I would like to introduce myself to you, but I won’t bore you with all the non-essential details.  My name is David B. Fore.  I am a Born Again, Spirit-Filled, Fire-Baptized Child of God.  I grew up in the average American home with my Mom, Dad and younger brother.  Born and raised for the first 8 years of my life in Birmingham, Alabama.  The year I turned 8, my mother got a job with Bellsouth in the Advertising and Publishing Department in Atlanta, Georgia; so my parents packed us up and we moved to Georgia.  Dad got a job driving a tractor trailer with Yellow Freight Systems out of Atlanta, and was gone for lengthy periods of time; days and sometimes weeks.  After a little while here in Georgia, about 5 years I think it was, my parents hit a rough spot in their marriage and got divorced.  Their divorce devastated me and my younger brother.  I can only speak for myself, but I was an emotional train wreck at the age of 13.  From the age of 13 to 19 is when I really went off the deep end into the lowest depths of darkness I would ever encounter.  I can remember being back in Alabama when I was younger and going to Church with my grandparents, and sometimes my parents would go too, but there was never a real, personal encounter or connection with me.  From the youngest I can remember, I always questioned the existence of God.  My question that I thought was stumping even the Preacher’s was, “If God really does exist, and He created everything we see, and touch and know, then who created God?”  Where did God come from?  This was my one liner excuse to get people to leave me alone when they presented the question of God to me, or the subject would come up in general conversations. 

So, as young emotionally distraught boys usually do, I started skipping school, intentionally failing my classes, playing my parents against each other to get what I wanted out of the situation; I started to hang out with the “bad kids” and do stupid things just so I could seem to be “cool” in their eyes and they acted like they liked me and I was one of them.  It wasn’t long until I was introduced to smoking cigarettes and drinking beer; I started doing these things so that I could fit in with the crowd.  I never really liked the taste of the cigarettes and beer, but the taste kind of grew on me after doing it awhile.  I started this “acting out” because in previous years I was always picked on and bullied for being the quiet, shy little fat kid that didn’t do those “bad things”.  During this period, my brother and I would be living with either mom or dad, and when things didn’t go our way we would pitch a fit and move in with the other parent.  This continued until I turned 18, got me a decent job driving a forklift in a little family owned and run warehouse in Buford, GA.  I then got my own apartment, and let my brother and his wife with their kid move in, and I got my brother a job at the warehouse driving a forklift.  By this time I had been introduced to marijuana, cocaine, acid (LSD), crank, meth, crystal, ice.  You name I had at least tried it once.  I done everything but shoot up, (using drugs intravenously with needles), I can’t stand needles.  My drugs of choice, the one’s that I continued using on a regular basis were alcohol, marijuana, and tobacco.  This lifestyle of drug use and drinking every single day continued until I was 20 years old and found myself in the Georgia State Penitentiary.  Prior to this, again with the wrong crowd of people I was introduced to the homosexual lifestyle.  I practiced this lifestyle off and on for a number of years.  I knew it was wrong, yet there was something very intriguing about it that kept me hooked.

In 1998 I got in a really big fight with my brother and his wife, and packed up and moved out of my apartment, and moved in with my dad and step-mom in Kingston, GA, on the little horse farm they were running.  My step-sister had turned custody of her son, my step-nephew over to my dad and step-mom and so it was the 4 of us living on the farm out in the country.  My dad drove a semi truck, and was gone for at least 5 days a week.  While he was on the road, my step-mother and I would sit around and smoke pot, and I would drink regularly.  I was in and out of work at a bunch of little two-bit jobs in restaurants.  I would start out at the ground level mopping floors, cleaning the bathrooms, and work my way up into a management position.  But then, the drugs and alcohol would get the best of me or a relationship I was in would get rocky and I would end up giving up and not caring about anything and lose my job.  This crazy cycle lasted until I committed a Felony Offense and was taken by my dad and step-mom to the Mental Hospital in Rome, GA.  The psychiatrist and doctors there said that there was no cure for me, and that I would be staying there in the mental hospital until the Polk County Sheriff’s Department came to get me, and they have already notified the authorities for the crime that I was admitted into the mental hospital for.  So, I got on the phone with mom, by this time she had moved back to Birmingham, AL to care for her aging parents and got transferred to AT&T in Birmingham.  She agreed to come get me and take me back to Alabama to live with her and my step-dad, and get me a job and my own place and just forget about all this craziness that my twisted up life had become.  When we got back to Alabama, I got me a job at the local Waffle House because I had prior experience as an assistant manager/grill operator.  It didn’t take me long to find out who had the drugs, and to actually get my hands on them and the booze.  I quickly made some friends with the wrong folks, and was back into the same old cycle again.

