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Local author David Martin said if you plant a seed in good ground, it will grow.

The ground, in these instances, is three simple steps he followed that changed his life from addiction to published author to his master’s degree in theology.

“Good Ground; how simple changes in environment can lead to transformations in habits,” will be available for sale Sunday at Bob Bowers Civic Center, where Martin will receive his master’s degree from Ruach School of Theology. The books can also be found on Amazon and other such sites.

“I felt like I needed to write a book that could really help people going through the same thing I was going through before the first book,” Martin said referring to his first book, the ABC’s of Faith, which was published in 2021.

This new book was about sharing his testimony.

The three-step plan in the book begins with changing the people he was around.

“People can influence you. I had to bring more people around me that were going where I wanted to go,” he said. “I had to get uncomfortable, not know if I fit in. Then I had to change the places I went because there are certain places I can’t go anymore.”

One of those places is the club. He said he knows if he were to go to a club he would eventually end up drinking and staying up all night.

“Places are very important. If you go to the barbershop one day, you’re going to get a haircut,” he said saying you may not intend to get the haircut but sooner or later it will happen.

Martin also had to change his way of how he saw himself. Was he created to party and run the streets or to change the world?

More change for the better

While working in his testimony in the book he began spending time with prison ministry.

“It’s amazing,” he said of the feeling of walking into the LeBlanc Unit. “When I walk in the door, I see their faces light up, their smile. The inmates lead the praise and worship. I don’t like to call them inmates, I call them brothers.”

Rev. Glenn Alexander of Ruach Ministries International in Port Arthur said David Martin is “the real deal.” Martin came to Ruach from another ministry but stayed because his wife was here. Alexander has seen Martin grow spiritually ever since.

“It has been nothing but growth for David,” he said.

Martin became interested in theology and started off with a diploma in Biblical studies and continued to pursue his associate’s degree, then bachelor and now is set to receive his master’s degree.

“He is a good man. A community advocate, a family man and he’s a real treasure to the Ruach Ministries International,” Alexander said. “His is a life that was transformed through Jesus Christ in the person of David Martin. I can attest and be witness to that.”
Alexander’s wife, Rev. Yoshi Alexander, said the ministry is giving Martin the opportunity to launch his book just as they had with the first one he published.

“We are so proud of him and anything we can do to help him grow and give him exposure, we are ready to do it,” Yoshi Alexander said.

Background

Martin began experimenting with drugs and alcohol in high school and was addicted until the age of 30.

At his lowest point, Martin was abusing marijuana, alcohol, Codeine and taking pills. He abused cocaine and smoked embalming fluid, he said.

In 2006 he was charged with a felony and sentenced to eight years deferred probation but was released from that in four years.

He began attending church, got a job, got married and transformed.

He credits his mother’s prayers and God’s intervention with brining him from the depths of addiction to being a husband, father, theology graduate and author.

The future

“My goal is to turn this book into a curriculum where I can go into the school district, the same school district, PAISD that raised me. I remember in high school when I started taking a turn for the worse,” Martin said.

Martin is looking to create a curriculum that is preventive for the youth, something that can keep them on the straight and narrow.

He’d also like to get the same curriculum into the prison system so the people who made mistakes can start their transformations in jail and be ready for change upon release.

“They can feel the pain inside me and now the freedom inside me,” he said. “I actually went through this. I actually almost died. I saw the tears on my mama’s face.”

Information on Martin can be found at martinsempowermentgroup.com. He can be reached at info@martinsempowerment.com.