Invited to visit the Raleigh prison…

Archive: They Cared Enough to Come Back

by Cynthia V. Lanning, freelance writer, Cincinnati, Ohio

The petite, tastefully dressed woman opened the letter from the mailbox in front of her comfortable suburban home. It was not a newsy letter from a relative or distant friend. It was from a girl who was struggling with the powers of evil, and with God’s help, was winning.

“Dear Ann,” the letter began. “I used to worship Satan instead of worshiping our Lord. I studied everything I could about Satan. It got so bad that I was into drugs, booze, prostitution. You name it, I was into it. … Well, I got arrested for prostitution and they kicked me out of town or go to prison. … In a way I’m glad I came here because I met you. At first I just walked the other way.

“Then someone told me you had a bunch of money in your wallet and to try and get it. So, that was the first time I spoke to you. But there was something about you. You had so much love and you cared about me as a person, that I just listened to what you had to say. That first time didn’t mean all that much, but I kept thinking about you and how you really believed in Jesus and how He would forgive us if we would only believe in Him.

“Well, after a couple of visits I needed so badly to talk to you—I wanted to tell you about me, and how in the world would the Lord ever forgive a Satan-worshiper, especially when I offered my next child to him for something I wanted him to do for me? How could God ever forgive a person like me? You know what? God did forgive me.

“I might be here in this prison, but I know God is with me. … There’s so many things God has done for me since I let Him come into my life. Thank you, Ann, because I don’t think I would’ve found Him without your help. You can’t begin to know how really grateful I am, because when I get out of here I know I can make it with God’s help. … “

Although today Ann Davis leads a group of Raleigh, North Carolina, United Methodist laywomen in an effective prison ministry, she was not always enthusiastic about visiting prisons. It all began the summer of 1977 when a musician friend decided to hold a concert for the prisoners in the North Carolina Correction Center for Women, and invited Ann to accompany her. Ann recalls thinking,  I cannot go into that gate. There is no way. Besides the usual middle-class horror of prisons, she had a leftover fear of institutions from visits she and her husband used to pay to a relative in a mental institution.

But God answered her prayers and prepared her for that evening. After the concert an invitation was given and a woman went forward.

“A finger was pointed at me to go over and lead her to Christ,” Ann remembers. “I went through the motions and God blessed me there. I gave her the Bible I carried in my purse, but that was all I gave her. When the program was over and we were walking out, two inmates asked me, ‘Are you going to come back?’ I answered, ‘I don’t know,’ but in my mind I thought, If I ever get out of here I will not be back. They responded, ‘Anybody comes once, but who cares enough to come back?’ This statement haunted me. God used it to convict me.”

After further confirmation of God’s will, Ann invited other women to join her. Several offered to help. “Pray and make sure God is calling you into this,” Ann urged, “because these girls have had nothing but disappointments.” Within 10 days six women were called by God to follow Ann into the prisons.

But it was not smooth sailing after this initial decision. “It seems as though it is just as hard to get into a prison to minister as it is for the girls on the inside to get out,” explains Ann. A chaplain advised them that it would take months to clear the red tape unless they joined an already established group. So they attended training classes for the Yokefellows, a nation-wide prison ministry, in order to begin their work more quickly.

Ann and the others soon found out that God gave them a supernatural power to love the women inmates. “Prison is a real culture shock,” says Ann. “Homosexuality is rampant. It’s terrifying. You have to get used to it—tattoos, and earrings in the nose.”

In prison, values are often turned upside down. For example, inmates are given different colored clothing to classify them according to their crime. But instead of causing shame, this gives them incentive to earn a higher level of criminality, to be proud of a new color.

The women involved in the prison ministry quickly learned to be as gentle as doves and as wise as serpents. “They’ll corner you,” Vickie Stevens explains. “You have to watch for manipulation.”

The group’s ministry includes the body as well as the soul. They operate a clothes closet at St. Mark’s UM Church in Raleigh. People from all over the city send clothes for women who need something to wear when they leave prison for job interviews, to go home, or to court.

“We go with them to court,” says Ann. “We sponsor them. We take them to church outings, church concerts, into our homes. We take them to speak at churches and at schools. We write letters. Many girls in prison never receive a letter. Some never have a visitor. We pray with them in groups and individually.”

The ladies encourage inmates to leave with as much education as they can obtain. After 12th grade they can go to college, technical schools, or upholstery school. They can learn sewing skills in prison workshops where they sew clothing for thousands of inmates.

In all their work, the prison ministry group relies on the Holy Spirit for leadership. “He has made me very bold,” says Ann. “I found myself one evening asking a girl, “Do you know Jesus Christ personally?’ and I nearly flipped over when those words came out of my mouth. That night I led her to Christ. I let the Holy Spirit nudge me to say what He would have me say.”

This holy boldness extends not only to witnessing to inmates but in dealing with guards and authorities, too. “We’re there to help those girls if they have needs that are not being taken care of,” Ann explains. “If they’re being mistreated or if officials aren’t acting in their capacity, God gives us the wisdom and opens the doors for us to go higher to see that it’s done. We go as the doors will open for us.”

