Nobody Has to Walk Out Alone: Meet David

David’s life moved through a chaotic childhood, years of buried questions, and time behind bars. His life changed when he surrendered it all to Jesus with a worn jailhouse Bible in his hands. 

Caught in the Middle  

David Rabon grew up in Charleston, South Carolina, the oldest of three children. His mother was only 16 when he was born, and his father was 21. They were high school sweethearts who loved their kids deeply but weren’t ready for the weight of a young family. Money stayed tight, and arguments echoed through the house. David, his brother, and his sister often felt caught in the middle. “You don’t want to take sides, because you love them both,” David says.

His parents divorced when he was in second grade, and he spent the rest of his childhood moving between two homes, two sets of rules, and new stepparents. Still, David never doubted the love beneath the noise. “I knew we were loved,” he says. “We could just feel the anxiety and the frustration.” For a season, David lived with his father and stepmother before heading off to boarding school. At the time, he was sure his stepmom was shipping him away. To his surprise, he loved it, even though his mother hated to see him go.  

God Met Him at Rock Bottom

David carried questions nobody ever answered. With no one to talk to, he pushed them down and worked hard to become the son he believed his parents expected. As the oldest, he believed he needed the house, the car, the good job, and the picture-perfect family to make them proud. 

He married, became a father to a daughter and a son, and kept smiling on the outside. Inside, the unanswered questions piled up like unopened mail. He never faced them head on, and he never let anyone help him carry them. Church became a routine he went through without feeling it. The struggles he buried kept growing, and eventually they cost him nearly everything he had. In county jail, someone handed David a worn Bible printed in the 1960s. He started reading it, and one day, alone in his cell, something he read spoke to his spirit. 

“I was as low as I could possibly go,” David says. “I could only go up from there. So I surrendered. I said, I’m going to do it your way, God, from now on, and see what happens.” Strangely, David felt a weight lift off his shoulders. For the first time in years, he had nothing left to hide behind. He kept reading, kept praying, and kept asking God to lead his next step. 

His faith in God became the rock that carried him through his sentence. Prison wears people down in body and mind, and David watched it break men around him. “I don’t think I would have made it without my connection to Christ,” he says. “A lot of people don’t have that rock.” 

The Right Table

Inside, David noticed something different about the men he knew who were in the JUMPSTART SC class. They talked differently and carried themselves differently. Men came back from other programs acting the same as before, but the JUMPSTART SC men were changing. “I’m thinking there might be something to that,” he remembers. Getting into the class took years. Transfers, timing, and COVID kept closing the door. Then, during his final year at Broad River, the door swung open.

“God had a plan,” David says. “I was supposed to be on that yard, in that class, with those people for a reason.” 

Every week, David sat at a table with his peers, working through The Purpose Driven Life and the JUMPSTART SC booklet. The men grew close as they shared their stories. A large amount of the men from David’s table later came home to Restoration Village too. Around the table, men shared their failures, fears, and hopes out loud, many for the first time. Week after week, they held each other accountable and prayed for one another. “It really meant a lot,” David says. “It was a good time for me.” 

A New Home

Because going back home to Charleston wasn’t an option for him, David applied for JUMPSTART SC’s Transitional Program. The answer came back approved, and his parents picked him up and drove him to his new home. David will be the first to tell you the first days outside can crush a person.

“For the first 30 days, everything is coming at you at one time,” David says. “It can be really overwhelming.” 

JUMPSTART SC’s 30-day stabilization period gave him room to breathe. He lived at the Big House while the Indigo Hope Center was still being finished, and the staff already knew every step he would need to take. Then he moved to Restoration Village. “They just laid the path so smooth when I got out,” he says. “It was amazing.”

Every step of the way, he felt connected. Staff knew the road ahead because they had walked it with so many others, and they had a plan ready for him. “They were very helpful with whatever I needed,” he says. David’s new life was not a smooth road at first. He lost a job along the way, and instead of hiding it, he leaned on JUMPSTART SC staff. He persevered, kept filling out applications, and landed a new job. David learned that faith does not erase hard days.

