Sharing the Gospel in All the World AND in OUR BACKYARD

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!