6th Annual Unity Fest

By Andrea Bruner
Batesville Daily Guard Assistant Managing Editor
Originally published April 15th, 2011: Batesville Daily Guard

CHARLOTTE — Some days Jason Harstell feels like a broken and rusted old car.

Struggling with addiction, he knows his family could have given up on him.

Instead, like the antique car he has been restoring for the past month, he was pulled from the wreckage of his self-destruction. He found salvation at John 3:16 Ministries at Charlotte.

In the meantime, the 35-year-old Hartsell has worked with another resident, Tom McClendon of Marianna, and instructor James Ashley to restore a two-door hardtop 1960 Ford Thunderbird to auction off for the ministry.

"It needed a whole lot of work done," Hartsell said, estimating it would have cost about $8,000 to fix up. "Me and Tom spent about a month on it. We replaced about 25 percent of the hood, and there were places on the fenders and elsewhere we had to replace."We pretty much done for this car that Bryan and Beverly (Tuggle, the ministry's founders) did for us. We're like old cars — they could have put us in the junkyard. Instead, they take us and fix us up. Bryan and Beverly, they do a good job here. That's what they do. They take us and teach us how to live when the rest of the world is ready to throw us away."

"I've done a little bit of everything," said Hartsell, who hails from Tuckerman, but it started with alcohol. It was easy to get with a family member owning a liquor store.

Hartsell said because of his addictions, he's never stayed in any particular place for too long — until he came to John 3:16. That quickly became home.

The car sort of fell in his lap. "I like doing it. They gave me a chance to do something, and working on this car was something to keep me busy.

"And it's a way to make money for the camp. It costs $33 a day (to operate, compared to $62 a day for an inmate at prison). For 71 people (including instructors, staff and 60 residents), 365 days a year, that's a lot," Hartsell added.

"People like Bryan and Beverly, and people that support this place, if it wasn't for those people giving what they give, there wouldn't be a place for people like me," he continued. One of those supporters is Drew Zylstra, who donated the T-bird.

"I started helping out probably about a year after they first started, when there was only three guys there," Zylstra explained.

A high school student at the time, Zylstra said he just "showed up one day and asked for a tour." Bryan showed him around, although the ministry was just getting off its feet.

"I was just really impressed with the guys out there and the whole ministry, and he invited me to go to church out there," Zylstra continued.

A few years later his parents, Kim and Sherry Zylstra, became involved with John 3:16 and continued their support even after Zylstra went to college, until they moved to Indianapolis.

Tuggle recalled that as a senior, Zylstra came to a Bible study one day and as he walked out, he handed over $1,000 check from his graduation money.

Now, he's giving them the Thunderbird he bought when he was 17.

"I found it on eBay," he said, explaining he was looking for an antique car. Zylstra even joined the Vintage Thunderbird Squarebird Society. The 1960 Thunderbirds were known as the "Square Birds," due to their unique square shape which made them very different from the first generation Thunderbird.

"When I went to college I had full intentions of bringing it back to Indiana, but I knew I didn't need it in college, so I asked them to take care of it."

A self-described "serial entrepreneur," Zylstra owns a retail bookstore and two online bookstores and has other business dealings. Kyra is a social work professor at Ivy Tech Community College

He was still planning to bring it back to Indiana when Tuggle contacted him about the auction.

John 3:16 will also be auctioning off a 1953 Farmall Super C tractor, which came from Ken Coe, who is the father of one of the instructors, Allen Coe.

It was Ken Coe who came up with the idea for auctioning an antique tractor at Unity Fest, Tuggle said. "He said he could get an old car, too, and we thought of this one."

Tuggle talked to Zylstra, who said he wouldn't sell his car to the camp but would donate it for auction.

Zylstra and his wife, Kyra, live in Muncie, Ind. He said they plan to attend Unity Fest next month, as do his sisters in Oklahoma and his parents in Indianapolis.

Zylstra said it was at John 3:16 that he proposed to his wife. "It's a pretty meaningful place to us."