Reverend Ricky Leonard did not always lead a life for Christ - before he became saved he had found himself on the wrong end of the law. The way his life was transformed and his story of survival resembles a plot straight from the movies.

Those who attended the last Cayman Outreach Association (COA) Dinner held on Saturday, 24 March at the Family Life Centre were able to find out the details first-hand from Rev Leonard himself.

After a high speed police chase in Clearwater, Florida, Rev Leonard fired shots at the police and then proceeded to flee the scene. The police officers fired the next shots, and Rev Leonard was hit in the back of his head with a bullet from a .38 caliber gun.

Subsequently he was transported to the hospital and underwent more than seven hours of surgery, during which lead and bone fragments imbedded in his brain up to three inches deep were removed.

The doctor told his mother that if he recovered, he would be paralyzed, have severe brain damage, grand mal epilepsy (characterised by violent seizures), loss of motor skills, balance and coordination.

After awakening from the coma, Rev Leonard was affected with the conditions described. Twenty days later he was taken to the county jail and sentenced to 30 years in prison. He was later sent to state prison and was issued with a special type of crutches.

His journey towards Christianity started when a fellow prisoner, who had recently been saved, encouraged him to go to the prison chapel. The fellow inmate continued to be persistent.

Rev Leonard spoke about a special Bible study meeting a few weeks later where fellow prisoners were giving testimonies, it was during this session that he began to seek Jesus as his Savior.

“As I read the Bible, God gave me knowledge,” he said.

He recalled how he had problems of his own such as asthma and his other ailments, yet he would look around the prison for sick persons to pray for.

About four and a half years later, he was at a different prison and was a Chaplin’s Assistant.

“I was growing in the Lord,” he said.

He explained his deep passion to acquire more spiritual knowledge and how he wrote to various churches telling them he did not have any money but wanted Christian-based material to help him grow in the ministry.

“I was sent a Bible course and studied it.”

Rev Leonard said he read how Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever. He said that one evening he heard a knock on the door and two men were there. One of them told him about a vision of a crippled man and God told him to tell Rev Leonard that he would be healed and because of the miracle, a great revival would break out in the prison.

They both prayed a simple prayer.

Rev Leonard recalled in the prayer he said that, “Lord, I am sick of being sick…and want to be healed…Amen.”

“Before I said ‘Amen’, I did not realize it but was able to put down the crutches, run, jump, my eye sight was perfect, it was as if I never had the problem.”

Rev Leonard told those in attendance at the Family Life Centre that he had scars, medical reports and police records as proof of his ordeal and miraculous transformation.

“It is documented, my story has been on the 700 Club TV show, when they show testimonies on television, they verify it,” he said.

He also told the audience that while he was in prison, he was writing to a girl in California.

“We wrote for three and a half years and fell in love through the mail,” he explained.

He said that she came to visit him in prison and a few months later she moved to Florida.

“She had went back to California and told her mother she would pray him out of prision,” he said.

“From the time she moved to Florida to the time I was out of prison, it was less than 18 months.”

He said that upon receiving notification that his prison sentence had been dramatically reduced, he prayed to God about what to do.

“God said, ‘I want you to go around the world and preach the Gospel.’”

He told those in attendance that he was released from prison in 1981, a full 23 years before his scheduled release date in the year 2004.

He said after his release he would call churches asking if he could give testimonies. Rev Leonard has also preached to prisoners in the state of Florida. Since 1981, he has been an evangelist, traveling around the world spreading the Gospel of Jesus Christ. According to information provided by the Ricky Leonard Evangelistic Association, he has ministered on almost every continent in the world.

He has been married for 26 years and has three children.

“God is an awesome God, he can take you from anyplace you are, to where you want to go.”

He said that God is good and through him all things are possible.

“With God everything is truly possible, the only thing that limits you is your faith and what you seek,” he advised.

He said that Jesus never prayed for a person who was sick, instead when he came upon a situation where a miracle was needed, he spoke.

Rev Leonard told those at the COA dinner he would be visiting 11 countries this year and has already visited four so far.

“God continues to bless me,” he said.

He advised those in attendance the importance of being “born again and filled with the Holy Ghost.”

“The devil is real, but, against the power of Jesus, he can do nothing.”