Happy New Year! Gary provided the following as installment one explaining some interesting developments the ministry in the last few months.
One morning late last summer, I found myself
asking why I thought it was important to take the Train & Multiply program
to the prisons of Honduras, but not important enough to take it into the state
prison where I went weekly in Trumbull County, Ohio. It seemed a good
question and I can only think it was provoked by God.
There really was no good answer, so I
immediately began preparing a proposal to present to Trumbull Correctional
Institution. Based upon my experience at the institution over the
previous several years, I expected a lot of red tape and truly expected it
would probably be 3-4 months before the proposal was either accepted or
rejected.
After calling for an appointment with the
chaplain to initiate the process regarding the approval, I got an appointment
for the next day. Chaplain Kostenko listened and asked a few questions
and asked me when I could start. When I seemed confused by the question
he asked if I could start the next week. I was almost speechless and I
explained that I was going to be in Honduras doing prison ministry work there.
He asked when I would return and when I told him he said then we can start that
next Tuesday after I returned.
We determined to have two separate
classes, one on Tuesday evenings, the other on Wednesday mornings. I
thanked him and left his office stunned by how easy it had been to get to this
approved.
By the time of the first classes, I had 6
students for the Wednesday class and 8 for the evening class. At
the end of two weeks, the class size and attendance showed that we could
condense the class to just the Tuesday evening and there would be 10 students.
From that point on, the attendance was almost
perfect exce
pt for a few bureaucratic mix ups leaving students without passes
to attend. The classes were well received and my decision to be a director and
moderator instead of a lecturer resulted in some very good discussion at each
class.
The depth of the familiarity and level of
study of the scripture by these inmates was impressive. They knew their
Bibles and well and could quote chapter and verse with far more skill than me. When I remarked on this to them, they explained, "All we have is
time and what better way to spend it than reading, learning and memorizing
God's word."
Keep a look out for the next segment of this amazing story of what God has been doing!
