Automatic episode summary
Episode 32 of Still Strong is a four-hour testimony. Host Keith Vance sits down with Brandon St. Pierre - a friend of about six months from his church whom he now joins every Thursday in jail ministry - and asks him to walk his life from the beginning, slowly and in order. Keith opens by confessing something he had never told Brandon: his own judgmentalism nearly cost him the friendship. He saw a heavily tattooed man at a new church and wrote him off, then kept hearing the same name read aloud in the church prayer group - the man who needed help with a jail ministry and a foster-care ministry.
Brandon begins with who he is now: a husband and father of four who breeds dogs and snakes for a living, fishes tournaments, and looks forward to Sunday all week. He anchors that in Ezekiel 36, God taking away a heart of stone and giving a heart of flesh, and calls himself living proof of it. An early stretch on fitness and nutrition sets a theme the episode keeps returning to - motive. Brandon says he lifted for vanity for years and it never held; consistency came only when he decided he did not want to leave his family early through his own negligence.
Then the story goes back to the beginning. Brandon describes learning at eight or nine that the man he called dad was not his father, a summer in Texas meeting his biological family, and returning to find his mother had moved five children to Florida and become a single parent. Poverty came fast. He was first arrested at nine for stealing a knife, spent about a year homeless in motels, and at ten carried his mother's confession that she was thinking of killing herself. He recalls tarot cards, palm reading, and adults who took the family in with motives of their own, and says nobody ever pointed them to Christ - a wound he traces directly to his hunger for evangelism today.
By eleven he was using and overdosing; by thirteen he was selling and briefly smoking crack; he estimates roughly 130 arrests between eleven and thirty. At seventeen a pistol charge was direct-filed to adult court under Florida's 10-20-Life law and cost him ten months. Not long after, he and a friend assaulted a stranger at a bar who was permanently disfigured - a moment Brandon says still breaks his heart - and that sent him to prison for two and a half years, where he joined a gang and, in the last stretch of his sentence, was diagnosed with cancer at twenty-two and treated with surgery and chemotherapy.
Much of the episode turns on one question: whether the prayer he repeated in a juvenile detention Bible study at eleven ever saved him. Brandon says no, and works through why - Romans 6, Matthew 7, James 2 - arguing that he believed as demons believe, with no repentance and no hatred of sin. That conviction shapes how he shares the gospel now: he refuses to press for a decision, because he will not risk another false conversion.
The turn comes slowly. A firefighter in a Copperas Cove gym near Fort Hood took him to church and out to eat for five months. He got clean on June 26 at twenty-four - then sold drugs sober for years, preying on addicts, a shift Keith names plainly in the room. A seizure at the wheel, a traffic stop and a trunk full of marijuana ended it; he sold his Rolex and his bass boat, started breeding dogs, and found Crossroads Baptist Church, where an associate pastor dealt with his sin gently enough to let the Holy Spirit do the convicting. He and his wife began naming sins and putting them down one at a time.
The last hour belongs to both men. Keith describes the mirror God has held up to his own judgment, and an anxiety he only recognised at fifty. Brandon describes ministries in a juvenile detention center, a county jail, and Crossroads Hope Academy, a foster home in Punta Gorda where about eighteen children had two home-cooked meals last month.
Speakers
- Intro voiceover other
- Keith Vance host
- Brandon St. Pierre guest
- Crosstalk other
Chapters
- 1:19 Who Brandon is today
Brandon describes his life now - married with four children, breeding dogs and snakes, guiding and fishing tournaments - and roots the change in Ezekiel 36. Keith lays out the premise of Still Strong and confesses that his own judgmentalism nearly cost him the friendship.
- 11:35 Discipline of body and soul
Brandon traces his fitness back to calisthenics in prison and explains what finally made it stick: not vanity, but not wanting to leave his family early through his own negligence. Keith draws the parallel to broken links in a chain and to devotional life.
- 20:51 A childhood that came apart
Earliest memories, the day at eight or nine when Brandon learned the man he called dad was not his father, and his mother's move with five children from Michigan to Florida. Poverty, a first arrest at nine, about a year homeless in motels, and a house full of adults who never pointed the family to Christ.
- 41:16 Eleven, drugs, and a jailhouse prayer
At eleven Brandon is handed pills by his sister's friends, overdoses on Xanax and has his stomach pumped, and is arrested for stealing golf carts. In juvenile detention he repeats a prayer he will spend twenty years mistaking for salvation, and the two men work carefully through what conversion actually requires.
- 1:04:35 Crack at thirteen, a hundred arrests
The family finally buys a vandalised house in Lehigh Acres. Brandon starts selling at thirteen, smokes crack for about six months, and estimates roughly 130 arrests between eleven and thirty. Keith talks about the difference between a mother's love and a father's discipline in a home with no father in it.
- 1:25:58 Needles, a pistol charge, and prison
Opiates take hold before Brandon realises he is addicted. A fight with his sister and a pistol get him direct-filed as an adult under Florida's 10-20-Life law; ten months later he is introduced to the needle, and a bar assault that permanently disfigures a stranger sends him to prison for two and a half years.
- 1:48:12 Cancer in the last stretch
Near the end of his sentence Brandon finds a lump, is diagnosed with cancer at twenty-two, and goes through surgery and chemotherapy in a prison medical center. He names what he felt then as worldly sorrow rather than godly sorrow, and the conversation turns to why false conversions matter so much to him.
- 2:02:00 Out at twenty-two, into heroin
Released into a house where nearly everyone is using, Brandon goes back to pills, then the needle, then heroin. A sister in Texas takes him in, and a firefighter at a gym near Fort Hood becomes the first person in his daily life ever to stop him and talk to him about Christ.
- 2:26:30 Getting clean, then selling clean
Brandon describes opiate withdrawal, throwing away every piece of clothing he owned, and getting clean on June 26 at twenty-four. Then he goes back to dealing - sober this time, and, as Keith names openly in the room, preying on addicts. He also starts praying for a wife, and meets her.
- 2:50:45 A traffic stop, a cell, and a church
A seizure at the wheel leads to a traffic stop, a trunk full of marijuana, and a case he fights for years. He sells his Rolex and his bass boat to start breeding dogs, finds Crossroads Baptist Church, and meets an associate pastor who raises his sin once and then lets the Lord do the convicting.
- 3:10:40 Judgment, patience, and God's timing
Keith takes a long turn to say what this friendship has exposed in him: how quickly he boxes people up, and an anxiety he only recognised at fifty. Brandon answers from 1 Samuel 16:7 - man looks on the outward appearance, but God looks on the heart, and sanctifies people at different paces.
- 3:28:01 A heart for evangelism, and a foster home
How the juvenile detention, county jail and foster-home ministries began, and why Brandon argues for urgency: in thirty-seven years only one person outside a church ever stopped him to tell him about Christ. The episode closes at Crossroads Hope Academy, a pull-up bar, and a plea for people to bring food.
Key takeaways
- 2:32:37 Brandon dates getting clean to June 26, when he was twenty-four, and marks it by asking his mother - who had almost nothing - to replace his clothes if he threw every piece away. He did, and she did. He is careful to say this was a change of behaviour and image well before the change of heart he describes later in the episode; he kept smoking marijuana for some time afterward.
- 3:01:35 Brandon credits an associate pastor at Crossroads Baptist Church with a model he now copies: the pastor raised his sin - living with his girlfriend - once, gently, and then let the Holy Spirit do the convicting rather than calling out everything at once. He and Amber went home, asked each other what else they could put down, and began removing sins one at a time, starting with sex outside marriage and profanity and eventually the marijuana.
- 3:40:00 Brandon's case for urgency in evangelism is personal arithmetic: in thirty-seven years exactly one person outside a church building ever stopped him to tell him about Christ, and his wife reached twenty-five having never heard the gospel. He contrasts people who talk about someday reaching an unreached group overseas with the jail near him that had gone without a minister since 2020.
Pull quotes
Brandon St. Pierre, on how he would sum up who he is today: 'Ezekiel chapter 36 says that he will take away a heart of stone and give us a heart of flesh. There's not a day that goes by when I don't think about that scripture and how that's happened to me. That I'm living proof of that.'
Describing the year the family spent homeless in motels, Brandon says his mother - five children, nowhere to go - told him she was thinking about killing herself. He was ten. Keith calls it sad on two counts: that she had no one else to tell, and that a ten-year-old had to carry it.
The assault that sent Brandon to prison: he and a friend jumped a man at a bar over something the man said, and the man was permanently disfigured. 'Until this day, my heart breaks over it, because he'll never look the same, and he did nothing wrong.' He deliberately withholds the details of what was done.
Asked what he felt going through chemotherapy in prison, Brandon draws a sharp line: 'It was a worldly sorrow. Not a godly sorrow that leads to repentance.' He says the grief was fear of dying mixed with vanity - he had built size, and now he was thin and bald.
The one person who ever stopped Brandon in ordinary daily life to talk to him about Christ was a firefighter stationed at the Fort Hood Army base, who met him in a gym in Copperas Cove, Texas. For about five months the man drove him to church and bought him a meal afterward. Brandon has never found him since and says he wants to tell him his labour was not in vain.
Keith Vance, on realising at fifty that what he had always called work ethic was anxiety: 'There's no difference between the houses on fire and burning down, and there's some toast that's burning.' He says he had assumed anxiety meant worrying about money, and that living at that pitch for a lifetime is unsustainable.
Scripture & context
- 4:40 Keith Vance opens by admitting something he had never told Brandon: he saw him at a new church, judged him by his appearance, and nearly shut him out. He kept hearing Brandon's name read aloud in the church prayer group as the man who needed help with a jail ministry and a foster-care ministry, went to dinner with him, passed the background check, and now serves alongside him every Thursday.
- 20:51 Brandon says he was eight or nine when he overheard his sisters talking about a man he did not know and learned that the man he had called dad his whole life was not his father. He asked his mother, she told him the truth, and she spent the day tracking down his biological father by phone. He spent that summer in Texas; while he was there, his mother moved the family from Michigan to Florida.
- 50:11 James 2:19 anchors Brandon's account of the prayer he repeated at eleven: even the demons believe, and tremble. He says he genuinely believed Christ came as God in the flesh and died for sinners, but had no heart of repentance - 'I had faith like a demon has faith.'
- 1:08:00 Brandon says his wife once looked his record up and counted roughly 130 arrests - he allows it may have been 127 - across the stretch from about eleven to thirty. He adds that from eleven until he got out of prison at twenty-two he does not think he was ever off probation.
- 3:28:01 Brandon quotes Psalm 115:1 - not to us, O Lord, not to us, but to your name be the glory - as the posture behind telling the story at all, and returns to it when he says God uses the ordinary man, not only the doctor or the lawyer.
- 3:56:20 Keith names the foster home the two men serve as Crossroads Hope Academy in Punta Gorda, describes dormitory walls made of plywood rather than drywall, and asks on air for a link and for churches or individuals to bring food or donate. Brandon adds that the schedule showed the roughly eighteen children there had two home-cooked meals in the past month.
Questions answered
- Who is Brandon St. Pierre, and what does he do now?
- Brandon is a husband and father of four who says he is happiest at home and looks forward to church all week. He breeds dogs - the business that has carried most of the family's bills since around 2021 - along with snakes and the rodents to feed them, and he has run fishing guide trips for about three years. On the episode he says he is laying the guide work down to fish tournaments and make memories with his children, partly because guiding was taking the joy out of fishing for him. jump · 1:19
- What finally made Brandon's fitness and nutrition stick?
- He first started lifting in prison out of fear and vanity, and for years afterward trained hard but ate badly and kept falling out of routine as work and children piled up. The change came when he watched a young widow weeping over her husband at church and told his wife he did not want to leave his family early through his own negligence. He now wakes at four so he has unhurried time in the Word and prayer before the gym, and says a motive built on family will hold for decades where a motive built on self will not. jump · 14:10
- Why doesn't Brandon count the prayer he prayed at eleven as his conversion?
- At eleven, in a juvenile detention Bible study, evangelists led him to repeat a prayer and told him he was going to heaven. Brandon says the seed was real and their hearts were probably right, but the presentation was not - he was told to ask Jesus into his heart rather than shown repentance and faith. His evidence is his own life: he was smoking again within the hour and stealing again the next day, and glorified his sin for twenty more years. He reads that against Romans 6 and Matthew 7 as belief without repentance, faith like a demon's. jump · 45:53
- What is antinomianism, and why does Brandon keep coming back to it?
- Brandon defines it as thinking you can go on living in sin because you are under grace. He applies it to himself: for two decades he believed he was a Christian on the strength of a prayer he had said at eleven, while embracing sin with no brokenness over it. He argues from Romans 6 and 2 Corinthians 5:17 that a heart genuinely changed by God develops a hatred of sin - and adds that you do not have to know the verse for the change to be real, because the change is supernatural rather than informational. jump · 1:21:09
- What sent Brandon to prison?
- After a short jail stretch for theft he was out only a couple of weeks when he and a friend assaulted a man at a bar over something the man said - Brandon says he does not know what it was, and that the man had done nothing wrong. The man was permanently disfigured. Because of the injury his sentencing score sent him to prison; he turned down a first plea of close to four years and took two and a half years followed by two years of probation. He declines to give the details of the assault. jump · 1:42:58
- What happened when Brandon was diagnosed with cancer in prison?
- In the last stretch of his sentence, at twenty-two, he noticed something wrong, filled out a sick call, and after tests was told he had cancer. He had surgery and roughly three or four months of chemotherapy in a prison medical center, was isolated because his immune system was gone, went twenty-one days unable to hold food down, and lost his hair. His mother was about ten hours away and was never able to visit. Looking back he calls what he felt then worldly sorrow - fear of dying mixed with vanity over his appearance - not godly sorrow that leads to repentance. jump · 1:48:12
- Who was the firefighter in Texas, and why does Brandon still talk about him?
- While Brandon was staying with a sister in Texas at about twenty-three and trying to get clean, a firefighter stationed at the Fort Hood Army base struck up a conversation with him in a gym in Copperas Cove, turned it toward Christ, and did not shy away from his prison tattoos. For about five months the man picked him up for church and bought him a meal afterward. Brandon says that was the first time in his life he had seen the kind of love only a new heart can give, brings the man up almost monthly, and has never been able to find him again - Keith says on air that they need to find him. jump · 2:14:03
- When and how did Brandon finally get clean?
- He puts the date at June 26, when he was twenty-four. He had gone to his father's in Texas to withdraw, came home still intending to use, and the night he went to get drugs the people were not there - he reads that as the sovereignty of God. The next morning he asked his mother, who had almost nothing, to replace his clothes if he threw every piece away, and she did. He is candid that he kept smoking marijuana afterward, and that his first steady work was washing dishes for a man who kept pouring into him. jump · 2:32:37
- How did Brandon's jail, juvenile and foster-home ministries begin?
- A man discipling him at church challenged him in 2021 to evangelise every day for a month until it became natural, and his prayers began turning toward ministry. A man he met at a Bible study brought him into a juvenile detention center - he had to ask first whether a convicted felon would even be allowed in - and he has served there about four years. The adult jail took roughly six months of trying; he asked the church prayer group to pray and the chaplain emailed him the next day. A woman at church sent him to the foster home, which is the one ministry his wife can serve in alongside him. jump · 3:28:01
- What is Crossroads Hope Academy, and how can listeners help?
- It is the foster home in Punta Gorda where Brandon, his wife and now Keith serve. Keith describes dormitory walls of plywood rather than drywall and says he is thankful the place exists but that the conditions are substandard. Brandon says the schedule showed the children had two home-cooked meals in the past month, and that there are about eighteen of them. Both men point out that unlike the jail there is no background check or orientation to get in, and Keith asks for churches or individuals to bring food or make a donation. jump · 3:56:20
Helpful links
product
- Shop Still Strong Keith names this as his own merchandise site while giving Brandon one of the Still Strong hats on air.
ministry
- Crossroads Hope Academy, Punta Gorda, Florida The foster home where Brandon, his wife and Keith serve; Keith asks on air for a link to be added and for food donations.
- Crossroads Baptist Church The church where Brandon says he first heard sound preaching and where he has been for about six years.
other
- Vance Ranch First mid-episode sponsor read: the Vance family's 100-acre ranch and 6,000 square foot event barn in Henry County.
- Boots and Bubbles Second mid-episode sponsor read: Keith's two daughters' Southern-style dirty soda business, serving the Lee County area.
Full transcript
Intro voiceover: I learned the hard way, nothing's overnight, some days you lose, some days you survive. Still Strong, even moving slow, every step counts more than you know I found gold in the everyday, showing up and staying brave. Still Strong.
Keith Vance: Brandon St. Pierre, welcome to the podcast, brother. Hey man, thank you for having me. Brandon, I feel like we're on the crest of Niagara Falls and I got like a little garden hose dialed into Niagara Falls because I know you and we're going to have a lot to talk about, so I'm intentionally going to go slow and methodical with this and I want you to do the same.
Keith Vance: Before we get rocking and rolling into the conversation, for people that don't know you, who are you today? What's your life like today? Family life? What do you do for work? Children? Like, just give me a little, like, what's life like for you today?
Keith Vance: Oh
Brandon St. Pierre: man, as we break down, you're going to see that it's totally different. It's like night and day from who I used to be. But I'm definitely a family man. I'm a person that really likes to stay at home. I love to work. I work a lot and I just, I treasure my family. My wife and I have four kids and I find a lot of peace in just being around them, so I try to spend as much time as I can with them. I think most people that know me today know that I'm somebody who adores the church. I just, I love it. I love being there. I look forward to it. I love it all week long. Like, it's something that is like every week I'm just looking forward to that Sunday to be able to go. And when I am able to go on Wednesdays, which this last season in my life I've been working on something where I haven't been able to go, but like, it's like the perfect hump day for me. I'm always looking forward to it. And that is really like how I would like to sum up who I am today is just somebody who loves their family, loves the Lord. I don't want to die two months early and I don't want to die two months early and I don't die two months early and I don't want to die two months early and I don't want to die two want to die two months early and I don't want to die two months early and I don't want to die two months early and I don't want to die two months early and I don't want to die two
Keith Vance: months early and I don't want to die two months early and I don't want to die two months It's in those moments when life gets hard and you make a conscious decision, whether it's a physical thing, a mental thing, a spiritual thing, is the day the day that I quit? Is the day the day that I compromise? Or am I going to choose to continue to put another link in that chain to be Still Strong? A part of that, which is what we're doing now, is to give people a platform to share their life story of here's where I was and here's where I'm at.
Keith Vance: Something just a personal take.
Keith Vance: So you give people these opportunities. I'm giving people these opportunities to share their stories that someone else is out there maybe going through the same thing, can identify with that. And they can hang on one more day in their fight to be Still Strong. Like when everything's crumbling and I feel like I can't hang on another second and then they hear someone else's story, they're like, wow, okay, I'm going to do it. That's what this is about. But with you, there's something different just for me personally.
Keith Vance: I've known you maybe six months, had a friendship with you probably four months, and I've known you for a long time. I feel a strong connection to you. And I think you feel a strong connection with me. I do. And I don't think either one of us really understand it. But just preparing to have you here,
Keith Vance: I personally almost blew the opportunity to have a relationship with you because of my judgmental. The first time I saw you, I'm like, let's do this. And my judgmental almost put up a block wall between you and me. The Holy Spirit kept pressing you into me. And I'll just give you an example. I started going to this new church six months ago. I see you. I'm thinking, what's that guy doing here? What's he all about? My judgmental. I didn't understand how judgmental I was. This guy's been doing a work in me. I joined the prayer group at church because the church we're at now is bigger than the church that I came from. And I want to know these people. I joined the prayer group, just a small group of people, all older people. And there's this guy, Brandon St. Pierre, on the prayer list who has a couple ministries. And they keep bringing up Brandon St. Pierre. Hey, Brandon St. Pierre needs help with this jail ministry. Brandon St. Pierre needs help with this foster care ministry. So I'm thinking, who's this Brandon St. Pierre? Oh, that's the guy. They described you. I'm thinking, oh, that's the guy that I just blocked off, wasn't going to allow into my circle because he looks a certain way. And God puts you in my life, brother, like to sanctify me and change me. And we'll get there. But I reached out to you. We went to dinner. You told me what you were doing. I went through the background check to do the jail ministry. I went through the history with you. And I just wanted to support you. And I feel like I've gotten the better end of that deal just being around you. God has used you in my life. And I almost blew it because of my own self. I've never told you that. But I wanted to just share those thoughts with you. Before we get going, man, I know you watch my podcasts. Yeah. I sell these for like $30. $35 on my website, shopstillstrong.com. You've been asking me for one. You're like, dude, get me on that podcast. I want a free hat. So here you go, man. Thank you. I appreciate that. Yeah, brother. Those are Richardson 112s. My kids tell me they're the best. Thank you. Yeah. You're welcome. Fishing season's coming
Brandon St. Pierre: up, so I'll be putting that thing to work soon.
Keith Vance: Oh, good. Yeah, you do charter fishing too. You're a hustler. I do. So I asked you what you do for a living. What do you do? You said you work hard, but you never said what you do.
Brandon St. Pierre: I have a lot of different streams of work. The main one is breeding dogs. So that's like the foundation of our income that provides the majority of our bills to be paid for. I started doing that around 2021, which actually has a bit of a story behind it. So we can get to it whenever you feel called. So that is... Yeah. Where most of my time is, right there. And I also, I breed snakes as well. I breed the rodents to feed the snakes. And I've done guide services for probably the last three years. A lot in the Everglades in the wintertime. I try to go up to the Harris chain. I kind of got into it because I fish a lot of tournaments and I always wanted to basically get paid to practice for a tournament so that I could find fish. But we're getting to a season in our life right now where we are just so busy because my wife is doing real estate now. And I have plans for my future in the next year or so that I want to make an adjustment. And I've made a decision to stop doing the guide service and just to fish on my boat as a tournament angler. And just to spend time and make memories with my children. So I'm going to be putting that chapter down. And I'm going to be... I'm going to be doing it with joy because the Lord has provided for us different streams where I think it won't be much of a burden to me. Because sometimes right now, based on finances, when I do get calls for a guide service, I find myself talking people out of even hiring me because I just don't have the time. So it kind of hurts to stop. But I love to fish. And it's been a big part of my life. Even we can get there as we go. I'm through the story today. But I've noticed that when I do guiding, it takes my joy out of fishing. Oh, okay. I love to fish. And I love to fish tournaments. And I love to get dialed in on patterns of catching fish. But I have noticed that when I take people out, I'm not a good instructor. I'm good at having patience on me figuring out a pattern. But I'm not as good at directing somebody on where they need to cast. And I find myself getting a little more frustrated. And, you know, it says whatever. You do, whenever you work, do it unto the Lord for His glory, and if I can't be like a walking testimony of what Christ has done in my life, filling me with the fruit of the Spirit, giving me peace, love, joy, and patience, and those gentleness, if I go out there and I find myself more frustrated than I do being gentle with these people, I don't think it's a good place for me. So, that is one stream that I'm going to end up putting down, but the Lord is replacing it still with something better.
Keith Vance: And how old are you now?
Brandon St. Pierre: 37 years old. So,
Keith Vance: you're still, you got time. Yeah. You got time. I'm going to hit some light stuff first, and then we're going to hit the heavy stuff, and we're going to walk through it. One of the lighter things, but something, again, I told you one thing that I noticed about you, but the other thing I noticed about you, and again, we observe others through our own lens, and this is another thing God is working out for us. And I'm going to walk through it. And I'm going to walk through it. And I'm going to talk about what God has allowed in me, is if a man doesn't look a certain way, he's either lazy, he's this or that or whatever. If a man looks like he can handle business, I pick up on that as well. And that's one thing I noticed about you was you seem to be disciplined with the way you carry yourself. You seem to be disciplined with your body. And now that we're friends, I know your fitness and your nutrition is all like a big part of of who you are and what you do. So can we just talk about that for a while? Yeah.
