In case the unceasing barrage of political advertisements hasn’t given it away yet, we are fast approaching another national election. Everywhere you look – be it television, radio, print, or even digital media – there is a saturation of appeals for citizens to go out and support this candidate or this issue.
Before getting the chance to serve with Prison Fellowship Ministries, I spent nine years as the senior pastor of a church in western Michigan. Over time, the congregation learned to walk hand-in-hand with returning citizens on their way to rejoining the community, but it didn’t happen until I as a pastor and we as a church started to take Jesus seriously.
The growth of The Urban Minisitry Initiative (TUMI) program in California prisons continues to get great national coverage. A recent Associated Press article looks at the effect the program has had in the lives of current inmates, and considers the impact such a program could have in society.
He couldn’t have been much more than six years old, and very small for his age. Drawing his knees up under his chin and pulling a misshapen black tee shirt down over his knees he curled up into a fetal ball against the side of a building.
On August 26, Prison Fellowship’s Angel Tree program sponsored the seventh-annual Angel Tree Football Clinic at Stanford for at-risk youth. The camp served nearly 300 boys ages 7 to 13 from northern and central California, many who have a parent behind bars.
Prison Fellowship and Tyndale House Publishers are partnering to provide Bibles to children participating in the Angel Tree program this Christmas season – and YOU can help make sure these kids receive the Good News of Jesus Christ.
Participating Christian bookstores and retail partners will be offering shoppers the opportunity to purchase a special “You Are Loved” Bible (New Living Translation) that will be provided to boys and girls aged 7 to 15 on behalf of their incarcerated parent or parents.
If a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it, does it make a sound? This rather odd question has often been used by philosophers in posing a riddle concerning the nature of reality – namely, if something is not perceived can it be said to exist?
Recently I visited California State Prison at Solano for an evangelistic yard event organized by Prison Fellowship. As I mingled with the inmates, one young man told me that he had been playing the drums for most of his life. He pointed out another inmate who was a great singer.
Corrections is a science. There are people whose job it is to make charts and graphs of factors that contribute to criminal behavior, as well as the things that help people leave their criminal lifestyle behind for good. The goal is to help society better understand crime and how to fix it.
Recently, a mother wrote to Prison Fellowship asking for help. Her 25-year-old son Aaron (a pseudonym) is serving time in an Iowa prison for a non-violent offense, but because he has had a problem with anger in the past, he’s being held in disciplinary detention, better known to inmates as “the hole.”
Good news for Prison Fellowship supporters in California who wanted to participate in last weekend’s Spartan Race in Virginia, but were unable to take the cross-country trip to be a part of the festivities—there is another opportunity to tie up your running shoes and get some exercise, while supporting Prison Fellowship.
In July, Fox News reported on a “mass shakedown” at the Tamms Correctional Facility in Illinois. The subject of search and seizure was not the prisoners and illegal contraband; it was the guards and administrative staff. The shakedowns did not occur early in the morning as the workers arrived at Tamms, but in the evening before they clocked out—strange because the fear is usually of what will be brought into prisons, not what could be taken out.
Last Sunday, a team of PF staff and supporters took part in the Spartan Race in Leesburg, Virginia. As the pictures below might indicate, the Spartan Race is not your average 10k race. Participants are challenged with a number of obstacles and challenges, making completion of the 8-9 mile course a little more difficult, and a lot messier.
Under full sail, we were making good headway against a 15 knot wind. With a blue sea and swells of a meter or less, a bright blue sky fringed with hazy white clouds, conditions could not have been better for an offshore crossing from the island to a remote harbour on the mainland.
A new law in Ohio is improving opportunities for juvenile offenders and helping them integrate back into society.
Senate Bill 337, signed into law by Governor John Kasich, allows for juvenile records to be expunged after six months, excluding convictions of murder, attempted murder, or rape.