CIA agent was anti-religious

By Ariana Erickson –

Before joining CIA, Andrew Bustamente trained Air Force skills, fitness and knowledge. At the same time, his buddy, Meredith Jessup, trained him about the Gospel.

“I treated Jessup like sh-t, all the time, telling him, ‘Don’t you know you’re stupid? Don’t you know you’re ignorant?’” Andrew recalls. “And for a whole year, he never fought back. He never argued with me. He never did anything except just show patience and forgiveness and love and his own opinion.”

Today, Andrew is a born-again Christian. For a guy who was raised not just unreligious but stridently ANTI-religious, the journey to faith was extraordinary.

He was born to a Mexican Catholic mom who hated the church. His dad died of a violent crime when Andrew was young. His step-dad was a Vietnam veteran, who because of all the horrifying things he saw in war, swore there was no God.

Andrew believed religion is for the weak, a crutch for people too scared to face the real world.
He grew up in Pennsylvania and entered at age 18 in the U.S. Air Force Academy, which gave him the opportunity to get his Bachelor of Science in East Asian Studies degree in 2003.

Angry at religion, Andrew enjoyed confronting Christians, trying to break down their beliefs with sharp words and mockery. For him, winning debates was a way to prove his superiority and identity as someone who stood above faith.

Yet this all changed when he encountered Meredith Jessup during his first year at the Air Force. Instead of matching Andrew’s anger, Jessup responded with patience and kindness. Instead of insults, he showed compassion.

“By the end of probably six months, I was like, ‘There’s something to this Jessup guy,’” Andrew said. He began wondering “How is he so kind and friendly?” Jessup also had gone through a lot but he wasn’t violent or angry like Andrew was.

“Could it be his faith?” Andrew wondered.

This thought rattled him. For the first time, he began to wonder if what he had thought as weakness was actually strength. The image of someone showing love in the face of hate stuck in his mind, challenging everything he thought he knew.

Andrew began to observe religions, Christians, Catholics, cultural jews and anyone who was devoted to his faith. He realized that people who have faith are stable and the ones who don’t aren’t as stable. He began reading the Bible and writing down questions and observations in a journal.

“It was in the middle of Psalms that I took Jesus into my own heart and was like, ‘Holy sh-t! I am convinced now,’” Andrew said.

Upon Andrew’s graduation, his close friend Ian Slasnik (sp?) was getting married. Andrew wanted to give a meaningful gift and decided to give Ian, a believer of God, the journal.

“I gave that journal to Ian on his wedding day and like he flipped through three or four pages, heard the story, like started crying on his wedding day and gave it right back to me and said, ‘You can’t give this to me. This has to be for you,’” Andrew tells. “To this day, I still have it.”

Today, Andrew is retired from the CIA and runs a consulting firm called EverydaySpy, based in Colorado Springs.