Brandon St. Pierre: I started really like developing a love for fitness, for working out in prison. In 2008, I went in and I felt like I was small. I was 18 or 19, late 18 or just turned 19 when I went in. And you hear all the stories about being in there, people being attacked, victims and things like that. So I did realize I had to put some strength on. And I was weak. I could barely do five pushups from where I was before that. What brought me in there, I was in a very weak spot physically and mentally in my life. So I realized how weak I was and began to work out. And strengthening myself. And when I was in there, we would do all calisthenics, pushups and pull-ups. And I realized that you can only go so far with that. So I made it a point, like when I get out, I'm going to go to a gym. And I did. So from probably that time, 22 until 30, I worked out pretty hard and was pretty fit, but not in great shape because I lacked discipline with diet. And I think that you can work out pretty well. And I think that you can work out all you want, but you, and you might get strong, really strong. But you won't be like truly physically fit with a bad diet. So later in life, about whenever COVID had hit, my wife and I were dating and then got married in that same year, 2020. And when COVID came, the gym shut down. And I decided to start working out at home. And I just could not, I didn't have the discipline, like to go in that garage and like, really work out. We got the kids and they start running around and my wife would come out there and we get into conversations. So I just gradually stopped working out. And then we ended up having another child. And then we ended up starting a business. And I was never able to get back into a true routine for a long time. But then I would, and we got so busy. Like I would try to go like maybe one day a week, I could go. And then I would get back into a routine. And then I would get back in two days a week. And then something would happen. And I couldn't. And then my wife loves to cook. So I started, I was eating more, working out less. And I got really out of shape, probably the worst shape I've ever been in my life. And I started making plans, like trying new things, keto. And it worked like this far as like dropping weight, but not strengthening you because it takes well your carbs. And then I'll try other things. And finally, one day, my wife and I were in church and there was this lady, she had lost her husband. And she was pretty young. I mean, she was in her 40s, I think. And she was up there just weeping over his his death. And I told my wife that day, I was like, you know, I if I leave you guys, because God takes me like that's one thing, but I don't want to leave my family early because of my negligence because of my lack of discipline, because I can't stop eating chicken alfredo or because I can't find time in my schedule to go to the gym consistently. So I think it was like the very next day, I was like, I'm getting a gym members are already I was inconsistent, but I started waking up at 5 o'clock in the morning, and then I started getting in that routine, and then it gradually started going to 4 o'clock in the morning so I could have more time before going there, like quiet time in the Word and prayer and just hunkering down at the table and not rushing out of the house. It's been valuable for my life, and I'm glad that I made that change. So it's been a big deal, but I'm
Keith Vance: glad that I made it. I'm going to say something, and then if it resonates with you, you can bounce back and we can stay here as long as you want because I think this is important. But a couple of things that you said was I got going, and then there was these distractions, or maybe not even distractions, like legit responsibilities, and then it's like the links in your chain or like segments that they're connected, and then that chain was broke. And like, oh. Then there were segments. Then segments then broke. But when you said, hey, I saw this woman who lost her husband, and I'm looking at myself, then it all clicked. Like that was my, okay, that's what I'm going to use as being responsible for what I'm called to be responsible to as you're talking about that. Because that's what keeps me disciplined physically. It's not really about me. It's about the ones in my tribe. When they need me, I need to be ready, capable, and let's rock, not be like, hey, give me a couple weeks to get fit. What do you need? How long do you need me to carry this? How long do you need me to hold this for you? And there's that physical aspect. But more importantly, there's the spiritual aspect as Christians. So when you talked about, man, life happened, I quit going to the gym, I'm thinking about my personal time with God and my Bible reading, my devotional life. Man, brother, if those, links get disconnected because things happen, that's even more,
Keith Vance: that's even worse than being out of shape physically. But they all go together. You follow me? We're made of body, soul, and spirit, right? And I think that's what makes me maybe be judgmental towards men is I think if this man can't even stop putting food in his mouth, what's his spiritual soldier look like? I'm just being transparent. These are just thoughts that I have. You follow me? So I'm glad that you said that, and I'm glad that you talked about your spiritual walk and your call as a husband, a father, a leader. I'm thankful to, and maybe that's why we're friends. You're taking your responsibilities seriously, not for pride's sake, but for responsibility's sake. Does that resonate with you at all? Is there anything you can speak to about that? I like the points that you made.
Brandon St. Pierre: And I have had those thoughts too, about other people, but about myself, especially at that time, I lacked discipline. And then the fruit of the spirit. I believe that the fruit of the spirit is something that is given to believers. So I think that somebody who is not born again is not capable of having true love at all. More self-control. Self-control is in there as well. So I think that when my motivations changed, because before when I would lift, it was for very sinful reasons, like for women and things like that. And my motivations changed. When it wasn't to appear to be a certain way to the world, and when my motivations changed because I want to see my grandchildren walking across the stage, that is the motivation that I needed. And when I talk, when I talk to somebody to try to encourage them to get into fitness, I try to do the same thing because I think that if you're doing it for yourself, it's not always the motivation that's going to keep you there. It might get you in there for a week. It might get you on a meal plan for a month, but it's not going to keep you there. But if you're doing it for your family and for things that's 30 and 40 years away, then I think that it will keep you there for 30 or 40 years or until you can't do it anymore.
Brandon St. Pierre: Yeah. Let me shut that
Keith Vance: off. I'm sorry. That's an alarm. It's all good. Yeah, that's an alarm. So something that you guys don't know about Brandon, his cat got to eat every 20 minutes. That's probably his thing to get some more protein in. Do we need to take a break? No, I ate before I came here,
Brandon St. Pierre: but that was my food alarm. I knew it was, brother.
Keith Vance: See, we just talked about discipline. And there you go. There's proof right there, how disciplined you are and how important it is to you.
Brandon St. Pierre: I have that alarm so I can drink 16 ounces of water every day. Yeah. I eat every two and a half hours. So I'm sorry it went off. I silenced. All right,
Keith Vance: let's get down to it. So, we've kind of hit around it. You mentioned prison. You mentioned the fruit of the spirit. An unbeliever can't have the fruit of the spirit. So, we've kind of hit around it. I think the best way, we kind of have an understanding of who you are today, but we don't know the story. So, and I think the best way to tell it is to start from the beginning, and we'll just work our way through. So, let's talk about your earliest memories, what life was like for you as a child, and let's just systematically work through it. I want you to, your brain's probably rushing. I want you to slow down. I don't want to miss anything. And, yeah,
Crosstalk: you ready?
Brandon St. Pierre: I am. I've kind of thought of that even before coming here. Yeah. Like, my first. My first memories, but the memories that I think that were life-changing is the ones that stick with you, you know? So, like, my first memories are, like, as a kid growing up in a certain apartment building where we're riding bikes and things like that is when I started being able to remember my life around three or four. And my mother had a boyfriend, and she had four kids besides myself, five kids total. Yeah. And then four sisters. And growing up, like, I thought that I had the same kind of life that you see on TV sitcoms with a mom, a dad, and all these brothers, well, sisters. But the memories that I started really, like, holding on to that tied me to my childhood, like, where I cannot forget is we moved into a house, and I was probably about... Eight years old. And in between there, there's not a lot of, like, really strong memories that I can hold on to. But, like, this is when, like, my mind started really, like, planting its feet on things that were changing for my life. And I come out of the room one day, and my sisters are out there playing. My... Not my two oldest sisters, but the two that's in between. And they're telling stories about their childhood, and I hear them mentioning this guy. They keep calling him Terry, and they're talking about who I didn't know, but it was my brothers and sisters. And I was asking them, like, who is that? And my sister told me, and she told me that that was my dad. And I was so confused, because I thought this guy was my dad this whole time. And you were... I was eight or nine. Oh, eight or nine. Yeah. And, like, he treated me like a son, like, up until I found out. Like, he would take me to work on cars. He would take me for coffee all the time. Like, he would... He was an alcoholic, so, like, I didn't know that it wasn't quality time. But he would just sit there, and he would drink beer. And then, like, when he would get it down to the very bottom, he would give me the rest of his beer and tell me to go throw it away at, like, eight years old. But I loved him, because I didn't know any better. And so I was so confused at this time. I went and woke my mom up, and I woke him up. And I remember asking her, like, is this not my dad? And, like, I said, no, it's not my dad. And that memory is one that has just turned into, like, a form of resentment that I was never able to get rid of until I gave my life to Christ and started realizing, like, what forgiveness is. And it's not, like, remembering. It's not keeping a record of wrongdoing. And so I finally, at a very late age, decided, like, I have to let this go. But my mom was honest with me. And she told me. She's like, no, he's not. He's not. They weren't even married. So it was her boyfriend. And I told her, like, I want to meet my dad. So she goes on. She gets on the phone book, and she finds him. And it took all day to find him. And I got on the phone with him, and I talked to him. My stepmom, he had several stepsisters that I had over there, but three that lived with him. And then I had another two brothers and two sisters in the house that lived with him. So I decided to go out there that summer. And I spent the summer there. And that is, like, the year that my life really changed. Because when I was in the summer, spending time with my brothers, my sisters, my dad, getting to know them, she moved from Michigan to Florida. And... Who's she? My mom.
Crosstalk: My
Keith Vance: mom moved. So you were living in Michigan at eight or nine? Okay. Okay. And your real dad was where? Texas. Texas. Okay. So you spent the summer in Texas. Yeah. While you're in Texas, your mom moved. From Michigan here to
Brandon St. Pierre: Florida. Yeah. Okay, got it. That's why I say that's like a year where my life truly changed, because in Michigan, we lived in a really nice neighborhood.
Keith Vance: And this is just an example. Yeah. You know your story. You've played the story over a thousand times in your head. You know you're in Michigan and that your dad was in Texas, but we don't. Yeah. And that doesn't matter, but I just want you to be cautious as you tell your story that you don't fill gaps that you know are there that we don't. And if something doesn't make sense, I'll just say, hey, what's that? I don't want to pump the brakes on your story because I don't want you to lose your train of thought, but there's something that if there's a gap there, I'll just say, hey, what does that mean?
Brandon St. Pierre: Yeah, thank you for that. Yeah, man. So, like, why I say that's like the year of change in my life was because that area that we lived in, we were like a quarter mile from our school. We walked to school. There was no crime in the neighborhood. And then, like, even though he wasn't my dad, I looked at him like a dad. So, like, I had a mom. And I just... I wasn't really used to having a single mom. Do you
Keith Vance: know where in Michigan you were?
Brandon St. Pierre: Marquette, the Upper Peninsula. Marquette. I was born in Pontiac, just an
Keith Vance: hour from Detroit. I
Brandon St. Pierre: never heard of it. So, anyway. Yeah. So, when she moved, she separated from that guy, and then she became a single mom. Five kids, single mom, getting her feet planted, got an apartment building. And I stayed at my dad's all summer until... Until she was, like, settled in and moved in. And she flew me back home out of Florida. And going in there, everything was not the same now. Because, like, we were not as stable. Like, cost of living in Michigan was so cheap. And she had the two income. Like, we did not struggle, really. But when she moved to Florida, she separated from the guy that I thought was my dad. And she became a single mom. Five kids. And she did home health care. Michigan. But I don't know why she didn't pursue that here. But she ended up serving, waiting tables here. And we became really poor. Quick. And the area that we lived in was not a good... It wasn't a good neighborhood. A lot of crime. Things that I wasn't used to. So, at nine years old, living in that area, it was an apartment building. I just... I found myself getting into a lot of trouble. Starting to steal. Starting to use profanity. Even, probably, at that age, starting to have sexually immoral thoughts. And things that I never... Never crossed my mind before that time. And then I started acting on these things. On stealing and hanging out with bad kids. Sneaking out at night. And then, for the first time, I got arrested at nine years old. Stealing a knife from a Kmart. And coming home. There was, like, really no discipline. My mom had five kids. And that's when I really started becoming, like, a disobedient child. And it was a hard time. We stayed there for a while. I continued to get in trouble. And she continued to get more poor. Because she moved there with a little bit of money saved up. And it was just a lot of hard times. And a lot of fast food. So, we finally, eventually moved. And in between moving from there and our next home, she didn't have enough money to get us into a place first, last, security. So, we ended up being homeless for, like, a year. Just in and out of hotels. Or, like, if somebody from her work would allow us to stay, we would stay there for, like, a week. And I think it was roughly around a year that I was homeless. With five kids. It was hard. And you're about ten years old
Keith Vance: at this time? Ten years old. That's how old I was, yeah. And you had four older sisters? You're the youngest? You're the youngest of five? I'm the youngest
Brandon St. Pierre: of all the siblings on my mom's side and my dad's side. So, I have five siblings on my dad's side. I'm the sixth. And then I have four on my mom's side. I'm the fifth on her side. And I'm the youngest of all of them.
Keith Vance: During that time, you're... That homeless time...
Keith Vance: Do you remember...
Keith Vance: Do you remember some of those emotions that a ten-year-old kid felt? And then, do you remember having conversations with your older sisters? Were there any, like, family conversations with mom? Or do you remember any of that? If
Brandon St. Pierre: you don't, you don't. I do. I remember... It's like just... Some of it's kind of hard to talk about. But I remember a conversation with my mom. Where she was just so broken over... Over the way we're living. That she told me that she was thinking about killing herself.
Keith Vance: She told you that at ten years old?
Brandon St. Pierre: Yeah. It was hard, but yeah.
Keith Vance: Which is sad on two counts.
Keith Vance: One, that that poor woman had no one else to tell but her 10-year-old son, and two, that her 10-year-old son had to carry that freaking weight. So it's sad on two counts.
Brandon St. Pierre: Yeah, it was. Don't
Keith Vance: steer away from anything like that, you understand? Yeah. Like anything that pulls out, don't be afraid of the emotion, because the emotion and that, what you just said, is what's going to bring help and healing. Not only to you, not only to me to understand you, but someone else that's living this, you understand? So as those things come out, don't steer away. Man, it was a rough
Brandon St. Pierre: year, because there was so much that I was unaware of at that point. I was unaware of Christ. I didn't know. I didn't know who Christ was. So I was put in some situations where I lacked a lot of understanding of the creator of the universe, but not spiritual warfare in a sense, because I remember some memories, like one place that she had us staying, that we were there for a couple weeks, and I remember this guy who was a pagan, and he would go, and this comes again later, when we were homeless a second time, again with a lot of pagan people in our path, but this guy was a pagan, and he would talk to me about tarot cards and all kinds of things like that, and spirits, and just, it was a lot of things, but as my mind was a sponge, I was very interested in it, and taking it in, I think his name was John, but I can't remember 100%, and we were there for a couple weeks, and at that time in our life, there was just so much demonic things that were happening, and I had two sisters, my two oldest sisters, at that time became dancers, exotic dancers, and just being around that, they would have friends coming in, right, and learning what they did, and then seeing their friends, like it put a lot of like sexual and moral thoughts into my head, seeing their friends that were, I know did that for a living, and at that same time, my other sister, my third oldest sister, started doing a lot of drugs, and bringing a lot of her friends around, and at that time, so I'm almost 11 years old, I'm starting to see a lot of drug use, so I'm getting very curious, and I started getting desires to smoke marijuana, desires to have sex, all these really sinful things, and then we finally got a place to stay, and my sister's bringing these friends in all the time, like, our house was the place for them to go, so I would start to drink a little bit, and maybe get around to marijuana, and want to smoke it, and then we stayed there for a while, and when we got out of that house, there was a guy, his name was Mike, he let us stay there probably about a year, and he was a blessing, because like I wasn't homeless anymore, but he was an alcoholic, and it was just hard, and kind of watching that guy, like he was to me like a hero, but he was a drunk, like he would drink from the time he woke up, to the time he went to sleep, and his cigarettes would just like burn holes in his leg, he would fall asleep with them, and when I think back, like for that guy, somebody like that to be my hero, it was crazy, and I still at this time, I had only heard of like pagan things, like all these people had this one thing in common, where they were like palm reading, tarot cards, spirits, you know, in the room things, and I would hear it, and I would believe it, and. Can I ask you a couple things?
Keith Vance: Yeah.
Keith Vance: If you mention names, fine, but you don't have to, but this guy, why was he your hero? What did you say? Because we
Brandon St. Pierre: weren't homeless anymore. Oh, got it. He let us live with us, with him, and he didn't kick us out after two weeks. My mom had five kids, like anybody who let us stay with them, they were giving us the boot, and then we were going to like a rundown hotel, and my mom could never save her money, because she, you should get a little saving, and we get kicked out, and then she would have to get a hotel, and that's why she was able to finally get us into a duplex, because he let us stay there for a year, and she was working, and was able to save enough money. It was, you know, give or take a couple months, but it was about a year we stayed there.
Keith Vance: And then my second question, I think you just answered it. You were talking about these things that you're exposed to, and started dabbling with, and I was going to ask you, where's your mom, but I think you already know, your mom's just trying to survive. She's not, But she's not even around, so you basically have no guidance because your mom's just trying to keep a roof over your head. Yeah, I
Brandon St. Pierre: remember at that time I would go to school. I would come home, and I would hang out with that guy around the house and with my sister's friends. I really didn't have anybody to talk to because I was telling you, that guy, even him, he was good, and I loved him because he took us in, but you couldn't talk to him because he was just such an alcoholic. All the time. I
Keith Vance: just have one more question, and then I want you to continue. Did anybody during this time frame, did anybody let you in, give you shelter for alternative reasons? Was it all the time out of the goodness of their heart? Oh, you see these poor kids here. You can stay with me out of the goodness of their heart. Was there ever anything where looking back now, it was... To exploit. You
Brandon St. Pierre: know, from conversations that my mom has had with me at older ages, definitely men outside of Christ, they're trying to prey on my mom, a lot of them. It was never once somebody took us in trying to bring glory to God and saying like, hey, you know, he'll provide for the birds in the air. He will provide for you. Nobody ever pointed us to Christ and was like, give your life to the Lord, like the Creator. Nobody ever. It was all these pagan people with ulterior motives. And I don't want to get into their motives too much because I don't want to, you know, hurt like my mom's testimony without her being here to tell it, you know, but definitely a lot of ungodly people praying on people who were in desperate need of help.
Keith Vance: I don't want to jump too far ahead in the story. But just hearing you say it, I want to say that there is only truly, and we'll get there, there is truly only one free gift, no strings attached. Apart from Christ, everything else, there's a cost associated. There's a what can you do for me. That's the only reason why I brought it up because there's only one true free gift. That's right. I don't want to jump ahead. I want to continue walking through. But as you're talking, I'm having these thoughts, and I'm having a hard time not open up the valve on the water hose. It's attached to Niagara Falls. I know you are too. You know, and
Brandon St. Pierre: like I pointed out earlier, it's that I think that nobody can have fruit of the spirit without being born again. So when people do things like that, like even at that time in my life, a single mom, five kids struggling to get on her feet, all those people have one thing in common sin. They were all living in sin, not like somebody. Somebody who's been saved, who sins and it's broken over their sin. But these people embracing and embraced their pagan traditions even pushed it on me at a 10 year old child as a 10 year old child and we try to manipulate me to have that same way of thinking, which it was working for a while. But when I was saying earlier, like you cannot have those. So when people are doing those things, if you are outside of Christ, you are doing it. Either. One to puff yourself up with pride to think that you help somebody out who needed help for your own benefit to lift yourself up that day. Because if you're not doing it to the glory of God, if you're not doing it to point people to Christ, then you're doing it for your own, you know, get for your own ego and your own pride or for ulterior motives because you're trying to get something in return and prey on women who are in desperate need. And when somebody is trying to provide for their children, they're in a place to stay. They're at the most desperate point of their life, especially when you have five kids. You,
Keith Vance: you just saying that. Yeah.
Keith Vance: Because I'm a provider protector. Like I want to go find that guy that yeah, there's something that me. Yeah. You know what I mean? There's something that me and as an adult takes an advantage of a woman with five kids. Mm-hmm. Her vulnerability. Yeah. And it should do something in a guy. And
Brandon St. Pierre: you know, now I'm older and I have wisdom. I now expect nothing less from people who have not been given a new heart who have hearts of stone. I should expect that from them. But what breaks me even more is that there was nobody who did know the love of Christ that came in and said to my mom, like why I wish that would have happened, but I didn't. And I think that might be part of the reason why I have such a heart. ...for evangelism, because they're so...as we go on, we'll see and unpack that this season of my life, I had nobody come and point my family to Christ and to show us the love of Christ. You know, the scripture says, he says, they're going to know that you're my disciples by the love that you have for one another. And I think in that context, he's talking about from believers giving love to believers, but I think that we are also called to love unbelievers, to demonstrate our love to people who do not know Christ. ...to be that light in darkness. And nobody did that, and I think that...
Keith Vance: How else would they know unless they have a teacher? That's right, for sure. So, you're 11 years old at this time. You're in a duplex. You're feeling some stability, like probably the most stability you've felt since you're 9 years old. Like, from Michigan, Michigan was the most stability. You lost it. Now, like right now, in this duplex, it's like the most stability. But from a guy who hasn't walked that life, that still doesn't feel stable, brother. Like, me looking at that, it's pretty sad that you think, it was a pretty stable time right now. I've been in a place for longer than two weeks, so... That's when it all came crashing down. Oh,
Brandon St. Pierre: okay. At 11 years old. Because now, like we didn't have... We were at that guy's house before. And now, we're by ourselves, our family. And now, in this period of time now, I have my two older siblings. I have my two sisters that are exotic dancers. I have my second two oldest sisters who are becoming highly addicted to drugs and other things, you know, sinful things, sexual immorality. And they make this group of friends. And then, I start to make another group of friends closer to my age. And my older sister, that's just the next older than me. And then, there's the other one. So, we have this group of friends. And then, my other sisters. That's older than her. My middle sister has a group of friends that's about 16 years old. And my mom is working all day. And then, she comes home for a couple... You know, because she worked like an hour away from the house. So, by the time she got home with traffic, she had like three or four hours. And then, she would be in bed. And that was it. So, we had the ability to just do whatever we wanted. And my sister, at 14 years old, my mom allowed her to bring her boyfriend into the house. She was 19. And he moved in. And he took all his friends with him. And the difference between this group of friends and the friends that she had, my sister had before that, when I was starting to see this, like they were all involved in drugs and all these things. And I really was getting curious about it. But the other ones, they were not like handing me over drugs. They're like, dude, you're 10 years old. I'm not. But these people here, they thought it was hilarious. To like get an 11-year-old to get high. And they would hand me. They would hand me joints. They would hand me cocaine, pills, ecstasy. All these things at 11 years old. I'm doing one drug after another. And then, one day, they give me some Xanax at 11 years old. And my mom comes in. And I don't remember it because I was unconscious. I overdosed. 11 years old. First time. And she had to take me to the hospital. She took me to like a. My mind is a little jogged. I think it was a different place. Like where they bake rack people. And they're like, get him out of here. He needs help. He needs to have his stomach pumped. And I'm out of it. And they pumped my stomach that day. That was the first time that I overdosed. And when I got out, I just. I embraced that lifestyle so much. When I got out. Because they bake racked me. And pumped my stomach. I was in the hospital for a little bit. And when I got out. Like everything changed. Like I just started doing everything that was wrong. I lost my virginity. And I glorified it. Like I did not know the things that I was doing. I had no idea. Of how evil the things that I was doing was. I started getting in fights. Wanting to hurt people. So much anger built up in me. I was getting high. Almost every single day of my life. And then I finally ended up going to jail. And I walked into the juvenile. I was scared out of myself. I was scared out of my mind. But for the first. What did you go to jail for? I was stealing a lot of things. Like so I would. I robbed a tiki bar for all of their alcohol. And then they let me out. But they didn't put me in jail. They just like arrested me. And then they let me out with a court date. And then I got out. And I started stealing a bunch of golf carts. And they caught me. And they put me in jail. I was like.
Keith Vance: So were you stealing for the thrill of it? Were you stealing to provide money for the family? No. Were you stealing for. Stealing.
Brandon St. Pierre: Because I thought it was fun. You thought it was fun. I thought it was fun. on the still and i and i i thought it was fun to go right around the golf carts and sneaking out at night like at two o'clock in the morning 11 years old i i thought it was a really good time yeah i didn't i didn't know like i never want that for my children and i never received consequences for my actions because my mom was a single mom five kids outside of christ you know and like i've said so many times like i don't think that you can love um without that gift i've been given a new heart i think that you you think you're loving you know when you're like pick up your kid right away when the phone call comes like i'm going to get my child and you know i think sometimes more of love is like if you pick up your child it'd have severe consequences for him but i didn't have that um i never never received that but it ended up being a blessing um because you know you know the scripture says um paul's talking to the corinthians and he says like apollos plants and i water but god gives increase so i finally got somebody to plant a seed at 11 years old when i walked into that juvenile detention center and they put me in jail and they had a bible study and i went out there and it's crazy to think i've never heard of christ i never really knew of heaven and hell and i had these these evangelists come up and they talked to us about jesus i don't think they truly gave me the gospel to where i had a repenting heart but they would talk to us about christ and pretty much was like you got an option right you want to go to heaven raise your hand and repeat a prayer after me and if you want to go to hell keep living in your sin and i i the older that i get I think that what they did, I think that their hearts were in a right place. But I think that they were leading, they led me into a false conversion, kind of gave me a misunderstanding of what it was to give your life to Christ and more associated it, I did, with this prayer that I said in there. And they're like, you're going to heaven now. Like, you just add Jesus into your heart. But the scriptures, when I read through scripture, I see not one verse in there that says, just ask Jesus into your heart and you'll be saved. It says, through repentance and faith. And in Romans, it talks about through faith alone throughout the entire book. And then it has one verse in Romans 10, 9 that says to confess with your mouth and believe in your heart. And I think that that is a confession of the mouth is a lifestyle and not a one-time thing. So these guys. Might have read that differently. And they told me that like, because you've done this, you're saved. So when I got out, I had this seed planted in me, but I lived a life of sin still because like they did not like talk to me about evidence. And if they had, I'm not saying that I would have been saved because God is sovereign. Like I probably still would have responded in the same way that I did, but I was led into a false conversion. So now I had heard of Christ, but I. Had thought that because of saying a prayer that you receive salvation. So now I had heard of Christ and got out and was like, I'm good. I'm going to heaven. Like, and I lived a life of sin still. So at 11 years old, I don't think I waited an hour before I was smoking again. And before the next day I was stealing again, um, sexually immoral still like, and with no burden heart. Like I did not. Like in David says in Psalm 51, he says like, if you want to burn offerings, I would give it. But what you want is a broken and contrite heart. My heart was not broken over my sin. Can
Keith Vance: I ask you a question? Yes. What was it? If you remember, just not, not where you're at now with all having with an adult mind, like deconstructing it. But do you remember what you felt like in real time as a 11 year old kid when you're. Presented the gospel in that way? Like what, what caused you? Because you and I have been to foster care. It's hard to get anybody just once you start, like they'll take the food, they'll do this and that, but once you talk about the gospel, they leave. So I'm just wondering what was it that causes you to respond? Do you remember? I knew how
Brandon St. Pierre: sinful I was. Okay. That sin was evidence of there being no goodness in us and our need of a savior. Okay. Okay. I knew that I deserved to go to hell for the things that I had done, the things that I have been thinking of doing, the things that came out of my mouth. I knew it was evil. Like they pointed me to sin. And. I knew that I was full of it. You understood what that was. Yeah, I knew.