“Never speak against the authority to anyone,” advises Virgie Banks, another member of the group. “Don’t give them a hassle—God will open the door. If we act rebellious, how can we show those girls anything?”

“Guards’ pay is not great,” Ann observes. “You have to have a college degree to work with zoo animals, but not to work with humans in prison.”

The group often confronts the comfortable prejudices of church people who believe that prisoners have gotten only “what they deserve” and ought to languish in prison.

“People who feel this way are self-righteous,” says Virgie. “It’s not what we do but what we are. Compared with Christ, we all have failed.

“Probably two-thirds have had a terrible home life,” continues Vickie, “and have been brought up in the streets.” She quotes this excerpt from a letter:

“As you know, I have been using opium since the age of 11. I am now 18. I have been taking pills since the age of six and drinking since the age of four. Maybe I have a mixed-up family, as my mom and grandmom have lived on the street. …They felt it was funny to see me high, so as a child I was high quite often. My mother also couldn’t cope with a child, so I was often shot with dope so I would fall asleep or just sit and be quiet. …”

In a world where children are raised in situations like this, “it’s only by the grace of God that we aren’t there,” says Ann. “It’s like escaping accidents.”

“Many are in prison not for the crime they’ve committed,” adds Hazel Hevenor. This includes women who retaliate against men who abuse them and young women innocently involved in the schemes of others.

Once a woman enters the prison, however, her chance of rehabilitation is not great. The prison ministry workers lead prisoners to God’s re-creating power instead.

“Re-creation is something the state can never give those in prison,” Ann points out, “no matter how many millions of dollars they pour into federal programs.”

The group feels that one of its most important ministries is attending “reception” every week. Reception is a quarantine period during which new inmates are isolated from other prisoners for three to four weeks. The state uses this time to administer psychiatric tests and to check for venereal and other diseases.

“We know that important decisions are made during that time,” reports Ann. “‘Do I go homosexual?’ ‘Do I begin using drugs?’ ‘Do I choose the correct walk in life?’

“The first month in prison is the worst,” she continues, “because you are frightened. Instead of being a person, you become a number. We go in and learn these girls’ names and let them know that they are worthy. We build them up by showing them that Jesus loves them, and died on the cross for them, and that it doesn’t matter what sins have been committed because we all have sinned. They can ask forgiveness, ask Jesus into their hearts, and can become new creatures in Jesus Christ.”

After attending reception, the group holds its regular services in the prison auditorium. Although the number attending often dwindles discouragingly, the prison chaplain believes their ministry is of utmost importance.

“The girls know that the women will be there on Thursday morning,” he says. “When they have a problem or need, they come to see them.”

The prisoners who meet on Thursday mornings have influence beyond the meetings themselves.

“Inmates do respect the Christian in prison who really lives the Christian life,” says Virgie. She tells about Lucy, a woman in prison for murdering her husband who had tormented her for years. Lucy had been a Christian for 16 years before she entered prison. Through Christian prison volunteers she found a renewed faith in God and forgiveness to ease the terrible guilt she bore daily. Although she is serving a 25-30 year sentence, Lucy cheerfully describes herself as a missionary behind prison walls.

“She shares whatever she has with others who need it,” adds Hazel. “If Lucy says something, we believe it.” Lucy now enjoys “work release,” helping to care for an elderly woman in her home. She is the only inmate with the privilege of working in a private home, on a come-and-go daily basis.

The volunteers have learned patience through their ministry. “I would like to tell you that all the girls we have worked with go home and don’t return to prison,” says Ann. “Even though some of the girls have professed Jesus, they have backslidden and it just breaks our hearts when they come back in. But we have a choice: do we still love them, or do we knock them for what they’ve done? Which do you think Jesus would do?”

The group is not discouraged. Ann estimates that 90 percent of the girls who are really committed to Christ don’t come back.

Ann tells how, a few weeks earlier, a girl shared her whole life story. She had been convicted for shooting (not fatally) her boyfriend who beat her. She was bitter toward the judge who had sentenced her and suggested that she pay the wounded boyfriend’s hospital bills. Ann couldn’t get through to this girl, so she gave her some books.

The next Thursday, Ann talked to the girl again, but still didn’t seem to have dented the girl’s perspective—she still wished she had killed the boyfriend. But Ann noticed that the girl quietly cried all through the singing of the hymns. The next visit, the girl came to the auditorium all smiles. She asked if she could be involved in a prison ministry when she was released from prison.

“God is faithful,” says Ann simply.

“One of the most profound statements we hear is when a girl says she’s glad she came to prison because she found a personal relationship with Christ,” adds Hazel.

The women in the group spend much time together in prayer, the prison ministry itself, and contagious fellowship. “We’re truly sisters,” says Ann, “and I would not take anything for the closeness that we have. We love each other, we understand, we all hurt when one is hurting.”