After going through a few different jobs, I was working at the local Krystal as the third shift manager.  One fateful night I went in to work at 9:00 and everything was as usual.  I checked in with the other manager, counted and verified the safe and all the tills, put my people in their positions and started running the drive thru.  After about 10 minutes the manager that I was taking over for called me back in the office, and when I walked in there was a Gardendale City Police Officer standing beside the manager.  He asked me what my name was, I told him; he then told me to turn around, and read me my Miranda Rights as he slapped the cuffs on me and escorted me out the back door.  As we walked out the back of the restaurant I looked around and to my surprise I counted at least 10 other police cars with officers beside the cars, weapons drawn ready for me to act stupid.  Needless to say, I was high and half drunk so nothing was really sinking in yet and later that night I found myself in the City jailhouse.  I stayed there at the Gardendale City Jail for about 5 days, until Polk County GA came to extradite me back to the Polk county jail.  After getting back to Polk County, I went before a judge and was given a bond/bail for 1 million dollars.  I immediately called mom back in Alabama and gave her the good yet bad news.  Two days later she had somehow found a bail bondsman that would hold a $100,000 check for her until I returned to court a year later.  So, back to Alabama I go.  I wasn’t back in Alabama 2 whole days until I was back to the same old friends and the same old lifestyle of sex, drugs, and Rock-n-Roll.  I was wide open for the devil and hell-bent on destroying myself and didn’t care who cared!  After another year of this madness, my court date came up in November 2000.  I was scared to death, knowing that I was more-than-likely going to be doing some serious time; I was going to be spending some serious time behind bars in prison.  A place I never in my 19 years would have believed I could be in, and yet here I was.

In court I was sentenced to a 20 year sentence to serve 5 years in prison with the remaining 15 years on probation.  After court I was hauled back to the Polk county Jail house where I stayed for 3 months until I was picked up by Bartow county Sheriff’s Office and transported to the Bartow county jail to wait another week for the bus to The Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison in Jackson GA, Butts County.  I don’t have the time to explain in detail the horror of what I experienced at this place, and I thank God that I won’t be going back there again.  I spent 3 more months of my time in the Prison in Jackson GA, and was then transferred to my “permanent camp/prison” in Leesburg, GA, down south in the swamps.  I spent the remaining time I had to serve in prison, there at Lee State Prison.  When I got off the bus, I was expecting another hell-hole like Jackson, like what the prison looks like in the movie Alcatraz.  But, Lee State was nothing like that at all, it was more like a college campus, except for lots of chain link fence and razor wire and lots and lots of mean folks who wasn’t going home for a while.  Being naturally shy, it wasn’t hard for me to stay to myself and out of trouble, though in a place like this trouble will find you, regardless.  For my first year and a half there I was still being the rebellious youth that I was on the streets; smoking pot, drinking buck, and just plain out not being real nice to anybody at all.  And like the majority of the guys locked up, it was always someone else’s fault that I was there, never my own.  Let me back track for a minute and fill in a blank here.  It took me a while to realize that God was trying to get my attention, and get my attention He did.  During the year that I was out, after I was bonded out of the Polk County Jail, before my court date a year later; I had come home from working at a construction job I had and went to get a shower and get cleaned up so that I could go hang with the guys and get drunk and high and be a part of whatever other mischief we could get into.  After getting out of the shower and getting dressed, (I was living at my mother’s house, at this time), I had a 12-pack of Budweiser in my right hand, an 8-ball of cocaine in my right jacket pocket, and an ounce of marijuana in my left pocket.  Like I said I was on my way to get drunk and high.  While walking down the hallway to the garage to get in my car and leave, my step-brother passed me going to the bathroom, he stopped me and asked if I would like to go to Church with him and his wife that night?  I shrugged it off and politely told him that I have made prior plans and didn’t really have the time for them Pentecostal Pew Jumping, Bible-Thumping, Holy-Rollers!  And so, off I went.

