Prison Ministry

While teaching a class for Christian Prisoners at Palmer Correctional one Tuesday night, I was part of a group of 8 men in a small group discussion about the character quality of "Genuine Love." I wasn't all that suprised when the devil showed up. One of the men was very jumpy whenever someone passed behind him. I asked him if he knew whether or not he had Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. He replied, "What's that." I explained what little I know about PTSD and asked him if he'd had a happy childhood. He replied, " I don't remember much of my childhood." This man is suffering from PTSD and doesn't know it. I wanted to talk to him more but had to move on. As we shared things around the table some of the other men expressed problems they were having when it comes to anger. The whole conversation shifted from Genuine Love to Anger Resolution. One man's anger flares up just because he doesn't like the way a person looks at him. Another holds his anger inside for long periods of time and then explodes all at once. A fight almost broke out when one man started making a noise that irritated another inmate (aparently he does the same thing daily just to irritate the guy). While I was helping the irritated inmate calm down, someone else took up an offense for him against the guy making the irritating noise. It was quite exciting for a few minutes. Really cool stuff to sort out. I was having so much fun rooting out all this anger that I ran out of time, led the men in prayer, and had to head for the front gate. Oh well. There's always next week. Please pray for prison ministries. The particular ministry I'm working with has been keeping stats for six years and has reduced the recidivism(hope I spelled that right-Men who get out of prison and re-offend to go right back in) rate from 80% to 20% for the men that go through our program. That is a significant benefit to Society, and Im priveleged to be a small part of that. God bless Chaplain Mike Ensche, Chaplain Paul, and all the Chaplains and volunteers.