Escaping is really hard if you have no contacts other than your old friends and you've got no money to get away. I've met some of the recently released inmates while working at Catholic Charities where they've come in for food, but it wasn't until I heard the stories from my friends that I understood how hard it is for these poor souls to get on the right track.
Other friends have started a business called Rise Up Industries designed to help ex-cons and gang members go straight. Here's a little more about Rise Up.
3 comments:
May God bless you for caring for these men, KT. There's an ecumenical prison ministry (based on Cursillo) that also does a lot of good.
Hopefully, some of your readers will check it out and feel called to participate. I can promise they will find their cup of blessings filled, pressed down, and running over.
Thanks, TW. I'm such a rookie when it comes to this stuff. I've done the homeless/poor food work, but I've never done the hardcore homeless or the prison ministries. The guys who do that work are total studs.
When I've got time, I'm thinking I'm called into mentoring fatherless young men. I've done that through coaching and here at work with some of our interns and I get such a charge out of it. Like you say, you find your cup of blessings filled, pressed down and running over.
I think that if you listen to what God calls you to do, He never asks you to do something totally unsuited to you.
I'm a big fan of bumper sticker theology, and one of my favorites is:
God doesn't send the prepared, God prepares the sent.
There is no more important work in our culture than mentoring fatherless young men. Whenever possible, it's better to keep them out of prison (and debt, and drugs, and... )with early mentoring.
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