The world moves fast, doesn’t it? We’re always making another to-do list, reading another best-selling leadership book, and doing more. We buy things that promise to make us faster and more efficient – things that will let us be in a business meeting and at the dinner table at the same time.
What do concepts like “freedom” and “liberty” mean to those behind bars? In this Black History Month edition of the Frontlines video series, hear answers to these questions directly from prisoners. Prison Fellowship President and CEO Jim Liske reflects on the words of Martin Luther King, Jr.,
John Sims is an inmate at the California Men’s Colony in San Luis Obispo County, serving a 23-year sentence for first-degree burglary. During his time in the medium security facility, Sims has struggled with depression and hopelessness at the thought of the long years still to be served there.
Just 445 words long, Paul’s shortest New Testament letter is to a man named Philemon, a well-to-do merchant in the garrison town of Colosse, who was also a leader in the Christian church there. He was a businessman, a family man, and someone respected among the community of believers.
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.
Every year, Prison Fellowship’s Angel Tree program provides children of inmates presents on behalf of their incarcerated parents. These gifts not only give kids something to open on Christmas morning, they transform lives by introducing families to the greatest Christmas gift of all.
So many of the letters we get from prisoners start out the same: “I hope someone reads this …,” “I don’t have anyone left out there …,” or “I haven’t received a visit or a letter in years. I’m hoping you will help me know God …”
But the letter from Joe, a long-time prisoner in Virginia, was different.
David had finally hit rock bottom, going from underage drinking to serving prison time. But God hadn’t given up on him.
A few years ago, a prisoner at Pocahontas State Correctional Center sent a carefully typed message to the Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia (UVA) in Charlottesville, asking what the famous university could do to help him find employment.
Sometimes God uses a broken person to fix a city. When God gave Nehemiah the vision to rebuild Jerusalem, he was in exile. He was a captive. He was bent under the weight of anguish. But that brokenness was the raw material God used to send him back to the City of Zion and restore it – and its people.
Demaryius Thomas, wide receiver for the Denver Broncos, remembers the day that his mom was taken away.
I often wonder what God is up to when Angel Tree season comes around — and this past season was very different from previous years. We had only four local children needing sponsors.
But soon, a list showing hundreds of unsponsored children in our region of California came in an email, with a request for sponsors.
I stood on a train platform on a cold day in Texas, looking at the map and trying to find the route to my destination. A stranger introduced himself as Marcus and gave me directions.
Feeling a nudge from the Holy Spirit, I asked Marcus if I could buy him a cup of coffee at a nearby fast food restaurant.
It is no secret that existing state and federal prison systems are too often models of inefficiency and ineffectiveness. Outdated facilities have been unable to keep up with growing prison populations. And despite the astronomical costs of housing prison inmates (a study of New York state facilities estimates that annual cost per prisoner is a staggering $167,731 – enough to send that same prisoner to an Ivy League school with full room and board for four years), recidivism rates remain around 40 percent.
It was a rainy day in Phoenix when Prison Fellowship President and CEO Jim Liske became part of a human hallway. Join Jim as he recounts his experience at a volunteer event in an Arizona prison housing inmates from Hawaii. Though separated from their loved ones by many miles, these inmates learned that God’s love was always present and available to them – even in a rainy prison yard in Arizona.