EP 205: Empowering Lives: From Struggle to Rehabilitation with John David Graham

In this episode Diana introduces her new sponsor, 753 Academy, which specializes in anti-bullying programs and holistic martial arts training. Diana's guest, John David Graham, shares his remarkable journey from experiencing homelessness to founding the Good Samaritan Home. John talks about the challenges and successes of providing post-prison housing and rehabilitation for former inmates. He emphasizes the importance of respect, community support, and teaching life skills to help individuals reintegrate into society. John also reflects on his personal experiences and how faith drives his mission to help others. The conversation provides valuable insights into the struggles of those re-entering society and the impact of compassionate support.

BIO: JOHN DAVID GRAHAM is the founder of Good Samaritan Home, a housing / mentoring program helping men and women restart their lives after prison. Prior to that, he was a door-to-door salesman, children’s home counselor, substitute school teacher, truck driver, fireman, building contractor, minister and journalist. As you can see, he has a lot of life experience. Sometimes the road home takes many twists and turns to develop what John calls “calloused hands and a tender heart” which he used to write his award-winning debut novel RUNNING AS FAST AS I CAN. Readers Favorite hailed his book as “truly a masterpiece.” It has won 30 awards.

Get his book here: https://www.amazon.com/Running-As-Fast-Can-ebook/dp

00:00 Introduction and Host Welcome

00:36 Exciting News: New Sponsor Announcement

01:30 Introducing 7 5 3 Academy 02:35 Martial Arts and Fitness Programs

04:45 Podcast Transition and Guest Introduction

07:13 John David Graham's Background and Ministry

13:13 Challenges and Success Stories

17:32 Community Resistance and Overcoming Obstacles

20:56 Daily Life at Good Samaritan Home

26:11 Faith-Based Motivation and Service

28:22 Conclusion and Next Episode Teaser

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John David Graham

[00:00:00] Welcome to the Wounds of the Faithful Podcast, brought to you by DSW Ministries. Your host is singer songwriter, speaker and domestic violence advocate, Diana Winkler. She is passionate about helping survivors in the church heal from domestic violence and abuse and trauma. This podcast is not a substitute for professional counseling or qualified medical help.

Now here is Diana.

​ Hey everybody. Welcome back to the podcast. I have some big news for you today. I do have a new sponsor, a local business that I'm involved with, called 7 5 3 Academy. . You guys know me really well, that I am very particular who I endorse on this podcast.

I'm not just going to have mattress commercials. I want to support [00:01:00] somebody that is going to benefit you personally in your life and also benefit your healing and, recovering from abuse, trauma, or domestic violence. There are very few businesses that I'd be willing to go into a written financial agreement with, so you must know that this is, something that I really believe in , a business that is benefiting me personally,

So I would like to introduce you to 7 5 3 Academy.

So it says, our martial art programs specialize in anti-bullying programs for kids, to combat proven Filipino martial arts. We take a holistic, fun, and innovative approach that simply works.

We have a motto for our karate system, I train in martial arts for self-defense to protect myself, my [00:02:00] family, and my friends only. We follow the 7 5 3 code,

and they include seven warrior virtues, five keys to health, and three states of mind. So that's where they get their 7, 5, 3 from.

Are you concerned about your child's ability to handle negativity, stress, and anxiety while maintaining positive self-esteem and self-worth?

In an age where distractions are everywhere, karate helps students improve their concentration and mental clarity.

So the other thing that they teach is pekiti tersia kali.

The nature of PTK focuses the mind and improves hand eye coordination and improves cognitive function and ability. Training that helps improve self-confidence through combat geometry.

Learn to protect yourself and those you love [00:03:00] today.

They also have

health and fitness.

No matter where you are in your fitness and health journey, we got you covered. We specialize in helping you exceed your health and fitness goals, whether that is losing body fat, gaining muscle, or nutritional coaching to match your fitness levels.

We do it all with a written guarantee for results so you don't waste time and money on a program that doesn't exceed your goals.

