Prison Report
The Park Prison Ministry
Update for November 15, 2021, We have made a lot of progress in the last few months.
- We have over 700 students, and over 600 are active. We keep those released in our database so we can know if they return, only one student has returned.
- In the month of October, we mailed out 440 lessons, a new record. Now this means, 440 lessons had to be graded, 440 new Course had to be sent, and 440 had to be prepared for sending… this amounts to very large amount of work…
- Our volunteer home graders are doing a fantastic job, with Jake S being our grader of the month, as he grades many lessons for us and is always uplifting to our students. However, all of our volunteer graders were a close 2nd. We also were blessed to add Fran and Rochelle to our list of volunteers! Praise God!
- We are adding new students weekly, with a new record set. Two of our ladies at Mabel Bassett CC sent us 37 referrals for new students in less than one week!
- In the past we have mailed out only ½ a course per month which resulted in a high drop-off rate, so in January we began returning lessons as quickly as possible which resulted in fewer dropouts, a higher number of referrals, and of course, higher costs.
- In March Jody decided to start challenging the students for referrals with a great success rate.
- Jody also developed two new courses for correspondence and has had great success with them. We have revived many inactive students with these courses and received numerous letters from inmates telling her how much they loved the courses, and how it has helped and inspired them.
- Forgiveness
- How well do you know God?
- The problem with higher success rates, means higher postage cost. So, in October we decided instead of just ½ a course we would mail complete courses. This will save on postage and increase participation. One reason we think this may happen is due to the work of the men at DCCC. One inmate Andrew W (who has earned 2 Doctorate degrees in Bible Studies while incarcerated) handles the NLB for us with a group of men at DCCC who all want complete courses and they have been successful in completing these courses in a timely manner.
- In October, 2 more men at DCCC received their bachelor’s degrees in Bible Studies: Dewey K and Gary C.
- Andrew W has been a great help to me at DCCC, and I am sure will become a great Christian leader when released.
- All of the chapel workers have received their bachelor’s degrees and Reggie W, whom The Park sponsored for obtaining his masters degree, is about to complete his studies and should graduate in the next few months. I will keep you posted on that.
- I still teach 3 Christian Apologetic Courses at DCCC on Mondays and Wednesdays. This week on Wed afternoons I will be teaching a class on the minimum side, which will be 4 classes taught each week, for a total of 20 Bible classes a month.
- I also preach one sermon a month on Sunday morning on the medium side. Jim Pinkston and I each preach two sermons a month on Tuesday and Sunday nights, for a total of 5 sermons a month.
- Ray V also works with the Sheriffs dept as a volunteer Chaplain and performs death notices, crime scene management, rides alongside with the deputies (Which they minister to as much if not more than the inmates, and special assignments, working 8 hour shifts during the Tulsa Fair.
Jail visitation is still locked down. The Jail volunteers were allowed back in for only about 4 weeks this spring.
- I have reached out to Danielle S concerning The Angel Tree Project for the children of inmates and she is making progress in that area. I also mentioned to her the need to teach Christian Apologetic lessons to the children, starting at an early age so they are well equipped to defend their faith on the school yard and classroom. She informed me she was already looking into that. We are blessed to have her looking over the education of our children.
- I talked to Kevin P and Tim M concerning a Prison Outreach program to help us have contact with the prisoners’ families who live in the Tulsa area. If we can take care of the families, showing love to them, the prisoners will respond in a positive way. My hope is we can get the families to study the same New Life Behavior courses with their spouses who are incarcerated. Kevin is working on this, attempting to find someone who can oversee the project. I am not allowed to have contact with the families of inmates because I go inside, one of the rules for volunteers.
- I also talked to Ken and Kevin about having a couple of our young preachers obtain a badge for prison visitation, hoping we could encourage them to start preaching on the inside. I feel this would give them an opportunity to use their preaching skills more often, and help us bring young people into the ministry to follow up behind us for when the time comes, we must step down.
- Our overall goal is to turn the prisons into Christian Centers rather than Correctional Centers…
