The Deacon's Story: Part Ii from the North to the South

By Rev. Mr. Brouycie Isley

There is always a thin line between a lie and the truth. So, one must walk in the Holy Spirit in order to keep from being deceived. The most of us, it does not matter whether we're Priest, Deacons, religious, laity, or whoever we are, we can all be deceived. As I have said, there's a thin line between the truth and a lie".

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Oct 9, 2008
• ISBN: 9781462817535

Rev. Mr. Brouycie Isley

Deacon Brouycie Isley is the Director of The JMHM youth mentoring program. This Ministry reaches out to heal the wounded, broken families and young people who have no hope.The youth Mentoring Program was founded by Deacon Brouycie Isley and it's mission is bring about universal restoration to disadvantaged family's adults and children of all ethnic backgrounds. JMHM' mission is to focus and reconize the value for life by resisting and overcoming the elements that have caused these indindividuals to be labeled disadvantaged. Jmhm will focus on the importance of education ,self esteem.responsibility for your self and job readiness. This Youth mentor program has helped thousands of families around the world, The mustard seed has five different Ministries. Deacon Brouycie Isley Is also presently the Chaplain At Grateford Prison and is assigned to St Helena's Parish in the North East of Philadelphia.And lives in Germantown with his wife Carmen, who supports their Ministry. Deacon Brouycie Isley

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Chapter 1

The return

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I remember in 2006 in December, Carmen and I had decided to sell our home and move to the south. Now, we had made this decision because we where tired of the neighborhood we had been in for the last 18 years and we needed a change. In addition, it seemed like most of the people did not want a community. So, we decided that we wanted to live in a place where we would have a community of love. where we would have a nice house and more land. In addition, we would be connected with other people, especially in the south like we were in the north. Therefore, that is why we chose to go back to the south instead of looking in Philadelphia because we wanted a change. we were just looking for another home. Because, in the north and south people are friendly, most people are more loving, and most people really love Jesus. But, I can tell you one thing if it is not God’s plan for you to move out of a city, country or wherever it maybe, you must make sure that you discern well what God’s plan is for you through a lot of prayer and discernment. Because you cannot see and you cannot understand or tell what is down the road for you, even though you might live in a nice quite area, you might live with your house on a lot of land, and you might not have that many people who are around you. But that doesn’t’ guarantee that you would have peace, safety, and have all good neighbors when you move because satan moves to. Anyway, our house sold in February 2007, and Carmen and I had already put our belongings inside a self-storage. Therefore, Carmen, our son, and me rented a big truck, and we put all of our things in there. We already had bought the house in the south, and we really loved the house, it was nice and big with four bedrooms, and Carmen really loves the space that we had. We had a nice acre of land that the house sat on, we had trees, we really had a nice place to live, and your closest neighbor was two to three city blocks. The church was probably about two miles down the road, now we where use to going to church in less than five minutes in Philadelphia. But in North Carolina where we had moved to it was very different. It would take us a good ten minutes to get to church and maybe fifteen driving once we got ourselves prepared. But me, I was always the one that was prepared, but Carmen was sometimes a little bit slower but that’s okay we will not hold that against her.

So, we moved to a little place called Fort Bragg, North Carolina. Fort Bragg was an Army base for soldiers, now we lived on the out skirts of all of that, we did not come in contact with too much of that unless we ran into soldiers at the store or at the market or somewhere like that. Other than that, we had no contact with people of that nature.

In the beginning, things went well in the south. Everybody we saw at the markets, and at the hair, salon and everybody we met welcomed us with joy. Things went very well and me and Carmen where very happy for awhile, but about 6-8 months later all this would change. And one of the reasons why is because some people that use to know me.

