39 Years to Life, but God

By Brandon Getachew

A testimony of the grace of God in the life of a servant of the most high God, Christ Jesus. The entrance of God's word has given light wherein I once was in darkness. The book 39 Years to Life illuminates the awesome power of God not only to turn someone from darkness to light but to bring them up in the nurture and admonition of God. This book is for the hungry and thirsty soul who can't get enough of the word. Each lesson unveils truths in the word that are prevalent for today.

The practicality of this book and its lessons are so needed in a time when error runs rampant and everyone has "the word of the Lord." This book will point you to Jesus and Him alone. I believe He is working in your life whether you see Him working or not. God has never started something that He would not complete. For it is God who worketh in you both to will and to do of His good pleasure.

So why is God working in our lives or to what end? It's so that you may be blameless and harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom ye shine as lights in the world, holding forth the word of life, that you may rejoice in the day of Christ, that you haven't run in vain, neither labored in vain.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Feb 9, 2022
• ISBN: 9781638443377

Book preview

Testimony Uncensored

The Lord Jesus has been so gracious to me! Here I am, incarcerated almost a decade at the present time. Just looking over my life, I am amazed by all He has done in this extraordinary time or season of my life. I titled this book 39 Years to Life, but God because it isn’t my life that’s so significant but the grace of God that has been noticeably present with me. I believe that this book really speaks to the power of God to turn someone from darkness to light and from the power of Satan unto God.

I started out washing cars, pumping people’s gas, and helping the elderly with their groceries for pocket change to a few dollars. All this was done at the end of the month for a meal. What I made at the end of the month literally supplied for my sister, brother, and my mother and me. I’d buy a loaf of bread for a dollar and a cheap pack of bologna for a dollar, and if there was enough left over, I’d buy some sort of Little Debbie snack cake product. The bologna and bread would usually last us two days. I didn’t realize it at that time, but I was already learning to hustle.

I began to steal at the age of nine as well. It wasn’t many months later that I found myself in the back of a police car with handcuffs on. The policemen were nice in that they actually tried to explain the ramifications of continuing down a life of crime. The nice police officers took me to my mother’s and told her I had been shoplifting. You talk about scared! I’d rather face being locked up in juvenile than face my mother finding out I’d been stealing. Predictably, and just as I knew she would, she spanked me, but I felt justified because we were so poor.

Just like that police officer said while I was in his car all those years ago, my life of crime increased, and I graduated to selling crack cocaine and marijuana, at the age of seventeen. By that time, I had already been in and out of juvenile, the Texas Youth Commission (prison for teenagers), and several probations. My life turned around financially for me when I started selling crack cocaine. I was spending thousands on clothes alone for the week. I partied literally seven days a week at different clubs, for years. I ended up catching two drug charges that could put me away for a long time. It was well known in our county (Dallas) that if you had money, you could pay your way out of anything. And that is exactly what happened.

Now that I’ve shared that with you, I’d like to take time to share with you just how God came into my life and into my heart. Coincidentally, it also is the sole reason I am in a federal prison today.

I was twenty-seven at that time, and I had a townhome in a suburb just outside of Dallas, Texas. One night, after coming home from a club, I was robbed. That’s right, robbed! I was asleep on my living room couch when six to eight gunmen kicked in my door, and one of them put a gun right up to my temple. Amazingly, I was still sound asleep. I had a really bad migraine that night, so I stopped by a gas station and purchased a BC powder for migraines. Now I wasn’t used to taking medicine, so I’m assuming it must’ve knocked me out considering that I didn’t hear the robbers kick in my front door. Finally, I was awakened with a gun up to my head and the robber asking me, Where is everything at? Naturally, when you wake up with a gun up to your head, your heart starts to beat at the least a beat or two faster than normal. I think it safe to say when I woke up with that gun up to my head, my heart was in fact beating fast. And when I say fast, I mean speed-of-light fast! I cooperated by telling the robbers to go upstairs and that they would find what they were looking for. The robber who had the gun on me instructed the other robbers to go get their hidden treasure from the location of the house that I had spoken of. Mind you, my heartbeat had not lessened, not even a little. Now, all my life I have believed in God. I’ve always told myself that I would give my life to God when I got old.

