Prison Realities

You  may have noticed that there are almost no pictures on this site.  There's a reason for that; we can't take pictures inside or even outside  the prisons we go into. In almost 20 years of doing this we don't have  one picture of us doing what we do. And that speaks to a simple fact: as  the prison population continues to rise, it all happens out of sight  and out of mind. Many of these inmates are forgotten by friends and  family and especially by our society and even worse by our churches.

Imagine  being physically shackled with chains, handcuffs, metal bars, concrete  walls and just a basic lack of freedom. Imagine being emotionally  shackled by addiction, anger, violence, feelings of worthlessness or  whatever the driving force is that has shaped so many lives of these  inmates. Imagine being spiritually shackled by darkness and  hopelessness. Then imagine being abandoned and forgotten.

That is a sad, harsh reality for many inmates.

However,  there is a brighter reality as well. Many inmates are vibrant growing  believers, walking with Jesus in a very dark place. We are often humbled  to be in their presence and some of the deepest most freeing encounters  we have had with God have happened inside prisons and penitentiaries  with the believers there.

We  don't pretend to even begin to understand what prison is really like.  We only see a brief glimpse when we walk in with some guitars and other  instruments, share songs and scripture, chat and pray with some inmates  and then walk back out into freedom.

Consider this:  have you ever truly pondered what life is like for these people removed  from our communities? What does twenty years of life in jail look like  with another ten or twenty to go? How soon does that become hopeless?

One  final prison reality: the Bible, our source of hope, God's word to us,  was written in large part by prisoners, by exiles, by refugees. Paul  wrote many of his letters in jail or after being released from prison and in fact he talks about the feeling of  being abandoned and isolated. The heart of God is to reach into these  institutions and bring the life changing power of His Gospel. Please  pray for us as we do our small part.