All this to help you become more functionally fit and healthy in the simplest way possible. Our fitness community is friendly and supportive

without the over the top muscle gym atmosphere. Our coaching staff are professionally trained with over 30 years of experience, providing group semi-private and private classes, nutrition and health, fitness management.

Get started with a free class by claiming your free class voucher. So go to the link in the show [00:04:00] notes for your free class voucher. Now, this is in the Phoenix Metro area. This is a local business that is supporting the podcast. So reach out to Coach David and coach Eric, over at 7 5 3 Academy.

I've been training in the pekiti tersia kali program for over a year, and I definitely can personally recommend them. So check that out folks.

You'll be hearing more about 7, 5, 3 in the coming months. I am going to have them on the show here soon to talk about

Topics relating to abuse or trauma, and so stay tuned for that. And now onto our podcast and our guest today.

I hope that you're enjoying some of our guests this year. We've had quite a few really exciting people, and today is going to be no [00:05:00] exception. We have John David Graham on the show. I'm gonna talk about his ministry with Good Samaritan home, and his book called Running as Fast as I Can.

So this is a mentoring program for men and women restarting their lives after prison. We've had some folks on the show that are recovering from prison life. And I think you'll find this interview very interesting. John has had a lot of varied life experiences.

We have a terrific conversation about his story and then. His fantastic book that we're gonna talk about. Reader's Favorite has held his book as truly a masterpiece and it has already won 26 awards, so that's a good reason to read this book.

So the book [00:06:00] is

about the character Daniel Robinson as he struggles to overcome generations of poverty, neglect, and abuse that have left him totally incapable of the life and love he desperately wants. So I think some of us can relate to those things, can't we?

So I find it really exciting to see that he has started 17 good Samaritan homes in the greater Dayton, Ohio area. So he is doing some great work and I'm looking forward to hearing what you think of the episode of this interview.

So I'm not going to delay this any further. Here is my conversation. John David Graham.

Please welcome to the show my guest, John David Graham. Thanks for being with us today.

I'm very glad to be here, Diana, thank you very much.

[00:07:00] I'm really excited to hear about your Good Samaritan home, and we're gonna talk about your book that sounds very interesting. Running as fast as I can.

So before we do that, I'd like to hear about your story growing up. I see that you've had so many things that you've done.

You're being kind. Yeah.

You've had a lot of experience in many different things and. I know you have a story of how you went through life. You grew up in the sixties, huh?

And yeah. And give us a little a start of, your background, your upbringing, and how'd you get to here?

What I've noticed lately is even today on the news, you're seeing issues of bombings and terrorists attacks. And it seems every day we're seeing political violence and religious violence.

And [00:08:00] it reminds me a great deal of the sixties, particularly 1968. It was extremely tumultuous time and we had college campuses in protest and being shut down and it was, it was at best it was disorienting. And in fact, I was in even involved I went to see a girl at Kent State on the day of the shootings in 1970 and got involved at another campus that very day in a student protest.

And you get swept up in it just by following the crowd. But it took me years to come out of a college that period and even enter a voting booth. So there was a 30 years in fact because we were so bombarded with distrust and even to some of us contempt for the government because we felt betrayed, but also the economy was shifting.

And what we'd had in the sixties was prosperity in the mills and in the [00:09:00] factories. And that disappeared in the seventies. And so everybody who had these stable plans lost them. So as a result of all that politicking and all that turmoil. I went through a series of 30 years where I was just trying to find my place.

Went from job to job. I was a children's home counselor, a substitute school teacher, a truck driver, a fireman, a journalist, and at one point I was even a minister thinking that I could find some degree of stability. But what I found was that even into church, there's politicking, and particularly in the Protestant church where it's based on did you please the congregation, did you grow the congregation, did you fill the offering plate with your sermon?

And I found that, the vision of the ministry is a lot like Hollywood. It it's presented as being a wonderful [00:10:00] life, but in reality it's it's a D-Day front. You feel like you're under attack on all sides. I was 53 years old. I had a family. We had moved through several states and instead of looking at retirement, I was looking at what am I gonna do with my life?

