Eyewitness News (WEHT/WTVW)

Former Owensboro drug dealer donates his book to every jail in the U.S.

OWENSBORO, Ky. (WEHT) – Owensboro native, Jordan Wilson, is a former convicted drug dealer. Going on seven years drug free, he has donated a copy of his book to every jail, prison and juvenile detention center in the United States.

Wilson’s book is called “Jesus > Drugs: The Only War Won by Surrender.” The book covers Wilson’s journey of drug addiction, jail time and the freedom he found through his faith in Jesus.

The idea to donate a book to every jail came six months after it was published. Wilson donated a copy to the local jail where his friend was serving time.

What came next was a calling that Wilson and his wife, Kayley, felt was from God. After much research, Wilson and his wife figured out it would cost nearly $50,000 to get the books to every facility.

Their plan was put into action by creating a GoFundMe page, tacking a large map to their living room and a Facebook post sharing the goal. People started donating the costs to cover every facility in entire states.

Jordan and the map tacked to his living room.

When a state was completely funded, Wilson or Kayley would outline it in a marker and write the states’ abbreviation on it. When books were shipped to the state outlined, the couple would color the state red.

Wilson received help from a few important people in his life. His mom and her Bible study group would package and ship the books. A friend from South Carolina researched all of the facilities’ addresses and emailed them to Wilson.

The entire project took five months, costed $41,000 and 5051 books were shipped to jails, prisons and detention centers across the country. Every single facility in the U.S. received a copy of Wilson’s book and he receives phone calls and emails from jail chaplains and letters from inmates regularly.

Kayley coloring the map to represent which states had received books.

“My wife and I have not kept one dollar of the funds for ourselves. Every bit that was raised has gone back into the mission. All we want is for people to be given hope by pointing them to Jesus,” said Wilson. “When God made it clear that we were supposed to do this, it was like staring at a mountain. It was so beautiful watching God move the mountain before us.”

Wilson now works as the development director at a Christ-centered drug recovery program in Owensboro called, Friends of Sinners. He and his wife launched a website called Jesusisgreaterthan.org.

Book given to inmate.

Wilson and Kayley’s next goals are to obtain nonprofit status for their program, send more books to other countries and travel to share their story.