PRISON FELLOWSHIP BLOG: Families of Prisoners

"I didn't know how I was ever going to get the girls Christmas gifts. All we had was a tree."

In January, Alyson Quinn wrote a story about Angela Patton and her idea of holding father-daughter dances in prison.  Such a dance was recently held at the Richmond (Virginia) City Jail, and has garnered a fair amount of media attention.

An article in the Washington Post takes a look at the event, giving a glimpse of both fathers and daughters as they prepare for the dance. 

Cynthia Tilley has a black-and-white photograph of her, her brother, and her father. She doesn’t remember the occasion, but she believes it must have been taken at their Texas home around Christmastime. Wrapped gift boxes surround the father and his two tiny children.

I am not sure what prevented me from committing suicide. I had traveled a long, lonely road. I let circumstances from my childhood and young adult life boil inside me, until I felt angry at the whole world. I had thought that if I helped everyone around me and did everything they asked of me, they would like me, and I would find the happiness I craved.

Every year, hundreds of thousands of prisoners who otherwise couldn’t provide Christmas gifts for their children do so through Prison Fellowship’s Angel Tree program. In 2012, some Arizona prisoners decided to give back—in the amount of $3,300.

La Palma Correctional Center, a prison privately operated by the Corrections Corporation of America, houses 3,100 men in several compounds.

It was Christmas. My husband was in prison. Haranguing thoughts constantly harassed me.

How can I possibly forgive him? How can I ever live this down? How can I go on?

That was twenty-three years ago.  Last Sunday, I fingered an Angel Tree ornament.

At the beginning of January I saw a powerful model of partnership and unity in the church in action. I went to an appreciation event for Angel Tree church volunteers in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Hoffmantown Church, a suburban congregation, had taken on more than 150 children in 2012, but what really stood out to me about them was they weren’t content with just delivering gifts to inmates’ children in their own backyard.

Thank you for reaching out to hundreds of thousands of prisoners’ children in need of Jesus this Christmas. You not only brightened their holiday—you lit a spark of hope in their lonely hearts!

Angela Patton is the director of Camp Diva, an organization that helps empower young women. In a TED Talk, she explains how her organization arranged a father-daughter dance for 16 men and their 18 daughters – inside the county jail! The dance gave the men a rare opportunity to show their daughters how much they cared by dancing with them, pulling out their chairs for a meal, and giving them their undivided attention.

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.

Each year, Prison Fellowship recognizes volunteers and employees who have made a difference in the lives of prisoners and their families by presenting them with the Shining Star Award. In the coming weeks, the blog will highlight some of the 2012 Shining Star recipients and their work.

“We have seamstresses sitting with nothing to do,” a Florida Department of Corrections official told Raeanne Hance, the regional executive director for Prison Fellowship® in the Southeast.

To save money as 2012 wound to a close, the FDOC had prepared to close seven prisons and four work camps.

What was the most memorable part of the recent Christmas season?  Was it receiving the perfect gift?  Seeing friends and family?  Perhaps it was a grand Christmas dinner, or seeing the look on the faces of children or grandchildren as they enjoyed all of the joy and laughter that comes with the holidays?

Each year, Prison Fellowship recognizes volunteers and employees who have made a difference in the lives of prisoners and their families by presenting them with the Shining Star Award.  In the coming weeks, the blog will highlight some of the 2012 Shining Star recipients and their work.

“See that you do not despise one of these little ones. For I tell you that their angels in heaven always see the face of my Father in heaven. What do you think? If a man owns a hundred sheep, and one of them wanders away, will he not leave the ninety-nine on the hills and go to look for the one that wandered off?