Hi family and friends,
Thanks for taking time to read this and all your support.
We’re going to continue the updates here with sending one with all the details to everyone since I can’t copy and paste and it makes it easier to put all the details in one email. And we’ll have it broken into sections again to make it easy to follow.
Good News
I have my release date of Dec. 11th, 2025, this year to the halfway house. The administration is working hard to have people qualify for home confinement sooner. Currently, their process is going to halfway house first then home confinement. The trump admin. has passed a new mandate saying those who have a home can go directly to home confinement. As it stands now, the process is the case manager sends an application to regional. Regional gets you a date. Once you get a date, if you’re not happy with it, you can reject it and have them file again, which could take 45 days. Because I got my date before the new mandate, I got halfway house and 12 months of it which is the maximum they can give. I feel very blessed for that. I could reject it and make them do it again. But even them, the max they can give on home confinement is 12 months. So it would most likely be the same date, or maybe a few months earlier being I’ve gotten more credits when they applied in April. I’ve prayed about it and I’m going to keep my halfway house date. We’ll pray for them to keep the date and once at halfway house, be able to transition to home confinement as soon as possible. We’ve seen people being able to do it from a few days to a few months. We’ll pray it will be sooner than later. Right now, I’m extremely grateful for the date in December, which would make it a total of 10 months, and I would be released the day before my birthday. Praise God! 🙂
Bilblical Studies
I’ve made tremendous progress on my studies. I’ve gotten 6 of the 20 courses done which is pretty quick. The first 3 have been graded and got an A so I’m on the right track. I’ve got 14 courses left to do before December and set up an aggressive plan that, if I stick to, would get me to the finish line. I’m trying to get my degree done while I’m here as I know I’ll be busy helping Azy with the twins, not to mention work. I’ve completed work on the following books: Esther, Romans, Proverbs, Numbers, Psalms, and Revelation, and currently going through Genesis again.
There are several things I could talk about, but for the sake of time, I’ll just say one of my favorite to read was revelation and how it would all end. It’s totally magnificent to see all the ties from the old testament to the new testament. And then how it all comes together in Revelation. This has taught me I have a God who not only cares deeply for us, but keeps all his promises. His words are true. His main goal in creating us is to have a personal relationship with us. He wants to do life with us. Whatever we’re feeling, he wants us to tell him about it. Frustration, despair, loneliness, anger, sadness. He wants us to share it all with it. He wants to help. He wants us to know he’s there listening. He already knows our hearts, but when we choose to bring everything to him, it gives him so much joy. He wants us consulting with him before every decision. He wants us reading his word so we can see who he is and what he’s done in the past so we know who he is. And he does this all not because he’s strict. No, he does this so all the things we’re striving for in this life: peace, patience, love, joy, abundance, and compassion can be had and avoid all the pitfalls (AKA sin) that keep us from it.
And the next part I don’t think I fully understood until I became a dad. Having Rumi and Ari, next to doing life with Azy, brings me so much joy and love, there truly are no words to describe it. There’s really nothing I wouldn’t do for those munchkins. There’s nothing they would do that would keep me from loving them and forgiving them and taking them back. I just want them to live a life filled with all the things on the list above. If they get sick, there’s nothing I wouldn’t do to make them feel better, including catching that fever or cold for them to take on that pain so they wouldn’t suffer anymore.
Now, take that and multiply by over a trillion and then multiply it by all the stars and galaxies. That’s how God feels about each of us!
Is there a purer love than that?
There’s a song by Jaime Mcdonald called A Million Chances that does a good job explaining what I’m trying to share here. Part of the lyrics are:
It’s not too late
In the mess I made
I turn around and see you standing
You’re giving me a million chances
It’s your grace on grace
I’ll never understand it
You’re giving me a million chances
Keep giving me a million chances
It’s his grace that forgives me and loves me where I fall short. It’s his grace that comforts me when I’m sad and miss my family. It’s his grace that turns all that’s bad into good.
The truth is there’s no way I would have made it here a single month without him. Through all the dark moments he’s there shining his light and sharing his radiant love that could only come from him.
God gave us the laws to live that great life. And when we kept falling short over and over again, he gave us Jesus, so we would have grace and to show us how much he loved us.
What an awesome God we have! 🙂
Bible In A Year
So I’m now on King 2 and on track to finishing the full bible where I read from the beginning to the end for the first time by December. (So far, If I didn’t know better, I would say God wants me to use this time to get closer to him by reading his word so I can discover what plans he has for me). So we’ve gotten through Abraham, Jacob, Joseph, Joshua, David, Solomon and some of the kings after Solomon. In it, I see a common pattern: God makes a promise, people agree to the covenant, the people sin and do whatever they deemed fit and turn from God, they deal with hard times and ramifications from their sins, they turn back to God for help, God forgives and saves them. This happens over and over again. And when he saves them, it’s usually a miracle act where you know it could only be God. Like Gideon defeating a large army with only 300 men, Elijah (one prophet of God) going again 850 Idol prophets to see who can light the fire on an altar and then saying a drought will start and it did and said the day it ended 3 years later and it did because God told him it would. And many times the Israelites were outnumbered 2 to 1 or 3 to 1 (Ex. 400k vs. 1M Ethiopians) and God was able to them the victory.
