My Testimony

Hello, I'm Pastor Kareem.

Welcome to Eternity and You Global Ministries official website.

I started this ministry on November 12, 2020, exactly 15 months and 12 days after walking out of prison.

You heard me right,

Prison!

I served 28 years straight behind bars, and one good thing that came out of it,

I dare to say, the best thing that came out of it,

was that I had an encounter with the risen Lord, Jesus Christ.

It wasn't a miraculous event like I saw Christ with my own eyes or heard him yelling to me from the sky

like Saul of Tarsus,

but I heard a message one day that forever changed the trajectory of my life.

I'll tell you about that in just a bit.

Growing up, I came up in a Christian household like a lot of others,

and if you had asked me back then what my religion was,

I would have told you that I was a Christian.

It took me years to learn that all I was doing for all those years was lying to myself.

I was no more a Christian than a tree is a jungle.

I was deceived!

Yes, there were a few times I went to Church;

and yes, I knew the pastor of my mom's Church and his whole family;

and yes, I even knew Psalm 23 and the Lord's prayer by heart, because my mom had it all over the walls in the home.

I said my prayers at night and said grace before I ate,

yet I had not one iota of a relationship with Christ.

If I had died back then,

I would have faced a fiery judgement from the loving Father, that I never knew.

I had religion back then,

but no relationship.

I was familiar with Christ,

but I didn't know him.

I lived a life of willful, intentional sin, and I loved every bit of it.

There was never any conviction back then because I didn't have the Holy Spirit within me.

He is the one that is grieved when we sin because He is holy,

and when He is grieved,

we can fill all the discomfort all throughout our body and we know it is a result of the sin we committed.

I was a rebel, and eventually my rebellious life landed me in prison.

I realize now how much I hurt my mom and dad and it breaks my heart to know all the grief and stress that I caused them.

My dad and I was super close.

I was his only son, and my incarceration really tore him up.

I think of all the times I could've and should've gotten seriously hurt in prison,

and not just in prison, also on the streets.

At times it was because I thought I was so tough, and at other times I was playing some real tough guys for weaklings.

However, I was never hurt, not even once.

A whole lot of fights and even more altercations, but never even walked away with a scar.

No, I don't believe for a minute it was because I was just that tough of a guy.

Not at all, but I believe it was the result of a mother that was praying and fasting for her youngest son.

I was her baby boy.

I'm so thankful that she had a real relationship with Christ, and that she had the ear of God,

because it was God's intervention that kept me safe all those years.

One of the first things I did after walking into prison was become a Muslim,

and I did it for the silliest reason.

I did it because a Muslim elder who heard someone calling my name, approached me and asked me was that my real name.

I said "Yes, Kareem is my real name." He started smiling all widely and said, "So, you're Muslim."

I told him I wasn't and eventually explained to him how my dad named me after his favorite basketball player,

Kareem Abdul-Jabar.

He then told me what my name meant, which is something I've never heard before.

"Your name means generous, young brother, and every Ramadan, which is our holy month of fasting,

Muslims all over the world are saying your name as part of our greeting each other."

Well, I thought he was just the wises man in all the world after telling me what my name meant.

He invited me to a few services, which I attended, and after a few weeks I took my shahada,

which is the Muslim's declaration of faith.

I was a Muslim for 15 years, and I was trying to be a good Muslim, but you know what,

deep down, I was no more a Muslim in prison than I was a Christian on the street.

I was still fighting. I was still gambling. I was still quick tempered.

I was still everything I was while I was on the street - multiplied by ten.

I was just too wild, out of control, and rebellious.

One day the Chaplain of the prison invited me to a prison event called "Kairos".

I knew exactly what that was.

The Kairos Men's Prison Ministry would come to the prison every six months to have what they called,

'The four-day weekend".

The one thing that I knew, and every other prisoner knew is that when they came,

they brought pounds and pounds of homemade cookies with them.

That in itself was enough of a reason to get an instant "Yes' out of me.

I attended, and yes, I absolutely stuffed my face with their never-ending supply of Chocolate chip cookies,

and so many other kinds, and I tried them all, and they also had plenty of juice.

There were about 25 team members,

these are the men from outside that make up the Kairos team, and they called out about 42 of us from the inside,

We all piled into the gym and sometimes the library and sometimes the visiting room listening to these men give talks.

After every talk, a time for reflection, art, and prayer and share.

The thing that got me most was the singing.

These guys were so joyous, they had no walls that I could see.

The walls are what we erect because we never want people to see the real us, just the image that we project.

It was love coming through them that we felt, and all of us felt it.

That love and that joy was contagious.

Soon, all of us so-called tough guys dropped all of our tough guy acts, and we just had fun.

The walls came down, and you know what, I loved every bit of it.

Immediately after the event I was transferred to another prison,

and all I had wanted at the moment was to hear some more of that singing those guys was doing as they strummed on their guitars.

I sat in medical, which was the intake unit, and I heard two guys talking about how good their Church choir was.

I inquired if I had to sign up or could anybody come, and they were all smiles, like yea anybody can come.

They asked was I a Christian, and I told them I wasn't, but I was a Muslim.

They started smiling even harder.

"Come on in brother, yea come on in and enjoy the singing."

They said this because I had just told them about the Kairos event I just had at the last prison,

and I got a bit hooked on the singing.

They knew all too well what I was speaking of because both of them I came to find out were also graduates.

Now that I'm writing this, and I never had this thought before,

but I think those two guys may have been sending up some sniper prayers on my behalf.

They probably even told the rest of their Church brothers

that a Muslim guy they just met may be popping in on the Church service this Sunday,

and all of them probably went in war mode.

I can just imagine them getting all happy and smiling all hard after they done sent some fiery prayers up for me like,

"Just wait, he's coming in a Muslim, but I bet you he's leaving out a Christian."

Now that's just something I'm thinking,

but whether that happened or didn't happen,

that is exactly what happened.

The opening service was all good and the choir was pretty good just as I heard them saying in medical that day.

I sat all the way in back of the chow hall, which was serving as the Church for that day.

Then this little tiny guy comes up.

I will never forget his name.

It was Elder Norton.

Nor will I ever forget his message that night.

He preached about the power of life and death being in the tongue;

nor will I ever forget the date, because it's the date that God snatched me up.

I felt every single word of that sermon hitting me in my heart like daggers.

That was just good fiery preaching.

I don't hear a lot of preaching like that these days.

The type of preaching that causes your very soul to stand up at attention.

I came in that night a Muslim.

I left a Christian.

I had to contend a bit with some of the Muslims that either knew me and knew I was a Muslim,

or heard about me being Muslim; and all wanting to know why in the world would I leave Islam to become a Christian.

My answer was simple.

I found the truth.

Long story short, I spent another thirteen years in prison, and God favored me and brought me out.

I was being blessed left and right in so many ways when I got out.

I was so on fire.

I found a Church to attend regularly.

I became a deacon in that Church, and after only fifteen months, right on the heels of the Covid Pandemic,

I started this ministry.

I knew nothing of preaching, I just felt the call.

So, I just got online and started preaching.

It wasn't immediate, but it didn't take long for people to start listening.

I made a habit of telling everybody over and over that I'm not a pastor,

but they kept calling me pastor, and kept telling me that I'm a pastor,

I had one bishop and two other pastors wanting to ordain me.

Wow!

God is so unbelievable.

I was eventually ordained; all glory to God.

I just want to be usable.

This is my life right here.

There are many struggles, with finances being at the top of the list,

but I am happy that God has been keeping me.

I have a heart for evangelism,

and my goal for this ministry is that we will become a powerhouse soul-winning ministry by the grace of God.