AJ & George who use to know me thought my lifestyle was still the same as theirs, or didn’t know that I had changed my life and that I was now a permanent Deacon in the church and that I no longer lived that old life. That old life of drugs, alcohol, violence, sex, and dealing in the occult as they did. So, I managed to get away from them by telling them that my wife was waiting for me and I had to go, and I could no longer have a conversation with them right now, so bye I would see you at another time which I had intensions on never seeing them again. They where still the same as they where thirty something years before I left North Carolina, they where still selling drugs, looking for different women, they where still gambling, they where still doing everything under the sun that someone in there fifty’s had no business doing, especially chasing loose women. But anyway, that was their way of life and not mine. So at that time I just let it go and let them go ahead on with their lives, even though there would be other times that we would meet, eventually I would have to confront AJ and George who where the main trouble makers in the town that I had lived in before, I left. They would always have something going on dirty. Satan does not want you to be happy. He already hates that you are a baptized child of God. But he does not want you to be happy here on earth and live with Jesus in eternity forever. And another thing, Satan never forgets if you have done anything past. God forgives and forgets but the devil will always stir up something with somebody that you knew or know to make sure that they never forget anything that you have done. And these two trouble makers who worked for Satan was AJ and George my two enemies as a child, and as a grown up now something that I would have to confront and I would refuse to ever let Satan make me miserable again, God has given me the keys to the kingdom and not him. And I say that, not that I am glorifying Satan, but I am glorifying God the love of my soul and of my life. How did this hoodlum run up on me at the same store? I know how it happened it was through the enemy himself, the old enemy he put him there. But pretty soon, I started getting phone calls from everybody because my number was listed in the phone book. I started getting phone calls on how was I doing, how was my health since I had gotten a second kidney transplant that the Blessed Mother had given to me while was still in Philadelphia, that is something that I must thank and praise God for Alleuh! Praise our God! He gave me another chance to write him another book, and this is what I’m doing, giving glory go God, even though it would take awhile to accomplish this mission. I will do my best to accomplish it for God.

I have moved to North Carolina, I had gotten a job in the school system teaching high School because that is what I was. I was also a school teacher, certified by the Vatican itself, and Carmen had gotten her job working for Lowe’s who she use to work for in Philadelphia they highly recommended her in North Carolina, and we thank God for that. The people who I use to know and how I grew up around would try to bring that trouble to where we live now to Fort Bragg, North Carolina. So the phone calls would began and even my mother, even though she knew that I had moved to Fort Bragg she had never came to visit. I had been to visit her; it was okay and fine because anytime that my mother wanted to come or my daughter, Lisa either one of them where welcome to come anytime and they all knew that. My brothers and sister’s where welcomed as well, but they where really rooted in materialist thing and secularism. Yet, I still love them as children of God and as my brothers, sister’s money will poison you, and not only that money is the root of all-evil, especially if you let it control you. I had learned that early in life through much suffering and through much pain, which most people never learn except in the Holy Spirit. If you center your life around money and not on Jesus, you are setting yourself up for a big fall.

