In the Bible, Jesus Christ was a carpenter who was then prosecuted as a prisoner. For 39-year-old Bruce Harvey, his life went the opposite direction - he was a prisoner for years before turning to God and becoming a full time carpenter.
As a teenager, Harvey wanted to be an architect, but he gave up that dream for a life on the streets, and paid dearly for it. But after four stints in prison, he decided to change his life and opened his own business. Now, Harvey uses this opportunity to help the other young so that they don't fall into the same prison pit he did. His goal is to eventually have a construction empire, to serve the Belizean people, and to spread the word of God.
Courtney Menzies visited his workshop today and heard his story of redemption and spirituality. Here is her story.
Bruce Harvey, Harvey Brothers & Family Cabinet Shop
"The first time I went to jail, I went 2009, in October, and that was for some bullets I had in my yard."
And that fateful day in 2009 was the start of 39-year-old Bruce Harvey's decade long journey to finding God, himself, and his passion.
Bruce Harvey, Harvey Brothers & Family Cabinet Shop
"From now when I watch it, from way back in my life, as a young boy, he was showing me signs that I didn't understand. Now, I understand, and when I put everything together, I see the puzzle, I see the whole picture. I was young, I was immature, my mindset, like I wasn't thinking of a future at those times."
"Jail was hard. Jail was frustrating. Jail... I used to try to recreate my mind by reading, playing chess, checkers, sometimes I used to do workout, but how you get taken away from the world, like my mindset, like I was kind of down, so sometimes not even that I would want to do, I would just want to lie down."
"I end up messing with weed, trying to sell weed, I was at Tango two, the school program, the school building, and I got busted with the weed. Those times, I gave up a good opportunity too because when I was going to school and they did the TD class, I used to always pass high, and when they saw that I graduated from high school and I used to do TD, they were talking to me about making me be a teacher at the school, that would be good, but because of my mindset, I end up messing with weed, because I was thinking about eating, I am thinking about, 'I want smoke.'"
"I done reach jail but the more I do, the more I am being that person there, the more deeper I am getting into jail. You used to have a saying they use to say, I am already at jail, how far down can you take me?"
And for Harvey, he had a lot more to go before he finally hit rock bottom. After he was released from prison in 2010, he had two months of freedom before he was sent back to prison.
Bruce Harvey, Harvey Brothers & Family Cabinet Shop
"I do thirteen months at jail, two months at road, gone back gone do four months remand, come out do eight months at road, and end up back at jail and get five years. This is how my life started to tumble down because I didn't want to man up, I would say."
"I used to like, you know you say you fail, you're always making wrong decisions, you fail, you fail, you fail, until one spell I believe like I can't do anything good. So in 2012, I got my five years."
"That was for a robbery, because this is how I was living, I used to live in an illusion when I was on the streets, because I used to be on the streets, hang out, do craziness, so I used to do things like that."
"It was rough, the decision making, now when I reach at jail, it's like a spiritual warfare, then now, I used to beat up myself, because I said like, so you can't get it right then, bredda?"
"While back at jail on my five, I used to chop. Now this is another chapter of what I am supposed to do. I do hard labor, I was on the chopping gang. So that part, I didn't used to read, but that's what I had to go through. I came out of jail after my five years."
"I was supposed to come out with a belief core about God, and I am going to church and this and that, but I didn't come out with the right mindset, and because of that, I got into a situation and reach back to jail."
At this point, Harvey had already missed out on five years of his three kids' lives, and though he was trying to make it up to them, he found himself back behind bars before he could celebrate his youngest daughter's birthday.
Bruce Harvey, Harvey Brothers & Family Cabinet Shop
"I used to meet people at jail who didn't like their dads because their dads didn't raise them. They talk down on their dads, now I told myself this will happen to me."
"Now I have to make it up to my daughter, Faith, because I haven't done any birthdays with her, I went to jail, when she was small, I think she was like one, going for two when I went to jail to do my five years. Before birthday come, her birthday was July, and nearly the ending of June, I ended up back in jail 2018."
"When I heard my kids were already packed, it mashed them up, just thinking about it, and about my failing. It hurt me, it tore me up at jail. To be honest, this is to be real, and to be honest, and those points, I ended up in depression, until I contemplate how I could hang myself because I was tired of life because I believed I was a failure."
"I cry to God on my bed late at night and begged God to not let me wake up. Please take away my life, because it hurts, because I know I could be a better person but it's like I just can't make the right decision for that to happen and it used to hurt."
"When I shut my eyes on my bed and the things started to come back to me and I said how I hurt this one and I hurt that one and I deprived this person and deprived those kids, it hurts. When I robbed that young man that I went to jail for, he have kids, I don't know if I took away his, he was going to buy food for his kids so they could eat, he work all week and maybe he might buy ice cream every Friday for his kids and they're waiting for this, now me come as the bad one and take away his money. When he reach home, what will he tell his kids?"
