don’t need to think that this is the only way to do this.

So, for me it was more personal I think, just understanding what the risk was. Like, OK, do you want to just kind of be on this one singular path? versus Do you want to expose yourself to this other way of looking at the world, and live a richer life?

Ultimately, it was kind of where I landed.

Quovadis

Yeah. I would say—I think the important part to delineate is that there was a cost, and there is a cost.

Friendships of any kind are costly. But especially intimate friendships, especially amongst people who aren’t naturally like each other. We just naturally gravitate toward people—like, I’m not best friends with people who like hockey if I’m in love with basketball. Right? I mean you form your friendships among your hobbies, your habits, these kind of homogeneous things that make us—how are we the same?

Well, what’s the same is we’re both males, we’re both in prison, and we both happen to be in prison for robbery. Apart from that, on the surface now it’s the same, so then you have to go a little deeper, which is where the gold is, which is where the precious things are.

So, it is costly because you got to escalate. You’ve got to just—you’ve got to dig in there. So, I think it was costly for a lot of reasons: People’s perception. Am I going to trust this guy? Is he going to trust me? It’s costly because you have to stay at the table. You can say things to me that other people can’t say, but it’s a risk for you to do that. And it don’t happen overnight.

There’s a humility. There’s also grace. I mean you just have to give—I’ll have to give you grace to say things in a way that could have offended me. I can be like, “Bro, how do you have that narrative?” or “I don’t like that joke.” But it was like, “I know his heart.”

And vice versa for you to go, “Why are you prejudging me, Q? Why are you assuming these things about me?” Or “Why are you unwilling to see my perspective? Why do you have to be convinced that the narrative that you have as a Black Man is the only narrative and the right narrative?”

You start talking these buzzwords like “white guilt” and “white fragility” and “critical race theory.” You got all these buzzwords that are just—Man, they’re like light sockets.

You have to have a real friend who goes, “Can we talk beyond buzzwords?”

Jesse

Right.

Quovadis

And “I’m going to say it wrong, I’m going to think it wrong, and just assume that I don’t have the right narrative about your ethnicity. Can you help me?” And I think that’s costly. People don’t want to—

Well, two things: Either they don’t count the cost because they’re not aware—”Oh, I’m just going to be friends with a Black guy.” [Or] “I’m going to be friends with a white guy.” They’re not counting the cost.

Or when the bill comes, they go, “I’m not willing to pay that cost.” So, I think it’s always costly. That’s friendship.

Jesse

I think sometimes you’re afraid what you might find.

Quovadis

Oh, for sure.

Jesse

So, you’re like, Well, I don’t really know if I want to look behind that door. I’m pretty comfortable right here. I’ve done my due diligence. I’ve opened these other two doors. I can feel pretty good about myself, give myself a pat on the back, and then go forward.

But I think that the further you get in, the more of yourself you lose—for both parties.

Quovadis

That’s correct.

Jesse

So, it’s not like there’s this one master narrative—

Quovadis

That’s right.

Jesse

That’s like, “Yes, you’re going to come into my way of thinking.” That’s not what it is because I think both of us, even though we came at whatever issue it was from our own strong belief system, in the end—I think in most of those, even though we may not have solved it, each of us have moved.

Like for you and me, I know there’s a safe place there where you’re like, “Hey, this is what I think. I don’t know what that means, or why I think that, but this is how I feel, and help me process that.”

QUESTION 7: “WHAT’S A HIGHLIGHT IN OUR FRIENDSHIP?”

13:24-15:17

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Jesse

Name a highlight in our friendship. Something you’ll never forget.

Quovadis

You were my best man in my wedding. I got to be the best man in your wedding. I remember the toast at your wedding. I remember weeping and saying we walked through the Valley of Baca [see Psalm 84], and just seeing you so happy with Melissa. That was really good.

Jesse

Yeah, it was good.

Quovadis

That was really good. Yeah.

Jesse

I think for me it was … I don’t know. There was something, I remember when we were in prison in Rockwell, and we were trying to be church planters, or whatever we were trying to do back then.

Quovadis

We were, Bro.

Jesse

Yeah, that’s true.

Quovadis

We did it.

Jesse

We did.

Quovadis

We planted that thing, and it grew; it was healthy.

Jesse

It was, Man.

But I remember, whoever it was, people wanted—there’s politics everywhere, right? But they wanted to kick you out or not have your leadership. And I just went to bat.

But I knew I had this vision or this picture—that, Man, I just knew you were going to go, Man. That you were going to go places. And I knew it. I knew there were times that you didn’t know it.

But if I ever did anything in my life, I just wanted to propel you. Because there’s that je ne sais quoi—there’s that thing that you can’t articulate. And that sometimes God’s grace gives you the ability to see it. And that’s it, Man.

So, when you’re happy, I’m happy. And when you win, I win.

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15:18 – On-Screen Text

Quovadis, now a husband, father, and church planter, is the lead pastor of Hope City Church in Waterloo, Iowa.

Jesse, now a husband and father, received his J.D. from Regent University and works for Prison Fellowship as the national director of program design and evaluation.