So my wife and I decided to maybe we can help people who were struggling more than us, and we decided to open our own home. It was an old Victorian house that we were the only thing we could afford. It was very old and needed a great deal of repair. We decided to use it as a homeless shelter. To help people who were struggling more than us.

And we did that with really no money, but just using what we call sweat equity, our own labor. I promised her we get it remodeled in three months. Truth is, it took 14 years. Yeah, I there was a lot of sweat in that equity, but in the [00:11:00] process. We use that house as a model of what can happen when you take a broken life.

A broken house is like a broken life. If you put equity into it, if you put effort into it, if the community volunteers can support you, you can change a house and you can change a life. And we did that and eventually the Department of Correction asked us, can we take people coming from prison who are homeless, low risk offenders, but simply need a safe place to live temporarily?

And we did that, and that allowed us to expand to another house and another house. And over the next 24 years, we grew from our house helping one or two men to now we have 19 houses in three different counties and a staff of 10 people. And our company is called Good Samaritan [00:12:00] Home for obvious reasons, and it's a nonprofit, but the idea is that we are trying to give the least of these.

These are people coming from prison, by and large are lepers in our community. We went through a lock 'em up mentality in the eighties and we filled our prisons and we tripled the prison population only to realize that people come home from prison and if they don't have someone or something to help them, they're not gonna make it.

They're gonna go back to prison. And so the idea is in the community, if somebody has housing and structure and some degree of stability, then they'll get a job. They'll pay child support, they'll stay out of prison. I. And that's what happened. We've worked with upwards of 2,500 men and women over the past quarter century and by and large and yet obviously some people don't stay.

[00:13:00] But by and large, it's been extremely successful and be the idea is that we're not doing it just for them. We're doing it as an expression of our faith, and that's made all the difference.

You said you have been homeless before.

Have you been in prison before?

No I've never been to prison. But I have been homeless, particularly when I was single when I was married. Of course, I had to take my family through various different states to follow the work, but I never forgot what it was like to be living in my truck.

And have worried about where can I park my truck so that somebody won't come out and tell me to move? Or where am I gonna eat tonight? The weather's coming down, what am I gonna do? And then they repossess my truck. Oh. So yeah, I forgot you have to actually make payments on that thing, oh. But my, my homelessness was not the extent of some people, but.

I [00:14:00] do know what it's like to look at the clouds to say, is it going to rain? Where am I going to sleep? And so what I was able to do was transfer that, that understanding to my residents, because the idea of, say you get released from jail and you're told, okay, go out and get a job. You don't know what the first thing to do if you've never had a job.

And sometimes if you've been in jail for. 20 years. Can you imagine coming out and not have ever used a cell phone that everything is done on a cell phone today? Yes. Yeah, e even the idea if you're getting food stamps, it's all done on a bank card. Now, you used to get stamps in a paper booklet, and you took that to the grocery store, but now it's all electronic.

So what you and I take for granted. Is a whole new world for many people. We like to say that we're in rehabilitation, [00:15:00] but the truth is, I think we're in habilitation, we're teaching skills that some of these people have never learned. And that's, it's been an education for me. I'll guarantee that.

Now also the people that come out of prison, most people will not hire them because they have trust issues with people coming out of prison. So they have that against them too, right?

It's a double issue because technically, the you shouldn't discriminate. But we all do because, and you should in reality because if somebody has a felony, you know that they have something that you have to be aware of.

For example, if it's theft or drugs, then can you trust somebody to work in a at the cash register? Or if it's a violent offense, is that, are they safe even though the offense may have been 30 years ago? Or if it's an addiction offense, alcohol how do we know that addiction is not continuing?

You're absolutely right. You should be careful, but yet, [00:16:00] I believe as a community, we really have to give somebody a second chance because the alternative is. Is throw away. You just have to throw away people who have made mistakes and as a moral people, we can't do that.

Have you seen a TV show called Pit Bulls and Parolees?

I'm aware of it and I'm aware of the program actually.

 

Yeah. I love that show and I think that's a great thing for both the dogs and the people on parole. Now I will need to say that I'm very careful that people understand that this is not some sort of hug, a thug program where you simply say come here brother.

