By Andrea Bruner, Assistant Managing Editor - Batesville Daily Guard

Friday March 23, 2007

There was a time when Tater Ashley was a child that he made the paper for good news — a triple in Little League, RBIs or other such tidbits on the sports pages. That was the last time his name was mentioned for anything positive. 

When he was 15 and 16 years old, Ashley was “dabbling with a needle” and by 17 he was immersed “full-fledged” in the world of drugs. 

“In a way I was killing myself,” he admitted.

Soon his name was well-known in law enforcement circles. “Bomb squad called in for device” and “Fake bomb charges filed” were among his more recent headlines. 

But Tater Ashley is dead. In his place is James Ashley, a recovering addict who has found something else to live for: Jesus Christ.

———

It’s a long way to come for a guy who used to be looking for his next high. That was the old Tater. Today, James Ashley, 39, is a graduate of John 3:16 Ministries in Charlotte, a spiritual-based boot camp for men with drug and alcohol additions. He is also the leader of John 3:16’s new Unity House, a halfway house for graduates of the program. 

John 3:16 has over 100 graduates, and there have been several more who have come through but because of family obligations could not stay the required time, yet are still doing well on the “outside.”

Ashley entered John 3:16 Ministries on March 26, 2006, and graduated 11 months later. Residents at John 3:16 stay for different amounts of time, but to graduate one must stay between six months and a year. 

Ashley said he knew he needed to stay as long as they would let him. “It was making a choice to stay there and serve the Lord longer.”

The drugs’ hold on Ashley is gone. In their place is a spiritual awakening.

“Something I do a lot is pray,” Ashley said. “There’s 1,440 minutes in a day. Most people, Christians, talk to Jesus only five or 10 minutes a day. I talk to him close to an hour a day, even if it’s just a ‘Thank you, Jesus.’ That name is above all others. ...

“Jesus has done amazing things,” Ashley said. “He has filled a void in my life. The life I have now is better than the life I had with drugs.”

He said after his divorce, he felt something was missing and turned to alcohol, drugs and “a life of sin” to fill that void.

Two or three years ago, he did a three-month stint in jail. When he got out, he spent another year dodging the law, barely able to pass drug tests. Then his court date was moved from a Monday to a Friday, and Ashley knew he was in trouble. He’d taken drugs earlier that week, and by Monday they’d probably have been out of his system, but Friday they were still there. 

The judge revoked Ashley’s bond and set a new $25,000 cash bond. 

“I went to jail and hit bottom. As I was sitting there on the felony side of the jail, my eyes were opened. I saw these other guys who’d been to jail two, three, four times, been to the pen. I’d dodged the law all my life, and here they were telling me ways to keep from getting caught.

“I looked at them said, ‘You’ve been here three times. You’ve been here four times. You’ve been here twice. I’m sorry but I’ve got to do something different.’”

His cell mate was reading the Bible to Ashley, and a seed was planted.

“I’d heard about John 3:16 Ministries before. I knew rehab wasn’t for me — I’d had too many friends who’d been to rehab seven, eight, nine, 10 times and they were doing the same things.”

He knew if he kept traveling the road he was on, he’d end up behind bars, this time in prison serving 70 percent of the 26 years he was originally sentenced to. The judge offered a deal: $1,500 fine and five years probation, as long as he could continue to pass a drug test and didn’t get arrested for any criminal acts.

“He gave me an option I couldn’t refuse,” Ashley said. “I knew if I didn’t do something, I was going to be institutionalized for the rest of my life.

“After two days I could feel a draw.”

That “draw” would lead him to rehabilitation, the very thing Ashley thought he didn’t want, but this rehab takes a completely different approach, and that is healing through the power of Jesus Christ.

Ashley had heard that it was hard to get into John 3:16, but he had to try. (Tuggle says he receives 20 to 40 phone calls a day, although some are repeat callers.)

“I knew he had a waiting list,” Ashley said. “I actually went to Newport first, the Joshua House, and they said they wanted to help but didn’t have any beds.

“I heard it was impossible to get in at John 3:16 unless you knew somebody, but on the third day I drove out there.”

Unfortunately, Tuggle wasn’t there. Instead, Ashley talked to Tuggle’s father, and the two prayed together.

“My dad said, ‘I think this guy is for real, and he needs help,’” Tuggle said. 

Tuggle had heard of Ashley, of course, and read about his escapades in the paper on more than one occasion. 

“All that stuff was a lie,” Tuggle said. Ashley “was living a lie. He wouldn’t hurt nobody” today. 

