How Panama’s Dictator Manuel Noriega Found God in the Unlikeliest Place

On this episode of Our American Stories, in the late 1980s, Panama was at the center of global attention as strongman Manuel Noriega tightened his grip on power. Known for his brutality and ties to the drug trade, he seemed untouchable. But when a hairdresser unknowingly welcomed Noriega’s daughter into her chair, an unlikely chain of events began. That meeting opened the door to the dictator himself, leading to a story of faith that unfolded against the history of Operation Just Cause and the U.S. invasion of Panama. The late Joe Garman, founder of ARM Prison Ministries, tells the unforgettable story of how a dictator met God in the unlikeliest of places.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:10):
This is Lee Habib and this is Our American Stories,
the show where America is the star and the American people.
Search for the Our American Stories podcasts, go to the iHeartRadio,
Apple Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Up Next,
a story from Joe Garman. Joe is the founder of
Armed Prison Ministries, one of the largest prison ministries in

(00:33):
the world. While it's fair to say that he's seen
his fair share of prisoners over the years, once sticks
out for pretty obvious reasons. He was the infamous dictator
of Panama. Let's get into the story. Here's Joe with
our own contributor Katrina Hine.

Speaker 2 (00:52):
When you go into the chapel, you don't know who
this guy is in this pew or who that guy
is on the platform. So when you met Noriega the
first time you met him face to face, right, oh yeah,
don't you remember when we invaded Panama. Remember that.

Speaker 3 (01:17):
The goals of the United States have been to safeguard
the lives of Americans, to defend democracy in Panama, to
combat drug trafficking, and to protect the integrity of the
Panama Canal trees.

Speaker 2 (01:36):
They were broadcasting trying to get him to come and
surrender and playing loud music and all that.

Speaker 1 (01:43):
So, you know, talking about why he was such a
bad man.

Speaker 2 (01:49):
Oh, he was a bad man. I'm telling you. He
was killed people, and I mean he was deep in
the drugs. He was a drug lord. They always called
him dictator, he called himself president. But I mean he

(02:13):
was a different person in that jail cell. After he
became Christian. Well, we build babtistries at my ministry, and
the man who brought him to Christ ordered a baptistry
from us, and that's what he was baptized in. That's

(02:36):
when I broke in and started writing to him, you know,
because we were the ones who provided this baptistry for him.
And he wrote back and invited me anytime I was
in the Miami area to come and see him, and
he would schedule an opening for me to come in.
And he had a pod all to himself in that prison.
He was in solitary confinement at all times because they

(02:58):
didn't want him speak to the other prisoners, and they
didn't want the other prisoners speaking to him.

Speaker 1 (03:04):
What were they afraid of?

Speaker 2 (03:06):
Drugs? He could have he could have run that out
of the prison, but his pod was made up of
two compartments. The one compartment had his bed and his
exercise equipment in there, and the other apartment had a

(03:28):
table and kind of like a little office in there,
and so he would do his exercises and then he
would go and write his letters and whatever we had communion.
I took communion to him and he and his daughter.
In fact, she was my translator. She was my interpreter.

(03:49):
We talked about sin. She would talk about sin with him.
He was like a hungry man listening to the truth
of God. I'm telling you he was sincere in every way,
and it proved it when he was set back to Panama.

(04:11):
They put him in a home that didn't put him
in a prison. They gave him a house, and he
and his wife lived in that house. And he'd walked
to the store and back and stuff like that, but
nothing like before. He was a changed person. And Christ
is the one who did it to him. It all

(04:34):
started with a beauty shop operator, thank God for his daughter.
She went to then Zawela for something, and while she
was there, she went into a beauty shop to get
her hair done, and the beautician, who was female, did
not know this was Noriega's daughter, and she asked, She

(04:55):
asked Noriega's daughter. I wish I could remember the girl's name.
I can't remember her name. But she asked her if
she was a Christian, and she said no. And that
beauty shop operator witnessed to her in that beauty shop.
And when she got out of the beauty shop a
couple of days later, she heard some of our students.

(05:20):
We had some students from whats are Christian College down
there conducting youth revivals. She went to one of them,
and she went forward one night confessed christ And when
they asked her what was her name, she wouldn't tell them.

(05:42):
But come to find out, they baptized Noriega's daughter in
the river, and Noriega's daughter then witnessed to her mother.
Her mother became a beautiful Christian lady. Her mother eventually
moved to Miami, a Bible study in her home for ladies.

(06:03):
And they're set Noriego with a daughter and a wife,
both shooting both ways. Adding that beauty shop operator to
this state does not know what she did, But God,
what do you think of that? And here we are

(06:30):
today talking about it? Because of what she did. She
could have been quiet and you know, things like this
don't just happen. That'll make you scratch your head, you
know that. And God has done that for me in

(06:50):
so many ways, so many ways. I had this idea
and pooh, here I am over.

Speaker 1 (06:57):
Here, you know, And Joe Garman is right, things like
this just don't happen. This one hairdresser in Venezuela shares
her testimony with the daughter of Manuel Neriega and his wife. Well,
she shares her testimony with the dictator, a mass murderer.

(07:19):
And what do you know, A life has changed. A
life in prison, no doubt, a bad life lived, but
a life redeemed. The story of the hairdresser who converted
a dictator. You are on our American Stories le h
Habib here, and I'm inviting you to help our American
Stories celebrate this country's two hundred and fiftieth birthday coming soon.
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(07:41):
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