“Even if you’re a Christian, that doesn’t mean the rest of your life is going to be sunny and uneventful,” he says. “You’re going to have trials. You’re going to have tribulations.” 

An Unexpected Family  

Incarceration cost David friends and some family, but his mom and dad never left his side. Meanwhile, God gave him something he never expected. “I’ve been blessed with a bigger family than what I started with,” David says. Joe was already at Restoration Village when David arrived, and the two clicked right away. “Whenever I’m struggling with anything, I know I can go to him,” David says. “We can work it out. We can pray it out.” 

When he was a house manager in the Transitional Program, David welcomed the new men walking out of prison and into the Village. He remembered how strange it felt to come home, so he made it an aim of his to be welcoming. David recalls when Myron came out and their friendship grew fast. Both Joe and Myron answer every time David calls for prayer, and he knows he can count on them.

Through JUMPSTART SC, David bought a vehicle interest free. Today, he is a proud, hardworking JUMPSTART SC graduate living in his own townhouse.

JUMPSTART SC is Necessary

There is a common misconception that people leave prison with a clean slate to start over. David wants you to know the truth.

“It’s not a simple matter of, oh, you just need to get a job,” he says. 

Before the first paycheck ever arrives, returning citizens face a mountain. Restitution and probation fees put them in debt before they step through the prison doors. They need clothes, housing, and transportation all at once, with no income to cover any Health care is another battle few people see. Medical and dental care inside prison often falls short, so many men spend their first years home simply getting healthy again. Many come home needing dentures so they can eat, or eye care so they can see. “You’re taking your first two years just trying to get more healthy, get back on track,” David says. One of David’s old housemates came home with fast-growing cataracts, which went untreated while he was in prison. 

David points out bias of all kinds follows the previously incarcerated. Some individuals ace the job interview and then lose the offer when the background check comes back. While second-chance employers do exist, David explains, there are far fewer than most people think. “Employers are afraid to take the chance on someone who’s been incarcerated,” he says. Without work, nothing else falls into place. 

David doesn’t make excuses. “It’s our own fault,” he says. “We did the crime.” Still, returning citizens are working hard to put the past behind them, and every rejection throws it back in their faces. “It’s discouraging,” he admits. of it. But David's hope rests in something no background check can touch. “This is just man-made stuff we’re going through,” he says. “God's going to open doors and move people out of the way.” 

David has watched men who did not go through JUMPSTART SC’s Transitional Program try to rebuild alone, grow overwhelmed, and turn to old vices instead of to Christ. 

“Places like JUMPSTART SC are not a luxury,” David says. “They’re a necessity for people coming out of prison to successfully come back to society.” 

Nobody Walks Alone

David hears from men he served time with who wish they had chosen JUMPSTART SC. They are struggling to find work and housing, and they are carrying it all alone. 

To anyone nervous about applying, David has one answer...

“If you’ve prayed about it and God puts it on your heart, you need to do it. There’s no reason for you to do it alone when you have the opportunity to be part of a Christian community and a family.” 

Open the Next Door

Restoration Village gave David more than a bed. It gave him a family, a plan, and a place to rebuild his life with Christ at the center. Your gift makes homecomings like David’s possible. It turns a man fresh out of prison into a house manager who welcomes the next man home. Your gift tells someone walking out the gate today he does not have to do it alone. 

Will you be the reason the next David walks out into a family instead of a fight to survive? 

Give today at: https://jumpstartsc.org/give/

Are you considering giving to Alumni Housing? Your support funds more than a house for our graduates. It builds the foundation David found, a real pathway from incarceration to restoration. Give today at: https://jumpstartsc.org/give/

Are you considering volunteering? You do not need a special title or a perfect résumé. You need what David’s mentors brought to his table, a heart ready to show up week after week. Inside volunteers and transitional program volunteers do more than change lives. They are changed too, one conversation at a time. https://jumpstartsc.org/volunteer/