"I wasn't looking at it like that, I was selfish. It hurt me, because this isn't what God wants. You see, this is when I got spiritually awakened, my remorse came."
Harvey said it was this little Bible that got him through the most difficult parts of that last year he spent behind bars.
Bruce Harvey, Harvey Brothers & Family Cabinet Shop
"I start to put all the puzzles together from 2009, from beyond, all the times I got saved, I got shot already, watch me hand, I get chopped, these are my scars from the streets, watch this finger can't straighten. This is the scars, these are the scars, this is what the streets bring. I was supposed to be dead, but God had a true purpose for me, so just made me get harmed, he didn't make them kill me, it's like Job."
And in between his prison stints, he'd begun following in the footsteps of his uncles, Freddy and Arturo Rodriguez, and his father, Jacinto Rodriguez, all of whom were carpenters. His father had even been the general foreman when the Central Bank of Belize had been built.
So, when he was in prison for the last time, he entered into an entrepreneurship program. And when he made finally came out in 2019, he made the right decision and starting following his dream of owning his own cabinet shop.
Bruce Harvey, Harvey Brothers & Family Cabinet Shop
"Everything that I went through and I said I would do with the grace of God is coming to reality right now. I am sitting under my workshop. First, my workshop was only this little piece where these things are, it's only there, I have pictures of it when it's only there I was working. Then things happened, we got some second hand zinc and knock up a little thing."
And in the last 8 months, Harvey's business has grown and his new dream is to build a construction empire. He's using the opportunity he has to help the other young men and even boys in his community so that they don't have to go through what he did.
And, he wants to make sure his prices can be afforded by any Belizean.
Bruce Harvey, Harvey Brothers & Family Cabinet Shop
"With everything, my vision is to really open me a construction company, I have a lot of homies around me, I have homies they lay blocks and they plaster."
"Then I have my welder, he weld right here at my yard, I have my cousin he build cabinet with we, but he's a certified plumber. Then I have two of my homies, they're certified electricians. All young boys."
"Then I have the little youths there, I don't want them to grow up like us, and make wrong decisions, so from now I invite them in my shop, when they see we build and they like it, they come around, I don't chase them."
"We do, kitchen cabinets, bathroom cabinet, closets, chest of drawers, we do entertainment center, we do beds, we do upholstery, anything out of wood, we build."
"Tiles work we do, if you have a pile of sand in front of your yard and need people to dash it in, we got the manpower to do that too. I have a lot of homies out here, I don't want them on the street, I don't want to lose any of my homies, so if I could get the opportunity and they help for me to create my business and build up my spot and get jobs to give them, and bring them in, and make them work, and pay them, I could pay them, once I could get jobs to pay them, I could bring them in,"
"I don't want to chance people pocket, I want to help people. I was doing hard labor at jail, chopping hard, this is what I love, I love this. So now it's like this, I want things reasonable that I could make people afford. You see when you put the puzzle together, everything falls into place."
But while he's come a long way, the journey hasn't ended, and he said he just needs a little more support:
Bruce Harvey, Harvey Brothers & Family Cabinet Shop
"I would want help with my table saw, my jointer, my shaper, a band saw and a plainer, they have like about five tools, those are the big tools, those I will really want. I want to do a lot man, but it's just one day at a time."
And though the first four decades of his life has been filled with hardships, Harvey said it gave him a new appreciation for life:
Bruce Harvey, Harvey Brothers & Family Cabinet Shop
"Jail make you appreciate - well me, it make me appreciate a lot of things in life. The stars, just for me to be able to sit out here in the night and I look up there and I see the stars, and you see God's wonders. back then I didn't used to look at it this way."
"This wasn't about being perfect, this was about progress, so as my years go by and I'm in and out of jail, the more deeper I was finding God and the deeper I found God, I started to see more meaning to life."
Journey with God
Bruce Harvey, Harvey Brothers & Family Cabinet Shop
"Now I have people that stay disbelieve me because the first time I went to jail, I learnt about God, I came out here and start to share little God talkings that I read, because that excite me, but they have people that believe that when you start talk about God, you should just turn righteous all of a sudden, and you're not supposed to make any mistakes because you're talking about God and you're reading your bible, but it doesn't work so."
"I watch enough people that I meet behind jail come out to road and dead in a week, two weeks time. That hurt me because, like, man, that could be you, you need to tighten up. But you would think about it then, then after that you just fall back into your old self."
The Harvey Brothers business also does tile work and refurbishing. And Bruce Harvey explained that also the same type of work in the Pomona Village - engaging the youths there as well.
He hopes to one day be able to have holiday carpentry programs, where he teaches kids the skill while they are out of school.
If you would like to contract Harvey's services, you can contact him at 601-1942.