Now, back to me in Lee State Prison; there was a day during mail-call, that I knew I wasn’t getting any mail so I was laid out on my bunk listening to AC/DC’s Highway to Hell on my walk-man.  The rooms were 6-men to a room and the prison system has every available bed filled.  There was this older black guy who was waiting to hear his name called to see if he had some mail that day.  I had had my Walkman boosted up so the volume was about 3 times louder than they come from the factory, everybody in the room could hear what I was listening to and I really didn’t care if they liked it or not.  So, this older black dude tapped on my bunk and asked me to turn it down so that he could hear his name called if he got some mail.  I can’t repeat here or now what the exact words were I said to him (though I do remember quite vividly), but in no uncertain terms I threatened his life if he ever touched my bed again, spoke to me, or even looked in my direction.  This man sat there amidst of all of my slanderous, vile words being hurled at him, with his life being threatened and simply, quietly said to me, “I love you brother.  God Bless you brother, I’ll be praying for you.”  In my current state of mind at the time his response really infuriated me, so much to the point that I was getting off my top bunk and I had all intentions of punching this dude in the mouth and knocking his teeth out!  Who in the ________ did he think he was to talk to me like that?  Needless to say, everybody else in the room just backed away from us, and for some reason I just couldn’t swing on this guy, which infuriated me even more so, that I just grabbed my Walkman and stormed out of the room.  I sat for a time in the day-room trying to figure out what had stopped me from punching that guy in the mouth, I just couldn’t understand it.  As time went on, I kept watching this fellow as I did with everybody in there, with my back against the wall and a pen in my hand or pocket at all times.  It got so bad sometimes that I had to sleep on my back with hardback books stacked on my chest and a pen in my hand at night, I didn’t trust anyone.  I kept noticing that every single time the prison would announce “Church Call”, this guy was there; he would be standing by the door ready to go, Bible in hand at least 10-15 minutes before the doors were opened.  Over the next few months, I seen this guy get picked on by some other bullies in the prison and this guy never fought back, and never had a harsh word to say about anybody.  I was simply stunned!  Now I have read the Bible through a couple of times before, just to be able to find fault with it and find something in there that I would be able to use against those Christians to prove that what they were believing was just a bunch of fairy tales and nonsense.  And of course I never could, so I just let it go.  Over time, I started getting jealous of the guy and said to myself, there is something strange and peculiar about that dude, I want whatever it is that he has, I want to know what he knows.  I had no idea that when I said this it was actually a prayer, and one of the many that would be answered over the years.

Then as fate would have it, there was an outside prison ministry coming to the prison for a few days to minister to the guys in the prison.  It was Bill Glass Ministries, “Champions for Life”.  It was what they were calling at the time the Weekend of Champions.  Now for many that don’t know, Bill Glass was a Baylor University All-American and NFL All-Pro Football player.  Aside from that fact and that he is a “Born Again” Christian with this ministry to men in prison that is about all I know of him.  Anyway, I went out to the yard with a couple of friends when this Weekend of Champions started just to be able to get out of the dorm for a while.  While out on the yard at this Ministry event, we were seated in the bleachers listening to some Christians giving their testimonies, and when Bill Glass got up to speak, you could have heard a pin drop in the grass out in the yard there.  He was speaking some real truth to us guys like we had never heard before.  The main gist of his message was that the majority of us inmates were where we were because of a serious lack of a male role model in our lives, that according to his and others research upwards of about 89-93% of us grew up without a permanent father figure in the house, and we didn’t know how to be real men.  As I was sitting there listening to him, it was like I was the only one out there that day and he was speaking directly to me.  When he finished his talk, he presented the Gospel to us, and told us that if we wanted to learn more about this Jesus that he was talking about that we could get with one of the Ministry counselors and they would tell us more about Him.  So, I along with the couple of buddies I was out there on the yard with, found one of the counselors and just started a conversation about what was going on in our lives at the time, and how we were feeling, etc.  There was a genuine compassion and heartfelt love from these people that I haven’t experienced in any other person in my life to this point.  Except for the guy I wanted to punch in the mouth in my cell earlier a few weeks back.  So this counselor led us in the “Sinner’s Prayer” and I have to say, nothing really exciting happened at that point that I could tell.  So, we carried on in our usual mundane way of doing really nothing for the rest of the day.

