Please pray that God will pave the way for Eric to return home to his daughter, and eventually, to return to prison as a volunteer to share his softball ministry.

The man who once carried a gun and lived in fear now arms himself with a Bible, spreading the Gospel instead of drugs, and though the tattoos remain on his skin, it’s clear that God has put His own stamp much deeper – on Ronnie’s heart.

The Angel Tree program sounded too good to be true to Lisa. Would people in the free world really give Christmas presents to her son and daughter while she was incarcerated?

She signed Coleby and Cortnie up for Angel Tree with a small hope that her children would receive a gift that let them know she still loved them so much.

“She felt the love from Angel Tree as a child,” Danielle says, “and that’s what she wanted children with a parent in prison to feel.”

Kylie was devastated when her mom passed away from a serious illness just weeks before Christmas. The only family the little girl had left was her dad – but he would be in prison for many more years. Kylie never felt more alone, but the hopelessness in her heart fell away when Angel Tree gave her a Christmas she could cherish forever.

Faced with a life sentence, Aaron could have descended into despair and hopelessness. But God called Aaron at his lowest point and prepareed him to serve.

"God opens doors that man wants to shut.”

Beth awakened in a sterile hospital room with a few familiar faces crowding over her.

“You’ve been in a coma for two weeks,” her parents told her. “You were in an accident on New Year’s.”

She panicked.

“Was anyone hurt?” she asked.

Many prisoners who have found new life through Christ express their deepest convictions through a paint brush. Yet their work largely goes unseen by the outside world – until the cellblock sketches fell into the hands of the prison ministry team at Shadow Mountain Community Church in California.

Jeffrey Leonard never expected to be free from a lifelong cycle of crime and addiction. He envisioned himself going back behind the walls every time he was released. “The first thing I’d do when I left prison was buy a gun,” he confesses.