Prison Fellowship’s partners with The Salvation Army and their Adult Rehabilitation Center residential program to benefit Califronia's returning citizens.
The year was 1990. Bishop Enocent Silwamba was a new Prison Fellowship Zambia staff member. He was eager to make a difference, and his mission was clear: engage the Zambian church to help “transform criminal offenders, reconcile broken relationships, and restore wounded communities.”
It was more than a decade ago, but Melissa still vividly remembers the day she was held at gunpoint.
“It was a Tuesday, which is generally a quiet day,” she says. Melissa was bent over her desk at a bank on the north side of Brisbane, Australia, when she heard someone approach her.
Prison Fellowship International, Prison Fellowship’s ministry counterpart, is the largest, most extensive association of national Christian ministries working within the criminal justice field. To learn more about PFI, visit www.pfi.org.
Ibrahim wears deep lines on his forehead, and bears a scar across his left cheek.
Rosita wasn’t your typical kindergartner. She had no dolls to cherish. No friends to play with. Her childhood dreams were more like nightmares. At 5 years old, she had never experienced even a single moment of freedom.
There is a clear relationship between brain function and certain kinds of behavior. For several years I conducted brain mapping research on rats as a researcher in the Psychology Department of a Canadian university. It was extremely interesting work that eventually resulted in discovering unique linkages between specific areas of the brain and behaviors.
Words strain, Crack and sometimes break, under the burden, Under the tension, slip, slide, perish, Decay with imprecision, will not stay in place, Will not stay still. Shrieking voices Scolding, mocking, or merely chattering, Always assail them
T. S. Eliot, “Four Quartets, Burnt Norton”
Have you ever listened to someone talk on and on until they think of something to say?
The congregation knelt in silence for the prayer of confession . . .
“Almighty and most merciful Father, we have erred and strayed from thy ways like lost sheep, we have followed too much the devices and desires of our own hearts, we have offended against thy holy laws, we have left undone those things which we ought to have done, and we have done those things which we ought not to have done; and there is no health in us.
It sounds strange, somewhat on the line between irony and absurdity, to think that people would rather label and judge something as significant as each other but completely bypass a peanut. … World peace is only a dream because people won’t allow themselves and others around them to simply be peanuts.
Hunger…it may not and cannot be experienced vicariously. He who never felt hunger can never know its real effects, both tangible and intangible. Hunger defies imagination; it even defies memory. Hunger is felt only in the present.
– Elie Wiesel
“HUNGRY – Will work for food!”
So the people of the valley sent a message up the hill, asking for the buried treasure, tons of gold for which they’d kill. Came an answer from the kingdom “with our brothers we will share all the secrets of our mountain, all the riches buried there.”
“Remember Jesus of Nazareth, staggering on broken feet out of the tomb toward the Resurrection, bearing on his body the proud insignia of the defeat which is victory, the magnificent defeat of the human soul at the hands of God.”
– Frederick Buechner, The Magnificent Defeat
Easter morning service was exhilarating and joyous – rousing music, a reading of the familiar but amazing gospel account of Jesus’ resurrection, and an inspiring sermon culminating in a festive Eucharistic celebration.
When we don’t forgive, we drink the poison ourselves and then wait for the other person to die. And we take the knife that has hurt us and we stab ourselves with it again. …
But when we forgive, we pour out the poison of the enemy and of the devil and we don’t let the poison stay in us and we don’t let the poison make us into poisonous snakes!
At his installation service, Pope Francis urged Roman Catholics around the world to serve “the poorest, the weakest, the least important, those whom Matthew lists in the final judgment on love: the hungry, the thirsty, the stranger, the naked, the sick and those in prison.”
Who are you to judge the life I live I know I’m not perfect, and I don’t live to be, but before you start pointing fingers make sure your hands are clean.
-Bob Marley, “Judge Not”
“Your son should be ashamed of himself, he is a disgrace,” a woman told my father, pointing at me accusingly.