My story

My name is André Levet and I was born in 1932 in an atheistic family and I have never heard anybody speaking about God. During the war in 1939-40 my father was deported to Auschwitz. I had neither father nor mother, I was abandoned and later I was received at a farm in Pyrenees where however I have experienced more kicks in a bum than kind caress. My father was freed in 1945 and he tried to remedy his life. I didn’t however accept my new step mother and when I was 13, I ran to Marseille, slept in streets and robbed trucks.

In this period I was caught by police and I was put in a jail in Baumettes and they wanted to return me back to my family. In a prison environment I became a small offender and I learned all tricks of our “profession” from co-prisoners. Although they send me back to my parents, I ran away again and I started a career of a delinquent.

When I was 15 I was arrested for an armed assault and I was put in a prison till reaching full age. In 18 we had an opportunity to enter the forces for a war in Indo-China so I did it to avoid imprisonment. I was injured and repatriated back to France and I was under treatment till reaching full age.

I am getting at “work”"

After all this, strengthened by my army and prison experiences, I became a leader of a gang of brawlers which focused on bank robberies. One day when we had a “boomlet” in Laval, I noticed a standing priest in a black robe on the second side of a street. I came to him and as I had never seen anybody similar to him before, I asked whether he was a man or a woman. He answered: I am a God’s servant. God is my Lord!

I told him, where was your God? He isn’t visible. He answered: I see that you don’t know God. But if you have time sometimes, come to talk about it with me. I live at No 12 bis rue de Solférino.

I have never forgotten this address. Several months later when I was again passing Laval because of “work”, I accidentally ran across this street. I went to see the priest and he told me: I was waiting for you. This priest became my friend, he was giving me advice which I didn’t carry on and every time he was telling me about God I told him: leave that God of yours where He is. After some time we were supposed to rob a bank in Rennes. But the work didn’t come out by a plan, my companion was shot and I was caught. I escaped and went to South America where I organized trafficking in drugs.

Three escapes, three returns

I returned back to France, where I was arrested again and I escaped again. Three escapes, three returns. If I totalled all punishments for my activities, I should stay in prison for 120 years. They transported me to Clairvaux to a prison for hard cases and together with my fellas we tried to escape – we were digging a tunnel like in a film Great Escape (la Grande évasion). We nearly escaped but we were caught. I tried for another escape, this time on my own; I nailed down a prison officer by a weapon. Again I was caught. They decided to send me to Château Thierry. A chief of the prison received me with words: you will obey or you will peg out! I replied to him by pushing over a desk at him. They put me in a pretty small cell with a built-in bed.

My priest didn’t abandon me, every month he sent me letters in which he sometimes talked to me about God and that He is good. I answered him, if your God was good, why there had to be so many wars, poverty, why some people die from hunger while others had abundance? Why some people had several houses while other had none? The priest answered me: André, you are responsible for it. What? Me? I would accept that I was responsible for robberies but not for the world’s poverty!

And one day the priest sent me a thick book and wrote to me: André, you can read this book all the time, even after your death, and you can start with any page. A prison officer brought it to me and told me: it is a good book, you should read it, and you can even take it with you to a cell. What is it about? About God he answered. What! No way! He dragged that God of his even in to my cell! I threw that book away. The priest still wrote to me and encouraged me to read the book.

Well, to make him happy…in 10 years I opened it 9 times. I started with reading about a wedding feast in Cana, where Jesus turned water into wine. I turned on a tap over a sink and said: man, let wine flow in here! It didn’t work. I wrote about it to the priest and added: that book of yours doesn’t work anyhow. The priest wrote back to me: André, you read it without a context, have patience.

I read a story about a Samaritan woman, a story about raising of Lazarus. This story made me angry, I couldn’t believe it, and what about my buddy, whom cozzpots sent away from this world, why wasn’t he raised? After a longer time I again continued in reading and I found out how much good Jesus did for other people and how they pursued him, spitted on him, whipped him, hurt and then nailed to a cross. It stirred me up, I couldn’t understand, how they could do so much evil to somebody who did so much good.

Meeting at two at night

I stopped reading and persistently I was looking for a way how to escape… I waited for some weapon or a file but these articled were blocked. There was no more hope for me left and thus I called to Jesus in this despair. I told him: if you exist, I shall give you all I have here. Come to my cell at two at night and you will help me escape. That night I fell asleep and suddenly something woke me up in the middle of the night. Ready to jump to my feet I felt presence of somebody in my cell, but I couldn’t see anybody. Then I heard clear and strong voice inside of me: André, it is two o’clock in the morning, we were supposed to meet. I called on a prison officer and shouted at him: Was it you calling me? No, he said. What time is it, I asked. Two. Two what? Exactly two, said a prison officer. Then again I heard that voice: Don’t be disbeliever, I am your God, God of all people. But I can’t see you! I replied.

In that moment a light appeared at bars of a prison grate. And in that light there was a man with pierced hands and feet and with a hole in his right side. He said to me: It was also for you. In that moment scales of sins for 37 years fell off my eyes and I could see all my wretchedness and malice. I fell to my knees and I stayed in this position till seven in the morning. I was weeping in front of God and all evil flew out of me. I understood that for 37 years I was knocking on nails in His hands and feet. At seven in the morning prison officers opened my cell and they saw me on my knees weeping and I told them: I will not spit on you any more, I will not beat up anybody, I will not rob anybody, because every time I would do it, I would do it to Jesus. Prison officers were surprised, they though in the first moment that it is about some treason from my side. But then they quickly understood that I have totally changed. Several prisoners converted and they also could meet this wonderful God and change their lives. Now I am free, my life has changed completely and I spend all my time by talking to others about love of my God.