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to tell stories about faith whenever we can and redemption.

And this is one of our best redemption stories brought to us by our very own Joey Cortez.

Ron Brown grew up on the west side of Chicago.

I grew up in a family where my uncles were drug dealers and pimps.

And I saw that growing up as a kid.

And it never appealed to me.

I can remember as a kid seeing my uncles get shot and different things like that.

And one guy tried to murder my uncle and just seeing it and just being a kid like five, six, seven, eight, nine years old, growing up being like, this ain't the way this is supposed to be.

I watch certain stories and kids say growing up in the inner city, how they saw drug dealers and that's the only people they saw.

And for them, they saw that as a means to an end to get out the ghetto or as a kid, I don't know what God blessed me with,

but he blessed me with the ability to see that I was wrong, and that wasn't the way for me to go

about my life.

He was also blessed with a strong mother, who divorced his biological father when Ron was a kid.

I can remember he was part of an accident fraud scheme, and I remember being a kid telling him, I was like, hey man, you're going to get in trouble. He'd say, son, you know what, I'm making my living the best way I know how. And eventually he ended up going to prison for a few years for that. And I can remember being a kid and him writing me letters and saying, hey, you know, when I get out, things are going to be different. I'm going to spend more time with you. I think it's important.

And the thing was, he got out and nothing never changed. He went back to what he knew. And he ended up being the streets for a few more years and he went to jail. My dad was like the real. You ever seen the movie Catch Me If You Can, he was like the real catch me if you Can. You understand what I'm saying? When he came to doing checks and stuff like that.

And so I can remember having that example from a very young age and seeing all the cars and houses.

And I was like, it just never appealed to me.

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