Robyn, an inmate participating in The Urban Ministry Institute (TUMI), has spurred a prayer movement at her prison in California.
Robyn sensed the Lord prompting her to create a prayer box. With approval from the prison staff, she and a few others from TUMI, a program providing seminary-level education to prisoners, decorated a beautiful box and stationed it in a common area in the prison.
Robyn waited to see if her fellow prisoners would drop their prayer requests in the box throughout the week. When the designated prayer time, Tuesday at 3:45, fast approached, Robyn peeked in the box only to be disappointed.
There inside sat one lonely prayer — Robyn’s.
But Robyn refused to give up.
She began strolling the halls, holding blank slips of paper and announcing, “Prayer requests, ladies!” And to her surprise, after walking down all four hallways, she held an overwhelming number of prayer requests — so many, in fact, that Robyn needed to extend the next prayer time!
After a month of gathering requests and praying, Robyn was growing weary from the heaviness of the requests. But the Lord brought her the idea to ask for praise reports in addition to prayer requests. No sooner than she could walk down the hall, a fellow prisoner approached Robyn to announce that God had answered her prayer request by healing her friend of cancer. That same day, another woman shared with Robyn an answered prayer, too. And it didn’t stop there; more praise reports began rolling in about family members finding Christ, addictions subsiding, and family and friends finally responding to attempts of communication after years of silence.
A Catalyst for Faith
The prayer box has become the highlight of Robyn’s week. She sees expectant faces waiting at the doors with their prayer requests and often hears in the distance, “Don’t forget my room!”
As Robyn’s fellow prisoners have witnessed answered prayers, their faith in the power of Christ has exploded.
“We are getting stronger,” she says. “Our unit is becoming more peaceful … Healings are taking place. The women’s requests are deeper, more meaningful, less selfish. God is doing a mighty work!”
This story was submitted by Marilyn DiBuduo, a Prison Fellowship TUMI Program Specialist in Northern California.