PEORIA MAGAZINE October 2023

cocaine (worth hundreds of thousands of dollars) and slammed with a 22-year term in federal prison. Yet behind bars, he quietly continued to run drug operations, at one point asking a brother to drive to an address and collect money. En route, the broth er crashed his car, leaving him on life support. The news shook Snook. “That was the come-to-Jesus moment,” he recalled quietly. “I made a deal with the Lord. I didn’t know anything else, and I didn’t know religion. But I had heard about Jesus. We all have, because we’re from America. We’re blessed to have heard that. And when there’s nowhere else to go, nowhere else to cry, you’re really in a great spot, because that’s when you can come to God with a real heart. And I went to Jesus and said, ‘Lord, if you save my brother’s life, I will give you every breath in my body for the rest of my life.’ “That was my prayer. And that’s what happened.” His brother lived. Snook began read ing the Bible. His rough edges smoothed out. Inmates asked about the change. “I couldn’t explain it,” he said. “I said, ‘All I know is I found Jesus and this thing is real.’” Inmates ask him to hold Bible studies. At night, he would yell out sermons so others on his cell block could hear. Many accepted Jesus. “I was baptizing guys in the shower in prison,” Snook said. “We worked with what he had.” A VISION, AND A BUSINESS STARTUP Years passed, with Snook continuing to share the Bible and messages. Early last year, after serving the mandatory 85% of his sentence, he was sent to a halfway house in a place he’d never visited: Peoria. Snook took a job working construc tion. But he remembered a prison dream he believes came from God: framed scripture verses that kept changing. The technology flummoxed him. “I told Him when I woke up, ‘Lord, I can see it but I don’t understand it,’”

Steven Snook with his religion-themed frames

he said. “I’d never seen a smartphone. Facebook hadn’t been invented when I went to prison. There was no TikTok. I didn’t know how to send an email. I didn’t know how to send a text.” In Peoria, he nonetheless decided to pursue that vision. Armed with a new cellphone, he began Googling sug gestions regarding entrepreneurship. One thing led to another, and he ended up at Peoria NEXT Innovation Center, Bradley University’s startup incubator. Snook shared his idea with Director Mi chael Stubbs, who appreciated Snook’s enthusiasm as well as his humble lack of know-how. “That was kind of the unique aspect and opportunity, working with some one who is very intelligent … but hasn’t been able to participate in society for so long, to really get him up to speed,” Stubbs said. Peoria NEXT helped Snook formulate plans, find investors and hire a manu facturer for his business, called Jesus Speaks LLC — the LLC standing for Lim ited Liability Corporation, of course, but also “Life, Liberty and Christianity,” said Snook. He also earned a $5,000

business grant from Peoria County and a $10,000 grant from the City of Peoria. Snooks’ office remains at Peoria NEXT and he sells his frames online at https:// jesusspeaksllc.com/. He looks forward to the upcoming holiday season, as “our Christmas season sales last year were 1,500% higher than any other month. The Scripture Frame is a very unique gift that makes everyone stop unwrap ping and say, ‘This is so cool!’” Meanwhile, he is working on an autobiography. And his ministry, Ex traordinary Solitude (https://www. facebook.com/ExtraordinarySolitude), works with homeless people while sharing his nightly sermons online. To credit it all, he points upward. “You can’t really hear my story with out hearing about the supernatural, how God does things,” he said.

Phil Luciano is a senior writer/columnist for Peo ria Magazine and content contributor to public television station WTVP. He can be reached at phil. luciano@wtvp.org

OCTOBER 2023 PEORIA MAGAZINE 83