Keith Vance: And I don't want to put words in that 11-year-old kid's mouth, but were you seeking deliverance from it at that age? I think
Brandon St. Pierre: I didn't want to go to hell. I think I didn't want to go to hell. Oh, okay. I knew that sin. It was fear-based. Yeah, like I knew that I deserved to go to hell because of my sin. Got it. So I associated that with like if I do this, then I'm not going to go to hell. But, you know, the scripture says that even the demons believe and they tremble. So like at that moment, I did believe in who Christ was. But for salvation, it requires repentance and faith. So I had faith like a demon has faith. The demons believe. So I did believe that like Christ came as God in the flesh and died for our sins and that we were in need of a Savior because I was a sinful man. But I had no heart of repentance.
Keith Vance: Some... Not every conversion... is exactly the same. So some conversions are... Okay.
Keith Vance: Philip. Remember Philip? The book of Acts. And this guy was connecting these dots and all he needed was somebody to... You know, Philip met with that guy. He's like, hey, what must I... Like... And he like... God had been prepared that guy. But he didn't know how to. And then he brought Philip. He's like, okay, makes sense. Let me do it. Sometimes... Like not every conversion is the same. Sometimes you're met with a gospel 11 years old. Don't want to go to hell. But then I like what you said about a seed was planted. So your conversion is not like a moment time. I was ready and I did it. It was... This was the first time that I was exposed to... The gospel. Yeah. And we're going to see how the gospel kept getting... Like the gospel and Brandon kept coming to these intersections. Yeah. And then there's one point where you connected all the dots. Say, okay, this is where it's at. So not every conversion is the same, but we are to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, right? A prayer because I was afraid to go to hell could be a conversion. But there needs to be that, like you said, like that heart of repentance, a change in identity. And that's one thing I like about you. Yeah. It's a good picture. I once had a heart of stone. Now I had a heart of flesh. It's a new creature. It's a new nature. Yeah. Sometimes becoming from one nature to another. And some people it happens overnight. Like I had these cravings. Like I'm just talking, like some people say I was an alcoholic when I got saved. I just like to drink alcohol, made me sick. Other people still struggled and it took a little time, but God sanctified those things out of them. So, um, salvation is a gift. It's a free gift, but we are to work them out. Right. Yeah. Work them out. Um, so I, that's, I'm glad you were having this conversation. Yeah. Because I think in some people's desire to win everybody, they make it so easy and just say this prayer and like, here's this free gift. But there's something that says about, Hey, deny yourself, pick up your cross and follow me. Right. There's a, there's a cost. It's free gift, but there is a cost. You have to die to that old man. So there's, there's a lot of stuff going on here. Um, again, I feel like I may be jumping ahead, but you're priming my pump. Yeah. And, um, you can bounce off of what I said. If, if you're, if you're feeling it too, and then we can get back on. Okay. I
Brandon St. Pierre: don't date my conversion there. And the reason why is because of Romans chapter six, first one, it says, what might we say? Then that we can continue to send the grace may abound by no means. How can we who died to sin still live in it? So I couldn't write. And then Ezekiel 36, when he does talk about giving you a new, um, heart, he says, and I will cause you to walk on my statues. And then in that famous verse in Matthew chapter seven, where he says, like many are going to come and they're going to say, Lord, Lord, I did this in your name. And I did this in your name. He says, get away from me. I never knew you. Um, he says, but those who do the will of my father will come. Right. So, and then Romans chapter seven, you see Paul having this wrestle with sin. And he says, um, for, I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing that I hate. Now, if I do what I do not want, it is no longer. I who do it, but sin that dwells within me for, I know nothing good dwells in me. That is my flesh for, I had the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to get it to, um, to, I have not the ability to do it, but, and then he says like, who will deliver me from this body of sin, this wretched man that I am. And, um, and I, I always look at that as somebody who saved right there and that that begins to be there. Mindset. So, when I was young, I was able to be sexually immoral and then call my friends and brag about it or to take a certain amount of pills and boast about how many I was able to take. So, I did not have any wrestle with the sin that I was committing. So, that's why I say I have faith like a demon because I was not wrestling with my sin. And I agree with what you said that some people it might happen overnight and for some people it might be a process, but I think that heroin addict who gives his life to the Lord and is broken over his addiction and is wrestling with his sin, who's constantly telling people, pray for me. He's calling people at two o'clock in the morning like, man, I can't stop. But he's still doing it, right? But his heart is broken over his sin. That is what a believer looks like who the sanctification process might be a little slower, but I never had that because I glorified my sin. I loved it. And as we go through this story, you'll see that I'm not glorifying my sin. I'm glorifying my sin. I'm that I loved it for another 20 years after this. Christ tells the disciples,
Keith Vance: suffer the little children, get out of the way, let them come. Yeah. So, a child can be saved. I think so. Based on his knowledge of who Christ is, just disciples, get out of the way and let them come to me. A kid is not going to understand everything we're talking about right now. Yeah. All they know is, I want to come to Jesus. A kid will naturally want to come to Jesus if given the opportunity. But as that child grows in their faith, everything that you're going to talk about will be a part of their walk and journey, right? They're not going to continue in those things. There's going to be a change. So, salvation, man, it's a wonderful gift. It's complex, but it's very simple. It's something only Christ can do for us. So, let me hear the rest of your
Brandon St. Pierre: story. The scripture about what you just said popped in my head. And Paul says, let my boast be in the cross. Like, if we have anything to brag about, it is that and the work that Christ does in us. Because that is such a beautiful thing. It's such a powerful testimony. And like, as we unpack today, you'll see, we can see that because of who I was. So, I'll pick up where I was, you know, from that time at 11,
Brandon St. Pierre: overdosing, you know, living a life of sin, glorifying it. So, I'm going to talk about that. So, I'm going to talk about that. I was so unhappy. Oh, man, it was horrible. I got in so much trouble in that neighborhood that the neighbor, the neighborhood got together and got like a petition started and had everybody sign on there and went to the landlord and told them, like, kick these people out. Like, this is how many people want them out of the neighborhood. So, we got kicked out and we were homeless again. Yeah. And that time, I don't remember how long we were homeless for. I think it was probably about a year again. Yeah, another year. It was crazy. And same thing. We go to a hotel, a hotel, like broke down motels. But now, at this time, I gained these two friends. And I met them in school and we just clicked. And these kids, I thought I had it rough, but they didn't have really a mom or a dad in their life. And they were staying with this family of, like, drug addicts. So, my mom decides to take them in. And so, now she's got these five kids and then these two. And the three of us love to fish. So, I remember, you know, my mom would take us, drop us off at the pier. We would fish all day and then, you know, go to a hotel. And then, I don't remember why, but one of the brothers left for a while and I had the other brother there. And we would all in little motels, the whole family. Um, and then, my older sister, my sisters would go and maybe come every couple weeks. Like, they would go and just drift around. And they would come back and they might stay with us for three nights and then they would leave. And then, my sister, Sheena, would do the same thing. Like, she would kind of be out and about. So, it was like, some were, maybe some days we were all together. Some days there was just me, Trey, my sister, Ashley. And, um, we were just going out of these hotels. And I remember in this period from that duplex to getting another home here in Lehigh, right down the street from where I live now. In between there, I remember her, um, getting a motel, a rundown motel and a really rundown neighborhood. But it was kind of close to some water and I was fishing every day. And I remember how much peace that brought me. Like, I would go there and that's one thing my mom would always keep me with rods and reels. She would always give me lures. Like, no matter how poor we were, she would make sure that I had something to fish with. And, uh, that was like the closest thing outside of Christ that, that I ever would experience. It's like being able to get away and find peace. Like, I remember I remember catching those fish and till this day, I still feel that feeling when I catch a fish. But now I've caught so many that it's got to be a big fish. But like when I would get bit, when I would get that bite in between the moment from when my rod felt that that fish bite until the moment I got it in. I remember until this day, it still does that for me where I'm not thinking of any of the stresses of life. Like everything goes away and it's such a beautiful feeling. So I'm so grateful that my mom did that. For me that she was sacrificed. Like if it was a meal, she was that she did not care. She was going to go. We would get my lures from Ace Harbor. She was going to make sure I had tackle. So I remember a lot of time fishing in that time. But I also remember, like I was saying earlier, how the pagan traditions kept coming in. And I want to say around that time when we were getting kicked out, I was probably around the 12 or 13, you know, late 12, early 13. And there was more pagans in his hotel place that she worked with. And I remember going over there and them reading tarot cards with me and the things that she was saying about my life. I remember just like being so broken and like just I hated it. The things that she was telling me because she was bringing up things that had happened in my life. And, you know, I don't know if it's because my mom was telling her stories at work and she knew it and would try to play off my emotions or if those demons. I believe in that stuff. Yeah. And I do. They're. They're. There's a dark power. And but those are just memories that I had, man. And my mom, I love my mom so much. But she used to embrace those cards and those things so heavy. And she still is pagan, still is into like horoscopes and things like that, you know, but not as deep as she was at that time. But those memories, I just I can't forget because like. I just can't remember. Now that I'm an adult and I know that there's like this dark side of of the world, you know, the prince of the power of the air. I know how demented it is out there, demonic it is and how far I was from Christ at that time. How desperate I was for a savior. Anybody who's outside of Christ is in desperate need of a savior. And as you're describing.
Keith Vance: Your world back then. Mm hmm. And you keep bringing up paganism. Mm hmm. The forces of darkness and evil. Those two are connected. But the forces of darkness don't just dwell and manipulate the broke down, the needy, the homeless. He doesn't just rub their face in it. He also plays both sides. The powers that be. There's dark forces. He plays both sides. You follow me? So people can be homeless and in desperation and be bewildered and have a spirit of darkness over them that you're describing. But that spirit of darkness can also be over the affluent, the powerful. Hey, what can you do for me? He plays both sides. And it's only again. It's only something. Or. Not something. Someone. Outside of ourselves. From another world that can break that spirit of darkness over our blind eyes. You follow me? Mm hmm. So as you're describing, I'm just thinking of the prodigal son. Blew all the money he had and he finds himself in a pig pen. And then he came to his senses. Man, what am I doing? No one does that in their own right mind. But there is a. Entity. Entity. That hates God and hates God's creation. He can't touch God. But you know what? I can take your creation and turn them into pigs. Watch this. Watch this. Watch watch watch watch this 11 year old kid overdose. You follow me?
Keith Vance: So anyway. We haven't got to hope yet. We're still in. We're still in darkness. And I'm sorry. Can't wait to get there. I'm sorry. We're jumping ahead.
Brandon St. Pierre: It's OK. But. So I remember that time being homeless was not as bad as the first time as far as my mindset, because I was fishing a lot and that helped me a lot. So my mom finally got the keys to buy a house. It was right over there in Lehigh Acres. Yeah. I live now. And. Hold on a minute. You live in the same house? No. Not like down the street. Probably about a mile away. So what year
Keith Vance: was this when she bought a house and how was she able to scrape it
Brandon St. Pierre: up? I don't remember what year it was, but I think I was about 13, just becoming to be 13 years old. So how
Keith Vance: did she get
Brandon St. Pierre: it together? Houses were a lot cheaper back then. I think that house was $70,000 and somehow, some way, she was able to get enough. It wasn't a lot, you know, like I think maybe $5,000 if you had saved up. Oh, probably tax returns. I remember every year we were dependent on tax returns. So when that would happen, it would always be out. So she was saving, she was tucking a little bit back? Yeah, she would get the tax return. And I remember also, like even for Christmas, she would always like save all her change all year long. She wouldn't touch that. So she would get us back to school clothes and Christmas stuff. So she, I don't remember the exact way we got into that house, but I would like to say it was probably a tax return. And we got in there and we're so happy coming out of this hotel room. And, uh. They close on a house and we get the key. And man, we are all jumping for joy. And we go into that house and somebody vandalized it. There's fecal matter all over the wall. The doors are busted. Everything. I mean, just doors are ripped off, windows broken, spray paint all over. It was horrible. So we finally get a house and that's what we went into. And my mom, she was tough as nails. You don't know who or what? I ended up later finding out the kind of kids that were in that neighborhood that did that. And they just, that's just what they did. They needed Christ. They needed Christ. It was sin. You know, man has such a sin problem. By nature, we're children of wrath. You know, it's just a sad world that people do those things. But that's where it all stems from. Your mom was tough as nails. Yeah, man. She just was like, it wasn't going to stop her. And we started. We cleaned that house up. We put it back together. She fought trying to get the title company or, you know, or somebody on that end of the deal to help us and nobody would. So she was able to get it cleaned up. My mom still to this day, she just loves to clean and she doesn't mind painting. She's probably out there painting a fence right now. And she got the house back in order to where we were able to move in there. And Lehigh now, people like know it as having some, a lot of crime. And back then it was. It was known. This was 24 years ago, 25 years ago. It was known for being like where a lot of like rednecks and country people lived. And it was different, you know, but it still had a lot of crime. It just was not as talked about. People didn't catch on to it as much. So that ended up being a tough season living in that house. I continue to get arrested a lot and was going in and out of jail, in and out of jail. Still, but at this time now, I was still using drugs, but then kind of realized how much money was in selling drugs. So at 13, that's when I started to sell drugs. So I was always on probation. I probably from the time I was 11 till the time I got like out of prison at 22. I was, I don't think I was ever off probation. So I started getting in trouble more. And do you know how many times you've been arrested? I think 130 times. My mom or my wife looked it up one day. It was like 130 arrests. From 11? Yeah. Till 20 something? 30 years old was my last arrest. That's when I finally gave my life to the Lord. And it was a beautiful moment. But my wife looked it up one day. I want to say it might be 127, but it's right around 130 arrests. So at that time in Lehigh, I just never stopped getting in trouble. And I, they ended up putting me into a, into a program. And while I was in the program, my friend that was living with us ended up getting my sister pregnant, which now I have my beautiful nephew Isaiah. And I love him dearly. He's given his life to the Lord. And it brings me so much joy knowing what he was born into and that he has by the sovereign hand of the Lord, given his life to Christ. And it's a walking testimony. And he brings glory to the Lord and, and the way he carries himself and the love that he has for him. Um, but I remember, I remember when my nephew was born, I'm around 13, 14, I'm in this house, I'm getting in trouble and I was selling drugs. But at that time, I kind of enough to support my addiction. Uh, that's why I started smoking crack at 13 years old. And I remember the day my nephew was born, I was in the house doing that. And I, I think at that time I did it for like six months and, um, realized by looking at my friend's mom, she was just so like, it had that look of a drug addict. And I remember looking at myself and, uh, I was like, if I don't stop smoking this, Like, I'm going to look so rough at a young age. And that was enough. And that's why I say, like, when we're outside of Christ, like, it was not the fact that I was broken over my sin that got me to stop smoking rocks. It was a vanity. It was because, like, I did not want to have my teeth rotted out. I did not want to look ugly. I did not want to look strung out. So thank God that I stopped that.
Keith Vance: I want to feel like at that age to smoke crack. I've never smoked crack. I'm glad that you have not. Man,
Brandon St. Pierre: it was a horrible feeling.
Keith Vance: Then why do you do it? I have
Brandon St. Pierre: no idea. How did it make you feel? Horrible. Tell me. Explain horrible. Just like this feeling inside of you that just needs more and more. And you'll steal. I used to steal from my mom when she was sleeping as broke as she was. I would go steal from cars. I would go walk around and do anything. I could to get money. You stole it from your
Keith Vance: own mother, you said? Yes. When you were on crack? 13, yeah. On crack cocaine. So why did it make you feel horrible? Because you think. I don't. I
Brandon St. Pierre: can't even explain
Keith Vance: it. It didn't feel good doing it? It didn't give you a feeling of. Maybe like when
Brandon St. Pierre: you blew the smoke out, it felt good. But after that, like you just like. I've never had my body feel that way again since. But it's just makes you want something and crave it so bad that you will run through a brick wall to get it. And it's a horrible feeling. And I'm glad that I stopped that when I did. Because like cocaine does not bring like physical. Withdrawals like opiates do. And then there comes a time when I got addicted to opiates, which I'll get to shortly. So in that area, going in and out of jail. We stay in that house. It's horrible. Our house starts getting broken into a lot because I was still selling drugs, not a large amounts, but enough for people. You're attracting a certain type of people. And people would break in looking for my stash. Like, I mean, a couple hundred dollars for a drug, but they would come in and they would go. They would go through your whole house when you weren't there. One time they even took my dog and all my school clothes and the cops got them. I ended up getting my dog back and my clothes back. But it was just a horrible place to live. And my mom wanted to leave. And we did. And she ended up getting like it was to us our dream house. I think it was around 15. I got out of that program. I was in there for six months and probably around 15. She's starting to do better at work. And in the winter she can make not a lot of money to us. Like, I mean, maybe 200 bucks a day. But for her, that was for us and the cost of living like what our mortgage was. That was good. And, um, Can
Keith Vance: I ask you a question? Yeah. At this time in your life, you said you're 15. Do you remember about how old your mom was at this time in her life? She was probably
Brandon St. Pierre: somewhere in her forties. She was 30 when she had me. So 45. Wow. Okay. Yeah. And man, I tell you, my mom, I was a mama's boy and I still am. Yeah. Like I live like two miles from my mom and I love her. I call her every day until this day. Like she has never, even though my mom is not a Christian, like she has never hurt me to the point where I would give up on her. Like, I love her so much. I've been praying for her even before I feel like I was born again. Like I've been praying for her salvation for, uh, for, since I heard there was a Jesus to pray to. So, and I don't ever stop. I love her. Um, and she fought tooth and nails, everything. She could do like for her family. She loved her, her kids so much. And at this time, like again, though, like I was saying in that previous home, like she would work and come home. So now she's like an hour and a half from her work with traffic. So by the time she got home, she had a couple of hours in her, like that's it. And she's tired. So we had free range to do whatever we wanted. Like, so when I was getting arrested, when I would come home, I think that's why I'm so hard on my kids today is because I didn't have that as a kid. So like when my mom left. My mom would pick me up from jail. I should be like, are you hungry? I know you've been eating garbage. Like you want to talk a bell? And, um, so I never had that discipline. Like she just, her idea of love was like caring for me. Right. Like, so listen, I mean,
Keith Vance: just, just practically, yeah. God created roles in the family. There's a reason why they call it a mother's love. That's what you're describing. And then there's a role of a father who. The discipline. The discipline, the instruction. So there's these roles. You don't have that role. Yeah. Your mom's trying to be both, but she's only, she's not built for both. She's built for showing unconditional love. Yeah. She's built for, for, for that. And that's what you're, that's how you're describing her. You understand? So here you don't have that role in your, that discipline. That's right.
Brandon St. Pierre: And my dad, it was like really not in the picture. Like I would call him. You haven't talked about him yet. I will go. Yeah. I will go every couple summers and I would stay for a couple of weeks in and come home and didn't. I have a whole lot of conversation. So, at this time, sin had a hold of me. Addiction had a hold of me, but I was able to overcome the crack, right? But I was still smoking marijuana, and I would still smoke cocaine in my marijuana. I didn't smoke crack cocaine, but I would still put it in my marijuana, the uncooked form. In my head, I was like, that's okay. But I would still sniff a lot of cocaine. I was still doing ecstasy. I was still doing Xanax. I was still running myself to the ground. And I overdosed another time in that home around 15, and another time in the next home that we went to. So, I had overdosed three times before I was 17.
Keith Vance: Just because I don't know and I don't understand this world, what's it feel like to overdose? Tell me what it feels like to take Xanax, crack, marijuana. What's the feeling? What's the euphoria? Are you searching for something? I don't understand. If it makes you feel bad. If it's destroying your life, then why are we doing it? So,
Brandon St. Pierre: the crack and stuff and the cocaine was a feeling that I thought made you feel really bad. The inside feeling was horrible. But the pills was a little bit different. Ecstasy was one that I did a lot when I was a kid. And it just took me out of the world and brought me to a place that I thought was happy for a couple hours. And the Xanax, I don't know really why I did it. It made me very angry. And that was one when I would do it. That's what I always overdosed on was Xanax. Because I would start. I would start doing it. Like I would forget how many I took or I would mean to take some and then think I didn't take them. And before I knew it, one time I took 40 of them. And that's when I overdosed there. And they had to pump my stomach again. So,
Keith Vance: Xanax makes you feel angry. Yeah. Me. It makes you feel angry. I would feel. I would think. If something makes me feel. Like why do you want to feel angry? Like I'm just trying to help me understand this. I
Brandon St. Pierre: still to this day, I don't understand why I did what I did. I have no idea. Um, but I did get to a point where I knew like when I did that, I overdosed. When I did that, I fought people I loved. So, I got to a point where like I kind of, I would relapse all the time on Xanax. Like every three months. But I would try. At least I had to battle to where I would try to stop doing it.
Keith Vance: Have you ever thought that, have you ever considered how much of this was actually you and your thoughts? And how much might have been a dark entity? Have you ever thought about this? Because if Xanax makes me feel a certain way and it's not good. Why am I still doing it? And we just talked about the force of a darkness. Say that hates God's creation. I'm just, I don't know. And I'm not trying to put thoughts or in your mind, but I'm just, I'm trying to understand it. There has to be a reason. That is a hundred
Brandon St. Pierre: percent. The reason, because, uh, the scripture tells us that we are dead in our sins and our trespasses. So like I was spiritually dead. So I loved the things of this world and I loved things that were illegal. I love things that came with, with lust, with crime. Because. With drugs comes sex. So they go hand in hand. Okay. You know, so like all these things go hand in hand. Um, and I just, I love those things. And even today we might see people who are not drug addicts, but they love to go to the bar and have drinks, which I mean, the only difference is you're paying taxes and you know, you're not getting down the streets and it's accepted, but it does the same thing. Okay. You know, somebody who gets drunk does the same thing to their mindset as somebody who's doing Xanax. Or pills. Like it's not much different at all. So, um, you know, when we look at it and we think of drugs, we're like, there's something really wrong there, but there's something really wrong with this world and people who have not surrendered their life to Christ because they have that heart of stone and they have a desire to have escaped from reality. And I'm not saying that everybody who's outside of crisis is an alcoholic, but I'm saying it's very common. And. In the world today. And then, you know, so maybe even their advice not might be alcohol, but it might be women or it might be money or it might be cars, but those things are all driving us to, to wicked things, to idolatry, to worship these things. Right. Like, you know, our, our pastor used to always say like, everybody here is good at worshiping, but what are you worshiping? So like my worship there, like my gods were those drugs. Like I, I, I was guilty. I was guilty of idolatry. And the world is still doing that. Like when people, even if they don't have a drug problem, but they're sexually immoral, or even if he's not sexually immoral, but he has a wife, but like he doesn't know how to treat her. Like we are all so guilty of these sin problems. A lot
Keith Vance: of people outside of Christ are just swapping one idol for a different one. Yes. So like there's so many out there. Yeah. Swapping one for another. We might think that drugs is horrible, but like
Brandon St. Pierre: alcohol is too. So it's sexual. It's sexual immorality. Like, and you know, and we look at the. homosexual community a certain way, like they're so wicked and evil, but really the man who's having sex with a woman who's not his wife is just as evil as that. So we start to look at things like this is one level of evil, but they're, they're all wicked and they're all evil. Understood. You know, and I was just a kid. I was living a life of sin, but the worst thing about it, Keith, is that I was practicing antinomianism. I was living this life of sin this whole time thinking I was a Christian because of a prayer that I had said this whole time.
Keith Vance: 11 years old.