But my favorite story has to be the one from 2 Chronicles 20 where King Jehoshaphat had to deal with 3 commanding armies of his enemies who formed an alliance and on their way to defeat him. In this case, Jehoshaphat knew he didn’t have a chance. So he had all the people of Judah fast and start praying for God to rescue him. So all the men, women, and Children fasted and started praying in Jerusalem. One of the priests had the holy spirit come upon him and said:
Don’t be afraid. Don’t be discouraged by this might army, for the battle is not yours, but God’s.
Then on the way to the battlefield, the king has singers placed in front of the army singing praises to the Lord. As soon as they started singing, the three mighty armies starting fighting amongst themselves and destroyed each other. So by the time Jehoshaphat got to the battlefield all his enemies were destroyed and they were able to take the plunder.
This is one of my favorite stories because, as I read through the bible, it seem there’s a correlation between the amount of surrender and how much God helps. This is the only story I’ve read thus far where the believer completely surrendered to God. And because of that not only did God give him the victory but he wiped out all his enemies before he even got to the battlefield where they could claim the reward for their faith, the plunder, and then sing praises to God after to give him the glory.
Being in camp, I can relate to that because you have no control over anything that goes on here. You also have very little control over what happens on the outside. And the more of the things that come up here I place on the altar for God to take care of it, and completely surrender, he’s taken care of it without me having to do a thing. And we’re seeing prayers being answered here that most would consider miracles. So I’m trying to take this concept of total surrender and use it on everything I can’t control. And then consult God on my decisions with things that I do have control or choice. But I find it fascinating that the believer that gave it all up to God from the beginning because he knew he had no choice is the one that had all his enemies destroy each other. Not only were none of his men harmed but this was all done before they even got to the battlefield. I think we’re all working way to hard and need to start turning everything to him. I think you’ll be amazed at what you’ll see.
Spanish
I decided to take a break from Spanish for several reasons. But, mostly because between the biblical studies, bible in a year, work, horticulture, I’ve got too much to do. My friends here say I’ve never seen anyone getting anxiety from being too busy to get everything done in camp. Lol! I’ve learned some of the basics and practicing with friends here so I will try to retain the basics and use it when I’m home.
Horticulture
It’s been fun the last month as we’re in the reaping season. We’ve had bell peppers, jalapenos, potatoes, onions, along with herbs like mint and parsley. Adding some fresh ingredients to our food has definitely helped. It’s been getting hotter outside so I’m grateful we got class in the morning before it gets too hot. But definitely appreciating farmers and the hard work they have to put in. It does feel great though to take something from seed and see it come to fruition as delicious food. This only proves to me how amazing God is and his intelligent design. Everything has a purpose and is unique. From his crops to each one of us. Isn’t it cool when God designed us, he said we need to create him because the world needs one of him! 🙂
Health
I still weigh 205, but I’ve lost 3 pant sizes since getting here and been getting stronger since I do strength training 3 times a week. The other 2 days I do abs and stretching to stay flexible, especially with these cots which aren’t the most comfortable. But I’m grateful we have a full weight room, one of the few camps which has one. Also able to walk 2 to 3 miles 5 times a week around the track so that’s been great. Praise God, other than regular teeth cleaning, I’m healthy and not dealing with anything that would involve dealing with their subpar treatment here.
Visitors
Blessed to have Azy and the twins, Mom, Samee, Sean, Paige, Camron and Connor come see me, usually every 3-4 weeks. I know it’s a far drive and I appreciate them coming. Just happy to see everyone. It rejuvenates me and reminds me of the life on the outside, which gets harder to hold onto the longer I’m here. I’m just grateful it’s less than 6 months left and not years like many other campers here.
Prayers
If you only do one thing, please pray for the following:
– Health of Azy and the twins
– Health of those at the camp
– BOP starts releasing people and implementing the new mandate passed by Trump administration
– My release date is kept for Dec. 11th, 2025, or sooner, if it’s God’s will
– Alejandro, my friend here, is released. He has 4 more years and the home confinement or clemency would be great. We leave it to God to make it happen. Through him, all things are possible.
– For the innocent affected by the Israel/Iran bombings and God protects them. Fortunately, our family is okay there and most of our family is in the states.
Thanks for all the support and prayers. And especially prayers! 🙂
And remember, for all the things you can’t control, surrender it to God! The battle is not yours, but Gods! 🙂
Love you all!
Alex Dee
