PRISON FELLOWSHIP: Angel Tree

“God doesn’t waste our pain.”

Heidi should know.  She spent more than eight years in prison, separated from her three young children.  And they were some of the most painful years of her life.

“He’s always there,” she recalls. 

The greatest gift in Zachary’s life is his daughter. Like many new dads, his whole world changed when she was born. “She was the light in my world of endless darkness. She made me see,” he wrote in a recent letter to Prison Fellowship.

Hayden’s life collapsed the day his daddy went to prison. But today, Hayden is getting the love and support of caring Angel Tree volunteers and the church community where it all happens.

In a major criminal justice reform speech this week, President Obama brought attention to the steep rise in America’s prison population over the last few decades—and its collateral consequences for prisoners’ children.

“Around one million fathers are behind bars,” the president said.

It’s altogether too easy for those of us with little or no connection to prison to dismiss and ignore the men and women behind bars.  Content to live our own lives, we are quick to conclude that the incarcerated “got what they had coming to them,” and to write them off as inconsequential.

Many friends like you help us with Angel Tree year after year, whether it’s by praying, giving financially, wrapping a gift, or working at a Christmas party. This past Christmas, you helped us match 330,663 children with volunteers who delivered gifts, the Gospel, and personal messages from moms and dads behind bars.

I have been an Angel Tree church coordinator for many years, but 2014 has to have been the best ministry year yet.

How can a man who spent years behind bars call himself “lucky”? It’s because God used Angel Tree to soften his heart.

If you weren't able to participate in Angel Tree this season, you can still snag a glimpse of the difference the program is making in the lives of children with incarcerated parents.

This past December, Angel Tree took gifts and the Gospel to children with a mom or dad in prison all around the county. At Prison Fellowship, we’ve been hearing amazing reports from our Angel Tree volunteers about the lives and families that were touched through the program this Christmas.

If you found out tomorrow that you had received a sizable inheritance, what would you do with it? Pay off debt? Buy a new car? Take a vacation?

This month William, a prisoner serving a lengthy sentence in Virginia, did something astounding with an inheritance he received: He gave a substantial portion of it to Angel Tree, so that the children with an incarcerated parent can receive a Christmas gift and the Good News of Jesus Christ.

Christmas is only a few days away, and already we are hearing great stories telling how Angel Tree is transforming the lives of men and women behind bars and their families.

In James Island, South Carolina, Angel Tree volunteers at Harbor View Presbyterian Church have been providing gifts to the children of prisoners on behalf of their parents for many years. 

Thank you to all of Angel Tree's partners, volunteers, and supporters who are sharing God's love with kids throughout the country this Christmas season!

Angel Tree blesses hundreds of thousands of children each year, but did you know that it also leads their incarcerated parents closer to Jesus?

At a time of year that can be full of sorrow for parents separated from their children, Angel Tree allows moms and dads to reach out from behind prison bars with a message of love for their families.

Lee Allen, author of the popular book  The Special Guest: A Christmas Story, and his wife Donna Campbell Allen (the illustrator for The Special Guest) are sponsoring Angel Tree this Christmas season. The Allens‘ goal is to raise $100,000 through a promotion called the “12 Days Before Christmas: $100K Challenge.”