After the evening chow call, the call was made for the Friday night Church Service, Friday Night Jubilee.  And for no other reason known to me besides plain old curiosity, I grabbed my Bible and went to this program too.  I don’t remember what all was said at this service, but I do remember that the three men from the outside (free-world) church were making some really wild and exaggerated claims about Jesus, and walking this faith walk, and prayer, and the Word being alive, and on and on they went.  They then ended the service with calling up to the front (altar) those who needed prayer, and they were anointing with oil and laying hands on folks for prayer for many different things.  So, up I went.  I knew that if anybody needed prayer at this point it was me.  When it came my turn to be prayed for, I remember there was a guy that stood behind me and the minister was standing in front of me, he anointed me with the oil, laid his hands on my shoulder and pushed my forehead backwards, then the guy behind me was gently tugging on the opposite shoulder trying to get me to lay backwards toward the floor.  I remember the guy behind me putting his foot directly behind my left foot and actually making contact with my left heel.  I didn’t think too much of it at the time, needless to say I didn’t go down.  I didn’t feel a surge of power or electricity slap me down, or flow through me or anything close to this.  After he finished praying for me, I walked back to my seat and on back to my cell when the service was over with.  This night, after they announced lights out lock down and the cell doors were slammed shut, I got on my bunk, got on my knees, opened my Bible and just started reading where it opened up to.  Jeremiah 33:1-3 is where my eyes landed on the page in the dim light coming through the window.  As I read those verses, something broke in my heart and I closed my eyes and prayed.  I told God that I had heard what all these different folks have said about Him, what He can do, has done, and will do.  I told God that He knew I was very skeptical of all this; He knew this because He created me.  And I told Him that if He is Who these folks have claimed that He is, and if He can do what these folks have said that He can do, then He is going to have to show up and show out, and show me.  I had a peace in my soul that I have never, until this night felt as I laid down and fell asleep.  The next morning when I woke up and got out of the bed, it was like I had entered into a new life.  Everything was crisp, and clear, and bright.  Though I was still in the prison, in the same cell with the same mean and vile bunch of folks, still behind the gray concrete cinder-block walls and 20 foot high chain link and razor wire fences; something was different.  I couldn’t distinguish what exactly it was, but I just knew that something was different.  I had a thirst and a hunger for the word of God that I didn’t have before, and a genuine love for people that I thought was impossible for me to have.  As I was walking back to the dorm from the chow hall after breakfast I realized that I had just received what I seen in the guy I wanted to desperately punch in the mouth, but couldn’t.  And as time went on and I grew in the grace and knowledge of the Lord, it was revealed to me that the reason that I couldn’t hit that guy was because of Angelic interference.  His angels were watching over guarding and protecting him.  I spent the rest of my three years of incarceration submerged in the Bible and doing every single Bible study I could get my hands on through correspondence courses to the point that I was doing 5 different Bible studies at one time.  I would finish a part of one, drop it in the mail and start another one.  Every time the “Church Doors” were open, I was there.  I got to be friends with a few of the other Christian guys in the prison and we started hanging out at the library and on the yard and in the church services.  We would read, study, pray and just have wonderful times of fellowship together.  There was a camaraderie and brotherhood like I have never known before this time of my being “Born Again”.

Time won’t allow for me to tell of all of the many different miracles and healings that I was privileged and blessed to be allowed to witness, but I just can’t complete this testimony without making at least a brief mention of them here.  I had a good friend of mine inside the prison who was an intravenous drug user when he was on the streets and he and his wife both contracted HIV from using dirty needles.  After getting the disease before being sent to prison, he got his wife pregnant and their baby was born HIV NEGATIVE!  This friend of mine whom we were constantly in prayer for with the laying on of hands in the dorm, in the church services, and on the yard was eventually healed after many months of corporate, individual and constant persevering prayer.  At the time I met him, he was having to go to pill call and be escorted by a prison guard to watch and verify with the nurse that he was actually taking and swallowing the powerful narcotic that he was prescribed to keep the HIV at bay temporarily.  When he was told by the Lord that he was healed, he started to walk by faith and refused to go take the pill.  This, of course led to a bunch of discord within the prison officials and the medical staff, so he spent the next four months being transferred to two different medical prisons, one in Augusta GA and one in Atlanta GA.  While at both of these medical prisons he was tested numerous times and all the test results were negative.  Praise the Lord!!!