Brandon St. Pierre: Yeah. Like I asked Jesus into my life. Like I'm good. You know, like I know who Christ is and I had no evidence and I had no fruit and I'm living just a wicked life and I had no heart of repentance, no brokenness over it. I embraced it. I've
Keith Vance: only heard the word antinomian once. Somebody, I'm not going to say it.
Keith Vance: Yeah, that would be, I'm not going to say that. What's antinomian mean?
Brandon St. Pierre: Um, so it's somebody that thinks that they can live a life of sin because they're under grace. So if somebody, you have the law that shows us how desperate we are in need of a savior and like without him, we face the wrath of God because nobody can hold up to the standards of the law. Like, I'm not going to say it. I'm not going to say it. I'm not going to say it. I'm not going to say it. Like we are all guilty from one to 10. So nobody can, but then there's a, like a group of people that think because of the blood of Christ, um, covers your sin that you can live in sin. But that's why earlier I quoted Romans six and it's like, that mindset is contrary to scripture. And whether you know that scripture says that or not, it doesn't matter because God's word is true and man is a liar. So because God's word says that he's going to give us this new heart, his second Corinthians five 17 says that if any man is in Christ, he becomes a new creation and old things will pass away and that he's made new. He doesn't say, and now that you read that and you know that God's word says that, which the more we read, the more we know, the more we're held accountable for. I'm not taking that away. Right. But if you had a supernatural encounter with God, you develop a hatred for sin. And as we move forward and we see when I had a supernatural encounter with the Lord, I developed a hatred for sin. And please, if I skip past the moment that me and my wife are talking about the sin in our life and what we can get rid of, don't let me get past that because that's powerful in this testimony, because you don't have to know what God's word says to be changed by God. You should, you should have a desire to read it. But if you have no desire, like if your heart has not been transformed, you have not had an encounter with the Lord. You haven't based on scripture, but you don't need to know scripture to have that change of heart is what I'm saying, because it's supernatural.
Keith Vance: Right.
Keith Vance: You overdosed at 15 on Xanax. You took like 40. That's where we left off. Okay. Before you explain to me what antinomian meant. Yeah.
Brandon St. Pierre: So this is this process. We're leaving that house because of all the vandalism, all the breaking in and reads in there, getting robbed. Your mom got the house of her dreams at 45. Got it. Yeah. It was a two story house. It was in San Carlos park and we thought we made it, but we did not realize. That this neighborhood is infested with drugs too. Like my mom didn't realize, right. We thought that we had made it like to the Ritz Carlton. Well to us, like we thought we were in a gated community. Like it wasn't gated community, but that's how we looked at this place. Like it was two story fenced in yard. It was just a dream come true to my mom. Hmm. And we moved in there. I never got clean from drugs. Like I actually knew some kids from, uh, this neighborhood from going to an alternative learning center school that they send you to for being bad from the juvenile detention centers. So I very quickly started making friends right here across the street from my house. I started making friends, um, which was actually this close to the same neighborhood where we were before we lived in Lehigh. So it was like maybe a mile or two, maybe, no, probably like five miles from that house. So I had some of those friends as well. Um, and, uh, but it was a different part of San Carlos. So we thought it was better. Like the houses were bigger and stuff, but it wasn't. And at that time now I still continue to sell drugs and now a little bit more, uh, like volume of selling the drugs to where I'm not like necessarily stealing as much. I wasn't addicted now at this time to drugs that made you fiend so hard to where like you would steal and spend everything you had like crack and cocaine. You'll spend everything. But now I was like, I'm on, I started getting addicted to opiates and barbiturates.
Keith Vance: There's something that I know about you. You've, you've Brought up stealing several times, but there's something I know about you that you haven't said yet. You wouldn't steal from a particular type of person. Oh, my whole life. I
Brandon St. Pierre: always just knew. It was like, you know, God's law is written on our heart, and I knew I shouldn't steal. But I always had a line and a boundary to where, but I did tell you I stole from my mom, which was horrible. But I would never steal somebody's tools. If that's how they earned a living, I would keep it. I would stay away from it. I would never cross that line to steal somebody's tools.
Keith Vance: That stuck with me. I just had that memory. If there's a guy that works for a living, you walk past it. It was
Brandon St. Pierre: off limits, man. And you know, the crazy thing is that all those wretched friends that I had, it was off limits for them, too. Like, if somebody would steal somebody's tools, you were the scum of the earth. Interesting. Yeah. It was something that you would never do. So, you're doing more volume
Keith Vance: and now opioids.
Brandon St. Pierre: Yeah. My addiction. My addiction changed to where, you know, you think you can control it because, like, with opiates, you can spend 60 bucks that day. And that's, you know, you can be content with that. Like, and spread it out. Like, it wasn't like the cocaine where it just drove you like a monster to do more and more and more. Where it would take everything that you had so you could be a little bit more. You could save money. You didn't go through everything. You could be more paced with your addiction. So, I started getting really hardcore on what it was like an epidemic at the time. Rocking. And Xanax. And Xanax. I was still doing a lot. But, and I became addicted to it. And I never knew that I was addicted to it because I did it every day. And I didn't ever have a time where I didn't have it. And I had this guy that was with me, an older guy. We were hanging out one day. And there was, like, a drought in the neighborhood where there was no pills around. And I didn't think anything of it. But I started telling him. I'm like, man, dude, my body hurts so bad. I was like, I feel like I got hit by a truck. And he's like, when is the last time you did a pill? I was like, dude, there's been a drought. I was like, I haven't done one since yesterday. And he's like, dude, you're withdrawing. You're dope sick. I didn't know what dope sick was. I'm like, what? He's like, yeah. And he's like, wait, if we get you a pill. He's like, the second you do it, you're going to feel better. So, I'm like, I need one then. And we get my hands on one. And it happens. And at that time, I realized, like, I was a full-on opiate addicted. I was just gone. What's a Roxy feel like? It didn't feel like cocaine. Like, the way I describe cocaine, where I didn't know why I did it, it didn't feel like that. Like, it was different. Like, it was like a body. Something that went through your body and made it feel relaxed. And you weren't, like, tweaked. And I do know why that was so easy for people to get addicted to. Because it just made you feel at ease until you didn't have it. And it crept up on you. You didn't know that you were addicted. So, at that time. And it
Keith Vance: lasted longer and was cheaper, you said?
Brandon St. Pierre: It wasn't necessarily that it was cheaper. But it was that you didn't need to do it every 20 minutes. Understood. Because
Keith Vance: the crack was like, it was a driving force. Yeah, like you became a monster on cocaine and crack. Okay.
Brandon St. Pierre: So, at that time, I became severely addicted to them. Before I knew it, I was selling more. So, I was doing more. I was doing, like, 10 a day. And my whole family was addicted. Yes. At this time. So, my family. Mom, too? No, not my mom. But all my sisters. So, my sisters were doing drugs at that time.
Keith Vance: Did your mom ever do? It's not
Brandon St. Pierre: really. She did have, like, something where she was addicted to diet pills. And she kicked it when it came off the market. But no, man. Crazy thing. My mom was not a drug addict. She's too busy trying to hold down the floor. Yeah. And get involved and all that. Yeah. Wow. But my sisters, even before then, like, I kind of danced around it. But they were all on ecstasy and stuff when I was. And at this. At this time, we were all on these Roxy's. Like, from my oldest sisters to the ones that were closest in age to me. All four. And till this day, I still have a sister who can not get out of bed without opiates.
Keith Vance: If you can remember, it's kind of too late. But from here on out, don't mention names. Oh, God. Just might
Crosstalk: be too close to home or whatever. You know what I mean?
Brandon St. Pierre: Yeah. I was trying not to just get carried away. Yeah. It's all good. Yeah. But till this day, I still have sisters that are addicted to it. One, you know, some of them, now that I'm a Christian, like, they don't really let me in their game room. So some of them, like, I don't know if they are or are not. But I know that one are, that one is. And it just gets such a strong hold on you. So at that time, at 16, when I realized I'm addicted, I get a little bit older. 17 years old at that time. Yeah. Like, I am like, I thought that. I was like the top dog and I, and my whole life revolved around selling drugs. I was still did it, but like my whole life revolved around selling it. Like, are
Keith Vance: you actually making money?
Brandon St. Pierre: I didn't make, I spent, yeah, I made a lot of money, but I'll spend it really with no, no wisdom.
Brandon St. Pierre: Um, and, uh, there was one day that, that everything changed. And, uh, my sister who till, till this day, I like, I love this sister to death, but she has, um, emotional problems. And at that time we got in a fight, but at that time I had emotional problems too. So we were like a rollercoaster, right? We got in a big argument. And, um, at that time I was so caught up in like this, this lifestyle that I lived. Um, and, and for some, like, I don't even know. Why? But like everywhere I went, I always felt like I needed to have a pistol with me. And, uh, I think it was like an image that I wanted, right? More than actually needing it. But, um, so when we got in that fight, she's following me to my room and I grabbed my pistol and I put it in my pants. And, uh, she's, she thought that I was pointing it at her, gonna point it at her. And she, she snapped. She called the cops and I went like two blocks over and I hit it in the woods. And. And I hit all my drugs in the woods and the cops came back and I fought cause they didn't have the weapon that I would be. All right. But they put me away. And at that time I was 17 years old and, uh, they direct filed me was so direct filing is when you're a juvenile, they charge you as an adult because of your crime, the severity of your crime. So I was charged as an adult. And then when I left the juvenile detention center, usually you'll do 21 days and you go home. So I, I did 21 days and then I'm thinking I'm going home and I put my clothes on and I'm walking out the door and there was a cop there and he's like, you're not, you're not going home. You're coming with me. And I don't know if Florida still has a 10, 20 life law, but back then they did. They had 10, 20 life.
Keith Vance: And, uh, I remember that law. It was all, it was always, it was on billboards and stuff back in the day. 10, 20 life. Yeah. Yeah. If
Brandon St. Pierre: you had a gun or something, it was, uh, I remember that. And then if you pulled it out, it was 10. If you shoot it, it was. It was 20. If you shoot somebody or kills me, it was life. So I was like, wow, dude, I can get 10 or 20 years. Cause I, I was charged for pulling it out. Even though I didn't actually pull it out and point it, I still had it. And my charge was that. So, um, I was in there on this gun charge and I was awaiting to go to trial. And my, my mom, as poor as can be, it's like my son, he's an attorney. So she went out and hired me an attorney and it was a, it was a good attorney. And I fought that charge for. For just under a year. And, um, they ended up giving me a plea deal to where I was able to go home after 10 months, which 10 months is equivalent to a year incarceration. So I went home and, uh, that was like a kind of like a turning point from that point on scared you. Yeah.
Keith Vance: You're not, you're, you're 17. You're, you're almost an adult and you almost got. I'm about to give you a little wake up
Brandon St. Pierre: call. Is there any way that I can use the restroom so that I can focus? Yeah, let's take a break. Focus in on stuff like that.
Keith Vance: Let's take a break. Okay. I was waiting. This part of the podcast is brought to you by Vance Ranch. Vance Ranch is our family, 100 acre ranch in Henry County. We have a 6,000 square foot barn where we host wedding venues, corporate events, anniversary parties, and whatever else you want to use it for. Find the link in the bio. Now let's get back to the show. All right, brother. We're back from the break. And again, anytime you need to take a break, just say, just say, Hey Keith, it's that time again. I don't want to disrupt your flow of thought. All right.
Brandon St. Pierre: Um, so at that time I had been used to going in and out of jail. I had done the program. Like I mentioned at one time that was like six months, a little longer, a lot of 21 day stretches. This was the longest period I had ever been locked up for. It was, it was 10 months. I think I got it. I got to a point in my life after getting out after these 10 months that, that I found like glory in incarceration. I was, yeah, I was so proud of myself. Like I was so happy with it. I
Keith Vance: thought you were going to say, I got to the point in my life where I looked at that woman on crack that, that looked like, that looked like she was lose her teeth and you're like, I don't want to lose my teeth. I thought that's what you were going to say. I wish. And then you just freaking flip my brain.
Brandon St. Pierre: You know, there's people that learn. I learned the easy way and the hard way. Some people never learn at all. I always learned the hard way. It took me so long. I, so that lifestyle is
Keith Vance: your identity. You're okay. You got some, some
Brandon St. Pierre: badges now. Yeah. Yeah. And I felt so good about myself. Like I thought that I was untouchable and that only got worse as time went on. Right. Because now I had been to the county jail. I had been with like the worst juveniles in the county. And I thought so highly of myself at that point. So getting out, I wanted to get right back to selling drugs. Like I did not want to waste any time because in there the whole time I was in there, I was thinking of all the things that I could do different. The people that was unreached that like I could be having made money off of and different areas of the location. So I come out with a whole different mindset like and I like have the mindset of wanting to to be rich off of it. And so I went right back, though, to doing that, to selling it and to using it and went back to the same things that I was addicted to. And at that time. I didn't realize how strong my addiction was. So like I was still doing this. I have to ask another
Keith Vance: question and I'm going to limit this, but but I need to know. You said you just did a. How long was the stretch you just did? It was like 10 months. Are you getting drugs in jail? In there? No, I didn't. So you're going 10 months without it. Yeah. What did that feel like? Because you just because you just said I didn't realize how I was addicted, how addicted I was, but you just did a 10. Oh, and the reason why I say that is.
Brandon St. Pierre: So like when I got out, I'm like, you know, I'm selling cocaine. I was able to like kind of manage cocaine like I would use it sometimes, but like not that often. But those pills that I was talking about earlier, they creep up on you and I would sell those as well. So like I was using those and didn't realize how addicted I was. And then I had one of my sisters. No,
Keith Vance: back up. OK. You just did 10 months in jail. Yeah. So you're 10 months without pills or anything. Yeah.
Crosstalk: I had no desire to get clean at that time.
Keith Vance: But you just did 10 months in jail without
Brandon St. Pierre: pills. Yeah. Are you detox? Like what? So when you get out, you gradually as an addict, like you might do it one day and then it's like on Fridays and then it's like two, three days a week. And then before you know it, you're full on addicted again. OK. So before I know it, in the blink of an eye, within a month, I have a full on operation where I'm selling drugs again. OK. And and I'm getting high the whole time. Like and I'm and now I'm actually getting drunk, too, at that time. Like and I never. I never drank before. But at this time, like I started going to the bars and that was like the avenue that I felt like I was missing. So you think those
Keith Vance: 10 you think those 10 months that you were in jail just gave me too much time to think. But you were thinking with a clear mind. Well, clear mind from drugs, not a clear mind from sin, because as you're in there, you're thinking about a better strategy. But what did it feel like to be clean from drugs for those 10 months? Did you were you withdrawing? Were you I'm just curious. Were you like craving it? Were you trying to find it? Were you just like.
Brandon St. Pierre: I didn't put too much thought in. OK. And don't worry about it. My thought would have more been in selling it instead of using it. But when I got out, so I went and started approaching those avenues that I felt like I was missing, which was like the bars. I was like I realized that I had missed out on on clientele in those places, even though I wasn't almost to go in there. But it didn't really stop me. So I started finding like those avenues, like a couple of different bars in the area where I would go in there. And I started meeting a lot of people in there. And. My I had like a brother in law. He wasn't married to my sister, but he was he dated her, had children with her. And. At that time, like I saw, I was doing so much drugs and I was so addicted that I. I couldn't really get high anymore. Like I would do it and it would just even me out throughout the day. And I'm talking to him about that. And he's like, dude. He's like. You're doing it wrong. What are you talking? What do you mean? He's like, how many pills are you doing a day? And he put it into perspective for me. How many? He's like, dude, if you put a needle in your arm, you only have to do one. And he's like, and you're good. So. I was like, all right. I was like, try to do it for me. I don't know how to do it. So he did it. And
Keith Vance: how old are you? You're 17. 17.
Brandon St. Pierre: Yeah, I got out before I was 18. So I was either just turned. 18 or was almost 18. Yeah. So I started doing that. And man, the second he did it, I was like, you're right. So I could only use a needle if he was there because I didn't know how for a while. So at that time, now everything like that, the whole hustle I was doing was like now back to feeding and addiction. Like it wasn't actually profitable because now I'm so far gone doing that. And then as I'm doing that, like I also would if I did cocaine, I would. I would do it through a needle as well. And it was so intense that it ran me to the ground.
Keith Vance: That's good. Give a glimpse to the future, because we have to right now. We're not going to dwell on the future, but I want to give a little glimpse, because what you just said is powerful, and if we wait too long, we're going to lose this moment. Please. But you said, I was doing so much of it, I was numb to it, and it didn't have the effects that it once did. There's something to be said for sin. That's right. So give a little jump to the future, and I'm going to let you, you know what I'm thinking right now, but I want it to come from your mouth. The
Brandon St. Pierre: book of Hebrews chapter 3 says, Let today not your hearts be hardened. That's the day to respond to the gospel, when you hear it, right? Because the more you reject it when people are telling you about Christ, the more hardened your heart gets, and the same with sin. Even as a believer, if you're convicted of a sin, praise the Lord that I don't have an addiction to pornography anymore, but that's one that a lot of people suffer with, and if you do it, and you're convicted over it, but then you're like, ah, okay, nobody's around, and you continue to do it, and that conviction will eventually go away, because the hardness of your heart, to where it will be easier to go into that sin, because you're callousing your heart, and you're hardening your heart. So, in the perspective that you were taking from, I think that's where you were going, is that when we reject the calling of the Lord, or the Holy Spirit, either drawing us to Him for salvation, or if we are in Christ, and there's a sin that we're struggling with, and we keep putting that to the side, and it's like, well, kind of like we were talking about, I'm under grace, like, I'm going to do that. Our hearts get so callous and so hardened, that that sin that used to convict you, might not convict you anymore, or that wooing of the Holy Spirit that's drawing you to the Lord, you might have thought about it the first time, be like, yeah, I probably should do that, but God can't, you know, I'm a sinful man, and you start rejecting that, and then do not surrender to the Lord after time. Now you're 40 years old, your heart is more callous, and more hardened to receive that. I'm
Keith Vance: glad I asked you that, because I wasn't thinking of that side of it, so I'm glad I asked you, but here's the other side of it. In order to get high off of sin, I become desensitized to it. There's these layers of depravity, that in order to experience this euphoria, I have to come down to this level of depravity to get that experience. So you brought up sexual addiction, so where pornography used to make me feel like, this, now it doesn't anymore, now you're into stuff that I wouldn't even want to say on here, to get that same feeling. Yes. Right, so there's what you talked about, then there's the other. So you're talking about a pill made me feel a certain way, now it's not, now I'm doing this. Yes. Again, sin, there's levels of sin that bring you closer into that pig pen, that level of depravity, before you know it, I'm eating with freaking pigs. That's right. So, okay, I didn't mean, that was a snapshot of the future, I hope I didn't mess up your train of thought. So that
Brandon St. Pierre: season, where I started to use those drugs, by the grace of God, didn't get to last too long, that season, right? Because I started getting so addicted, now I started stealing a lot, and I was constantly stealing from stores, things like that, like DVDs or Blu-rays at that time, so that I could go and sell them to pay for an addiction, because everything that I did make off of, you know, the hustle that I had would be blown. Like I was a full on junkie for a short period of time, because God was so gracious to me, that one day going into one of these stores to steal, I got arrested, and came and got a couple months, and then I got out, and man, dude, like I was so hard, I didn't quit, but this time I was only out for a couple weeks, and I was at a bar, still so addicted to drugs, and at that time, not really like, like truly like an alcoholic, more of addiction than an addict that would go drink, I was at a bar with a friend, and violent, full of anger, and somebody said something to him, and I don't know what it was, right? But like, he was like, dude, I'm gonna go fight that guy, and when I was a kid, like we would just fight together, and so we went, and his face got disfigured by a piece of glass, and there was more, you know, to the assault, but I don't really want to talk about, I don't know how to explain the assault without the details, and you know, just the details aren't good, but he was hurt, he was disfigured.
Keith Vance: Your friend was hurt, or the guy you beat up? No, the guy,
Brandon St. Pierre: that guy was, and... The
Keith Vance: guy you and your friend beat up was
Brandon St. Pierre: disfigured? Yeah. Until this day, my heart breaks over it, because he'll never look the same, and he did nothing wrong. And, man, I hate that I did that. No reason at all. You know, just anger that's built up inside.
Keith Vance: So, you can tell, because it got a little blurry there, you can tell it's bothering you. So, I just want to recap. You and your friend were at a bar. A guy said something, but he probably didn't say something. I don't know. I don't know what it was. Something minimal. You and your friend made a decision to jump him, and you messed him up, and you messed him up permanently. Permanently? Yeah. Okay.
Brandon St. Pierre: Yeah, so I got arrested, and at that time, I was on probation for what I just was telling you. I went to jail for theft, and I'm so glad that the Lord took me from that lifestyle at that time. And when I went into jail that time, they have this scoring sheet by how many points that you get. It's by if they send you to prison or not. So, because of this disfigurement, they sent me to prison. And the first plea, I don't know, it was scary. It was like close to four years. And I turned that down, and they came back and gave me another plea. So, it was two and a half years, and then two years of probation. So, I took the plea, and I ended up going to prison for two and a half years. That was the sentence, with two years of probation. And like I told you earlier, like when I got out of jail when I was 17, like how great I felt about it. At this time, the same exact thing happened to me. So, like I was in prison. And I was... Getting a lot of fights. And at that time, like I never really... Like I would fight when I was a kid, but like just out of anger and things like that. But at that time, like I started fighting so often that I was able to become a little more methodical when I was in there. And like clear-headed. And that made me feel so good. Because like I was like now I actually knew that I was better at fighting. And then I ended up joining a gang in there. And at that time, like I was saying earlier when we were talking about the fitness, I started working out a lot. I started... Put a little bit of size on me. And...
Keith Vance: Did you like to fight at this time? In there, I did. So, kind of like you like selling drugs. You like doing this stuff. And you like... At that time
Brandon St. Pierre: in my life, I did. You liked fighting at this time? At that time. But now, I don't. Like it's been so long. I'm not saying now. But back then, that was just a part of the
Keith Vance: culture. That was a part
Brandon St. Pierre: of like your badge. Like this is what... Understood. Yeah. So, I started getting like... My chest was puffed up. Because like now, I was actually getting better at it. You know? Like not looking so... Wild. While doing it. But more methodical. And I loved it. Ended up joining a gang in there.
Brandon St. Pierre: Embraced the lifestyle. And... I'm working out. You know? I'm eating.
Keith Vance: So, prison wasn't scary for you?
Brandon St. Pierre: It was before I got there. Right? Like leading up to it, I was a little bit nervous. But when I got in there and kind of realized that it was just a bunch of people just like me. And... And... Doing the things that we love. Which was horrible. Sinful things. Because like... The natural man loves those things. It was the
Keith Vance: same environment you've been in since you were eight years old. Yeah. Basically. It's comfortable. It's natural. It's like... Oh, I'm used to this. Yeah.
Brandon St. Pierre: And then every time I would mark off a calendar year. You know? I would get through the calendar in January. Back to January. And put an X over all those months, man. Like it... I was just felt so accomplished. And you would see those guys with life sentences in there. And they would have like that 15 years of calendars marked off. And I remember at that age like thinking that was like the greatest thing in the world. I was like, man. And like I had desires to come back. Like dude, I was like, I don't know if I'll make it out there. I don't know why. Like to me now my mind can't even comprehend it. But I was like... I just thought it was the greatest thing. I loved it. And towards the end of my sentence... I got out when I was 22. And towards the end of my sentence... When I'm like... Just in a routine. I had all my... All my friends like... Because when you're in a gang, you call them your brothers. Which I know now like that there is no family like that. They're like... And not in a good way. Like that is not a family. I get this feeling in my testicle. And I never had a dad to teach me how to say nothing like that. So I started asking all these men. Like have you ever felt like... It feels like... I was like it feels like my vein got wrapped around it or something. And I start asking all these people. And they're like... Kid... You... You... You need to go to the doctor. Like no. I'm 50 years old. I've never felt that. So I'm like... Okay. I fill out a sick call. I go to the nurse. She feels it. And she's like... She's calm. She's like... We need to... You need to go to the next person. You need to go see a doctor. So the doctor comes. They take me. They do the x-rays. And they test me. And they come back. They're like... You got cancer. Getting ready to get out of prison. I'm in the last stretch of my sentence. 22 years old. 22 years old. Um... Hand-handle, so I'm like 10 hours away from my mom. My mom hasn't visited me the whole time I'm in prison, and I understand why. She couldn't just get up and go 10 hours. Logistics, yeah.
Keith Vance: You can't blame her for that.
