PRISON FELLOWSHIP: Jim Likse

In my decades as a pastor, I saw a lot of things in church, but this was a first.

In the middle of the church auditorium, surrounded by their families and other worshipers, were about 100 prisoners in orange jumpsuits. They are part of a partnership between a county jail and a local congregation.

I was running on a bike path along a country road. With corn fields on either side, there was an abundance of grasshoppers on the path. As I ran along I noticed that the grasshoppers rapidly jumped into the high grass on either side in order to avoid getting crushed by my feet.

Over Easter weekend I met a young man in a prison infirmary. He wore a Styrofoam helmet to protect his badly damaged skull. His had been terribly incapacitated by the same drunk-driving accident that killed his boyhood friend. As the driver in the accident, this young man was facing a 40-year sentence.