The Rev. Thomas Chatman knows the dark.

He’s lived in it, almost died in it and was imprisoned by it for more than 12 years.

He calls that space where there is no hope and light an incarceration.

It’s a subject the 50-year-old minister knows personally, having spent 15 years behind bars at Parchman and other state prisons.

Yet the incarceration Chatman describes to area youth groups these days has little to do with his life behind bars and more to do with the years before.

“I was a prisoner long before I went to prison,” Chatman said. “I was shackled by my addiction.”

In the dark

What started out as heavy drinking after leaving the Army in 1983, quickly turned into a life of drugs.

Cocaine was his drug of choice. Chatman entered rehabilitation programs numerous times to get off drugs, but each time he returned to his addiction.

Neither his marriage nor a newborn son was enough to turn him away from drugs and because of his addiction he lost both his wife and the first years of his son’s life.

“I was going down real fast,” Chatman said. “I was panhandling, getting a quarter here, getting a dollar there looking for the next high. It got to the point I didn’t want life anymore.”

Life grew increasingly dark and desperate. Chatman turned to stealing to feed his drug habit.

Seeing the light

Looking back, Chatman now sees his arrest for burglary, his escape from the Adams County Jail and his recapture days later as the turning point in his life.

In 1993, Chatman was sentenced to 60 years in the Mississippi Department of Corrections — a death sentence for many prisoners. But for Chatman the day he entered the doors of Parchman was his day of independence.

“Even though I went to prison to be locked up, that is where God set me free,” Chatman said.

He is quick to tell people that prison was not where he found God. For Chatman, God was there all along.

“God had to take me through everything I went through,” Chatman said. “He had to tear me down and make me understand that I couldn’t do it without him.”

“He had to save me from myself,” Chatman said.

After two years behind bars, Chatman decided to focus not on his life behind bars but on a new life free from spiritual bondage.

“I no longer was looking for a way out. The only thing I focused on was doing the will of God.”

With his rejuvenated faith, Chatman began preaching in prison. It was not easy.

“I shook like a leaf on a tree.” Chatman said. “Sometimes I preached so low you could hardly hear.”

With each passing day, Chatman knew that the ministry was his calling.

“I was no longer a prisoner,” Chatman said. “I wasn’t serving time. I was serving God.”

Chatman preached behind bars for more than 12 years, until he was paroled in January 2008.

Shining the light

Two years later, Chatman walks the streets of Natchez — the same streets he wandered years ago in spiritual darkness.

These days, the founder of Coming Out of the Dark Ministries is not reaching out for a handout. He is reaching out with hope.

Unlike a traditional church, Chatman’s ministry is in the streets.

“That is where the work is,” Chatman said. “My ministry is to get people off drugs and to help people get off the streets.”

Most weekdays, Chatman works as a landscaper to make a living. The hours outside work and sleep are spent preaching and spreading the word of God to those who need it the most. Chatman believes he is doing what many in traditional churches shy away from.

“Jesus said, ‘I didn’t come for the righteous, I came for the sinners,’” Chatman said. “Seldom does anyone want to go into the field and work.”

“The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few. There are few people who want to go into the streets and labor and help people change their lives,” Chatman said.

For more than a year Chatman has been visiting prisoners in the City of Natchez and the Adams County jails preaching God’s healing word.

He mentors youth in the Adolescent Offender Program at Central Alternative School and in Natchez Youth Build.

He preaches at Jeffersoniann Apartments and at a rehabilitation center in Vicksburg.

On Saturday and Sunday nights, he hosts tent meetings in neighborhoods closer to those that need help. The tent services offer a warm meal and the chance to fellowship in the name of God.

The tent has moved two times since the ministry started in November 2009.

The tent services do not focus on Chatman primarily. Each person who comes to the meeting is given the opportunity to offer their talents to the service and to God. Some get up and speak. Others sings. Others are content to sit and listen.

“If you allow people to be more creative and give them a chance to participate, then they feel like they are a part of it all,” Chatman said.

When Chatman is not speaking to youth groups or preaching at the tent meetings he is handing out business cards to the people he stops and talks to on the streets.

“I hand them out all over the city,” Chatman said. “Whenever they get to the point where they need help, I tell them to call.”

When they call, Chatman doesn’t hesitate to drive them to rehab. In all, Chatman has helped more than 30 people get help.

Spreading hope

Chatman believes that his ministry is not just for those who are troubled, strung out on drugs and in need of help. His message is for the entire community Chatman said.

“I hope people will see that people can change,” Chatman said. “I am an example of that.”

“I want people to know that God is real. They say once an addict, always an addict — that’s a lie,” Chatman said. “I believe that the only hope is Jesus Christ.”

Chatman said knowing that doesn’t mean the community should ignore the growing drug problem.

“There is a real need and everyone is sweeping it under the rug,” Chatman said. “The jails are filling up. Just locking (drug addicts) up is not the solution.”

“We have to make an adjustment,” Chatman said.

Chatman hopes one day that more people will help people get off the streets and that rehabilitation services will be offered in Natchez.

“We have gotten more than 30 people to rehab,” Chatman said. “This is just one ministry. If there were more people reaching out, imagine how many more people we could get off the street.”