PRISON FELLOWSHIP BLOG: InnerChange

Ron Zifer serves as the program manager for Prison Fellowship’s InnerChange Freedom Initiative in Texas.

When men arrive at the Carol S. Vance Unit to participate in the InnerChange Freedom Initiative, they come with a variety of horrible states of mind.  

In today’s confusing society it is no wonder our children, spouses, and other family members and friends end up in trouble or even prison. Call me ‘old school,’ but throughout a large portion of a young person’s developmental years they live in this confusing world where there are no absolutes.

By the time he was 15 years old, Arthur Medina was a runaway living on the streets in Texas. It wasn’t long before he turned to crime just to survive.

Art earned his living stealing cars and running them across the border.

It is an unfortunate and sad reality that we live in a world with limited resources.  Sometimes that means that meaningful programs and projects are discontinued for a want of funding or manpower. 

At Prison Fellowship, we don’t want to do ministry to prisoners. We want to do ministry with prisoners. That one little word makes a big difference. Prisoners aren’t our projects – they are our partners. As you and I walk with them on the road to restoration, men and women behind bars become leaders of the Church behind the walls … sharing the Gospel and discipling those around them, serving their families, and preparing for a new life back in the community.

Kate Campbell is a summer intern with Prison Fellowship, working with Inside Journal. She is currently studying photojournalism at Boston University.

Recently, the Wisconsin State Journal published an article about a program called Reading Connections, which allows incarcerated fathers and mothers to record videos of themselves reading stories for their children.

On a recent trip to Minnesota, I visited with the ladies who are part of the InnerChange Freedom Initiative (IFI) unit in Shakopee, the only women’s prison in the state. I asked them, “If you could tell the people who support this program anything, what would you say?”

I’ll always remember one woman in particular who spoke up.

Jeffrey Leonard never expected to be free from a lifelong cycle of crime and addiction. He envisioned himself going back behind the walls every time he was released. “The first thing I’d do when I left prison was buy a gun,” he confesses.