Brandon St. Pierre: And it was hard news, man. It hit me like a brick, and I'm so close to going home, and I'm like, dude, I don't want to die in here. and uh like i can't understand i can't even i remember praying and just like words like that had no meaning but like like that the lord would intercede for me because like my words were just groaning like the scripture says but at that time my prayers were more just to myself because because I was outside of Christ. He makes intercession for us. And when you're outside of Christ, when you pray without praying a prayer of repentance and faith, like you're praying to yourself. But I didn't know that. But I had no hopes. I was just clinging to my own thoughts, my own mind. Desperate, so desperate. That whole time I was in prison, I never went to church, not one time. And probably didn't even pray. I was just like with hope like save me like don't let me die in here you know and so they did that that surgery they got me on chemo and they
Keith Vance: did the surgery and the chemo while you're in prison yeah
Brandon St. Pierre: they put you in like a medical center and I remember sitting there thinking and like this isn't that bad right and then i get sick i lost all like my blood my red blood cells or it's called neutropenic like i don't remember exactly what the medical details were but i remember how sick i was and um they had to isolate me because they're like your immune system like if you get sick right now you can die so they put me in this little room and man my whole world was crashing down in that room and i remember thinking like man i thought you lost your hair when you did chemo and i'm sitting here thinking that and then i get up and i look at my pillow and i have a bunch of hair right there and i grab my hand and i just started pulling hair on i'm like what i
Crosstalk: saw pictures of you before really you used to have long hair back then yeah
Brandon St. Pierre: oh that was um even before i went to prison though yeah yeah but i was but in prison you can't have long hair so I had it was probably like this long oh got it yeah so I just started pulling my hair out like with my fingertips just pulling it out and it was all patchy and I remember an officer they had compassion on me and they were like man your hair looks so patchy right now and they were like go shave it and they gave me a razor and some shaving cream to go shave my hair so I shaved it and I was bald for a while and I think it was like a three or four month treatment and um I'm walking through that process and they uh man it was so hard with those nurses and those doctors there was one more guy in there who was going through chemo who had the same thing as me and uh so
Keith Vance: you're struggling right now you're talking about how hard how hard it is and i can see it yeah it was so what was hard the fact that you're young and your hair's falling out you're distraught over that the fact that i think i might die the fact that i feel sick like what's is it like or is it multiple things like Like where's the emotion coming from right now? One was
Brandon St. Pierre: the thinking that I might die. Two was because like I remember on a stretch, like 21 days of not being able to hold down any food, but like I was able to drink. So like I think that if you go 21 days without food, just that's hard. Like your mind isn't able to process that. So that was hard. And then three was like vanity. You know, I was working out and I was big. I was jacked. And now I was like 170 with no muscle. I was so skinny. I had no hair. and um so
Keith Vance: right now you're feeling bad but you're basically feeling sorry for yourself yeah yeah it's not like a true repentance yet oh no it's just okay like a self-pity i don't want to put words in your mouth i'm trying to understand you yeah is it like a self-pity like what it
Brandon St. Pierre: was a worldly sorrow okay right not a godly sorrow that leads to repentance but and i was going to ask you if you're
Keith Vance: sad because man i just built up now yeah it was small
Brandon St. Pierre: vanity it was pride like i was feeling so good about myself i was getting in these fights and i was feeling just so good and um you know i had this size on me and i was thinking about when i get home how jacked i was gonna be and uh and just all all these plants and now i'm like dude i look horrible i look
Keith Vance: sick you hear these stories where people hit rock bottom and like here's where i hit and that's where i saw reality for what it was and i looked up but that's not what this is no this is a worldly it's
Brandon St. Pierre: not like i just i hated it was a place of pride Place of vanity. I was just so upset with my appearance, and just how scrawny and how bald I was. And then you're in there, and it's so sinful, but you're in there for two and a half years, really without even seeing a woman. So, at that time, I had no problem being sexually immoral. So, I'm thinking of all these sexually immoral thoughts that I'm going to do when I get out. And that's so sad, but that was where I was hurt. I was like, man, I'm going to get out, and now I'm not even going to be able to get a woman because of the way I look. And it was just like, you know, not a godly repentance. Not like my sin was before me, but just all these things of this world, because my sin was going to be prolonged because of, you know, how I look right now, you know? And all these things, like everything I had built up, I'm in there working out, and I'm like, it's going to be great when I get out, you know? I'm going to go to the bar. I turned 21 in there. I was planning on going to the bar, drinking legally. And like, all my plans were horrible, right? And like I said, when I was in jail, like how I was planning my thoughts to be out there and like, you know, to sell more drugs, like that was always my goal when I was locked up, like how I can get out and be better at that. So, when I got out with cancer, sick, that's what I did. And I went back, and I'm like, how can I, you know, just sell more drugs and sleep around? And I was like, I'm going to go to the doctor and I'm going to go to the doctor and I'm going to go to the doctor. I didn't have anything in me that wanted to stop sinning. That's why when earlier when I was talking to you, I was like, there's no way I was born again at 11 years old, because I never was like, I need to stop this life of sin. There was something that would come up soon where I'll talk to you about the, where I knew that I had to stop using drugs. Okay. That comes up, but I never like changed my outlook towards sin. So, when I got out. I
Keith Vance: got to ask you one more question. The cancer, like looking back now, not, we talked about what you felt like in that time where there was, it was self-pity, but where you sit now looking back at that cancer. You know, sometimes God tries to get a hold of us through his good gifts, but also he gets a hold of us through putting these things in our lives, these hardships to bring us to a place of, to consider our life. Looking back, do you think that just that cancer was random? Or do you think that God was trying to, have you trying to probe your heart? I think that God
Brandon St. Pierre: is sovereign. I think that these things don't happen by accident. I think that he chastises those that he loves. And I think that I was very far out, away from Christ at that time.
Keith Vance: Most people don't think about God when life is going good. They think about God when they get cancer. And I would just curious, if you had thought about that, that's all. If you didn't, then you didn't.
Brandon St. Pierre: I think that there's common grace. I think that the rain falls on the just and the unjust. Absolutely. And I think that there's going to be people who got cancer and was sick and was on hard times who are never going to turn their life to Christ and they're going to die in their sins. And on the day that they die, they're going to stand before the Lord and they're not going to have Christ standing in their place. His blood will not cover their sins and they will be under the full wrath of God. So I do think that that is a common grace. Sometimes people look at cancer like, why does this happen? But man, sometimes that is a common grace that he gives us. And I think that sometimes it can be used to draw somebody near to the Lord. But at that time in my life, like I said, I did have a moment where I was coming to him. And at that time, I do know that there was time. Because I still thought I was. I still thought I was a Christian. So I did pray sometimes. But these were prayers that are just, like I said earlier, to myself. I was not truly ever praying a heart of repentance.
Keith Vance: We rarely think about what happens after we die. We plan for retirement. We plan for our vacation. We plan for all this stuff in this realm. We rarely think about the next realm. Most people don't think about it until they come in contact with their own mortality. And it was just a question in the moment. And we don't have to spend too much time. And
Brandon St. Pierre: that's why false conversions are such a big deal. Because I don't. I was not fearful of standing before the Lord. Because I thought that I was a Christian. Because of some prayer that I was led. That's why it is so important to give the gospel faithfully and truthfully. And when you talk to people about giving their life to Christ, you need to show them what a life given to Christ looks like. And not show them from your own opinions. You can give life experiences. But show them what God's word says about it. Because people. People are out there right now that have been led into a prayer. That are living. A life of sin, who are fighting cancer right now like I was, and they're good in their mind, because they think that they're going to heaven because of a prayer that was said, or maybe even a baptism that took place. Understood.
Keith Vance: That's one thing I appreciate about you, and we'll get there later on your story, but I've noticed when you give the gospel, you don't try to close the deal, so to speak. You leave it on their plate for them to pick up the fork and put it in their mouth themselves. You leave it there. All you do is a, here it is, and then you eat it or don't. And I do that intentionally. And I'm thinking, dude, put it in their mouth. But now I understand why. That's why I do that. Because the stakes
Brandon St. Pierre: are so high. Yeah, I do that intentionally because I don't want to be responsible for a false conversion. They say, how will they hear without a preacher? Understood. So I tell them, but I do not try to get people to make a decision based on emotions of that moment. I want them to hear the gospel and to respond to the gospel. I want them to hear the gospel by the wooing of the Holy Spirit, because they're seeing their sin and convicted of their sin, but I don't want them to do it out of a fear of hell, or because their family's in heaven, they had a Christian family member die, or because they know that they face the wrath of God without Christ standing in their place. I want them to do it because the word that was spoken from his word has changed their life and changed their heart, and that they actually have been broken over their sins, and they actually, are just, they know that there's no hope unless they surrender to the Lord. That's what I want people to respond to. I don't want it to be anything else. Not a fear of hell, or not a fear, you know? Understood. Where was I?
Keith Vance: The cancer, and I was trying to have you digest the feelings of cancer. You said it was like a worldly sorrow, and then you were wanting to get out because now you're thinking, man, I can't hook up with a woman because I have no hair. I'm weak. You went right back to selling drugs, and then you're...
Brandon St. Pierre: So when I got out, I did try to get a job. I have not had many jobs in my life, like where I worked for other people. I had always done illegal activities for finances, and I got a job, and I was not good at it. And I quit, and I went right back to selling drugs for a period of time. So I got out at 22. There's this two-year period that was pretty important. But what comes next? The sex is greater. But while I'm doing that, I'm starting to get my hair back, and I start to be able to take in food and get strong. And then I wanted to go to the gym, and I started going to the gym, and I'm starting to get my body back, and I'm feeling good. But my mom did this thing for me while I was in prison. And she's like, I want you to come home, and I want you to have clothes, and I want you to have something. So my mom, every day I was in there, for two and a half years, she would put a dollar a day away in a safe for me. And if she made good money, she would put $2 away. So I was in there for $365 times two, and then another $180. So I don't know. By the time I got out. 800
Keith Vance: -something days. So there was almost $1,000. And she
Brandon St. Pierre: would put $2 up sometimes. So I had like $1,500 waiting for me when I came home. Man, my mom loved me so much, and she still does. And always thinking. Like these things that the world thinks is love. Because I was in no position to get out and have money. But my mom thought that was in my best interest. She thought that was love. And when I came home, the first thing I wanted to do was go to a bar. Because I turned 21 in prison. I was in confinement in a cell for 85 days. Like half the size of this room with my toilet in there. Just me and one other guy. And that's where I turned 21. I was in that cell. I was like, when I get out, this is what I'm going to do. So I got out. And I'm like, I'm going to go have me a drink. And that same brother-in-law. Not married, but I called him a brother-in-law. Before I went to jail, it was like, dude, you're doing the drugs wrong. You need to put a needle in your arm. That same brother, he's sitting beside me with my sister. And we're at the bar. We're drinking. And they start having a side conversation. And he's like, man, I'm going. I'm leaving to go get some pills. You want some? And I'm like, in prison, like I was telling you, I thought about how to sell more drugs. It wasn't in my mind, am I going to do drugs when I get out? Am I not? I was on probation at that time. I knew I had to take a drug test. But I was like, yeah, they're in your system for three days. I was like, yeah, go ahead. And he's like, dude, and they're cheaper here. You only want one? Because they were cheaper. My mom had moved to Hollywood, Florida. It's funny
Keith Vance: that you know how long they're in your system for. It's funny that your brain is even thinking that way. I got to get drug tested, but they're in my system for three days. It's funny how your brain. Because my brain. I don't think that way. My mom
Brandon St. Pierre: had moved to the other coast. With all my family, and they're over there in Hollywood, Florida, and when I came home, so I had two sisters that were living there, each had three kids, and each had their boyfriend living there in a three-bedroom home. So, I come home to, what is that, four adults, six, no, five adults, because my mom, five adults, six kids, now myself in a house, and again, everybody's doing drugs, except my mom. My mom wasn't doing drugs, and this is, man, I had so much anger towards my mom at this time. Why? Because I was like, I just got out of prison, and if you wanted me to get clean, how could you let me, why wouldn't you tell these people to get out? So, I guess now that I'm thinking and unpacking this, I probably did have some type of desire to get clean, because I remember thinking like, man, why are you electing me? Why are you electing me? Why are you electing me? Why are you electing me? Why are you allowing me to come home to all these people who are getting high? It's kind of hard, because I've never actually processed that like I am right now. So, I guess there was some type of desire to get clean. There had to have been, because I remember even saying that to my mom for a time. I was like, why did you let me come home to this? So, I'm sitting at that bar, and he goes out, and he goes and gets the pills and comes back, and I do them. I hadn't done drugs in a long time. I hadn't done drugs in a long time. I hadn't done drugs in a long time. So, it hit hard. Oh, yeah. And it wasn't long before my family realized Brandon's doing drugs again, but like I was set up for failure, and I'm not one to make excuses, but man, the odds were stacked up against me, and that money that my mom had put to the side, I started spending it a little bit. I'm talking to my same brother-in-law, get me more, get me more, and then before you know it, I'm back on the needle. I'm shooting it up again. I'm shooting cocaine again, and at that time, I was still kind of hustling, but just barely getting, just to support an addiction, and then on that coast, it was very popular. Heroin was very popular. So, the first choice was always those pills, but then they weren't really doing the job. So, then that same brother, he's like, bro, you're doing it all wrong, and he's like, you got to try this stuff.
Keith Vance: I remember I told you about... Layers of sin. Yeah. Hey, you're doing it wrong. You got to do it this way. It's just like when you, that brother-in-law, sounds like the voice of the devil to me. Yeah. Hey, man, you're doing it wrong. If you just do this, you'll get what you're looking for, and then before you know it, you're shooting heroin. Is that where we're going now? Yeah, that's where we're at. But I thought shooting cocaine was supposed to get you the... Yeah. But now that, they ain't doing it.
Brandon St. Pierre: And shooting those pills. Wow. So, I was shooting those pills, too, and it was satisfying for a moment. But then he got me on that heroin, man, and I was like, man, I've been missing. I've been missing out. I thought that this was the best thing in the world. When you would put that needle in your arm and it would go in there, it was like warm water would come down your whole body, and I was like, this is something that I've been needing. And I was like, never felt anything quite like it. And I just went all in for it. Right. And...
Keith Vance: There's some contradictory things going on here.
Keith Vance: You're worried about your physical. Oh, yeah. But I've never really seen, and I don't know, I've never seen a heroin addict that looks the physical.
Brandon St. Pierre: You know, it's crazy. So, there seems to be this... I would do that on my way to the gym. Like, I would go and do something on my way to the gym and work out and come home and do more. Yeah. It was crazy, but there was a battle going on there. Okay. Because... Now it's probably... It was probably the time when I finally in my life decided I wanted to get clean. Okay. Because I talked to my sister, who I love dearly, on my dad's side. Okay. She lived in Texas, and I was telling her, like, I want to get clean from drugs. Okay. She's like... She just came and visited me. Like, I'm actually pretty close with this sister. Good. And she's like, brother, come on. Wow. So, at that time, I was probably 23. Now, because I had been out of the prison now for a year. I was on probation, so I had to get my probation to approve it for me to go. And now I'm finally starting to get a desire to get clean. And I went there. And there was a gym seven miles from my house. And I would walk to that gym every day. And sometimes I would walk back and go and work out the whole day. I wanted to be a bouncer, so I was like, I'm just going to work out and become a bouncer. And I never really stayed there long enough to, like, get a job and get my feet planted and secure. And I don't remember how long I was there. I don't think it was more than five months. But, um... I remember one day sitting in that gym, and I'm working out, and they got like a section for your abs, and I was in, it's like a side room, and I'm in that room, and I'm doing an ab workout, and this guy comes up to me, and he's talking to me. You know, he's an overweight guy, so he was like kind of asking me some advice on things, and at this time, I'm finally starting to like learn how to work out correctly, and he just so gradually switches the conversation to like why I'm in Texas, right? And then I start talking to him about like the addiction and stuff like that, and he was a firefighter, and he was just so good, and the way he approached this conversation, he's like, you need to give your life to Jesus. So, I'm like, huh. I was like, I did that. That's what I hate about the signature prayer. I was like, I did that, dude. I did it when I was 11, and you could just kind of see his mind process and what I said. He's like, but you just told me that you spent the last plus over a decade since then in and out of incarceration, overdosing, like all these things. He's like, but he didn't want to call it out to me, but he's like, let's go back to the. The. Foundation of who Christ is. And he's like, you want to go to church with me on Sunday? I'm like, yeah, I'll go to church. And at that time, I was broke. Like, my mom would send me a little bit of money. My sister was pretty much supporting me, and I would get food stamps. So, like, I had 200 bucks to spend a month on food plus whatever my sister would cook. And so, this guy would pick me up. He would take me to church. And then after, he would take me out to eat, and he would give me some Mexican food. Man, I was hungry because I was working out so much. Like, I was just. I was able to eat. And I loved those moments. And that's why today, when I invite people to church, I always. Like, especially young kids, because I have a heart for the youth. I always try to take them out to eat because, like, I don't know how hungry they are or how badly they want that meal. But I know how much it meant to me. So, that's something that I put in application today. But that guy was so gracious. He would come and pick me up, and he would take me to church, and he would talk to me. And I had some problems with. I had some problems with the Bible that I didn't agree with. And he didn't know how to answer my questions. But he was so moved by everything that I had been through. And what appeared to be like the Lord was working in me at that time. And he set me up and interviewed with the pastor of that church. And I remember some of my questions. And we were in a military neighborhood. And if a soldier would come in, like, they would be like, hey, he's home on leave. And everybody would stand up and clap. And I'd be like, how come you guys glorify people who are sent out to kill, like, for war? And, like, I couldn't wrap my brain around what was actually going on in war, like, in the purpose of it. I think, like, the beginning of the book in Genesis was something I could not wrap my brain around. The garden, the apple, the rib, those things. And I'm like, you've got to give me a better answer. And so I had, like, things that were, like, unbelief, right? And. Yeah. I don't think, like, I really came around. But that was, like, so earlier I had that seed planted. And now this guy came and put some water on it. He kind of showed me the love of Christ. He was very patient with me. Can I ask you a question? Are
Keith Vance: you still in contact with that guy today? I wish. I don't know what happened. You've got to find him. The second thing is, how long did your relationship with him last for?
Brandon St. Pierre: It lasted to after I moved there. And I think I finally, I would call him and voice, like, the things. When I started backsliding. And finally we lost contact. But he would pray for me. He would do so much for me.
Keith Vance: My third question is.
Keith Vance: Do you think he was intentionally, like, when you're in the gym, do you think he was intentionally, like, picked up on something new and intentionally was going to give you the gospel? Like.
Brandon St. Pierre: I think he was born again. And I think there's many people who walk around and think that they're born again. And they don't have a heart for the lost. They don't have a heart for people who are outside of Christ. And they think that just because whoever God has called is going to be saved, that they have no reason to talk. I think that that guy had actually had his heart converted and turned towards the Lord. So if he could find an opportunity in a conversation, he was going to use it.
Keith Vance: That's what I was going to ask. Do you think he was looking for an opportunity? I don't know. Or did the opportunity arise in the moment? And because of who he is, he's going to talk about what he is? I think it's because of who he is. Okay. Here's some questions I'm having in real time as I'm. Yeah. Like, I can see that setting. And there's just these little questions. And I did have
Brandon St. Pierre: like, I still have a lot of tattoos. And at that time I did too. And I, all my tattoos were from prison. So like, I know that I look like a con, even today, like when people look at me, you can see a convict, like, except for the tattoo on my throat. It's not from prison, but like other than that. So like, and I used to wear it. ...wife eaters and stuff. So, I know that when he looked at me, I mean, anybody who can put two plus two together can tell that that's a convict or an ex-convict. And I love that he didn't shy away from it, because so many do. And I don't want to get too far off topic, but that is part of the reason why my heart goes out for people in prison, because they get neglected, they get passed up, and that guy didn't pass up on me. And until this day, I have not had people stop me in my tracks and talk to me about Christ. But he did. Those people did in juvenile, which is like, it's a good place to do it. But on my own day-to-day, living a life of sin, looking like a sinful man, nobody ever stopped and said, hey. We've got to find that guy. I know. And you know what's crazy? What
Keith Vance: town
Crosstalk: in
Brandon St. Pierre: Texas was it? Copperisk Cove. Copperisk Cove. And he was a fireman. He was a fireman. It burdens my heart to this day, because I'm like, dude, I want to go and tell him. Bro, your work was not in vain. Your labor was not in vain. You didn't see the fruit right away, but God was working on
Crosstalk: you. Yeah, well, we need to find that guy. That's good. I can't think of his last name.
Keith Vance: It doesn't matter. We know the town he's at. What was the fire department he worked for? On the Army base,
Brandon St. Pierre: Fort Hood. Fort Hood Army base. It was on that Army base. Yeah. I could find it here. What church was that that you went to? You know, I don't know, but I delivered a dog to somebody in that town, and I was driving around, and I was trying to find that church. I was like, man.
Keith Vance: That's interesting. I want to find that guy so bad. That'd be cool to
Brandon St. Pierre: find. Find that and do like a— Yeah. Get your guys together. That seed that he planted, that water that he was putting on my seed that was planted there was so different, because he didn't stop. He poured into me, and he showed me that love. You know, the kind of love that can only be given to somebody who has been given a new heart, but made a new creation. The love that we are not born with. He showed me that love. He displayed it, and that was my first time in my life. I've ever seen it. At 23, 23 years old, never seen that love in my life, and he showed it to me, and it moved me so much. To this day, there's probably not a month that goes by without me talking. My wife, she'll tell you, I'm bringing that guy up, and he made an impact on my life.
Keith Vance: I'm glad we talked about him.
Brandon St. Pierre: I'm glad, too, because I would hate to have forgotten him, because he was so much of an impact. And when we get to later, like in this walk of my life— when I start talking about what the Lord is doing in my life right now, a lot of it comes from the example that he set. That's cool. And I was only with him for like five months. And that's why we can make an impact on somebody, and we may not see it. The Lord may not always allow us to see the impact that we had from pouring into somebody, but it happens, and I know it happens because it happened to me.
Brandon St. Pierre: So, my sister got tired of me being there. And I went back home.
Brandon St. Pierre: And I got back on drugs. I don't know exactly how long, maybe ten months. At this time now, like I was telling you, there's something happening where I'm starting to hate my addiction. And I'm telling my mom. At this time, remember how I said I was so resentful about the home I came up to? I remember being so angry at my mom and talking to her in a way that I would never speak to her. And I was just so mad. I was like, why did you let me come home to this? Like, I hate this. I wanted to kill myself. Like, I was just like, I hate my life. Like, I hate the addiction. And I was like, I'm trying this one more time. I was like, I'm going to try to get clean one more time. I was like, get me out of here. She's like, where do you want to go? I was like, send me to my dad's. I was like, I'm just going to go to Texas until I can get clean. My mom's still poor at that time. Doesn't have a lot of money. She's like, all right, we'll get you a ticket. I
Keith Vance: got to challenge you here because the person in me, and I don't know if it's good or bad, but just hearing you at 25 freaking years old. No,
Brandon St. Pierre: at this time I was 23. I'm sorry. It doesn't
Keith Vance: matter. Yeah. You're in your 20s. You should be able to handle your own business. I know. Telling your mama, hey mama, I'm mad at you because where I'm at, take me to my daddy's house. And I'm sorry, but that just building up in me, bro. Like, I don't know if that's good or bad. I don't know if that's good or bad.
Brandon St. Pierre: But you know, like I said earlier, where else would I expect anybody to be? Having a life outside of Christ. Growing up in a pagan home. And growing up in addiction. Like, I was set up for failure. And I'm not making excuses. I know. But like, when you're in that trap, the only way you get out of it is through the blood of the lamb. But yeah, I know. Like, I would now. You're taking advantage of your own
Keith Vance: mama. Mama fixed my problem for me. You're 20 something years old. And it's just, we're blind to it. When we're in that state, we're blind to it. And we use people. It's just. And
Brandon St. Pierre: that's why. The reason why I hate it is because
Keith Vance: I think I hate it myself. Yeah.
Brandon St. Pierre: And that's why I started by saying, like, I hate the way that I even spoke to her. Yeah. I hate the place that I was in. And you think about me there at 24. So my other sisters were all there and their boyfriends were still there. Like we were all deadbeats. We all lived at home. Like my other brothers, sisters, you know, in their late 20s, some maybe around 30. And I'm throwing these ages out. We might be wrong. All living there. Like we were all had nothing. And she was the only one that wasn't on drugs, you know, and we were all there just doing what drug addicts do. And it's a horrible life. And, you know, that's why they make shows like Intervention, kind of giving people like you who's never suffered with these addictions, like a glimpse to what it looks like. But that is how your life is when you're outside of Christ. And I know there's people who are outside of Christ who aren't addicts. But like some are in different levels of darkness. And like, you know, and like that's the level that I was in. It was wicked. Like there's. There's not words that I can even put together and articulate how evil the lifestyle was that I was living. And I hate that I was still there. I hate that I was on drugs at that age. I hate that I was crying to my mom for help. Like I couldn't get I couldn't get my own plane ticket because at this time I had nothing like I had gotten out and kind of started out with that little hustle. And but by the time you keep going and now I went to Texas, got clean. Right. It came back, did it all again. And I'm back in that trap. Right back in it. Yeah. And then. But every time you come back. You sink lower quicker. So before it might have took me a little while to sink that low. It might have took three months to get to that point. But now it's like three weeks. You're right there. And I'm so far gone back on heroin and doing all those things. And I needed help. And now at this time, like I have finally at that time, like where I didn't need my brother to suit dope into my veins. You know what? I now I'm like full on wake up and I was hopeless.