Yeah, I thought I had some living to do. You know, some women to meet, some money to make, and some cocaine to bake. Because I knew that God was real, I never wanted to come to Him until I got right. Too often we tfvhink we get right, and then we get God. That thinking is so erroneous and, for that matter, couldn’t be further from the truth. You get God to get right. Jesus didn’t come for the righteous but for the sinner. That is, He didn’t come for those who think they have it all together. I never wanted to play with God. I remember a reverend that used to buy crack cocaine from me every Sunday morning. I figure he still had some play in him, and I didn’t want to be like that. I knew that God was real (even though I hadn’t been to church in over ten years at that time), so I prayed to God with the cold steel of that gun up to my head. I didn’t pray out loud but in my heart.

My heartbeat was still racing. I told God that If you get me through this, then I would try to change my life, and I would try to live for you. A noticeable and very peculiar thing happened as soon as I got the last syllable of that prayer out of my mouth. As soon as I finished saying, I will try to live for you, calmness came over me. So much so that I knew that nothing was going to happen to me. I didn’t understand what had happened then, but after walking with the Lord Jesus these few years, I now understand what had happened—God had given me peace in the middle of my storm. Glory to God in the highest! He truly is worthy to be praised. Let me elaborate.

When Jesus was on the boat with the disciples, and He was asleep in the hinder part of the ship, the Word of God says that there came down a storm of wind on the lake, and the disciples panicked and awoke Jesus, saying, Master, carest not that we perish? In other words, Don’t you care that we are about to die? Jesus in response arose and rebuked the wind and the raging of the sea. And the Bible says the winds and the raging of the waters ceased, and there was a great calm. This calm was the very peace of God.

Yes, brothers and sisters, God will give you perfect peace, even in the midst of any storm or adversity you are going through. With six to eight men with ski masks on and weapons drawn, I knew by the awesome grace of God that nothing was going to happen to me. No wonder I worship God like I do! That explains everything. Praise God. The robbers were in my house no more than two minutes. They got what they came for and were gone in what I thought was record time. I had never been robbed before, and so I didn’t know how long a robbery would last or anything. It’s just not something that one ponders or contemplates on. Upon leaving, the robber who had the gun up to my head commanded me to count from one hundred backward. Somewhere along the way of counting down to one, my brother ran in the house and asked me if I was all right. I told him I was fine, and then he asked me if I gave the robbers everything (meaning the drugs). I didn’t know it at that time, but my brother was upstairs in a room he had at my house during the robbery. I found out when the robbers kicked in my door, my brother jumped up, ran to the top banister, and saw those robbers with all their guns pointed toward me.

Immediately (without being detected), he went back into his room, opened a window, and jumped from the second story. He cut himself real bad, ran to a neighbor’s house, and called the police. My brother was in fear of me losing my life. I just want to take a moment to say the Lord has really blessed me in giving me such a brother. I thank the Lord for what He’s doing even now in Chris’s life and ministry. So my brother asked me if I gave the robbers everything. My response was Of course not. He then told me that I had better hurry up and hide whatever I had because the police were pulling up right then. One minute I’m being robbed, and in the next, the police were walking up to my house. Can you imagine how I had to be feeling, going from one extreme to another? I forgot to mention the fact that the robbers tied me up with my hands in the front, and I didn’t even have enough time to untie myself. Almost unbelievable! I panicked and ran upstairs.