Let me give you a big hug. And Jesus loves you, and all is fine. Hug a thug. I believe we have to be why is this serpents and gentle as doves? And gentle sometimes can be pretty tough too because, you I never forget. It's like the adage about when you pick up a snake and the snake bites [00:17:00] you, why are you surprised?

Because that's the nature of the snake. Yes. But what we try to do is learn how to handle, and the key element, I believe, is to treat people with respect. Because that to me is the universal language. And we have guidelines, we have rules, we have accountability. But we also try to respect the people we're dealing with and I think that's why it's worked.

You started these Good Samaritan homes and you're in these communities. Did you get any resistance when you started housing former felons? What was that like?

It I got the the innocent part down right when I first started. I had a newspaper reporter call and say, you'd like to do a story about our house.

And I thought, this is good. We'll be able to get

people to support us and emotionally. And I wasn't looking for financial necessarily. I just wanted supporters in the community. And once the article came out. [00:18:00] The blowback was instantaneous and it was intense, and it was beyond anything I anticipated. That there were petitions passed immediately in town.

There were calls to the city council. There were meetings there were threats. I had letters to the editor from grandmothers parents. One fourth grade girl wrote to the editor and said, I'm afraid to go to school. Because of that house somebody else they moved the bus route away from my house so that students wouldn't have to drive by our house.

And I had a woman in McDonald's threatened to kill me, and she said, I'm a grandmother, but if one of your guys came around my house, I would I'd kill you and him too. We ended up in three lawsuits and it was I even had police protection at one point. Wow. It was incredible. But I will tell you this, that I.[00:19:00]

When you're under intense pressure and I can speak in a biblical reference here. When you're come before the authorities and it says that God will give you the words to say, I have found a calmness has come over me, and I have found that. When I'm speaking what I feel to be the words of, not words of God, but I'm speaking on what I feel to be the right mission because I'm very careful to give God credit for things that that often are mundane and, so I just try to act as if I am the hands and feet when I speak. And I found that I. I didn't feel the need to defend myself, nor did I feel the need to come at critics or even to combat the lies. I found that the best thing we could do was to not respond in kind. In fact, we used our snowblower to speak louder than I ever could.[00:20:00]

When it snowed in winter, we got the snowblower out and did the whole block, and we cleaned everybody's sidewalk all winter long without saying a word. And eventually the neighbors saw that we were not a threat, and eventually it took time. Those same people that used to wave at us with one finger. Now wave with all their fingers, if I'm so glad to hear that. Yes. Yeah. So it, it was an intense time, but also it was about as close to what I call an apostolic mission. As I've encountered where we were, we felt we were doing the right thing and we wanted to make sure that we acted accordingly and we did.

 

That sounds wonderful

that most of them came around eventually seeing the service that you were doing in the community. You talked about rules and staff. Tell us about what a typical day is for [00:21:00] those in your good Samaritan home. And is there anybody that you wouldn't take?

We we don't discriminate based on the offense.

It's based on the risk score and the Department of Correction technically is in charge of that. So if somebody is considered to be a a high risk, that doesn't necessarily mean they're dangerous because this is called independent housing. So we wouldn't get somebody who needs to be under lock and key.

Our housing is is in lieu of. Being homeless on the street. So it's almost like a boarding house. We have rules in that you have to, you're responsible to clean your room, you're responsible to be in a curfew. You're responsible to respect your your roommates. Basically it's what a boarding house is like.

And if you don't want to be here, you're welcome to leave, but you'll lose your free housing. What we try to do is we try to teach basic stills, like EE even something. Benign as making a bed is actually the [00:22:00] focal point because you're gonna go out and apply for a job and get rejected, just like you said, and you'll apply again and again.

You may get rejected. Dozen times. But when you come back at night and your bed is made and your room is clean, you feel like at least you have control over something in your life, and that gives you hope. So we're trying to teach rehabilitation through basic skills and one of which is respect for yourself.

And the object, the key element here is if I respect me and I respect my roommate, I begin to think in terms of we instead of I. And that to me is a critical element in rehabilitation. Because what got you to prison was thinking of I only we don't offer any, training programs because that's not our role.