Keith Vance: I got to ask you one more thing. Before we move on. I just can't memory. You said at this point you want to kill yourself. I had a lot of suicidal thoughts at that time. And again, I keep drawing this back to. Human beings are created in the image of God. There's something about us that's different than any other creature in that we have a soul. There's something about us that God.
Keith Vance: God bestows his love on us. And there's something about that force of evil and darkness that again. The evil one can't touch God. But you know what? I can mar your creation. And those suicidal thoughts, how much of those are ours or how much over those come from another place? And it just it all goes together. There's this warfare against humanity. That's right. Because listen, the decisions we make are in this life. And then after this life. There are no second chances. So as you're talking about your your own struggle. There's another struggle going on. There's some. Pieces of the puzzle being moved around.
Brandon St. Pierre: You talked about that on your podcast. Yeah, I think so. The unseen realm. The demonic warfare. And we're kind of like
Keith Vance: talking about it right now. Yeah,
Brandon St. Pierre: I was caught up in the middle of it. It
Keith Vance: was horrible. I'm sorry. No, it's okay. So you had a bunch of suicidal thoughts. I did. I was just like that was my like pretty much my rock bottom. Did it scare you? Those thoughts scare you? Was it like relief? Like what were those thoughts? They were depressing. Depression. Yeah. Which is so weird because here you're doing anything you want. You don't have anybody telling you you can't do this. Your mama. You just said your mama let you like do whatever you want. You have free reign. It would seem like you wouldn't be depressed. It would seem like man. I'm doing everything I want to do. But everything that you want to do is bringing you to a place where you hate your life and you want to kill yourself. It's just ironic. It
Brandon St. Pierre: was. It was. I don't know. I don't know how to explain it. It's a feeling that I hope nobody ever has to feel. But unfortunately, because there is sin in this world. And it has such a stronghold on man. And that without surrendering to Christ, that that's something that's going to plague a lot of people. So I just I hope that somebody will listen to this as the suffering with those same things and that they will know that there is power in the blood of Christ. Like that they can cling to that blood and they can grab his word and pray it and read over it and meditate it and memorize it. And that is where the power is. Like. That will change. That will change you. Because it gives you a new heart. Like we were talking about earlier. That makes you a new creation. You. That old person is dead. You bury him. So we get to that soon, too. Because that's such a beautiful thing to know that, man. That like everything that happened before you give your life to Christ is that that person. Like if a true believer will look at you like that was that was then that person is dead. You're a new person. And I look forward to talking about that. What were you going to say?
Keith Vance: Your mama scraped together some money for you. She sent me there. Yeah, she
Brandon St. Pierre: sent me there. And I remember I made it like four or five days going through them withdrawals. It hurt so bad. I was about a week in. What hurts about it? Is it physical pain? Physical. Physical pain. It feels like you got hit by a truck. Until this day, I don't think I've ever felt anything like it. I can't describe anything because there is nothing that hurts this bad. That's scary. Yeah. That's why people get stuck on it for so long. Because it hurts so bad? It's so much pain. It starts from your back and goes down to your feet every day. It hurts more and more. And every day it travels throughout your body. The pain that you get from withdrawing from an opiate addiction is... You can break your bone and it won't hurt as bad as this. You can just snap your finger right now and it will not... I had... A nail go through my thumb about a year and a half ago. And that pain didn't even scratch the surface of the pain that you feel from withdrawing from opiates.
Keith Vance: I'm going to make one comment on that and I'm going to let you tell your story. Because having you said that with me not knowing what that feels like, it actually kind of gave me some compassion for a drug addict that knows that's what it feels like. That person may be trying. They may be. They may be trying. It just made my heart compassionate towards people that I just make a hard judgment on. So that's all I'm going to say about that. So go ahead.
Brandon St. Pierre: Yeah, there's no pain that I can think of to describe it so that you have an understanding. It's just there isn't any. It's bad. So when I'm in there and I'm going through that pain and I'm starting to give in. And my mom, at that time, she started showing some love. Like where I think would be like more loving. Like even though I say she's outside of Christ, so she cannot truly love. But like her action to me at this point was more loving where she was like, right now I can't see. I can't send you back. I think now looking back, I was like, thank you. But then I had other plans. Like I had no money, but I had other plans. Like so I had a woman that I was talking to and I would try to get her to fly me back. And she wouldn't. Or she tried, but she didn't. To fly you from Texas back to Florida. Got it. And for some reason, it did not go through. And my mom kept me there a little longer. And I want to say like two weeks finally. Okay. I was there and I had some good conversations with my dad. And I think that that's when me and my dad kind of started. Like those are probably the best conversations up until now. Because now I'm pretty close to my dad. But at that time, at 24, staying at his house. Like at that point, we had the best conversations that we've ever had at that point. And I think it was good that we did. And my dad would talk to me a little bit about God at that time. And I had like the understanding that I have from like Kevin. The things that I learned from him. And I probably never read anything out of the Bible. I can't say for sure. But at that time, I don't think I did. And so I just had like the information that people like Kevin had gave me. And my dad had talked to me about a couple of things. And like I thought at that point, like I was like, I think I want to try out really giving my life to God. And I was like, because at this time, like I kind of was starting to realize like my walk. Doesn't look like a Christian. I thought I was a Christian still because of the sinner's prayer at 11. Like at this point, I still think I'm a Christian. Wow. That's why I can't get away from like. Yeah. I went to church. I even got baptized at one time when I was a kid. Like I think at this point, like I'm good. You know, I said the prayer and we're having that conversation. And I end up coming back home. And when I come back home. That's what I'm like. One second.
Brandon St. Pierre: When I come back home.
Brandon St. Pierre: This probably within like 24 hours, maybe somebody calls me up. And at that time, like I'm just like a middleman hustler. Like if somebody needed something, I could get what I needed. And they called me up and they wanted something. And my whole intentions were to be clean. But I'm like, OK. And I'm going to get something. And I was going to make something. I had every intention to get high that night. And we get there knocking on the door. The people that were supposed to be there weren't there. I think I believe truly this is just sovereignty of the Lord. So finally, we get tired of waiting and bring back home. And I'm so like upset that I wasn't able to get these drugs. But I go to sleep and I wake up and I'm like, dude, I got two weeks clean. I'm 24 at this time now. I remember because I got clean June 26 when I was 24 years old. So I'm like, man, I'm like 18, 19 days. I don't know how many days I was at this time, but I'm like, last night I couldn't get it, and I'm glad. I woke up and I was kind of happy about it. Because my intentions were to get clean. In Texas, that was the only reason I went there. And I went to my mom, and I said, Mom, if I throw all my clothes away, will you buy me some new ones? I didn't have any job, nothing, bro. I had no license from a DUI I got when I was like 12. I took it away, seriously. So I had no license, no car, I had nothing. And she's like, why? I said, because, man, I don't want to be like that anymore. I don't want to look like that anymore. I want to change. My mom's broke as can be. She's like, yeah, I will. So I threw everything I had in the trash. And I took what I had on to go. My mom got me a pair of jeans, some new shirts. I was like, I'm going to go for a new clean-cut look. And I'm like, yeah. I got some V-necks, polos, some jeans, things that didn't really show all my tattoos.
Keith Vance: So your clothes that you're wearing portrayed a certain lifestyle that you're proud of? I think so, yeah. And so getting rid of those clothes, you're trying to change your image of that?
Brandon St. Pierre: Yeah, I was like, I just want to put everything behind me. And she did. She supported me so much, man. And I know that her idea of love was different. So there was things that I held resentment for, like coming home to the addiction. Not kicking these people out, but she couldn't. She just didn't have that discipline, that self-control that only comes from Christ. She just didn't have it to tell them, you got to go. And to hold us accountable just wasn't something that she did. Again, this
Keith Vance: goes back to the family. It's the man's responsibility to protect his wife. A mother shouldn't have to make those decisions. That's the dad's responsibility to put boundaries and protect his wife. So when the mechanism, the way they got her, the way the way God made it is broken, it's just limping along, brother. And so she didn't have a man in her life, I would say a husband in her life, that protected her and said, hey, son, hey, brother, you're 20-something years old. Go figure it out. She didn't have that. So as you're walking through it, there's all these moving parts. But at the bottom of it, there was your mama's love. She might have not done it the way she was supposed to, but if she would have had that mechanism, if we do things the way God, intended them to, life is good. The problem is, Adam, and we'll get into that later. So she did that.
Brandon St. Pierre: She got new clothes. Yeah, she didn't hesitate. And I got clean at that point. I was 24 years old. June 26th, I put it down. But I say clean to the standards of where I was, but I would still smoke marijuana. So that was what I would still do at that point. I would still smoke, but I did nothing else. I would not take an opiate. I would not take any pill. I would not take any cocaine. I would do nothing except smoke marijuana. And at this time, I don't think I ever really had a job, except for maybe a week here or two. So I didn't have a license. So she was like, all right, we'll get you a bike. Go find you a job. And I found a job. Finally, I was filling out applications. I had no work experience. I'm in my mid-20s with no work experience. And this guy, he calls me up, man, and he wanted to give me a job, but there wasn't a position. But he called me up. He's like, I'm going to keep you in mind. And I still couldn't find a job anywhere. And two weeks later, he calls me back. He's like, do you want to come wash dishes here? So I'm like, okay. Until this day, I still talk to this guy. He didn't really point me to Christ, but he did just love on me and kind of give me what I needed, like where he would teach me how to cook in the restaurant. He would pour into me. He would give me manly advice that I needed at that time. And at this time, so I kind of reset my life, and I didn't want anybody there to know that I used to be a drug addict. So I started, it's a horrible approach, but I started being very nasty to people who did drugs. And at this time, I only had three months clean, whatever. But that was my approach. Because I was like, if I portray myself to hate addicts, then I will never be an addict. I won't relapse. And these people will be like, but you were just saying that about him. So that was like my mindset. It was a bad mindset, but it worked for me at the time. So then I'm saving up money, finally got my license, got a truck, and it seemed like my life was really getting on the right track. And I'm clean. And then my mom decides to move. We moved back here. I'm back in Lehigh Acres. And I'm still working out. And I'm probably strongest that I've ever been in my life at this time. I'm working out like a madman. And I'm at the gym. And I run into this guy. And I think he thought that I did drugs, and he kind of, like, poked around it, and I was like, no, man, like, I don't do that, but I'm not opposed to selling it. And at that time, when we moved back over here, I had a job at a bar. I was working as a barback, and he's like, okay, come to my house, man, and let's sit down and talk about it. so I'm like processing in my mind like it's crazy the things that I was thinking because I was like all the money that I burned away when I did drugs I was like I need to do this again I need to sell drugs but clean and I was like and I can make so much money so we sat down and we put together like this plan and we went we went about it and he gave me some it was a small amount and I took it to where I worked and I started selling drugs again and um and it just it got out of hand I I
Brandon St. Pierre: was finally successful at staying clean so I I did not do any drugs except smoking marijuana and then I just started like being able to gain more and more clientele and then from different areas and before I knew it like I was just like selling more than I ever imagined myself being able to sell because like now I'm not doing all my profit and I was reinvesting it and see
Keith Vance: now the room to shifted before I felt sorry for you because you're trapped in addiction now there's something in me that I don't like where this is going because you're taking advantage of people i know and that's part of my testimony when i'm glad you'll be able to talk about it because the room just freaking shifted just now like i'm feeling i'm seeing you in a different light like this guy is looking for a way to take advantage somebody's taking advantage of you when you're looking for help trying to get out
Brandon St. Pierre: and i was taking advantage of people and when i talk to people about my debt and my sins and i talk about how wicked and corrupt that i was and at this point that now that i was free from addiction and like i'm holding myself on this pedestal of addicts and i was like i've overcome that and i'm but now i was preying on addicts
Keith Vance: that's that's the word praying yeah
Brandon St. Pierre: and i and man it's so sad i would even my own sister like i would feed her the drugs and bring it to her and um and have her even selling them and like giving her to sell and come pick up the money and uh it's
Keith Vance: just yeah i'm gonna let you tell your story but one side you're mad at your mom because mom why would you bring me into this when you know i have this weakness and now there's this flip where you're feeding them to your own people who are anyway just yeah
Brandon St. Pierre: and that's and that's why sin has such a stronghold on people right because that's how quick when you're outside of christ your mind can change and when you overcome something like addiction it becomes a place of pride not like how good is god that i've I've overcame my addiction, but like how prideful I am that I've overcome this. And now I'm going to use this as a tool to prey on everybody I can. So for this time in my life, from for probably the next four years, I think that was around 2016 until around 2020. That was that was what I did. I would, you know, just continue to sell drugs, but without using, you know, and. And so I would do that with that guy where it was cocaine, selling cocaine. And then I got into the marijuana industry and had somebody that I knew in California. And I was just always just thinking of ways to make more money. So I was paying too much here locally. So I started flying to California and then I would load up my suitcases and I would drive. I would fly back. I would fly back. back and um i thought that i had everything i wanted and that's what i really like to point people to who's in jail and it's like that man when we think that we have all these things that we want like i had every vehicle and and all these worldly things that i thought that i wanted but inside i was so empty and at that time where i was starting to use steroids to um build my my physique. And then when I was getting off the steroids, I was getting to a point where I was, so I was making a lot of money, all these things to my flesh, I thought was so good. Spiritually, I was empty. I think this is when the Lord started grabbing hold of me. And I was again, having suicidal thoughts coming off of the steroids. And I was just so broken. But I had this dog. And this dog, I had rescued it. And I was like, if I did this, if I blew my hat off. Like this dog would have nobody. And that dog, like the Lord utilized that dog to keep me alive. for a little longer and then finally so i got clean off the steroids and coming back to normal
Keith Vance: hold on i gotta ask you because i've asked you every other time i've asked you every other drug you did how did that make you feel i've never taken steroids yeah it's
Brandon St. Pierre: um what's like it made you feel strong like you know and obviously it made you feel you look strong but and i liked being strong but um i was now because i was clean from all those other drugs about roid rage i'm just curious i don't i think i was angry because i was outside of christ like it nothing had changed when i was on steroids from the other times like i was always just an angry person are
Keith Vance: steroids addictive i
Brandon St. Pierre: don't think physically i think maybe mentally because you don't want to stop being as strong as so but because i had been addicted to those other drugs that when i was doing the steroids i was like first like i was like not this isn't worth it right like so it wasn't a long period of time but when i was getting off with all those emotions and stuff but the lord at this time like started convicting me so that guy that i started doing that with putting these plans into action that i met at the gym and we had been selling Deutsche Deutsche Deutsche drugs together for like four years now um i started talking to him and and i started telling him i was like dude i want you to be ready for me to quit because i'm gonna quit soon i was like i'm gonna give my life to god i don't know this is when i i feel like the lord was working on me that's why i don't feel like salvation comes through always a supernatural uh i think no it always comes from a supernatural work from the Holy Spirit but not always just like a profession of the mouth right right it can look different ways like so this is the time before
Keith Vance: you before you talk about this are you still single this time you talked about your dog i was single you're single no no wife no kids yet no and i was
Brandon St. Pierre: living a life of sexual immorality okay i was so horrible with a sexual addiction that i've kind of left a lot out because i i don't want to talk too much on then don't on it i'm just curious yeah still addiction because um yeah because i I don't want my wife to hear about it. It was horrible. But it was something that kind of had a strong hold on me. But, yeah, I was living that life there. But the Lord was pricking my heart. And I remember telling this guy, like, be ready for my retirement.
Keith Vance: So funny. Yeah.
Brandon St. Pierre: I was like, I'm going to stop. And he's like, what are you talking about, bro? He's like, I've never made anything like you with what you've been able to do and accomplish. And I was like, you know, I'm happy with possessions right now. I was like, I feel like I want to give my life to the Lord. And at this time, so I think I'm a Christian still, right? But when I'm using this terminology, give my life to the Lord, I'm saying, like, I want to actually start walking with the Lord. Wow. And I'm
Keith Vance: praying. What was his response? Did he laugh at you? What was his
Brandon St. Pierre: response? The crazy thing is I still talk to this guy every day. Wow. Not every day. Probably every couple of days. Like, we'll have a text to each other. And I've been trying to get him to go to church for six years now. And he finally texted me the other day. He was like, bro, I'm reading the Bible. Wow. And I'm coming to church soon. He's like, I don't know when. But I've never given up on him because I love him so much. And no, he was like, bro, if you do that, he's like, I'm not stopping you. Well, he was like, I understand. Until this day, he's like, man, I'll never forget when you told me. That's cool. Yeah. And so like that, I feel like that. And I don't know the second. I was saved. Right. But I feel like the Lord was pricking my heart there. And I started like praying to him, like asking him, like, whatever it takes. And I think these might have been like my prayers of repentance. When I'm like, you know what? Like, whatever you have to do, like, cause me to walk in your ways. And like my prayer started changing from like, don't let me get arrested on this run. To like, Lord, deal with me accordingly. I don't know what was happening. But it was. The work of the Lord changing me. And I was like, Lord, give me a wife. Like, I want a wife. I want it. But I wasn't equipped to have a wife. But I wanted one. And so at that time, I'm living by myself. I'm doing these illegal activities for finances. And the flesh was on top of the world. But the spirit was broken. Like that part of me that like, because if I if that was the moment that I gave my life to Christ, but I have a moment that I'll talk about in a minute where I don't think that was it. But that was. Like the time when I got down on my knees and was like, but I think this was when this transition was happening, where the Lord was saving me right around this time when I was telling him that I'm going to leave this lifestyle. Because I was starting to have a heart of repentance that I never had before. Starting to desire godly things. A wife. I started even praying for the ministries that I have now. Like, like, Lord, allow me to pour into kids that was like myself at this time. But I wasn't. I was still walking horrible way. And. And that's when, like, the Lord was hearing my prayers. Like, I'm pretty sure this was around the. time that I truly gave my life to the Lord because of my heart had changed from loving sin to hating sin, like seeing my sin. You know, like before when I would commit sexual immoral sins, I would call my friend and or my friends and I would brag and boast and something was changing here to where like I had a strong addiction to women and something was changing to where like after they would leave, like my heart was different towards it. I was like, man, I want a wife. I don't want this. And this was the first time in my life and around this time is in my late 20s, like approaching 30, like so late, maybe early 29. And I finally knew, I finally started looking for a wife. I'm like, I'm going to start not treating women the same way so that maybe I can find a wife. And I found my wife and we went on a date. A lunch date. And she put up with me. I was like, look, I said, let's just hang out for the next week. And I remember telling her like, take a week off of work. And she's like, I can't. I got two kids. She's like, I can't just afford to take a week off. And I said, well, what do you make in a week? And I don't remember what it was. I was like, I'm going to go and I'm going to give you that much and just call your work and take a vacation or sick, whatever. I don't remember what she told him. So she's like, OK. So she took one week off and we spent every day together. And I was not honest with her about what I did for a living at first. But I must not have been good at lying because she was like, look, dude, I told her I own a construction business. And she's like, there's no way you own a construction business.
Crosstalk: You don't even carry a tape measure. Yeah. She's like, you don't have any tools in your
Brandon St. Pierre: house. You got a bass boat out front. Your truck. She's like, you don't. You don't. You're you're. She had all kinds of reasons. I think she went and looked it up. She's like, this isn't true. So I was like, OK, this is this is what I do. And she was like, hmm. And she kind of like planted that seed like. Ain't gonna work. Yeah. But she was like, this this can't happen long term. And we moved in with each other quickly. So like it was like a month. And she grew up in a Jewish household. So she was outside of Christ and she was in the same boat as me. Like she had never heard of Christ except for his name in vain. And so we we moved in together and I'm still doing these things for my way of making money. And.
Brandon St. Pierre: I this time I started listening to prosperity gospel. I didn't know any better, though. Like I just would go on to YouTube and I'd be like church service and Joel Osteen will pop up or. Yeah. Or Stephen Furtick or whatever. So like in my head, I did not know that these people were teaching false doctrines. But I was like, I need to start like if I'm going to give my life to God, where do I start? Like, let me start here. Let me start listening to church on YouTube. So I would listen to those guys. And I told Amber like I was like. The same thing I was telling my friend before I was like, I want to give my life to the Lord. Like, I want to really like start walking with God. And that's why I feel like he saved me around that. Time before that, because like and like you were saying, that sanctification. So it was still slow, like I was still smoking marijuana, still selling drugs and I was still sexually immoral. But my heart was feeling different about it. And she's like, all right, we can go to a church. We can check it out. And. We went to like three or four churches. But my timeline here is a little bit like jogged with my memory. So. Like. Like.
Brandon St. Pierre: Like. Like. Like. know but um so i'll just go with that where we i was driving back and it worked and i i um came back and i was like all right i'm gonna go back and i would pick my dad up because like i was like hey i'm going through texas let me spend some time with him so i would drive up to california i would drive back and i would just have my dad drive while i slept so the car pretty much never even got turned off like we just went there and back i didn't even get oil changes so i mean at 7 000 miles i was probably blowing up motors and um did your dad know what you're doing Yes. So, my dad would drive with me. We'd spend time together. It was pretty good. And at that time, something was happening. I think it was from smoking the marijuana, where I had like two seizures. And when I was coming back from California one time, my dad wanted to go home. And I was like, dude, I'll fly you back. Let's drive home to my house. He's like, I got to go home. I don't want to disclose the reasons for him wanting to go home, but he did. He wanted to go there. So I was like, all right. So I get off the exit, and I'm driving through this little small country town.