On the stairs were two pounds of marijuana, one of which had busted open. Marijuana was all over my stairs. I tried to hurry and pick it all up and run upstairs to find the crack cocaine that I had. When I retrieved it, along with the two pounds of weed, I went down to my garage to place the drugs under the passenger seat of my Impala SS and closed the door. Mind you, I’m still tied up at that point and walking through my kitchen when two police officers entered my house. They told me to freeze and to raise my hands. I explained to the police officers that this is my house and that I was the victim. One of the officers aided me in untying me. We then sat down in my living room on one of my couches while the officers asked me questions about the robbery. A detective came by and asked me Whose house is this? rather sarcastically. I told him it was my house, and he then asked, What do you do for a living? I didn’t like the tone with which he was asking the questions.

Nevertheless, without blinking, I lied to him looking him straight in his eye. I said, I have a contract downtown Dallas cleaning buildings. The same way that I didn’t blink, this detective didn’t blink.

He simply responded, I’m going to tell you what I think. I think this is drug related, and I want to find what you didn’t give those robbers. Just like that, read me 100 percent. Of course, at that time, I’d have never told him that. The detective cleared the house and had me to sit on the back of one of my cars while my brother was being treated for the cut he sustained from jumping from the second story of my house. When he was done, he came over to me. At that point, there were anywhere from twelve to fifteen police officers in a circle, huddled up, I assumed discussing how they were going to proceed. My brother’s first response was Brandon, you know they are going to go in and find the drugs. I told him that I already knew that. My brother then stated, You know you got two strikes already against you?

Once again, I said, Chris, I know.

He then told me that he was going to take everything. In other words, my brother was offering to take all my pending charges. He was willing to tell those police officers that everything that they would find in that house, my house mind you, was his. I began to tell my brother about my prayer to God and the calmness or peace that immediately ensued my prayer. Now I want you all to know something. My brother had never heard me talk like that before. As a matter of fact, I had never heard me talk like that before. So much so that he asked me several times to take the charges in which I am incarcerated for on today.

Now I hadn’t ever heard this saying then, but through the years I have, I told Chris in response to him asking to take the cases, I don’t care if I get twenty-five years. If God gets me to it, He will get me through it. Me, who didn’t know a lick of the word of God! And so I did get locked up that night or morning rather. The robbery actually occurred at 4:00 a.m., and by 5:00 a.m., I was incarcerated. You would think that the story would get rather procedural from here, but that simply is not the case. The case would be state for a year, until the feds picked me up and arraigned me basically for the same charges that I had with the state.

The feds brought about forty inmates to be arraigned, and a short guy in a suit explained to all of us the disqualifications for a bond. He said if you were facing ten years or more, there would be no bond. He also stated that if you had any prior convictions, there would be no bond. So, he said, who wants to waive their bond hearing? My hand was the first to go up because I was facing life in prison and I had two prior convictions, even though they were short sentences. After I raised my hand, many others raised their hands as well.

While the man went to retrieve the waiver forms, an older man asked me, Youngster, you ever been to the feds?

I said, No, sir.

He said, It don’t cost you nothing to have it. He was talking about the bond hearing.

I thought about what he said for a second, and my response to him was You right.

Right then, the same man with the suit entered the room and tried to hand me a waiver form, but I declined, telling him that I had changed my mind. I could tell he had a little attitude about it too. He continued passing out the waiver forms to those who wanted to bypass this formality, because there was no chance that they could get a bond. I didn’t know that everyone who was going to have a bond hearing was immediately assigned a public defender (lawyer), who would be representing them for the bond hearing. All the inmates were in a court holdover waiting area. The public defenders were calling each of their new clients, one by one, and explaining the likelihood and/or probability of them receiving a bond.

When an inmate thinks of a public defender, he thinks of a cheap lawyer, someone who doesn’t have his best interest at heart. Simply put, inmates believe they are viewed as a small paycheck. This was not the case for me. I was assigned a public defender by the name of Douglas Morris. He was the skinniest man that I had ever seen in a suit, and to top it all off, he wore a bow tie. He definitely gave me the Mr. Rogers persona, that is, until I began to talk with him. The first thing he did was read my charges and explained the severity of them. Then he asked me to fill out a form (which is normal) detailing my job, back accounts, and every bill that I currently paid with absolutely nothing personal left out. I complied, and he came back in ten to fifteen minutes to look over the form. I was watching him as he carefully dissected all my personal information on this form.