There were many cases of minor injuries of broken bones, twisted ankles, colds, flu’s, food poisonings and the like that were healed instantly.  Many more reports of guys with cancer and other life ending diseases cured and healed by the power of God through prayer.  There was one brother of ours, his name was Ross, we called him Brother Ross whenever we seen him anywhere on the compound.  This brother, during the commission of his crime was shot in the back twice by the police.  He was taken to the hospital for surgery before being taken to jail.  While in the hospital, the doctors told him that they can’t remove the bullets because they were too close to his spine and the way they were lodged in there, they didn’t want to take that chance of him being paralyzed from the neck down.  At that time he was only paralyzed from the waist down.  He was a member of the prison worship team and choir, and would always sing a song by the Mighty Clouds of Joy, titled, “Walk Around Heaven”.  Brother Ross, when he sang this song after hearing the original, you could close your eyes and would swear that it was the original singer of the song.  What a blessing to the choir and Body of Christ there at Lee State Prison this brother was.  Then it happened, on a Sunday night the outside ministry team that came in was a little group of older ladies from the local Pentecostal Church in Albany GA, they were called the Azalea prison ministry.  These little ladies were the most on fire for Jesus people I have ever met.  The word they preached was anointed and would cut you and they would step all over your toes and didn’t care if you liked it or not, so long as it would help you to get closer to Jesus.  So, the main minster lady got up at the start of the service and paced back and forth a few times while the choir was finishing an extended version of “Open the Floodgates of Heaven” by Bishop Paul Morton.  After about 4 or 5 minutes of this she motioned for the choir to get quiet and she said, “I have a message prepared that I believe the Lord has given me for y’all tonight, but I feel in my spirit right now that we need to go this way and let the Holy Ghost lead this service.  He’s here.”  She then walked over to Brother Ross who was sitting beside the choir in his wheel chair, and she asked him one simple question.  She said to him, “Brother Ross.  Do you believe that the Lord has healed you?”  Brother Ross replied that yes, God is able to heal him.  She turned away from him, walked a few steps and turned back toward him again, and asked the same question a second time.  This time his response was the same.  She again, walked away from him praying in tongues, then immediately spun on her heels, marched back over to him and bent down, got in his face and said, “I don’t think you heard me correctly.”, she then asked the question a third time, and you could see Brother Ross’ face light up.  A big smile spread across his face and he said, “Yes ma’am!  I know that God has healed me!”.  She then said to him, “If you truly, really believe that God has healed you, then stand up in the Name of Jesus and walk!”  She then asked the entire congregation to stand to their feet, and start praying for Brother Ross and giving God glory and thanks for the miracle of healing that He has blessed Brother Ross with.  Without a moment’s hesitation, Brother Ross slowly stood up out of the wheelchair and started walking back and forth across the front of the church area.  The entire place erupted with shouts of praise and worship!  Even the prison guards who were posted up on every wall by 3 deep and at every door to the Sergeants and Lieutenants were completely baffled at what was happening!  You could see the look on their faces like they were witnessing a riot about to start, but none of them made a single move to try and stop anything.  You could actually feel the tangible presence of God fill that place that night!  WOW!  What an awesome service that was.  Needless to say there was no preaching the entire service, just praise and worship and prayer and testimonies for the next hour and a half!  Brother Ross is still to this day walking.  Every night after the statewide 9:00pm count would clear a group of us Christians would gather in the middle of the day room of the dorm, and would ask each person present if they had any prayer requests.  After the requests were made, we would select one guy from the group to lead the prayer, and while standing in a circle, holding hands we would pray.  Not one time can I remember ever being interrupted by the guards or other non-believers, or even the Muslims, not once.  Everyone was reverent of the “Prayer Circle”.  We would pray for the guys in the circle’s families on the outside of the prison, and we would get praise reports and direct answers to our prayers on a daily basis, either through some letter in the mail, or while on a phone call.  But the answered prayers would flow in every single day, so much to the point that we had the guards asking us to keep them in prayer.

