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STEPPING UP AND GIVING BACK
Pathways participants are changing prison culture like never before.
By Doug Bender
Rusty and his team get to go where no one else ever does.
His journey began nearly 13 years ago when he served time in an Oklahoma state prison. He found Jesus in those years behind bars. People doubted he’d stick to his commitment to Jesus, but he’s proved them wrong.
“People told me that it’d get boring being a Christian,” he says.
But his life has been anything but boring since then.
“For me, what’s been the most touching is that God has used someone like me to do something good, to be light in a dark place.”
A FULL CIRCLE MIRACLE
Prison is often a dark and difficult place, but leaving prison and reentering society can also be challenging. Two out of every 3 people end up back in prison after they leave. Rusty is grateful to be helping people in prison find a different path for their life.
“It’s a miracle that Jesus saved me,” Rusty admits. “And it’s a miracle that I’ve come full circle and am back to the place where He saved me.”
Every day Rusty gets in his car and drives an hour over the long, slow hills of eastern Oklahoma to teach at the Prison Fellowship Academy® in Dick Conner Correctional Center. For more than 20 years, the Academy has used targeted curriculum, compassionate coaching, and restorative community to end the cycle of recidivism. As someone who struggled through the reentry process himself, Rusty knows how valuable such a program can be. For him, it’s worth having to get back into his vehicle every evening to repeat his hourlong journey back home.
But many of the men who graduate from the Academy still have time left on their sentences. They miss the community that the Academy fosters and they want to keep living out the values they learned. Plus, they’re eager to give back. But what can they do if they are still in prison?
This was the genesis for creating Pathways. With this next step available, Pathways participants can sustain their personal transformation and step into leadership while they are still serving time in prison. Through this program not only do men and women experience change, but they also begin to lead and give back.
WHERE NO ONE ELSE GOES
Rusty serves in Pathways at the same prison. Here, participants are afforded opportunities to give back and serve others while they are still incarcerated. Rusty had the idea of leading his group of men to serve those in the segregated housing unit (SHU).
“It’s a real lockdown place,” Rusty says. “No one goes in there. Well, I put a memo in, and the prison started letting us go in. So now, I take a group of five in there every other week to minister to the guys in there.”
Most of the Pathways participants have been there before, but not as visitors. The SHU has no television, no radios, no books, and no visitors. It is a prison within a prison, a place stark and lonely.
But everybody wants to go in there now.
“I have a list,” Rusty says. “I can only take five at a time. The ministering in there, everybody wants to volunteer for it.”
Never before have fellow prisoners been allowed to go into the SHU to talk and minister to the men there.
“For me, what’s been the most touching is that God has used someone like me to do something good, to be light in a dark place.”
—Rusty
AN UNUSUAL IDEA
But this is not the only accomplishment that Pathways participants have achieved. At another facility, the Mabel Bassett Correctional Center, a group of incarcerated women planned and hosted a unique event. And it happened because of Pathways.
In some ways, Pathways is a continuation of the Academy in that it focuses on the value of community and the Values of Good Citizenship. But it also goes much further and deeper by propelling participants to take action and make a difference in their community.
“In the Academy they learn who they are,” Milli Collum explains. She is the senior Academy manager at Mabel Bassett. “They figure out a life plan and a purpose, and then with Pathways, they work toward this purpose. They focus on how they can impact their community as a whole. So it goes from being really introspective, like they were in the Academy, to how they can influence the culture around them.”
As the women at Mabel Bassett journey through Pathways, they are challenged to contemplate what it would take to bring positive change to their prison and to the other women who live there.
“They know their culture,” Milli says. “They know these needs better than I do, and so when they identify the needs of their community, we just try to supply what they need. I feel like they can have a greater impact on their community than I ever could.”
One day Milli shared with the women about something she had learned while at a women’s conference. None of the women in the program had attended a women’s conference and so hearing Milli’s description gave them an idea.
“What if we brought a women’s conference here?” one of the participants asked. “This way the women here could experience what you’ve experienced on the outside.”
MAKING IT HAPPEN
Milli knew right away that this was an excellent idea. It took some months of brainstorming and planning for the women to flesh out the details. But the women worked diligently to bring their vision to life.
“The women have really done this entire conference themselves,” Milli says. “I’ve been the one who would type things out on the computer. But it was their words. They would write the emails. They wrote out the agenda for the conference. It’s really given them purpose.”
Mabel Bassett’s first in-prison women’s conference took place April 25–26, with hundreds of women attending sessions in the prison gym and chapel. Numerous speakers came in from the outside who spoke on topics like self-worth and identity. Even during the conference, it wasn’t Milli hosting the event and introducing the speakers; it was the Pathways participants.
“We’re hoping to shed some light on this yard and bring hope to the community,” Christina says, one of the Pathways participants who helped put on the event. “I came here to help others, but it has helped me so much in the process—more than I expected.”
Elizabeth, who attended the event, attested to its impact in her own life.
“It really reminds us that we aren’t forgotten in here,” she says. “Now that I know more, I want to sign up for the Academy they offer here. I think that could really be the next step in doing something better for myself in here.”
A NEW GENERATION OF LEADERS
Pathways is based on the belief that people in prison can not only change but contribute and lead. Through peer support and encouragement, participants step up to create positive change within their prison communities, extending the restorative impact of the Academy.
Gerard is one of the men taking part in Pathways at Dick Conner, and he knows firsthand how much the peer-to-peer mentoring can impact a person.
“It’s good to be able to challenge another’s thoughts in life,” he says. “[Pathways] allows us guys to sit down and have man-to-man conversations. And that’s a big thing for me.”
Clarence, another participant of the program in Oklahoma, has seen it transform people into leaders.
“Some of the guys who are in leadership positions in Pathways didn’t necessarily take leadership positions in Prison Fellowship Academy, but now you can see them rising to the occasion. Gerard is one [of them]. Although he did have a leadership position in Prison Fellowship Academy, he elevated it in this program. I have seen that growth.”
“I’m pushing to be the best version of myself,” Gerard says.
A COMMUNITY THAT GIVES BACK
Quinton is another one of the men who is now giving back to his community.
“When I graduated [the Academy], I felt like there was still more left to learn and more left to grow,” he says.
After he graduated from the Academy, Quinton joined Pathways. As a new generation came through the Academy, they looked up to men like Quinton. They saw him as a role model. This gave Quinton the tools to share what he learned with the other men.
“Now I can further my learning,” he says, “and learn how to use what I’ve learned to give back to the guys as opposed to just selfishly holding it in or trying to keep it to myself.”
Pathways is extending the Academy’s impact and raising up a new generation of leaders. These leaders, in turn, help transform others’ lives throughout the prison system and in their communities after release.
Pathways is extending the Academy’s impact and raising up a new generation of leaders.