Ashley shrugged, saying when he was on drugs, he’s not sure what he would have been capable of. Maybe “Tater” wouldn’t have ever hurt anybody; after all, the “bomb” he’d set on a cattle guard leading to his former home was a fake. (Paranoia is often a by-product of taking certain drugs.)

But still, he can’t be sure. “People on drugs don’t know what they’re doing,” Ashley said. 

When he met with Tuggle, he asked him if Jesus could heal him. Tuggle responded, “Yeah, I think he can.”

Tuggle recalled reading about the fake bomb and said to himself at the time, “This guy is bound to be at bottom.”

Ashley didn’t argue. He had told officers he would continue to “do dope” until the day he died unless there was a new way to get off the stuff. 

“I’d done it 20 to 25 years. At the time I was speaking from my heart,” he said. 

As it turned out, “the new way is the oldest way, and that’s Jesus Christ.

“In one prayer, my life has totally” changed, he said. “The way I act, the way I feel, the way I live is totally opposite. My life is now for Jesus Christ — til the day I die, and not for alcohol and drugs. ... My life from here on out is about him first, before me.”

Ashley’s situation wasn’t like most recoveries. He didn’t fight withdrawals or have cravings. He prayed to God to take all those away, and like a light bulb that burned out, that’s what happened.

“I immediately was cured of my addictions. That doesn’t mean I don’t still sin, but I don’t think about that. Instead I think about how to help people.”

———

Finding the road to recovery has given his family something to rejoice about, also. Ashley said his aunt and uncle hadn’t been going to church, and now they are regulars at the services at John 3:16, showing their support for Ashley.

“I used to be the talk of the family: ‘What’s Tater into now?’ Now, I’m still the talk of the family and it’s all good. I got to see my 95-year-old grandmother, and she smiles, perks up and says, ‘I’m proud of you.’

“She wants me to keep going on and doing the same thing I’m doing now, and I’m going to, but not for my grandmother, and not for me — it’s for Jesus Christ,” Ashley said, eyes tearing up.

“He kept me here for a reason, and I know why now. To do good, make good news, be a positive member of society. I thank God every day for the opportunities, and the doors will just keep opening. ...

“Without drugs I see so clearly now. I can’t ever let them have control over me again.”

Ashley has three grandchildren. “I can’t wait to tell them Bible stories — not war stories about what I did.”

———

The “bad” headlines are a thing of the past. Ashley is committed to creating “good news.” For instance, he preached one recent Sunday at John 3:16, and there were some 200 people in the audience. When the altar call came at the end of Ashley’s preaching, “the altar was full,” Tuggle said.

Ashley has also become a role model for others at John 3:16. “I’ve come out of a lot, and I know what the lifestyle is.”

Ashley has enrolled in his first college course — he gives God credit for his making an A. 

“In high school I made C’s; it was just about getting by,” Ashley said. “Now I’m applying myself.”

But Ashley knows not everyone comes to Christ as quickly as he did, and he has to struggle to keep his message subtle, rather than an “in-your-face” approach. 

“I want everybody to have what I feel,” he said. “I can’t save the world, but what I can do is keep leading by example, and maybe it will start clicking with these guys.”

Ashley recalled once working in a shop in Fayetteville, where he went by “James” but some people also knew him as “Tater.” He could tell what the customers wanted by which name they called him.

“With this James, I don’t have to put up my guard,” Ashley said. 

“There’s not any good history with Tater that I can think about. There’s all good with this James. Even my family members come around and call me James, except my 95-year-old grandmother,” he said, then laughed and added that was OK with him — he didn’t plan to correct her.

———

Right now, there are six men in the halfway house, but eventually it will be home to 12. The men work full-time, making $8 an hour at such jobs as construction or landscaping. John 3:16 director Bryan Tuggle says he’s asked employers to keep the starting pay low so the men will have something to look forward to, by working their way up. 

“It’s so good to get a paycheck and not have it already spent,” Ashley said. Right now, he’s saving for a vehicle.

The men are allowed a day out on Sundays, but they must attend a church service somewhere and get the preacher’s name and number. Ashley uses the time to visit his grandmother, see other family and friends and even do a little shopping. 

He’s become close to a local couple who seem to have taken him under their wing. “It used to be when somebody did something nice for me, I wondered, ‘What’s their angle?’ and vice versa.

“In Christ I’ve learned you get blessed. ... I’m learning some people have no motives. They just do it out of love. You’ve got to let people help you — you need to lift each other up.”

And Ashley is ready to do that. He’s finally come full circle. Where he was once the subject of police blotters and news stories, Ashley is ready to start sharing the good news. He’s ready to lift up others and encourage them to find the light he has inside. 

“If he (God) does it for me, he’ll do it for everybody else,” Ashley said.