Crystal shares with our readers what made her join a retreat team for women prisoners, and some of the heart-rending stories she came across.
“Oh my goodness, why in the world are you going into prison to give a retreat? Aren’t you afraid for your own safety?” This has been the usual response I receive from well meaning friends and family members when I tell them that I have joined a group of women who present weekend retreats within the prison walls to women whose sentences range from one year to life imprisonment with no possibility of parole.
The Terrible World of Prison
To be honest, when a friend of mine initially invited me to join the prison ministry, my first reaction was guarded. In our society, prisoners are a group of people for whom most people feel little sympathy. There is a general attitude that they deserve whatever unpleasant conditions they experience while incarcerated. It is easy for most of us to feel superior to the imprisoned, because we judge we would not have ever committed the crimes for which they are being held. Movies that portray the rough, brutal manner of prisoners continue the perception that they are of a lower class of human beings, without conscience or morals. How easily we all make the mistake of condemning people without realizing the individual circumstances that result in their imprisonment. We who have no direct experience with anyone who is imprisoned can allow fear of violence and anger at brutality to keep our distance from ministering to them. We can think of prisoners as ‘them’, not as our brothers and sisters in Christ. How quickly my eyes were opened once I took the time to learn the truth.
The United States has the dubious distinction of being the leader in the number of people being held in prison, with 2.3 million people incarcerated. This sad statistic doesn’t reflect the individual causes of incarceration: prisons and jails are literally overflowing with poor, uneducated people, about half of whom suffer from mental health or substance abuse problems. Once I started reading about the true conditions in prison, I learned other alarming facts: “We’ve sent a quarter million kids to adult jails to serve long prison terms, some under the age of twelve. We’ve been the only country in the world that condemns children to life imprisonment without parole…We’ve given up on rehabilitation, education and services for the imprisoned because providing assistance to the incarcerated is apparently too kind and compassionate. We’ve institutionalized policies that reduce people to their worst acts and permanently label them ‘criminal,’ ‘murderer,’ ‘rapist,’ ‘thief,’ ‘drug-dealer’—identities they cannot change regardless of the circumstances of their crimes or any improvement they might make in their lives.” (Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson)
First Visit to the Prison
As I read these words, I was immediately reminded of the famous quote by Ricardo Sanchez: “The devil knows your name but calls you by your sin: God knows your sin but calls you by your name. “ As a sinner who will be forever grateful for the mercy of God in my own life, I was hooked. I joined the Kairos prison ministry and began preparations for my first retreat.
I will admit that when I entered prison for the first time I was initially a bit nervous. As our group walked through the guard station and onto the grounds, I heard the click of the gates locking behind us and saw the barbed wire looming above. As we walked through the prison campus, I noticed large groups of women being led by guards from one location to another. Here was my first surprise! Dressed in identical clothing of white shirts and blue pants, many were young, normal looking women who could just have easily been walking to their next high school gym class. Many waved and shouted hellos to us, knowing that we were coming as ‘friends’ for the retreat that only a few were lucky enough to be given permission to attend.
Once inside the gym, women started trickling in, looking for a place to sit. As I started to talk with them, I realized that they were more nervous than I was! I tried as much as possible to make them feel welcome before the retreat began, thanking them for coming and taking a chance on us old ‘church ladies.’ How quickly suspicion and fear melts away when we can sit with each other at a table and share a smile.
Stories of Pain and Hope
Throughout the next two days, eight of the retreat leaders stood up and witnessed how God’s love and mercy had changed their lives. One elderly woman, Ann, shared the pain of being sexually abused by her father beginning when she was seven years old, then being “shared” with his friends to pay for his alcohol addiction. Another woman, Mary, spoke of the grief she experienced when her father abandoned the family; her mother and siblings fell into a life of extreme poverty. Susan spoke of the shame she felt when her boyfriend coerced her into having an abortion, and the deep regret she felt for having done so once she became a Christian. Delilah shared that as a teenager she became hooked on drugs, which led her to into petty theft and imprisonment. One by one, these “church ladies” stepped up and shared that their lives had been filled with abuse, poverty, addictions and bad decisions. But each story was also filled with the eventual awareness that God was there all along, loving them and giving them the grace to forgive themselves and those who harmed them.
As the retreat continued, the prisoners became more and more willing to share their own stories. Many had suffered both physical and sexual abuse, most had lived in poverty, and many were incarcerated for crimes that occurred while they were addicted to drugs or alcohol. Jane shared her story of how she was with her boyfriend who made a stop to buy drugs. While she waited in the backseat of the car, she heard shots which she later learned left two men dead. She was serving thirty years in prison for “her part” in the crime. Christina shared that she became hooked on drugs given to her by her father before he sexually assaulted her, and she later turned to prostitution to support her habit. Donna admitted that after she became addicted to heroine, she neglected her children and was sentenced to prison for endangering their lives. Their stories were all heart-breaking and sadly similar. They were raised in an environment filled with danger and with little or no exposure to faith.
By the end of the retreat, many of the women state that being imprisoned was in fact a blessing from God, as it was there that they had the opportunity to come clean from their addictions. Not only that, but for some it was the first time in their lives that they were exposed to reading the Bible, attending church services as well as being with other women who acted as Christian mentors for them.
In the closing ceremony, the retreat leaders form a circle and sing to all of the prisoners this song; “You are loved, you are beautiful. You are a gift from God, Love’s own creation. You are a gift to everyone… you are loved, God danced the day you were born.” On that first retreat and all the others I have attended since, tears flow freely from every face, some tremendously moved that for the first time in their life, they truly understand that they are loved by God and by others, unconditionally. We exchange hugs and promises for prayers, believing that our sisters in Christ now understand that they are accepted and loved, by us and by God.
A few months ago, an elderly lady approached me in tears at the end of the retreat, saying, “Thank you so much for coming. In here, we are ‘offenders’ and are called by a number. You loved us and called us by our names.” I think that’s God way of winking at me and saying…. Carry on!
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