One Sunday, after church was over me and Carmen decided to take a ride up to my mother is where she lived in North Carolina, right around Asheboro North Carolina. While we where there we noticed some people had seen our car because we still had Philadelphia tags on there; we had not gotten them changed yet. So, before, we knew it my mother’s house was filled with people old and gray, looked like they where 70 years old yet the reality is they where the same age I was, life had beat them down through bad choices such as alcohol, drugs, sex, the occult and loose women, things I had given up many, many years ago. But anyway, these people just could not believe that my life had changed which it had changed, and also I had a new Bishop now and I was under his authority in North Carolina out of Saint Raphael’s, his name was Bishop Joseph, he was a very nice Bishop, he treated me very nice, he gave me duties and my responsibilities in North Carolina, and he knew that I taught at Saint Raphael’s school. And he was very, pleased to have me as a permanent Deacon in North Carolina working there and trying to build up God’s Kingdom. Because in North Carolina there are very few African-American Deacons, and I was proud to be one of those Deacons in North Carolina though my back ground was different, but that is okay. There is always someone that the enemy will use to cause you trouble, especially to our young people and to those who are in they are early thirty’s, especially young couples who are married. That’s the reason why they don’t stay married long because they don’t sit down and talk, or be honest with each other and they make bad choices and they listen to the enemy instead of Jesus. Therefore, that is why they get divorces so easily and so quickly; I am a witness of that. Anyway, my mother was having a barbecue that day, my mother has a pretty big yard, my mother will invite anybody who comes; she is just like Jesus. She does not care if their sinners or whoever they are, everybody is welcome to come and eat at her house that just the way God made her. Well, I am afraid I have not grown to that stat yet; my mother will feed her enemy with no problem, sit down and eat with him. Like I said, and I will say it again; I have not grown to that level yet, even though I am a permanent Deacon in North Carolina, I hope I make it to that level one day. This guy that I grew up with that I had known for many years, his name was AJ. He and I where having a conversation, and I was telling him about how good it was, this new life that I had found while I was in Philadelphia for all of those years. AJ just persisted that how well things where going for him in the drug business, how he was doing well selling pulpwood as well. So I said to him, well that’s good, God bless you and you can keep on doing what you are doing, but I am going to do Jesus work. Now he was not convinced that I was truly saved by the blood of the Lamb, so a little later on as they had a few more beers, which I do not drink, I never did after I got past 25 years old. He asked me, why don’t you come on and let’s go out and have some fun, he had a 2006 Corvette, and he was the hot thing in the town. Because he always carried a big roll of money in his pocket, maybe four to five thousand dollars or maybe more, and money in his truck as well, and a couple of guns too. But I was not into anything like that, so I turned him down, I told him, no AJ I think you better go this one alone by yourself. Now this was the end of our conversation at that time, so I stayed on at my mother’s house until my brother’s and sister’s who where there also had left. And I stayed there talking to my mother for awhile, because she and I had been apart for many, many years and it was a joy sitting they are talking to her about how life had changed since Minnie had went on to heaven, her and George or either Cracker Isley. Anyway, we talked and we talked about how different it was and how things had fell a part in their town since Minnie and George went onto heaven. You see Minnie was inspired by the Holy Spirit to do what she did in holding up that whole town. She would have the Bible school in the summer for the kids not only that, she taught Bible school in church, she was on the committees in the church and she went to church every Sunday, and she drug me along with her and I thank God that she did, praise God!

The reality is after Minnie had died from a accident of kerosene because, she was half a sleep one morning trying to start a fire, because my grand mother didn’t believe in the modern technology, like having a gas system in your house or central air she still believed in the wood stove, and wood.

Therefore, one morning as she was making a fire and grandmother was close to the fire and she poured kerosene on it which made a big flame and it caught my grandmother’s dress on fire. And it burnt her almost up, when the rescue people came and took her to Chapel Hill Hospital, they told us that she probably wouldn’t make it, this is what really, really what helped to break my heart even more? That I was now losing my grand mother, I had already lost Cracker Isley whom I love so much, because he had cancer from smoking cigarettes. Cancer is a very serious disease, I never saw a healthy man like my grand father who weighed about 185-190 pounds and was 5’9" to shrink right up from cancer to a little baby, that weighs no more than probably about 60-70 pounds. I loved Cracker Isley, because he was just like a father to me, I mean he really loved me he took the place of my father, and when he died it broke my heart I think I was about 11 or 12 years old. But anyway, without Cracker around I really started to sow my oats and to get into all kinds of trouble too. But one thing about it the Blessed Mother was with me.

She helped me through those difficult years that I did not have a father. Her and the Holy Spirit they led me and guided me, even though I was a troubled kid constantly into something or fighting, or something all the time. But after I went before that judge for the last time, and he told me what he was going to do to me if I come before him again I left that town for thirty something years before I returned. I thought it was not a good thing that I really returned to North Carolina at first but it was a blessing. I should have stayed in Philadelphia this was my thought, because if I would have been thinking clearly, I should have known that most likely if you go back where you come from you will eventually run up on some people who you use to know you and how you grew up with them and that is what eventually happened to me.

One thing about it, the people that I had grew up with they still had the same attitudes, the same jealousy that they had when we where kids, they had not changed one bit. And my mother had six kids he had four boys, and two girls and I remember my mother and me raising those kids. Because she didn’t have a husband and I was the oldest on I was five years older than my sister, and me and my mother raised them until they where able to take care of themselves; they all now have grown up. And they have gotten themselves hooked on materialism and secularism and one reason is they never had, I know two of my brothers even had been hooked up with drugs themselves. They had to be sent to certain institutions in order to get themselves cleaned up, which didn’t really last that long. What happened was one Sunday while we where at church, this is my church Saint Raphael’s down