Steve

Steve Rawlins is Pecan's Deputy Director

‘People wondered if it was really possible to make something like this work, employing ex-offenders.’

The year is 1996 and Steve has just been handed a 13-year sentence for drug trafficking.

Zip forward a decade and a half and Steve’s life is on a very different course. With a wide grin on his face, he explains he’s now Pecan’s Deputy Director.

Steve became a Christian at the start of his sentence and was released after seven years. Two years later we asked him to join Pecan and set up Workout, a new project for ex-offenders.

‘When I first looked at the job I wondered if I was ready for it,’ Steve explains. ‘People wondered if it was really possible to make something like this work, employing ex-offenders. But we all had real faith that it could, with God at the head of it.’

The programme is now one of Pecan’s most successful. And Steve’s passion is unchanged. As he tells the story of Jason, it is easy to see why.

Jason had just been released from prison. While he’d been inside, his brother had been killed, allegedly by a rival gang. Jason’s gang had come to him, promising to help him take revenge.

‘Thankfully,’ explains Steve, ‘Jason felt he could trust Pecan and he talked to us. He didn’t want to go through with it, but didn’t know what to do’.

We asked Jason if he’d be prepared to disappear for a while. He agreed. We arranged for him to stay with a church in Nottingham. Three months later, after things had died down, he returned to London and through Pecan was able to find a job.

Jason’s story captures why we never stop believing and why, in partnership with local churches, we are seeing people’s lives fully transformed.