My team spent this past month building relationships with and encouraging gangsters, drug addicts and prison parolees through Camp Joy, a faith-based recovery facility. To be honest, I was a bit wary of relating with such hard individuals. After the first week at Camp Joy, it was clear that God was working in these men and women. These people aren’t hateful, they are kind and so badly want to know what real love is. Most of these young men and women have grown up without love in their lives and turned to gangsterism in search for that love and a sense of belonging. Below is the story of one individual who has been changed through their Camp Joy experience.
Calby’s Story
Calby is a newer participant at Camp Joy and is in the beginning stages of taking control of his life and becoming the man he was designed to be. He is 23 years old, has a three year old son, been in prison twice, used drugs since the age of 16, and has been involved with gangs since his imprisonment.
When Calby was in high school, his dream was to play soccer. He was very talented and was told he had great potential. He loved soccer. However, he soon became influenced by friends to do drugs. As Calby puts it “at first I was just smoking pot on the weekend for fun, but pretty soon the drugs pulled me in without knowing it.” He started using Tik (crystal meth) and other hard drugs, lost his love for soccer, and dropped out of school. Eventually he was caught illegally possessing fire arms and sent to jail.
He joined a gang while in jail for safety reasons. Calby stayed clean and away from trouble for a short time after his year-long prison sentence; however, he soon found himself with nothing to do at home during the days, and entered back into the life of drugs. While Calby was out at a friend’s house one night, some rival gang members shot up the party he was at. He was shot in the leg while running away and then heard the gun jam as he limped down the alley to another friend’s house. He knew he would have been shot again if the gun had not jammed. As Calby fell to the ground, he yelled out “I’ve been shot, I’ve been shot” and was taken to the hospital by his friends.
After his leg healed, Calby found himself in another bad situation and made the decision to rob a store at gun point. He was caught and sent to jail again. This time, he was sentenced for a year and a half. After an altercation between two gangs in his prison cell resulting in a rival gang member’s permanent brain damage from being stabbed, Calby was moved to a new cell block. In retaliation for what had been done to the stabbed rival gang member, Calby was beaten unconscious by his new cell block roommates. He described they put a bar of soap in a tube sock and took turns whipping the sock as hard as they could against his head and back. By night time, Calby hardly had enough energy to get into his bed. He woke up during the night and noticed moving shadows in the dark knowing something was wrong. Before he knew it, the same rival gang pushed him to the ground and began hitting Calby with belt buckles, throwing boiling water on him, and whipping him again with socks filled with soap bars. He lost consciousness and was told later that guards broke up the fight just before the rival gang was about to hang Calby with a belt. He woke up three weeks later from a coma and was in a wheel chair for 3 months.
Throughout his time in prison, his grandma was one of the few people who visited and always prayed for him. On the day Calby’s case was under court review, his grandmother prayed it would be dropped. The following day, his case was pulled and he made bail. On May 30th, 2013, Calby left jail and made a promise. He finally decided the lifestyle he was living was not worthwhile and he needed a change in his life, staying away from drugs and gangsterism and spending time with his family instead.
However, it didn’t take long for trouble to find Calby again. Between May and December, Calby witnessed his best friend shot to death in front of his eyes and another other good friend murdered. By December 2013, Calby realized over half of his friend group had been killed. He realized it’s going to be me next, which led him to enroll in the Camp Joy recovery program. Calby told me, “I can see that Jesus was protecting me through out my life. I want to work hard and be the father my child, Jordan, needs me to be.” This Christmas was especially important for him because it was his first time out of jail in the last three years. Currently, Calby is taking a wood shop class through a program set up through Camp Joy and believes he may have a future in wood working. He knows his life is different from when he came to Camp Joy, has hope in the plan God has for him, and wants to continue down the right path.