We are only a housing element. We we offer mentoring. And [00:23:00] most of my staff has either been through the system on one level or another, so they're very aware of their own mistakes. And so we're not here to say, you need to do this. Our response is, how can we help you? So we don't necessarily cook for you.

We provide a place for you to cook. And with, there are food pantries in town, but more important through the county resources, there's a training program. The, what the counties have often done is that they've developed reentry offices. And the idea is that how do I help you get a job? How do I even teach you to to do a job interview?

I. You, you and I, you may take it for granted, but how many people have never conducted a job interview? And so what they do is they train them how to walk into a room, how to talk to somebody. And at the end of the course they volunteers even provide a suit so that men who have never had a suit.

[00:24:00] Are given something, a certificate that says you are a graduate and that, and they're wearing a suit and tie they've never done in their life. And I've seen grown men 50, 60 years old, been in prison for years, start to cry because they felt like they've accomplished something and that, that to me is really what it's all about.

And we didn't do it. We were part of the process.

I've been trying to find a transfer within my job and I've done like 12 interviews and two years, and it's really hard to get a job or a promotion or, make more money.

I can imagine how hard it is for them. But I might have to try that making the bed trick because I don't make my bed, John. Oh, this is being recorded, isn't it? Yeah. I might have to try that. Maybe I'll have some control over more of my life if I make the bed before I go to start my [00:25:00] day I need to tell you that it's not my idea.

That's a trick that the Navy Seal teaches their recruits. Yeah, I'm sure. And the idea is that at the end of the day, after being beat up on the training ground, you can get. Some degree of a satisfaction that you've done something, right?

Yeah. Is your is your good Samaritan home different than like halfway houses?

I. Well, a halfway house would be an extension of prison. It literally is halfway home. Okay. And that's where they do intense programming. And the idea is to they may have some sort of psychological program or offense training program, particularly if the offense was sexual in nature. They may need a halfway house to deal with the psychological issues.

We don't get into any of that. Because when they come to us, they are legally allowed to be free in the community, but they have nowhere to go. And that's a big difference. So in, [00:26:00] in effect, it's voluntary. Somebody who come to us says I want to get out and get my own place. I just don't have a job yet. I need time.

And that's what we offer.

You say you're mentoring them, but do you do any spiritual work with them? You are a faith-based organization, but how do you approach spiritual side?

One thing we started our program back under the faith-based initiative under George Bush.

Oh. And the idea was that the president Bush felt that the faith community was equipped to do much of the the good works in the community. And they did it voluntarily. But they had certain guidelines. For example, you couldn't proselytize while you were doing a program for the government.

And the idea was if you're a Christian dealing with a non-Christian or someone who was completely outside of any religious faith the idea was they still needed your service. So you had to be equally [00:27:00] servant to all the community, but what we found was that if your faith motivates you, you can speak volumes through your hands and feet.

You don't have to speak the words. And I'll be quite candid we sometimes get volunteers who want to come in and say, do you ask them if they're saved? And what I say is I ask them if they're hungry because that's the language they understand. And if I offer somebody food. The natural question is, why are you doing this for me?

And the answer is because my faith motivates me to help you as much as someone helped me. And that speaks volume without getting into details. And my experience in the church after years having grown up in the evangelical tradition, having seen the good and the bad of that. I have found that I have to speak the language of the community if they're going to hear me, not the language of the church.[00:28:00]

And the church today in particular has crossed into areas of politics and and yes, and and it's crossed into areas that I feel the church is not suited to do well. And what we are very good at is service. And I think that right now we are doing the work of the church in the way that I wanted to do.

I think this is a great place to stop. I wanna hear more about his story and what he's doing here with Good Samaritan, and I know that you do too. So please come back next time on the wounds of the Faithful Podcast to hear more. God bless you folks. Goodbye for now.

Thank you for listening to the [00:29:00] Wounds of the Faithful Podcast. If this episode has been helpful to you, please hit the subscribe button and tell a friend. You could connect with us@dswministries.org where you'll find our blog, along with our Facebook, Twitter, and our YouTube channel links. Hope to see you next week.