Prisoners' children are experiencing God's love all year long through summer camps, mentoring relationships, and an exciting annual event called the Angel Tree Football Clinic.
On Aug. 16, nearly 30 boys and girls gathered around the entrance of the medium-security Avery Mitchell Correctional Facility in the beautiful mountains of Spruce Pine, North Carolina, to spend a day with someone they'd been missing lately: their incarcerated fathers.
A Minnesota family finds hope by sharing Christmas with a prisoner's child.
The following story originally aired as a BreakPoint commentary on August 7.
In 1980, the New York Mets selected an 18-year-old baseball phenom, Darryl Strawberry, with the first pick in the Major League draft.
“A worn-out baseball” by Schyler at English Wikipedia
Being a Mets fan in the 1970’s was tough—just ask my BreakPoint colleagues Eric Metaxas and Roberto Rivera.
When Christmas comes this year, Michelle and her family will again be part of Angel Tree. But this year, they’ll be giving the gifts instead of receiving them.
Every week, the Lord is using Camp David of the Ozarks to reach Angel Tree kids like Caysha -- to show them His plans for them.
Humor is a very powerful thing. It has the ability to entertain. It can connect people who otherwise might have very little in common and allow old friends to revisit happy times and places. A well-timed joke can relieve tension, foster conversation, encourage, bring cheer, and alleviate melancholy.
Today there are approximately 2.7 million children with a mom or dad behind bars in this country. There’s no easy way to tell who these boys and girls are. They are all over the country, in busy cities and sleepy towns, in gated communities and run-down projects.
Kate Campbell is a summer intern with Prison Fellowship, working with Inside Journal. She is currently studying photojournalism at Boston University.
Recently, the Wisconsin State Journal published an article about a program called Reading Connections, which allows incarcerated fathers and mothers to record videos of themselves reading stories for their children.
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 started seeing myself and not looking at others, like I usually did, to make excuses for my behavior.”
This week, “America ReFramed” aired its feature-length documentary on the lives of incarcerated moms: “Mothers of Bedford.”
“America ReFramed” is a television series bringing its viewers a “snapshot of the transforming American life.” Within the last few decades the number of incarcerated women in America has more than doubled, and today, 80 percent of female inmates are biological mothers to school-aged children.
This coming Sunday we’ll celebrate all the moms in our lives – mothers, grandmothers, and special women who have loved us well and helped us become the people we are today.
Lately I’ve been thinking about moms in a unique circumstance – the ones behind bars.
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.
It wasn’t long before Chris found himself snowballing into an eight-year lie that would land him on the other side of the prison bars and, at the same time, propel him into a journey toward spiritual freedom.