Keith Vance: In Texas. Yeah,
Brandon St. Pierre: in the middle of the night, about 2 o'clock in the morning. And I'm drinking energy drinks. I'm smoking those pens. And I'm listening to these prosperity preachers. I'm having now this desire to start going to church and things like that. so i pull over and uh the cop starts asking questions and he's got this video camera and he why'd you get pulled over i did nothing wrong like as far as like traffic violation he just seen the car he hadn't seen a car in a while he ran the tag he said it came out to a rental company so he pulled it over but it was the grace of god that he pulled me over and uh he talks to me and um gets done asking me whatever he wants to ask me and he goes around to the side and he's talking to my dad and getting the story from my dad and his dash cam was pointing on me and the later the attorney placed it back to me and i started having a seizure right there and if i would have been on here say 10 i mean i'm doing 75 miles an hour i would have could have died there's a good chance of it so the cop sees me having a seizure he thinks i'm drunk or something so he comes over he takes me out the car and uh he sits me down and they search the vehicle they I found the trunk filled with marijuana. And that's when I went into that cell that they had locked me up in. And that's when I was on my knees praying. But I don't associate that moment necessarily with the moment that I was saved. I kind of think it already happened leading up to there. Because you cannot have a hatred for your sin without the work of the Lord. But that is a moment where I was like, this has to stop. But
Keith Vance: here's the thing. And that's why I said, I hope you didn't misunderstand me. Some people, all the pieces of the puzzle are lined up. They understand what the gospel is and boom. Other people, who knows when they get saved, but their story of Christ trying to intercede and rescue them is a long story like yours, where you can see these interventions where Christ is just trying to cross paths with you. And then you're having thoughts that aren't your thoughts. Where do those thoughts come from? So I'm saying some conversions seem to be boom overnight, and other ones are like, man, at 11 years old, I never thought about God, but this guy made me say this prayer. And then as life got hard, you'd fall back on this prayer. You'd pray to God, but you're really praying to yourself. And then it kind of looked different, right? When did he get saved? I don't know, but he saved you. And you can see where he's trying to rescue you. He's trying to make intersection with what you're trying to do. and just even like these kind of where did the thought man i want to give my life to god where that come from that doesn't come from that heart of stone that comes from somewhere else but you have those thoughts when christ is trying to intersect with you through these random conversations through working out in a gym and this guy this fireman comes over and say hey dude what you doing for an ab workout that's god right so that's what i hope you didn't misunderstand me earlier no
Brandon St. Pierre: and i know a lot of people that feel that way and i and we might even be saying the same thing i'm wording it differently yeah i just don't think i was saved at 11 based on lifestyle
Keith Vance: and i don't think you were either yeah i don't think you were either but i think your salvation story yeah took a place over a long time you know i mean it took a place over a long time yeah yeah anyway i'm sorry no it's okay so you're having a seizure and then the cop thinks you're drunk so did why you're having a seizure he comes over yeah and like pretty much
Brandon St. Pierre: waits for me to be done puts me on the sidewalk um yeah and they find it they put me in jail and while i'm in jail uh and man so i was reinvesting like my i would always reinvest like pretty much whatever i had like i had some things that were worth money like my watch i had a you know which i ended up selling it that's what i always try to tell people like you've been getting all these things and then when when I lost everything, like I had a Rolex, which to me, like I always wanted. So it, it, it hurt me like the flesh of me. It hurt me to have to sell that. And I had my dream bass boat. I had to sell that because like when I went there, like I had pretty much all my money in that car. Yeah, so I went home broke. Like I left on top of the world and I came back broke as a joke. And my wife stood by my side, dude. She was like, well, we're going to do this. We're good. And when I was in there praying, I was like, and I was fasting too, but I don't necessarily, I'm not saying that I was, I didn't even know to fast for God probably at that time, but without knowing that I was fasting because the food was so horrible. I wouldn't eat. So I do think that like sometimes when you do that, there's like a clarity that your mind has, even though I didn't, I'm not like intentionally fasting for the Lord. Right. It still was in a fast and I think it gave me like some clarity. So while I was in there, I was praying even more than I ever had prayed. And I decided in there, I'm like, I need to start a business. Like I can't work for anybody because I don't know how to do anything except I cooked for a couple of years. Like I was telling you when I got clean, maybe it was like a year. And I wasn't even that good. And I was like, and I can't take instruction from people like in a workplace. Like I'm just not good at it. And I was like, I got to start a business. So I just bought a dog before that and I paid 2,500 bucks for it. And I was like, huh? I was like, well, I came and gave that guy 2,500. I was like, let me just start breeding dogs. So I went home and told my wife, I was like, dude, we're going to start breeding dogs. And she's like, we're broke. I was like, all right, I'm gonna sell my Rolex. I'm gonna sell my watch and I'm gonna sell my boat. I got 31 grand from my boat and I got five grand from my Rolex. And I took, I paid our rent like a couple of months forward and I went and spent everything on dogs. And, um, so now we're broke again. And, uh, I wish that I could say that. I wish I could have said, man, I just, that supernatural moment. I never sold drugs again, but I'm now fighting the case. I'm out on probate, not on probation, out on bond, but they had not yet indicted me. And, um. The charges open, but I already, I went and I hired an attorney right away. And, um, I'm fighting this case and I'm like, dude, I, this is all that I know. So I still continue to sell marijuana and I would go back. I would go to California and started helping the guy that I'll buy it from. Like I would farm, cause I had no money. So I would farm in exchange for marijuana, ship it back and the mail or whatever, and continue to sell just to get by it this time. Now I went from like feeling like I was on top of the world to just barely getting by. And, um. We, so I, I'm now kind of like going through that thinking that that's when we started looking for our church. Because I remember how gracious our church was with me in this time of my life, because we're looking for a church. We start going to like four or five different churches and everyone, we would walk out and be like, nah, this ain't it. And we walked into Crossroads Baptist church and David was preaching through the book of Acts. And I think that was the first time I ever heard sound preaching. And we looked at each other and she was still at this point, like outside of Christ. And I was finally starting to have like my heart turning towards the Lord. And we were like, this is it. And we went and so I would go to California. I would come back. I would go to California, come back. So we decided that was going to be the church. And then I went back up to do some more farming to get some more marijuana to get down here. And she started talking to the pastor. We had an associate pastor there that him and his wife embraced Amber and they took her out to lunch. And she's calling me while I'm out there in the woods and she's telling me about it. I'm like, yeah, this is going to be good, man. We're going to start going to church. So
Keith Vance: when you say farming, I thought it was farming marijuana. I thought it was like terminology for something. But you're on the woods growing marijuana. Yeah. You're not out in the field like tilling up the ground. You're on the woods hiding. Grow. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. So. So you're farming during the week. And then you're out in the woods. You're going to church on Sunday. I
Brandon St. Pierre: would farm for a couple of weeks and I would fly back down with marijuana. Like I would try to farm in exchange for money because I had no money. Now I would like be like, okay, so now I've helped you farm for a couple of weeks and I would bring back marijuana, sell it to pay my bills. Understood. So I did that for far too long until we were able to start breeding some dogs. And the Lord has provided for us since our first litter to where that has been able to provide for us. But so like my church, they knew that I went there to California. And they were so gracious in the way that they approached me. I remember sitting down in the office with the associate pastor and he's kind of like reprocessing all this. And he's like, so you're telling me, cause I want to be honest. Like I didn't want to be a liar. I didn't say necessarily that I brought it back here and sold it, but I was like, Hey, I go up here and I farm and I'm trying to provide for my family, which was half of the truth. Right. And, uh, he's like, okay. You know? Yeah. And he didn't like. Called me out right away, but he did kind of grab a hold of one thing of sin in my life. Me and my wife were living together. We weren't married. He's like, are you guys having sex outside of marriage and stuff? I was like, yeah. He's like, if you guys are going to pursue our church membership, you should be married if you're living together. Me and Amber started talking about it, but he was so gracious to me in everything. Even knowing that I was doing that, his approach was so different than anything I ever expected for pastors or Christians to approach people like that. He didn't rebuke me right away. Even when he talked about my sin of sexual immorality, he was very gracious with it. He allowed the Lord to convict me. That's why now, today, when I meet people like myself, and I put myself in. I don't go calling out all their sin right away. I probably will after some time if they haven't corrected it, but he allowed the Lord to do it, and the Lord did.
Keith Vance: Just hearing you describe that setting, my mind went to Christ sitting at the well, and the woman approaches. That's good. He just starts asking questions. He's not upset. He's not condemning her. He just, hey, go get your husband. I don't have a husband. He just. Just gracious. Got to the truth, but in a gracious way, and only a way that he can. It was just interesting that the guy you dealt with, I had that thought. That's Christ-like.
Brandon St. Pierre: Yeah, and he's not there anymore. He went on to be a lead pastor on the other coast, but the example that he set for me in that setting will be profitable for me until I die. Because it's shown me how to deal with people who are in that mindset at that time. Yeah. It's like trusting that the Holy Spirit is actually the one who does the convicting, and that there is a time to rebuke sin. Sure. Even when he's rebuked the sexual immorality, because maybe there's a little more urgency to it. He's like, y'all are limited. He did it in such a loving way and allowed the Lord to convict me, and man, before I know it, he is. He's convicted me. Me and Amber went home, and she was like, so what did you think about that conversation? I was like, so is that what you want to do? You want to stop? And having sex? And she's like, that's what we just talked about? And I was like, okay. So we decided, we kind of sat down right there at that moment, and we were like, what other sin can we eliminate from our life? And we just, man, we started having God-glorifying conversations. We were like, let's stop using profanity. So we stopped. Right there, I don't think we've ever used profanity again. There will be like... There's times when she gets mad and she's slipped up, but as far as that, we've eliminated it from our life. And then after some time went on, we decided we're like, man, this marijuana thing is stopping us from being in the Word. And gradually, we just started talking about sin, but I'm still doing that. And finally, she was like, at the beginning, she was like the spiritual leader of our family. And she was growing quicker than I was at this time. And she's like, you have to stop selling this stuff. So I finally got on a phone and called some guy that I knew was a pastor. I don't think I've ever talked to him again. But he didn't know anybody, and I just wanted to talk to somebody. He didn't know anybody in my family, but he was a friend's pastor. So I called him up, and I talked to him about it. And he told me this testimony about where he was in a situation like that. And he's like, I went home, and I threw it all in the trash. So I'm thinking about it. I'm like, yeah, maybe I should go home and just throw everything I have in the trash. But then I'm thinking about my bills and things like that. So I go home, and I wish that I could give that kind of testimony and be like, and I threw it all away. But I didn't. I sold it and paid my bills some more time. But then this moment happened where we had received a large shipment of marijuana in the house. I don't remember. It was quite a bit. It was a lot. It was a lot. Was it
Keith Vance: just you and Amber still, or do you got kids?
Brandon St. Pierre: Oh, we got the two kids that she had. Yeah, they're my children through marriage. Forgot about that. So we had two children at that time. And I had this large shipment. And I made a large chunk of money off of it. But the conviction was getting so strong that we couldn't shake it. And I told her, I'm like, I'm bringing it all back. She's like, what? I said, I'm bringing it all back to that guy. That guy that I... I got it from. And I did. I pulled up in his yard and I was like, dude, come get this. He's like, my nephew's on probation. don't bring that to my house. And I was like, look, dude, it's going to be sitting in your yard. And I took it out and I threw it in his yard. And I was like, I don't want it. And I had like, I just had it. It was like in a toolbox, like a work box. And it was in there. And I just left it there. And I never went back. So that was a good moment that I can remember. Like I didn't do it the moment I heard that testimony. But later down the road, like some time had passed in this season, like a couple of weeks, maybe a couple of months, where I finally did say like, you know. But I never truly like just trusted the Lord to provide for me to where like I could just get rid of it. So like I did it after I felt like I had enough money to get me through until a certain amount of time. And I wish that my faith would have been stronger at that time, but it wasn't. So we did. And then we had a litter of dogs. And we didn't have a lot of dogs, but we've been living on that ever since, breeding dogs. And then. That's when we eventually got into some different avenues of businesses. But at that time, I started getting more immersed in God's word. Amber started getting more immersed in God's word. And I had this guy started to disciple me at Crossroads Baptist Church. He doesn't work there anymore, but he was a pastor there, too. And he was just I've never met anybody like this guy. Oh, you met him. I did. He came to the jail with me. And he just started pouring into me. And, you know, there's a proverb. This is like when you pour another God's a pouring to you. And I always think that. And that's why I love pouring into people. But I always think of the way that he poured into me, because when we went there, a lot of people knew kind of what I was doing. They knew my testimony. And I didn't always get like the welcome that that I thought I was supposed to get, which I don't people weren't like rude to me, but they weren't like embracing me with hugs. But this guy was and his wife was. And they knew that I was fighting that charge. So I had been fighting this charge for a long time. It was still an open case. They would constantly pray with me. They would come over and they would read the Bible with me, him and his wife and Amber would. And then at this time, Amber started going to church on Wednesdays. And at this time, Crossroads only had a prayer group. And like that's why I was saying she was growing a lot quicker than me. And I could not stop at this time reading the Bible, listening to the Bible. And I would listen to the book of James. Like somebody. Somebody will listen to a song on it on a cassette over and over. I'll put on James every day. And I started just getting very like immersed in prayer, immersed in God's word. We will go to Sunday school. We will go to church every time the doors open. But I wasn't really going with her on Wednesdays. And then she finally talked me into it. And that was before like there. Now there's a prayer group there before like the classes start. But at this time, they only had like everybody meeting there and they would pray. And I had never prayed in public at this time. And I remember going there and Amber's leading me at this time, which I know is not the right way. But that's the way it happened. And going in this circle and we're all like have a list of things to pray for. And I remember being so nervous. But but the Lord was growing me so much man. And my prayer life started to change. And I had this open case, you know, not knowing how much time I was going to get. And they were offering me. The first plea came. It was six years in prison. Well, yeah. And Amber was nervous. And I remember that the Lord had given me this like peace and being like in Christ that I was like, if I go in there, I'm going to be like the Apostle Paul in prison. Like, that's fine. And I was content with it. But I was like, but I don't think I'm going to go. And my faith was just growing and strengthening. And the work that the Lord was doing. Me was so strong. But before I get into this section, can we do another break? Let's do it. So I'm just that way I can focus because let's do it.
Keith Vance: This part of the podcast is brought to you by Boots and Bubbles. This is a special one for me, man. It's my two girls, 15 and 17. Boots and Bubbles specialize in Southern style dirty sodas. An alternative to your regular boring soda. If you're in the Lee County area and you want to book them for an event, find the link in the bio. In the meantime, let's get back to the show. We're back from our little break. Thank you, man. A couple of thoughts I had as you're talking. I didn't want to stop you because you're on a roll. But when you talked about you're in church, even with your past, even with your your pastor. Hey, before you guys join, you get married and him being gentle with you and lead you along. And then you're going to church and still farming and doing these things. And. And. I didn't realize how... I'm going to own this. I'm going to say the way I was raised or the way I was brought, but I'm going to own it. I didn't realize how judgmental I am until the last several months. And I make hard decisions on people. You claim to be a Christian, you should be here. You should be here in your walk. But I guess I've always known this, but never really applied it. The work of salvation...
Keith Vance: Wow.
Keith Vance: Wow.
Keith Vance: The work of salvation is... is... God's work. We have no play in that game. He rescues us. It's His work. We cannot do for ourselves what He did for us. There's nothing within me that is of any good that can get me to heaven. He has to condescend. He has to go from there all the way to here. He can't come 99 feet and 99 inches and me just make it the one little bit. He has to come all the way. He has to come all the way to me. So, I understand that. But also, the sanctification process is His work. Not everybody grows at... We all grow at different rates. We all grow at... You plant some seed, not all of it grows up the same. It all gets the same amount of water. It all gets the same amount of sun. It all gets the same amount of nutrients. But it's like this. Am I judgmental? Am I judgmental? Am I judgmental? Can see the faults in everybody else and where they should be and where they're not. And it's like the last six months, God just put like a mirror in front of my face. You know what I mean? Where I can so quickly see everybody else. Like, if I would have known you back then, known you're coming to church and you just got back from California, brother, I would have put you in a box. I would have put you in a box.
Keith Vance: But Christ isn't like me. He's patient with us. He's patient with us. And he grows us according to his timing. And if I would have known you then, I don't think I would have been like you're a pastor that was patient with you. I might have made you feel a certain way because I'm good at making people a certain way without saying it. And that probably would have been a stumbling block for you. If I would have known you back then,
Keith Vance: maybe you
Crosstalk: would have gave up. You
Keith Vance: understand? You understand what I'm saying?
Crosstalk: Yeah. But there was people that took that place. I'm not talking about other people. I'm talking about me.
Keith Vance: I'm talking about me and where I'm at in life. So those of us who are Christian and claim to be Christian and just...
Keith Vance: Man, you don't want to pour cold water on what God's doing in someone's life to just extinguish what God is doing. Huh? That's right. And just as you talk, I'm having compassion. I'm just seeing... Because I'm the son of a pastor. I've been a son of a pastor for 10 years. I grew up in the church. And I got good at... All right, I know what this sermon's about. I know who's it for. And they didn't respond to it like they should have. Making these judgments.
Keith Vance: Anyway, God's doing a work in me. He's uprooted my entire identity of everything that I thought was in its place. I'm good at putting everything in a box. And if it don't fit in a box, I ain't got time for you or room for that. And God is doing something to me where... Is something... Is something... Right? Is it wrong or is it just different? And I'll give you an example. And then we'll get back to your story. Because I'm already here. So I'm going to play in this playground for a minute.
Keith Vance: Is it right, wrong, or just different? Is it wrong or just different? To bring a coffee into church and to drink coffee while preaching is going on. I used to think that that was wrong. You don't never do that. Man, that is disrespectful to the pulpit. So when I come to where we're at now and I see all these people disgracing the holy place by bringing a coffee into the holy place and I'm putting everybody in a box. I see this guy with tattoos that's carrying a freaking offering plate. What's that guy doing? Carrying an offering plate. That guy... No, those two don't fit. And I'm putting everybody in a box, got the whole room sized up. The pastor's going to get behind a pulpit and he don't even have a tie on. You're going to disrespect the word of God by not looking a certain way. And then I actually get to know these people, brother. I actually get to know that guy in that chair right now. And I'm convicted. And I'm convicted. That God is working in all of us. And he uses different vessels to accomplish his will and his purpose.
Brandon St. Pierre: That's powerful. And you know, it's so true as to what God's word says. Because you're not the only person who does that. Because when I was in that place, I had a lot of people that kind of attacked my character. And it did hurt me a lot. But I had that one guy that I was talking about that poured into me. If it wasn't for
Keith Vance: him, that's what I'm saying. If it wasn't for that one. This is what God's
Brandon St. Pierre: word says. And he would point me to scripture that would help me overcome it. But God's word says that the man looks on the outward appearance. But God looks on the heart. So we should expect people to do that. Because the Lord is sanctifying people at different paces. And some of those people, like in five years, would never do that. But naturally, when we're in this walk, there is going to be times, like even myself, like the Lord is growing me to where I start to fight with him. And I have to remind myself of what God's word says when it says that. Look on the outward. Because God is looking on their heart and trying to find out where people are coming from, what their heart posture is, helps us.
Keith Vance: That's where I've been for this past six months. When I look at you, God won't let me see you. He's putting this giant mirror in front of me. And I'm seeing myself. I'm trying to understand you and what this is all about. And I'm seeing myself. And I'm seeing all this garbage in me that needs to be sanctified out of me. And it's been therapeutic for being good for me. Because, brother, I've got a long way to go. I think I'm this freaking six foot tall of corn in the garden and nobody's as tall as me. No. I'm way down here. Like when you put a mirror of reality in front of me, I'm way down here. And all these people that I thought were beneath me or whatever, they're actually ones that are a lot farther along their growth than me. So this is my own personal interjection. I felt it. And I hope I didn't distract you from your story.
Crosstalk: No, that was out of fun. I appreciate you
Brandon St. Pierre: saying it. Sometimes we need to hear that. Because it's good to know that, like, you know, the Lord, even to use all that I've been through and the way that I look to help reveal things to somebody for their sanctification, for your good, for the glory of God. It's a blessing. Everything that I've been through, because, like, you can look at me and tell what I've been through, that it has not been in vain.
Keith Vance: I'm going to say one more thing. You can tell your story. I was going to save this to the end, but we're already kind of here. We mentioned I go to the jail ministry with you. I'm trying to find my place in the church, and I just wanted to support you. So I go to the jail ministry with you every Thursday. You have a ministry to those guys that I cannot have. I don't understand it. In fact, a few weeks ago, a guy's looking you over. He's like, hey, you got those in prison. Those just look like tattoos to me. But a guy that knows that life knows what's the difference between a prison tattoo and what's not. He knew it. So your entire life journey, I would say, in the sovereignty of God, God allowed you to endure everything you went through, the homelessness, all the 113 days in jail, really to build you to be able to tell a story and identify with a certain sect of people that I wouldn't be able to. You understand? I'm seeing God's work. He has some vessels for honor, some vessels for dishonor. He has. A place for all of us. And he's doing his work and he uses different people from all different spectrums to accomplish that work. Right. So I'll tell you one more piece of the puzzle that I'm beginning to understand. I shared a little bit about where I'm at right now. I shared a little bit of this with you earlier, and I'm going to do a podcast about this. I just. I just at 50 years old. Realized that I have anxiety. I thought anxiety was this thing where. You don't have enough money in the bank account to pay your mortgage and you're anxious about it. I didn't know. Like, am I? I never felt that because I'm like you. I'm going to figure it out. I'm going to breed a dog. I'm going to do like I'm like I can close that gap because I'm a man and that's what I do. Anxiety. What I have is anxiety is. Fixating on things and not being able to let it go. So. So anxiety that I have is like the smoke detector in my brain. There's no difference between the houses on fire and burning down, and there's some toast that's burning. Like everything, the house is burning down. It's been good for me because in business, like I'm on it, like everything. I thought that my work ethic is what drove me. It's been my anxiety. Brother, if you don't get up in the morning at 6, 3 in the morning and your heart is pounding, you got a lump in your throat, your ears are ringing, and you're getting ready because the house is on fire. If you don't feel that at 6, 3 in the morning, you don't care. You're not working hard enough, whatever. Like I thought that was my work ethic. And now I'm feeling like having lived my entire life like that, and at 50 years old, I feel like that truck that's been running that hard its whole life, I feel like if something don't change, I'm going to blow a freaking gasket. This is unsustainable. You understand? So I was, now that I'm aware of it myself, this is another mirror that God's putting in front of me. He's doing something in me that's changing me, man, and it's hard. It's hard at my age when I think I should have everything figured out about myself to feel like I'm in this thing that's just shaking up like this and I don't know what's up or what's down. I don't know what emotions that I have are these right emotions. I don't know if I'm looking at this person, if my size isn't upright. Like I'm just like... I'm afraid to make a decision because I don't trust myself because I've always judged size things up by what my eyes, what my brain says is right or wrong. That's what I've done my whole life without realizing it. So I'm going through this thing. Some stuff is stacking up on me, and I feel this. I feel it coming on, and I know my mechanism to release the feeling is, to flip the room. Stuff needs to be done in here. It's not getting done. How come that doesn't bother you, that sitting over there? Like I cannot let that go. I'm the only one that sees it. It doesn't bother you. And it used to be that because you're lazy. You don't care. I'm the only one that cares. I'm like, I just... The house is on fire. Meanwhile, it's some burnt toast. So now that I'm aware of it, I'm trying not to flip the room. I'm trying not to make you feel a certain way. Like what's wrong with Keith? Like we were just talking normal, and now all of a sudden, he's like something's wrong. I'm trying not to do that. But I don't... It's like trying to work on a machine that you don't know how it works with tools you've never used before. Like I don't... It's coming, but I don't know how to stop this. So I'm having a conversation with my wife, and she is trying to help me, but she doesn't have this. She doesn't understand this. She can sympathize. She can sympathize, but she doesn't have it. And I'm like, honey, I know what you're trying to do. You're trying to, but it's not like... You don't experience it. I said, baby, just like when your dad died, I sympathize with you, but I have both my parents. Like I don't know what that's like. I want to, but I don't. So I'm trying to figure this out. Trying not to blow a freaking room up like I always do when things aren't in their perfect spot. And I go to this meeting that I'm not supposed to go to because... Because... My son is on vacation. I'm feeling a certain way. He should be here to handle this. You know, I'm having all these thoughts like I do. So I go to this meeting with this guy that's highly successful. We finished the meeting. He's like, hey, Keith, you got him in the talk. Like, yeah, you know what you need. And anxiety comes up. And here I'm talking with this other guy. I just had finished having a conversation with my wife that she can't help me. I'm talking to this other guy. He's like, Keith, I got goosebumps right now. He's like, you're describing my life. And this guy, God put this person in my life, this guy that knew what that felt like to help me. And I relate that to God doing his work. I go with you every Thursday, brother. I'm there. But I've never been to jail. I don't have a record. And you... I watch it. I watch it. I watch it. You minister to those guys in a way that you don't know. That connects. That only you can do. It's amazing when you can see it. When God gives you a little glimpse of what he's doing, man. And he removes your own eyes. He removes your own feelings on things and just shakes up your world. He says, hey, watch this. Watch what I'm doing, Keith. And he gives you a little glimpse of what he's doing. Through these imperfect, tattooed people that used to sell drugs for a living that he chooses to use. He chooses to use people like us that don't deserve it. Ha! Yeah. It's amazing, man. It's amazing. And then I walk along in my judgment until I pour cold water on you. And I'm going to do it again. I don't want to. I need to be, I need to be, I need me pulled out of me. And we all do. So, anyway, that's where I'm at in life, man. And you just, you just, like, listen to your story. And it's three hours. It can take another three hours. I don't care.
Keith Vance: It's been therapeutic for me to listen and, like, again, to use you as a mirror to see some of those things in me. That God can use whoever he wants, however he wants, and he has a place for all of us. And who am I to say he can't use somebody?
Crosstalk: You know, and
Brandon St. Pierre: before I go back, like, where I was, I want to hone in on what you're saying. Because. I think that men who are in the same situation as me, they don't realize that they can be used by God because they've never actually read through his word. Right. That may not have happened. That desire to go through the scriptures may not have happened. But we can see throughout the scriptures. And that's what I try to do is to shed light on that. When I'm talking to these convicts and people who are on drugs, people who are without mothers and fathers like that, when Christ came, God in the. Flesh and he came and he walked this earth, this sinless life that he lived, and he had that ministry when he chose these men to follow him. He chose twelve ordinary men. He did not take, you know, kings or well to do people like he took very simple men. And then even after he left. And they chose the Lord chose Paul. Paul. Was it was a man who was a sinful man. He was a Pharisee, but he was a a murderer. He was on his way to go bind up Christians on his way to do that. He gets knocked off his horse and has a moment of transformation. And I think that people like myself, they feel so broken and they feel like that. They've they've out sinned the grace of God and they have not that they think they are so far gone that that not only can they not be used by the Lord, but they can't be saved by the Lord. But they have not read. And when you point out to people and you open God's word and you're like, hey, look, look at this tax collector. Look at this fisherman. Look at his zealot. Look at these men. Look at this. This murderer. And look at what
Crosstalk: the Lord. Look at who he grabbed hold of. And made his. That's something that I would have never have known.
Keith Vance: I would have glossed over it. You know, thank you. I didn't mean to steal. You know, it's OK. I didn't mean it. But thank you for. Like. Listening to
Crosstalk: me. I didn't mean to steal. This is your podcast. That's good. And, you know, it's like that.