Then, as if this wasn’t enough, there was my “KAIROS” experience.  Kairos is another prison ministry that comes into the prison for three and a half days.  It starts on a Thursday evening and runs through to the following Sunday evening.  It has to be the one most powerful move of God inside a prison that I have ever witnessed.  Kairos is made up of a bunch of different churches all over the state of Georgia, and it is actually a nationwide program.  They come in and bring food, and different instruments and all the guys who are selected to attend from the inmates are separated into groups of about 8-10 people at huge round tables with about 4 guys from the outside representing every single Christian denomination known.  There is a set guideline to follow where the gospel message is presented in such a way that it isn’t overbearing or too personally intrusive.  While attending this meeting for the first time, and “serving” at 3 additional following Kairos meetings, I have again witnessed the awesome power of the Holy Spirit moving in ways that before, I had only been able to read about in the book of Acts.  I have seen some of the meanest, most nastiest and hateful men in prison with no hope of ever getting out, break down and cry like a little baby because of the Holy Spirit moving on their hearts and transforming these guys from the inside out. 

I am not at all, in any way, shape, form, or fashion proud of what I did to get myself in prison.  But I do know that while I was there, I was in “Seminary” with my Father God in Heaven, His Son, my Savior Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost teaching me, leading me, instructing and guiding me along the way; and I can say for sure, that my life, since that Friday night when I prayed, my life has not been the same; God really has flipped my life upside down!  And for this I am very, very grateful.

At the end of the Kairos walk they usually invite a guest speaker for the finale service.  When a group of friends I was with at the time heard this guy speak, it was like we were hearing from the Lord Himself.  That evening at yard call, I was walking around the yard by myself just enjoying the being outside and praying.  When God gave me the vision of “It Ain’t Over Ministries”.  The title comes from the ability to be “Born Again” – John 3.  I was praying and asking God how in the world am I going to make it when I get out having to be registered as a sex offender, and on probation.  As soon as people hear the title “Convicted Felon”, “Sex Offender”, they always, automatically throw up a wall and begin to think the absolute worst of you, regardless of knowing anything else about you.  And I heard the Lord speak to my heart, in my spirit, He said, “Son, It Ain’t Over”.  Regardless of what anyone says about you; what they may think about you, what they may have heard about you, or even what they may know about you, It Ain’t Over!  No matter what color you are, how tall, or short or thin or big, It Ain’t Over!  Regardless of what title you have to wear from the world, It Ain’t Over!  And for sure, no matter what you have done in the past, It Ain’t Over!!!  HALLELUJAH!!!  Thank God Almighty, that IT AIN’T OVER!!!

And so, all of this to say that this is where I am today.  A redeemed, reformed, transformed, man.  Born Again by the mercy and grace of God!  I am happily married to my soul-mate and life/ministry partner.  I have received Licensing and Ordination by World Christianship Ministries whereby I was granted the consecrated title of Minister, and whereby I received an Honorary Doctorate of Divinity and a Church Charter.  I have also obtained, while incarcerated, a Diploma in General Bible Knowledge I & II with a GPA of 99.06 from United Christian Bible Institute, I have satisfactorily completed 3 separate Diploma programs of study since my release from incarceration through The Prophetic Voice Institute which are “Diploma in Discipleship”; “Diploma in the Deaconate”; and “Diploma in Ministry”, and was Ordained by a local Church here in Rome, GA.  I am getting on with my life, living my life to the best of my ability to fulfill the calling that God has called me to and to walk in obedience to His Ways and Will for my life.  To teach His Word, and build the Ministry that He has entrusted to me and those of like minds and hearts.  If you would like to know more about It Ain’t Over Ministries or would like to become part of a growing ministry, feel free to contact us via email at:  iaom@itaintoverministries.com.

Have a Very Blessed Day, in Jesus Name!

Jesus IS Lord!!!

And, Remember:                    

IT AIN’T OVER!!!