Mr. Morris, my public defender, asked, You were paying a Sallie Mae student loan off while you were on five bonds with the state? I told him yes and his response was These are not the actions of someone who is a flight risk. I could almost see the little wheels in his mind rolling. He got on his Blackberry phone and told me he’d be back in ten minutes. True to his word, he came right back, but what he said next made my lip drop. He said, The day after the robbery occurred, the feds picked up your case. The reason this was so appalling to me is because I hired a state lawyer who promised me that he would get the case thrown out in the examining trial under illegal search and seizure grounds.

I also retained a second lawyer and made a $380,000 bond, not knowing that the case was already federal. Mr. Morris in turn decided that he was going to argue the negligence of the feds in not coming to get me sooner. He also got receipts showing monies paid to such lawyers, long after my federal warrant was issued. The magistrate judge said she had never let out someone facing this amount of time. She stated that in light of the failure of the feds, she had no choice but to give me a bond. Two or three days later, I was released on bond.

Recall, I really didn’t know anything about God. I didn’t know that He was working in all of this. I had to report to my pretrial officer every month. One particular month when I went to report to my pretrial officer, he asked me why I was still out. Now this question went over my head. I didn’t understand what he meant by it. Nevertheless, by his next statement, I understood. He said, Who do they want you to tell on? They being the federal government.

I didn’t have the Word of God in me at that time. I just believed God with the itty-bitty faith that I had. I stood up in my probation officer’s office, very defiantly, and asked him rather harshly, Who do you think you talkin’ to?

Unrattled, thank God, he said, Sit down, Mr. Getachew. Almost 93 percent of everyone in the feds is talking. By talking, he meant snitching. I told him I’m on a case all my myself, and his response was that that it didn’t even matter. I proceeded to tell him that no one had come to me. He told me that it didn’t make sense to him why I was out, if they didn’t want anything from me.

Praise God. I didn’t understand it then, but after walking with the Lord a short time, I now understand that God wanted me to know that it was no coincidence that I was out. In fact, my sentencing judge, who had already served as a judge for more than twenty years at that time, said he had never had someone facing this amount of time (thirty-nine to life) who was not in an orange jumpsuit. Who else but God! I was in fact allowed to stay out until my sentencing day May 1, 2009. About a month and a half before my sentencing, the guidelines for my case were recommended. They were a jaw-dropping thirty-nine years to high forties in months. My public defender, Douglas Morris, explained that thirty-nine years was the minimum after I lost my suppression hearing. I remember Chris and I driving from my lawyer’s office with no music playing on a rainy morning after hearing such devastating news. I finally broke the eerie silence and said, Chris, I’m praying to God for fifteen years.

You might ask why someone would pray to God for fifteen years. When one begins to think about such a high prison sentence, you really begin to ask yourself, How much of this can I do?

I really like my brother’s response when he said, You need to pray for ten years.

May 1, 2009, the big day, my sentencing day. It would be the day that I would lose my freedom for quite a long time. That day did not come easy. In fact, after hearing just how much time I was facing, I decided that I was going to run. You know, evade, elude, and go into hiding. I was going to cut off my leg monitor and flee to Miami. Do not ask me why I picked Miami because I cannot for the life of me tell you why I picked Miami.

One day, while I was in my bed thinking about all that was upon me (the doom of prison looming over me), I took my very first step of faith. Let me explain. I reasoned in my mind and in my heart that I could evade or elude the authorities for three, five, or even ten years if I were lucky and then spend the rest of my days in prison. Remember, I was twenty-nine years old at that time. I still had my whole life ahead of me. So I said to myself, You can risk getting all this time or you can take a chance on God!

I joyfully write to you today to inform you that God moved on my behalf! The beauty of it all is that God is no respecter of persons. What He does for one, He will do for all. I personally dare you to trust God! That is, to put or to place your faith in God. I tell you with all that is within me that