Brandon St. Pierre: Psalm. David. He preaches it from the pulpit when he was there all the time. Like every week he would preach this verse. Verse one. Psalm 115. Not to us. Oh, Lord, not to us, but to your name be the glory. And that that is I know my heart posture here and yours. So I don't think it's necessarily like about just walking through it in the specific order. But if the Lord leads you to say that, like it is. It is for God's glory. And and it's important for people to know that, like that, that he uses men like us. Not to say that he can't use a doctor or a lawyer, because. But he does. He uses the regular ordinary man. So I appreciate you taking us there. But if we get back. Do you want me to go back to kind of where I was? So we're going there and I have that man pouring into me. Who is crazy because I still keep in contact with him. I mean, he doesn't like pouring to me like he used to. And I don't know if it's just that he's kind of, you know, the Lord's taking us in different directions. And somebody else will soon. And. But that man is still a big part of my life. He's still encouraging. And he is a big reason why my faith was so strong. Even before I would go to fight those court cases, when I would fly to Texas for court, he would come and meet me. And pray with me. And, you know, there's an old man that goes to our church. That lists on my property. You know, that little fellow passes out candy around the church. Who I love dearly. And he made an impact on me as well. Like when we were going through this court case, I remember him looking at me. And he'd be like, man, you're facing six years, dude. And you act like nothing's even happening. And I'd be like, you know, I hadn't thought about it today. You know, thanks for bringing it up. Yeah. And he'd be like, let's pray. But when I realized when he would say that, is that the Lord? was really becoming where my rest was. It says that if the Lord does not build a house and it's built in vain, that He is our rock. He's a firm foundation. And those are scriptures that I know now, but I don't necessarily know if I was resting in those scriptures at that time. But like I was saying earlier, we don't actually have to know everything that it says for that to be taking place in our life. But that was taking place in my life at that time. And now I can look back and remember when He was saying those things, and it's like my rest was in Him, knowing that whether I was freed or whether I went in, like what was I going to do? I was going to make use of the time. Like Ephesians even talks about that, like being good stewards of our time. And I was going to take every second I had in there, if I did get sent away, on mission, evangelizing and studying God's Word. And that is about the time when the Lord started giving me an overwhelming, overwhelming desire for evangelism. That's when God's Word started becoming like just like a magnet to my heart. Like I could not stop meditating on scripture, thinking about it, talking to my wife about it, like and she was the same way. So like she's reading through the Old Testament. I'm reading through the New Testament. And we are just like bouncing these things to people that have never read this stuff before. And we are in awe of who God is. And it is by His supernatural work that these things are happening. And then I have that man who's pouring into me. I have the guy from our church that is constantly praying with me and praying for me, praying over me. And the Lord is working in me. And one of those men put me to a test of evangelism. And he's just like, you need to start telling people about Christ. Like don't wait until if you go to prison, like start doing it now. And he would challenge me to every day, just evangelize. And this was in 2021. And he's like, and after you do this for a month, he's like, it'll just become natural to you. And he did. And that's kind of when my heart posture started going towards evangelism. And when my prayers started going towards evangelism. So like that's when I even started praying with the Lord, like I'm praying for a jail ministry. And the foster home is something that was just all the Lord, because like I didn't actually pray for that. But the Lord, by His providence, put me there. And, um, soon after from a man that I met at a Bible study, invited me to something. And I met another guy that was in the juvenile detention center, um, ministering. And I didn't even want to go there that day. Like I told him, I dropped off a dog the night before. And I told my wife, like, I'm so tired. And she's like, you know, you don't have to go. And I was like, but when I read the book of James, it says, let your yes be yes. And your nobody. No. I said, that's what I said to her. And she's like, she's like, then you have to go. So I went and I was tired. I had like two hours of sleep. And, uh, and that guy got up and he's like, I need people to help me in the juvenile detention center. So I didn't speak up that day. And I called, uh, because of my convictions and stuff, uh, not spiritual convictions, criminal convictions. I was like, Danny, will you ask him if a felon can go with him? And he did. And, uh, and the guy's like, dude, I got you. And he's like, you just come with me, meet me there. So I, I started going with him. And that's another, um, older fella who we don't necessarily like have Bible studies together, but we've been doing that juvenile ministry together for, I think we're, I might be going on the fourth year. Um, I'm not that great with time, but I think it's around there. It's three, four. And, um, he would leave. He's like, when I leave in the winter to go up to New York, I need somebody to do this. And, uh, we, so every year in the winter he comes and we do that. And that guy has been just like, he, he's so dear to my heart and I'm praying for it. And the Lord, by his sovereign hand, just, he placed me into that detention center and, and allowed me the opportunity to start talking to kids there. So the Lord has given me a heart for those kids. And, um, you know, I hear so often about people like they come to the Lord and then they're on fire and then it burns out. And even that parable and Mark chapter four, it talks about that. Like, you know, the, the, the sower's planting these seeds and he's like, and some take root and they grow up real quick. And then the sun gets a hold of them. It scorches them and they're done. um, and then there's the one in the last part of that parable where it says that they go forth and they bear fruit, um, hundredfold. And I like to think of myself like that because like when I've heard his word, like I've been on fire for him. And after going to the juvenile, like my fire has not gone down, but the Lord has given me a desire for ministry that is so strong that it can't be shaken. Like I. think about it all the time, like, and just like different avenues and different places that I can go to different jails, different people, you know, and nothing against missionaries who leave the country. But I hear so many people that are like, Oh, one day I want to go to Nigeria, or there's an island, it's an unreached people group. And it's like, and they're like, you know, one day I want to do that. And I'm like, man, I'm going to a jail right now. And they hadn't had a minister in there since 2020. And I started going in there last year, 24. And it's like, those men, and then I think about my life. And I think about from 11, I heard that God, the gospel, right? Okay. And I don't even think it was like a great presentation of what the gospel is, right? I think it was kind of outside of scripture. And then I had one man from 11 to right now, like outside the church, I'm excluding pastors, just like in my day to day life, how many people have come up to me and said, man, if you're not in Christ, you're under the wrath of God. And you know, and he will give you a desire for the things that he desires and a hatred for sin, he will change your life and make you a new creation in Christ, like you will be born again, and you will no longer be who you are. If when you're dead in your sins, you will bury that man and be made new. Like I've never had anybody come to me except one person in all that time. So I'm like, there's a lot of unreached people right here, right now, in prison, and in jails, and addiction centers and walking the streets right now, because like right now, I'm walking proof. And I look different. And I'm aware of that, like, I know that I look like a convict. And I don't know if that's different for people that look like you. But if you replay your life of how many people have actually came up and evangelize to you, it's not that often. And my wife was 25 and never heard of Christ. So there's a lot of unreached people groups right here. And I think that if you are in Christ, I think you need to be telling people, about Christ with an urgency. Because like me, and you talk about it that you like taste and see that the Lord is good. If you've tasted and seen that he is good, then you are under obligation, you need to like your life depends on it. Be like in their life depends on their eternal life, you need to be telling people with an urgency. So my, you know, place of ministry is those jails and the foster home, like I was telling you, so the Lord by his sovereign hand, I hope I didn't get too far off track right there. But by his sovereign hand has placed me into those jails. So the man who got me into the juvenile also kind of helped direct me into getting into the jail. And, and then one day, I had a lady from our church that went into that foster home. And she, she had her husband tell me she was like, you need to go. So I got in contact with her. And she's like, just come see, she didn't even really not explain, but she's like, they need to hear Jesus. And you need to come. So I'm like, okay, when you want me to come, it's like, Tuesday. I'm like, Tuesday, that's tomorrow, you know, and I was like, all right, I'll be I didn't know how because my wife does our scheduling. And what I love about that ministry right there, which my heart is just is so invested in it, is that my wife gets to do it with me. And my wife finds so much joy in it. And she can't walk into the jails with me. But she can she can go there and bring food. And her gift is serving. She has a servant's heart. She just loves to serve. She loves to prepare meals for people. She loves to help people when they're in need. And those people, their life is they are always in need. And if we're outside of Christ, we're, we're far more in need than we even know. But like, maybe to our day to day, I we need a meal. And those kids need a meal. And so the Lord put me in that place as well. And I have been going to it. And the crazy thing is that prayer group that you go to a crossroads. So when I went to church with my wife very busy life, but I would try when I could to get there early and go to that prayer group. And because man, those are prayer warriors. And I have been trying to get in that jail for so long. And I couldn't get in, they wouldn't let me in because my background, the adult jail. And I went and I asked those people to pray for me. And then and I've been probably six months or something trying to get in there the next day, I got an email from the chaplain. And that just it shows to the power of prayer. And he's like, go in there. So that prayer group till this day, like they still pray with me for our for me. Darrell Bock Yeah, I mean, I've been praying for that jail ministry, the juvenile ministry, the foster home ministry. And, and God is so good through that prayer group. Because going to church, there's there's three times that are distinctive times that like, I don't forget, like God had done things in my life where like, I just don't forget in that building. And they were all on Wednesdays. And one was that first prayer group my wife sent me to. So actually four and then when they prayed for me, and I got into the jail. Darrell Bock Yeah, I remember that. And I remember the day I met my friend, Brandon, who would go into the jail with me until he moved. And then the day I met you, you were in there. And I remember I was just like, who is this guy? Like something was different about you. And then the Lord, through that prayer group, got me into that jail. And through that prayer group, brought you to me. And I had been looking for somebody to go into the adult jail with me for so long. I want to say so long. Maybe there's probably people who fought longer. But like over a year, the foster home, over a year, I could not get people to volunteer. And it was so disheartening and so discouraging. But that same prayer group who prayed for me to get into the jail. And the Lord heard their prayers and broke open those doors so that I could go in there. He brought you in there. And you heard the prayers. God hears our prayers. And I think you texted me or called me or something. And immediately, you're like, I want to be a part of it. And you came with me. You got the approval to go to the jail. I told you about the foster home. You came to the foster home. I went. And since you started coming faithfully, which is an answer prayer. Because I had been doing this so long with my wife. And it gets so hard doing these things on your own. Like you have a day that you can't make it or whatever. And you don't want to let these kids down. And you're like, what if they die? What if you, you know. And I know God is sovereign. And it's so hard. And we can wrestle with it in our mind for so long. And keep ourself up at night. And then ultimately rest in his, that he's sovereign. But I'm like, I have to be telling them. Right. And. And the Lord has answered that prayer. And he puts you into my life. And you've been such a blessing to that ministry. The foster home ministry. The jail ministry. And you come in there. And you come from such a different angle. And you listen to me. And sometimes you just stop me at the perfect spot. Because I'm always trying to get every piece of information I can. And you stop me. And it's. You always like. Use that word digest. You're like, let's digest here for a minute. And it's so good. And he's given me in you. The piece of the puzzle that I had been missing to minister to these guys. Because I'm so high strong with so much to say. That it's been such a blessing to have you there. And the Lord is using you. You know. And putting us together. In that ministry. It's been such a blessing. And that's the things that the Lord has been doing since like coming to Crossroads. Like in my stretch there has been going on six years. But that process of sanctification that you were talking about earlier. It's like so crazy and so amazing how God works. Because from the first couple. Maybe six months of me going in there. From me. You know. Deciding to stop smoking marijuana. And deciding to stop selling it. And then like to be immersed in his word. It's like in the blink of an eye. Now I'm pouring into other people. Like I am. The Lord has given me ministries. And not even on my own. Like desires. Like I have that desire now. But like. Those things could only come from God. Giving you that desire. And he has.
Keith Vance: Which is to my point.
Crosstalk: Don't judge somebody too hard. Yeah. Because it's not. It's all God's work. For sure.
Brandon St. Pierre: And those desires that he has given me right now. Have been like life changing. Because it's all that I want to do. And he has so much more in my mind. And in my heart. To just embrace different ministries. And to just wholeheartedly just. I've surrendered my life to him for salvation. But I want to surrender my time to him. Like that is all I want to do. Is tell people about Christ. And meditate on his word. To be in. In my private time. In his word. And then study on his word. And preparing for these moments. When I get to minister to these people. And the Lord has just truly. Just transformed my heart. And as we look through this. This podcast. And we see like the 20 years. Walking through of all those. That life of sin. All those desires. And it seems like. You know. So of my life. It takes up such a large percentage. Right. But man. Those moments. Were so dark. And I was so far from. From God. And. If I would have died in those times. Like I know. That I would have. I would have gone. And spent eternity in hell. And I deserved it. That my sin. Had paid for that. Like my sin. I deserve that. Is what I'm trying to articulate. Is. And that. This world. It's. The
Crosstalk: wages. Of sin is death. Of sin is death. What's a wage. It's a paycheck. Yes. It's what we earn. I've earned it. At the end. If
Keith Vance: your name's not written in the book of life. If you haven't received that free gift. There's going to be checks written. He's going to say. Go cash this check. Exactly. The wage of this sin. Go cash your check. Yeah. And I look at my life. That's a scary
Brandon St. Pierre: thought. A hundred percent. And I earn that. And. You know. The prophet Isaiah says like. He says that. Like. Woe to those who call evil good. And good evil. And we see that as. A lifestyle. And today. And we see people that are calling what is evil good right now. And just because somebody may not have had a lifestyle like me, maybe they were not a drug dealer or a drug user, or maybe they only had sex with one person that was their husband or wife their whole life, and they think that they are good. Man, we have no idea. Like, you know, the prophet Isaiah says that on our best day, we are filthy rags in the sight of God. So we have no idea what good is. And the only goodness that we could ever have is through the blood of Christ. And when I look at my life and I realize how evil, how wicked, how wretched I was, and I look at my life now, like, these things can never come on our own desires. Like, it is a supernatural work of the Lord. And that's why, like, if somebody is, you know, by the providence of the Lord, listening to this, who is outside of Christ, and they're struggling with these things, and they say that they've tried the Lord or whatever, like, don't try God. Surrender to Him. Like, give your life to Him. Immerse yourself in it. And never stop repenting. Never stop being in His Word and being in prayer, because, like, He will change. And, like, when Paul says, like, when it comes to sinners, I am the chief, like, I feel like that about myself. Like, I was the chief of sinners. I was so far in my sin. And if God can save somebody like me, He can do it for any drug addict out there, you know. And I just want to shed light on that, because, like, we can do nothing outside of Christ. And when we do, we're committing more sin of pride, thinking that we just did something on our own. How
Crosstalk: close are we to being done, do you think? Whenever you want. No, I'm saying in your story, how close are we? Oh, pretty much. I'm at the end. Because that felt like a good spot to end it. Yeah. That was, like, perfect, brother. That was, like, I can feel that.
Brandon St. Pierre: Yeah, I'm to the end right now. You know, that's where I am in my life right now. I'm serving in those ministries currently. I'm currently at Crossroads Baptist Church. And that's where the Lord has me. So
Keith Vance: here's a couple things, and we can, if something comes up, you say it. But what I appreciate about you is when we go to, say, that jail ministry, and we're waiting for the guards to come get us back. And there's a woman sitting there waiting for her husband to come out of incarceration. You'll start a conversation. And within three or four seconds, or within three or four sentences, hey, have you heard the gospel? So you can share the gospel in real time anywhere. There's one thing that I know about you that people don't, and you didn't even bring it up. You don't have to have, you don't have to be educated to a certain caliber. And I think with your education level.
Brandon St. Pierre: I dropped out of school. I stopped going to school in sixth grade. Yeah. So I was in the fifth grade was the last time I ever completed doing work in it from the sixth grade because I was in and out of jail so much. They would pass me based on education from the juvenile detention center. So, and then as soon as I turned 16, I dropped out of school. So I didn't have to attend anymore. But my education level would be about fifth grade.
Keith Vance: So when God calls someone to a task, Moses. I love talking about Moses because he had a speech impediment. God called him to a task. I said, God, I can't speak well. Who made your mouth? He equips us in some time. Well, not sometimes. He uses those things that we think are limitations to bring him glory. So the fact that he can use you with a fifth grade education. And the fact that what I'm always blown away around being around you is, is the amount of word, his word that comes out of your mouth. It's just memorized. It's just right there. Like for every situation, James says this, Peter says that again, I'm thinking I'm a piece of corn. It's touching the ceiling. I'm around you. I'm like, no, no, that's been challenging for me. Again, it goes back to God's work in us that desire to know his word and you're in it. Uh, you talk about that prayer group. I hooked up with you just to encourage you. I'm so glad I did. Again, that's God's work. I don't know what the F I don't, I don't even think we've experienced the end of this. Like, I just feel like we just started something that he's doing. Like there's something more there. I don't know what it is. I'm scared and excited, but whatever this is, it just started brother. That prayer group. I joined that prayer group just to encourage those people. I heard that some old people get together. I was like, I don't know what I'm doing here, but I'm gonna go encourage these people. I go in that room. There's like four or five people. Four or five old people. I'm old. I mean, I, I don't see that in directory way. I'm 50, but I'm the youngest one there. And God's working on my judgmental, and this man that I love right now, brother, you know who he is. He's in charge of giving the offering. He's the first one that prays that first time. You want to know what his prayer is? He grabs that piece of paper that they pass out, and he starts reading off. God, pray for Brandon. God, pray for this. God, be with this. Turn the page. God, be with... That's his prayer. Well, in my judgmental, that's not how you pray. You pray with a certain tone, with a certain thing, and he's just reading off a paper. It just convicted me, man. God can use that guy, reading off that prayer, to answer your prayer, to answer my prayer. It's just like God uses the weak to accomplish his will, which goes back to it's not about you. It's not about your strength or whatever. It's about... Him just being usable. Here I am, God. I'm sitting in this room. Who do you want me to talk to? Just being a willing, usable vessel. These are some things that God is working in me, just being in that environment.
Keith Vance: Back to compassion earlier. You talked about how you were raised. My wife, she... Hands out these little bags when she sees people on the side of the road with some five bucks in it and some things. She gives this guy one. Like, what are you doing? Like, this is what I do. I'm teaching the kids to be compassionate on people. Like, this is what I do. I say, quit doing it. You're wasting it. That guy's going to go buy some drugs. Quit it. Don't do that. She's like, no, I'm going to keep doing it. I said, woman. Woman. Two weeks later, I'm getting my hair cut. And that guy... That she handed one of those bags to and has got a track and stuff into it. He sticks his head in the door and asks him for some money. And he's communicating with the owner of that barbershop. He left. Like, do you know that guy? He's like, yeah. Like, what's his story? I remember this when you were talking about heroin. And when you were talking about it, there was a certain group of people that I thought would be funny to get an 11-year-old kid high. And that kid's dead. He's a dad. He's 20-something years old now. But when he's like seven or eight years old, that kid's dad thought it would be funny with his friends to get his kid high on heroin. And now he's an addict. My judgmental. Don't give that guy anything. So, the recurring theme in my life is you never know the full story on someone based on what you see, based on your perception in real time. There's a whole other piece of this pie that you don't understand. You may never understand or ever know. Slow your roll. Slow your judgmental. Have some compassion. Pray for the love of Christ to work through you. Be sensitive to the Holy Spirit. Communicate his word. You can't go wrong by following the life of Christ. In all these situations in my life, I'm finding out that there's so much of me in me that I want out of me. Like, I just want to be used by him. And like, anyway. Can we end on kind of a funny story? Yeah. Okay. We talked about the jail. Yeah. We never talked about the foster care thing. So, you asked me to come be a part of that. Yeah. I said, yeah, let's go. We were supposed to ride together. But you were selling a dog on the East Coast or something. And you're like, hey, Keith, I'm running late. Can you just meet me there? We were supposed to get some stuff for him. I was like, let's go to Walmart or something and get some stuff to take to him. Hey, Keith, I'm running late. Can you just meet me there? And I'm like anxious because we were supposed to get some stuff and I don't know what to do. So, I got this little dog, little Agnes, little Frenchton. Everybody likes dogs. If kids like dogs, I'll be a little icebreaker. So, I asked you if I can bring the dog. Oh, yeah, bring the dog. Because I'm thinking it's like this big thing.
Keith Vance: And I grab a stack of money on my safe. Everybody needs money. And we go there for the first time. I got ahead of you. I was there before you. And that first experience together, remember you're going around trying to get the kids to, hey, come out. Hey, come out. Let's go play some basketball. Let's go do whatever. And they were on their phones. They were like not really having it. And I pulled that stack of hundreds out of my pocket. I'm like, hey, Brandon, I saw a pull-up bar out there. I was like, you want to see if you can do the most pull-ups for a hundred bucks? And all those kids started like, what? Like looking around. And then they all started doing your work for you. They all started running around to all the other dorms. And we met up at the pull-up bar. And we did pull-ups for a hundred bucks. Yeah. We did this for a hundred bucks. Remember that? Yeah. And, um, two weeks later we came back. It was a good time, man. It was a good time. Like just showing some love. Like I just, I was just showing some love, just trying to be in the moment. Right. And then, uh, two weeks later, a few weeks later we came back and the guy that runs the operation,
Crosstalk: what'd that guy tell you? They say you got to stop giving them money to the kids. They took
Brandon St. Pierre: my
Keith Vance: good gift and turn into a bad gift. Yeah.
Brandon St. Pierre: But you know what though? Um, there was a time in between that where you took, where you switched and told those kids, you said, I'll give you money, but you got to come and listen to the gospel, get present, uh, presented. And I did get to give them the gospel that night. So it does suck that those kids do that, but we should expect that from them in sin. Um, and being outside of Christ, like we shouldn't expect anything else, especially kids with no fathers. Like you pointed out today so much how kids are that don't have a father, but they don't have a father or a mother. So that's what we should expect. But they did get to hear the gospel and a seed got planted. Maybe down the road, I'll get water. Maybe that was the water. And if they are elected by the Lord, uh, he will give the increase and they will come
Keith Vance: to him. I took him out of boxing coach there once. Um, and that is one thing like, I'm glad we, I just had another memory. I'm glad we ended on this because when we go, you said your wife comes and she can serve with you. She brings the food, but those kids lack a lot, right? You told me you looked on the schedule and there's like two people that come a month. You said that the food they have is substandard, the living conditions. I'm thankful that that place is there, but I've never been in a dormitory where the walls are plywood and not drywall. Very. I'm glad the place is there, but it's very substandard. So what's the name of that? It's called Crossroads Hope Academy. Crossroads Hope Academy in Punta Gorda. Yeah. Maybe we can put a link or something up there. And again, if anybody's watches wants to make a donation for some food or something like a church group, like that's something really, the barrier to entry there is so low. Like to go to the, to go to the jail. Yeah. I had to do like a background check. I had to do this whole orientation thing. It was an investment of my time. I was expecting the same thing there. No, you just go there and say, Hey, just show up and just be around some kids with no expectation, just to show some love, just to show up and bring a dog, just to bring some food. It's so easy to do. It is. And it's a need. And it's so.
Brandon St. Pierre: Those kids on that schedule last month had two home cooked meals. And the people that work there, they try to do what they can, but they go off. I love donations. Right. So they don't have all the money or resources to do for those kids as those kids should have done. Because like, I know that the scripture says like, we deserve hell, we deserve death. But like, when I look at those kids life, like I can't help but feel like, man, they deserve better than this, like, because they are here and it is, it will break your heart to see the conditions that they live in. You know, and I think every kid should deserve at least once a week to have a home cooked. Yeah. And to hear that gospel drilled down their throat is what needs to happen. Because not everybody responds once or the first time they hear it. But sometimes one person might bring an angle that the other didn't bring. So like when we had, like earlier, I was saying, like, we need an urgency to share the gospel or people say, well, I never have the opportunity or it doesn't come up or I'm always around Christians. Well, like, well, now you've heard that you have said that there is an opportunity and we do have a brother in Christ there that will make it. It's available for you to get in there. They can reach out to you, me, and there is opportunity there. You just have to get out of your comfort zone and go in there. And they're not always the easiest to talk to. Like, they have grown fond of you. And through consistency, they've allowed me to start to talk to them more. And I begin to see more fruit out of them. But like, their hearts are hardened because of this world. And they're not always going to open their arms the first time they meet you. But if you can have opportunities to present to them who Christ is, it is important because somebody might say what I don't say. Like, I'm a followable man and I can ask the Lord to guide me and lead me in evangelism. But one person might be able to bring something that the other can't. And that's why we should all do our job as far as to share the gospel. It says, like that one man said on your podcast, like, blessed are the feet of those who preach the gospel. Romans chapter 10 says, how will they hear without a preacher? Like, told you that I've only had one person in 37 years. Tell me about Christ. Two, if you count the people in juvenile. My wife, 25 years old, nobody came up. She heard in church. Nobody ever came up to her and told her, like, people need to hear. And if you have a desire to share the gospel, to share who Christ is, to share his love, there's about 18 kids right there who would love to eat the food that you bring to them. And they'll listen. They'll listen.
Keith Vance: I'm glad we met. I'm glad God put us together. I'm glad to call you a friend, man. I love you. I love your family. I feel like I'm getting the better of this deal. Like, I'm just showing up just to support you, and I'm just learning so much about, like, God's doing something in me. It's been good for me. And like you said, you look forward to Sunday. Bro, I can't wait to get to church. I look forward to Sunday. I look forward to Thursday to going there and being with you. I look forward to going there and being with those kids. And it's just, like, revitalized me and helped me with my perception of what's important and what's not. Yeah, it's a blessing.
Crosstalk: Anything else? No, that would be a good place to stay.