When Michael first entered the Arkansas Department of Corrections, he was 19 years old, broken, and angry.
“I grew up in a dysfunctional home,” he recalls. “My parents were trapped in addiction, and I was raised by my grandparents, who couldn’t help me with the hurt I was carrying. By my teens, crime and drugs were my way of life.”
At just 19, Michael was sentenced to 22½ years. “I was lost, broken, and hopeless,” he says. “My belief system was shaped by the streets. I thought that was what it meant to be a man.”
In 2021, everything changed. Michael was transferred to Pathway to Freedom, a Christ-centered program inside the Wrightsville–Hawkins Unit in Arkansas. It was there he first encountered World Impact’s Cornerstone curriculum.
“I came to Pathway to Freedom needing spiritual surgery,” Michael says. “The staff counseled and guided me daily, drawing me closer to the Lord. Cornerstone was an answered prayer—it equipped me for ministry, deepened my intimacy with God, and gave me hope for the future.”
Through long hours of study in theology, ethics, urban missions, and redemptive poverty work, Michael discovered a new calling. “This curriculum didn’t just give me knowledge,” he says. “It changed the way I see myself, my community, and my purpose. It prepared me to serve.”
Michael is one of nine men who graduated from the first Cornerstone cohort at Wrightsville–Hawkins last year. Another graduate, Zachary, has also experienced remarkable transformation. After his release, Zachary quickly found honest work in construction, then secured steady employment through a company that partners with Pathway to Freedom. Today, he is faithfully involved in his church and speaks publicly about the change Christ has made in his life.
Read next: Transforming Lives Behind Bars: A Conversation with Scott McLean of Pathway to Freedom
