PRISON FELLOWSHIP BLOG

Kate Campbell is a summer intern with Prison Fellowship, working with Inside Journal. She is currently studying photojournalism at Boston University.

It’s not every day you get to meet a former vice-presidential candidate.

However, the interns at Prison Fellowship Ministries had the privilege to meet with Rep.

Francis Chan, a nationally known author, speaker, and pastor, volunteered to speak at a Prison Fellowship yard event this past Easter weekend.

On Friday, June 13, auto mechanic Bryant Collins was driving down Highway 72 in Georgia when he saw something peculiar on the side of the road.

“I had seen something out of the corner of my eye, and I thought it was a baby,” Collins recounted.

The following post originally appeared as a BreakPoint radio commentary.

For a long time, Prison Fellowship has believed that the United States incarcerates far too many people at far too high a cost. What’s more, that cost does not take into account an important set of victims: the innocent children of offenders.

Ninety percent of runaways and homeless children are from fatherless homes. So are 63 percent of teens who commit suicide, and 39 percent of jail inmates. When it comes to kids’ well-being, nothing is more beneficial than a loving, supportive relationship with their fathers.

Through Prison Fellowship’s faith-based life-skills classes and reentry programs, God’s people have an open door to share the hope and freedom of Christ with hundreds of thousands of prisoners. As Prison Fellowship ends the fiscal year, will you help us reach incarcerated men and women through a fiscal year-end gift? To give a gift that will prepare prisoners for success on the outside, please visit, www.prisonfellowship.org.

While most children with a parent in prison wouldn't be able to afford attending a summer camp, church sponsorships allow the kids to get away from home and leave their worries behind.

I had the privilege of performing a wedding last weekend. The bride is a godly young woman, and the groom is a fine young man and Jesus follower. As a couple they are a matching set. One can see how God has created them for each other and will use them mightily.

Robyn, an inmate participating in Prison Fellowship's Prisoners to Pastors program, has begun a prayer movement at her prison in California.

As my friend Quovadis Marshall, the director of spiritual development at Prison Fellowship Ministries, likes to say, Christians aren’t primarily saved from something – we are saved for Someone. Yes, Jesus, redeems us from our sins, and that’s hugely important. But we are saved in order to have a relationship with the living God who loves us.

Inside Journal, Prison Fellowship's newspaper for America's prisons, spent a few minutes talking with Bradford about some of the most pivotal moments of his life and what he’s learned about fatherhood along the way.

God has made all of us to be leaders in the sphere of influence given to us. Some of the most important and precious work we do with prisoners is to help them realize that they, too, have this potential and calling to be leaders.

Motherhood is already a full-time job. Imagine how difficult it is for those moms facing an extra obstacle: incarceration.

What is it like to be a mother while in prison? Directed by Jenifer McShane, the documentary “Mothers of Bedford” explores the effects of long-term incarceration on mothers’ relationships with their children through the eyes of several women at the Bedford Hills Correctional Facility in Bedford Hills, New York.

Just recently Prison Fellowship received a sizable gift from a young man, not yet 30, who is enrolled in one of our intensive, faith-based reentry programs behind prison walls.

I am always encouraged when a man or woman behind bars gives back in this way.