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A BOND THAT WON'T BREAK
Siblings Ray and Roberta found new connection and healing in Christ through Prison Fellowship Angel Tree.
By Lou Haviland
Ray can never forget the moment he felt profound betrayal.
Late one night, when he was 14, Ray heard his mother cry for help. He grabbed a bat and ran to her room. He kicked the door in to find her being assaulted by her partner.
To defend himself and his mother, Ray repeatedly struck her assailant. Weeks later, he was arrested and charged with attempted murder and placed in a juvenile residential facility. At that time, he learned his mother had taken back her partner, despite the assault, with little concern for what happened to Ray.
“I had so much hate and anger against him and towards God for allowing this to happen,” Ray recalls. “I felt so betrayed. I felt useless. I felt like I was a mistake. From that point on, I knew that I was going to live for me. I gave my life to gangs. I gave my life to drugs. I did just a little over five years in the Youth Authority.”
This experience, as well as physical abuse Ray suffered at the age of 10 from his stepfather, left him unable to trust anyone. It sealed Ray’s decision to face life on his own.
In his late teens, Ray became a father to his son, Ray Jr. But instead of taking responsibility for his son, he took part in the gang life. He sought a form of respect and acknowledgment that he had lacked at home. But then he participated in a robbery that resulted in a man’s death. Ray would go on to spend nearly 30 years in prison for his involvement in the crime.
'HEAVINESS AND UGLINESS'
When Ray looks back on his incarceration, he sees God reaching out to him. He can see God’s presence in the form of a corrections officer praying for him and of a prison staff person who placed tracts about God’s love in his cell.
But it wasn’t until one particular morning, when Ray was 35, that he reached back out to God. He had walled himself off for so long. Through all his painful trauma, he had never let himself cry. Not when he learned of the deaths of five uncles, all due to drugs. Not when his grandmother died or when one of his sisters died.
But one morning he woke up feeling cold and bleak. And he did something he had never done: he prayed.
“I felt the heaviness and ugliness like something was going to happen, like I was going to die that day,” he recalls. “I tried to talk to God for the first time in my life.”
Ray prayed for hours. At first, his words felt empty, as though he had been speaking into the air. As he went on, something in him opened up, and he felt heard, seen, and loved by God.
“Deep inside my spirit, I begin to cry,” he says. “‘God, are You there? God, I’m scared. God, I don’t know what to do.’ I was crying and crying. God showed up when I was in that place in the darkness. I [had] kept running from the truth that there was a God. From that point on, I began to trust in God.”
He began to find community in the incarcerated church and in Bible study.
ANGEL TREE FROM THE START
When Ray went to prison, it was distressing for his family, particularly his younger sister, Roberta.
“He was raised with his mom, and I was raised with our dad,” she explains. “So our lifestyles were completely different. I was pretty young when [Ray] went to prison. It was hard seeing my dad go through that. It hurt, and it was a sad time for our family.”
During Ray’s first years in prison, he was invited by the facility’s staff to take part in Prison Fellowship Angel Tree®. Angel Tree enables incarcerated men and women to provide their children with the Gospel message, as well as a Christmas gift and handwritten note in their name, all through a local church.
At first, Ray was not interested, but when he realized Angel Tree would help him maintain his close connection with his 3-year-old son, he signed him up. Ray Jr. was delighted with the gifts he received from his dad, who continued to register him for Angel Tree every year.
“I felt complete,” Ray recalls. “I felt like even behind bars, I can still be a dad.”
“[Because of Angel Tree] I felt complete. I felt like even behind bars, I can still be a dad.”
—Ray
A BLESSING RECEIVED, A BLESSING SHARED
During Ray’s incarceration, Roberta was granted custody of his son, Ray Jr., raising him with the same affection and discipline as one of her own children.
“I always encouraged [Ray Jr.] to keep in contact with his dad,” she says. “We made sure he wrote letters and had weekend visits, encouraging one another, because it is hard to be separated from your loved ones.”
Roberta became an Angel Tree coordinator shortly after Ray Jr. began receiving gifts from his father. Seeing how much it positively affected her nephew inspired her to serve other children in similar situations.
“I really love delivering [the gifts],” she says. “I really love seeing the families that we've connected with, doing the phone calls. And there's a couple of ladies that I have stayed in touch with throughout the years that just encourage each other here and there. It’s beautiful."
Roberta became an Angel Tree coordinator shortly after Ray Jr. began receiving gifts from his father.
STRENGTH AND FREEDOM IN CHRIST
Ray had taken steps to draw closer to God, but he knew something was holding him back from growing further in his faith. He knew something else had to give.
“There was still unforgiveness in my heart,” Ray says. “I thought if I walked away from the gangs, getting high, and drugs, then all my problems are going to leave. … [God] was bringing me to a place where I couldn’t stand reading the Word no more because there was unforgiveness, I couldn’t stand being amongst people that were living right and who were talking about forgiveness, because there was unforgiveness inside my heart.”
Ray knew God wanted him to begin the work of forgiveness. During a time of ministry in prison, Ray and other prisoners were encouraged to write on pieces of paper the names of those people in their lives they needed to forgive. The papers were placed in a bowl and dissolved in the water.
“[The pastor said], ‘Forgive and be set free.’ As I began to forgive my mom, as I began to forgive my dad, as I began to forgive my uncles for leading me down the path, and my stepdad, more peace ushered in,” he recalls. “And I began to find power, joy, direction, identity, love, and hope.”
Forgiving others was a step of obedience Ray had to take, but accepting responsibility for the actions that brought him to prison was another.
When he became sick with valley fever in prison, requiring hospitalization, Ray realized he could not rely on anyone other than God. During his sickness, he thought for the first time about his victim and what they had gone through. He knew God had forgiven him and asked God to help him forgive himself.
Ray began to participate more in ministry and study the Word of God.
“My hate and unforgiveness were gone,” he says. “God began to use me. I began to teach and share my life, and as I did, peace resided in me.”
Ray realized he could not rely on anyone other than God.
SERVING TOGETHER
Roberta saw a difference in her brother. He wasn’t the same man who had entered prison so many years ago.
“I could see the change in him in our conversations and in photographs, just the difference, you can tell when someone is living right for God,” she recalls. “It was amazing how God worked.”
Roberta has been serving as an Angel Tree coordinator for 15 years. For a while, Ray was not aware of his sister’s involvement in Angel Tree. When he learned of it, he collaborated with other prisoners to create a booklet of illustrated affirmations in English and Spanish for Angel Tree children. He shared it with Roberta for use in her Angel Tree ministry.
“They actually illustrated it there in the prison, and he mailed it over to me,” she recalls. “I put it into a booklet form, photocopied it, and put it together for them.”
Roberta helped Ray in his parole process, and he was released in March 2023. The siblings try to get together whenever their busy schedules allow.
He continues ministering to others and now volunteers in the Angel Tree ministry at Roberta’s church. With their father's help, the church has delivered Angel Tree gifts, hosted luncheons, presented the Gospel to Angel Tree families, and prayed for them as well.
Roberta was drawn to serve as an Angel Tree coordinator after seeing how close it brought her nephew to his dad. She found it strengthened her bond with her brother as well.
“It was just a way for me to feel closer to him,” she says. But since then, her heart for the ministry has grown almost as much as the number of families her church has blessed.
“It has been a really good feeling to give back and to see families so happy and the kids saying, ‘Oh, Daddy remembered me.’ It’s a beautiful feeling.”
“It has been a really good feeling to give back and to see families so happy and the kids saying, ‘Oh, Daddy remembered me.’ It’s a beautiful feeling.”
—Roberta