More than a year after a local contractor went to jail on theft charges, a Texas pastor remains standing in his pursuit of justice.

Artis Edwards, a pastor in Brenham, Texas, told me last week that he made a promise to himself that he would do his part so that Gregg Howell “would never steal from anyone else again,” he said.

Howell, an owner of general contractor Worldwide Concrete and Steel Erections, is serving a five-year prison sentence for theft by deception for wire transfers for $20,000 gone awry.

I will never forget watching Edwards and people from Texas, Louisiana and Tennessee sit in a courtroom nearly two years ago – all with stories of how Howell received money for services and never followed through with the contracts. Those stories mirrored the posts of a blog dedicated to Worldwide Concrete victims.

Howell was indicted in January 2007 on theft charges locally, and was also served two outstanding warrants from Arizona and Virginia for other theft charges, according to police. Southside Church of Christ building committee Chairman Charles Clark was one of many last year who said Howell had failed to deliver on a contract. That church was out $23,000 after Howell took the money but didn’t build its new sanctuary at 6600 Plano Road.

Edwards lost $160,000 – money he borrowed for New Beginnings Missionary Baptist Church to build a new church. After entering a contract with Worldwide Concrete in April 2006 for a project expected to take six months, he said he mainly received calls from creditors and unpaid employees.

When the money was gone and church members began questioning Edwards, it didn’t look good. Though he was principal of a school with 800 students and was making a moderate income, Edwards had taken out a home equity loan to fix up his house and buy new vehicles for his family – on the surface, it looked like Edwards was a greedy pastor who had embezzled the funds.

“I almost lost my boys, almost lost my wife trying to get this money back, trying to keep the church moving forward,” Edwards said.

But New Beginnings church finally got its 12,000-square-foot church built, Edwards said, at the hands of a different contractor. Edwards is in a better place now.

“We’ve been having services since November,” Edwards said. “We’re up to 300 members on Sunday in a little small town like Brenham, Texas.”

A woman who supported the church passed away and left New Beginnings $500,000, Edwards said, providing the necessary funds to complete the construction of the church.

Edwards said Howell will be shipped to Texas with three felony indictments after he serves his time in Kentucky for what happened to New Beginnings. Edwards recently testified to a grand jury about the ordeal.

“(Howell) never asked for forgiveness,” he said.

Edwards said he took Howell’s behavior as a direct act of disrespect to God and to his congregation.

“I felt like he was talking to God and something had to be done.”

To those who have ever been wronged, and for those who feel like fighting for what you believe in, Edwards said prayer and perseverance proved to be an important lesson in his case.

“There’s some things that don’t belong to us and we have to have faith and trust God. I was not going to give up,” Edwards said.

— Contact business reporter Ameerah Cetawayo at acetawayo @bgdailynews.com or 783-3246.