A couple of weeks ago, we showed this video at FN. Bruce Patterson has an amazing story of survival as a parajumper (or PJ) for the Air Force.
Now, Bruce has been a part of our staff for the past few years, and one thing we’ve learned about him is that he is definitely understated. For example – I don’t know if you were paying attention at about the 2:20 mark in the video above, but Bruce mentions live ammunition and the fact that his fellow PJ’s had to take cover. He also talks about ‘fireworks’ going off. What you might miss from his description is that the live ammunition that was exploding (making the ‘fireworks’) was in his own backpack.
So, because Bruce might not be the one to tell you himself, we thought we’d fill in a little more of his story. While he was in recovery from his accident, he got a visit from Joni, a friend and fellow Air Force employee. They continued to get to know each other and eventually married. Bruce also came to faith in Christ during this same time period. These days, Bruce’s main passion is prison ministry. Like I said earlier, Bruce has been on staff for the last few years as our facilities manager. In fact, he’s the one who implemented our KIC (Keep It Clean) teams – the volunteer groups who clean our building each Saturday, so that we don’t have to pay someone to do it. The money we save goes directly to missions that FN supports.
But, lately Bruce has been wanting to have more time to spend at the Pulaski County Jail and Cummins Prison, where he works with hardened criminals. So, he’s leaving his staff position. But don’t worry; he’s trained his replacement, David Holsted, very well. We’ll feature David in an upcoming blog post to help you get to know him better. He’ll be working alongside Jonathan Elder.
We’d like to thank Bruce, both for sharing his amazing story, and for all he has done for our church family as our facilities director. We can’t wait to see what adventures God has for him next!
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