It was during a dark moment in Robert’s life that Jesus found him. Robert shared: “My cellmate and I had been taken to the prison hall for our daily activities with some other prisoners.   We had been there for a while, and I was just walking along the hallway when suddenly, out of nowhere, something large came hurling toward me at high speed and there was no time to react!  With a sickening thud, it crashed to the floor directly on the concrete less than 1 metre in front of me”.  

“To my utter horror, I realised it was the body of my cell mate who had just flung himself 25 feet backwards from the balcony up above! He had landed flat on his back onto concrete and hit the his head with massive impact”. 

“My cell buddy had been accused of a malicious crime by his ex-partner, and his life was miserable, but I didn’t realise it had come to this. I bent over the crumpled, limp body at my feet.  I yelled for help, and as the prison guards gathered, I watched him intently in disbelief. I couldn’t believe he would do that – my cell mate that I spent 18 hours a day with! I was a hardened criminal. I had seen blood, violence and death and been unaffected, but this time it really moved me. I was so traumatised, I began shaking violently”.  

“It felt like an eternity, but within a couple of moments, I saw his foot start moving and someone yelled, ‘He is alive!’” 

“The medics arrived soon after and began attending to him. I wanted to be there by his side, but the prisoners were cleared out of the hall and locked down. I sat in my cell with my head in my hands and waited. Four hours later there was a rattling of keys in the cell door, and in walked my prison buddy – smiling broadly with a support officer at his side. My jaw dropped open in amazement and tears welled up in my eyes. ‘I am ok, Robert, I am ok!’ he cried. I stared in disbelief. The support officer who was with him confirmed that he had no concussion, no bleeding and no broken bones – only a bit of a headache from the impact. It was an absolute miracle! He should have died that day. ‘There must be a God’ I mumbled to myself, shaking my head in disbelief.”

The only explanation Robert could come up with was that God had put His hand out and saved his cell buddy’s life. It was nothing short of a miracle. After some final remarks, the prison officer instructed him to gather his belongings, and he left. 

“I sat down at the bench trying to process what I had just seen. It was then that my eyes fell on one item that my cell mate had left behind – a Bible!  I felt an urge to pick it up and start reading; something told me that I would find the answers I was searching for in there. I started at the beginning at Genesis. I was hooked from the first line… ‘in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth’. Someone actually made the world – so there must be a purpose for my life too!” Robert smiled. God’s peace came over him as he read the words of Scripture.

Later that week, Robert  was led to watch Amazing Facts on television and responded to the offer to give his heart to Christ. “God came into my life – THANK YOU GOD!”  Robert’s voice broke with emotion. 

Robert attended a chapel service soon after and tears streamed down his face as the group sang hymns of salvation and forgiveness in Christ.

Unfortunately, Robert was not released from prison as soon as he had anticipated; his sentence was prolonged. However, he was no longer fixated on getting his next drug hit; instead, he spent his time meditating on God’s Word and getting to know Jesus. Robert spent 8-9 hours a day reading the Bible, and read it through many times. “I just couldn’t get enough of it” he grinned. 

“One day I was in my cell alone reading the Bible when an audible voice said to me, ‘You should stop only READING the Bible and start STUDYING it’. I swung my head around to see who had spoken, and no one was there. I realised that it must have been God. The next time I saw a chaplain, I asked him for Bible studies and Chaplain Victor Rao directed me to several resources, one of which was the Amazing Facts Study course. The studies helped me find a deeper relationship with God and I discovered many truths that helped me understand God’s Word clearly.” 

Robert shared his testimony with other inmates and encouraged them to watch Amazing Facts on TV and begin the Bible studies also.