One of the most well-known tracts we have produced is entitled “For Another’s Crime.” It is the testimony of Brother 45, who served twenty-one years in prison for a murder he did not commit. Then, after his release, he came face-to-face with the true murderer, who asked him for forgiveness. (Read his testimony here.)

Our natural response to Brother 45’s life story is to feel sorry for the twenty-one wasted years he spent in prison. We might think, Imagine what he could have accomplished with his life if he had been free all those years! And yet, it’s difficult to imagine a more impactful life than that of Brother 45.

Reports indicate that after he was saved, Brother 45 loved coming to church and telling his testimony. His account first appeared in print in the 1913 edition of The Apostolic Faith paper. Then in 1919, it was printed in the first edition of The Convict’s Hope, a paper produced specifically for prison ministry. In 1940 it was produced as a tract, which would eventually be translated into other languages, including Norwegian, Korean, and a Filipino dialect.

We can’t possibly know how many souls have been impacted by Brother 45’s testimony, but a few stand out. One day in 1975 in Taegu, South Korea, a man was preparing to take his own life when a stranger on the street handed him the tract “For Another’s Crime.” Though uninterested in it at first, he noticed the words, “You must not commit suicide.” God spoke to him through the tract, giving him hope for the future. Instead of ending his life, Lee Jong Ho was saved on May 20, 1975. He later became an Apostolic Faith pastor and served God faithfully until his passing. His own testimony was published as a tract beginning in 1998.

At a boarding school in Nigeria in the 1980s, a student named Banji Alade found “For Another’s Crime” on the floor. He read it, and the account touched his heart. A few years later, when Brother Banji experienced a terrible tragedy, that tract was one of the tools God used to encourage him to visit an Apostolic Faith Church (read his testimony here). He was soon saved, and today he is a minister at one of our churches in London. Last month, his testimony became our newest evangelistic tract. 

One gets the sense that in Heaven, many people will know Brother 45. Though confined to a prison for twenty-one years, his testimony has traveled the globe for over one hundred years! What most people would count as a loss, God used for tremendous gain. 

As you read the testimonies in this magazine, may you be encouraged to know that there is no limit to how God can use your surrendered life. When we get to Heaven, we too might be surprised to learn the ways God used our lives—including our “losses”—to bless others.