I know, the title caught your attention. “What?! Carol is in prison?!” or maybe for some “Uh huh, I knew they’d catch her sooner or later……” Ha! Whatever the case may be, relax, I am not residing in prison, I simply visit for an hour and a half every Tuesday night.
Four of us, two students and two NNU faculty, make the hour drive out to the Idaho Corrections Facility once a week to host a book club for the women in the pre-release center. We turn over our driver’s licenses at the guard station, clip on yellow visitor badges, and proceed with books in hand through two gates and passed double barbed wire fences into North Dorm, and them to the library. A group of ten women, aged 18 to 50, gather around tables and there we read out loud together, currently the book of choice is Charlotte’s Web. We talk about life, what it’s like to live with 30 plus women (something the college girls and inmates can commiserate about), our families, and we talk about what kind of food we love to eat (including the first meal the ladies want to eat on the outside). We read, we talk, and for an hour and a half we all feel equal and normal, like we might be sitting in a library on campus discussing a book for our favorite class.
The first time I went to prison I was terrified. I got the call that I’d been accepted to volunteer, was asked to come along to book club on Tuesdays and happily agreed. Then, the worrying set in. I worried what to wear; should I take off my jewelry? Can I wear a t-shirt with a logo on it? Should I wear closed toed shoes in case for some awful reason I have to run? Really Carol, where would you run inside the locked gates of prison?? Arriving at North Dorm I walked in the library and thought “boy I hope I don’t slip and make a prison joke…” Women began trickling in, some my age, some my grandmother’s. They greeted me with warm smiles and asked me my name. Immediately I was embarrassed for my preconceived notions of these women, they were kind and thoughtful and similar to me in more ways than one. One woman laughed as she relayed the drama for the week as another compared “finding a boyfriend in prison” to “shopping at a junk yard”. I realized right away that any jokes about prison would be made by these ladies and the best I could do was laugh along.
These women talk about their kids at home, their pets, gossip within the prison walls, and their dreams of finishing school when they get out. The more I’ve been able to sit and listen, the more I feel connected to these women and their stories. Their eyes light up when they talk about their future plans and goals, many wish to complete college and become counselors or prison guards themselves. After we finish book club, we pass out cards that the woman can write anonymous prayer requests on. The four of us share them in the car on the way home and pray for them throughout the week. I leave North Dorm each Tuesday with a stack of prayers in hand and a heart full of gratitude for my newfound friends. Most of the women ask for prayers of peace and comfort within the cold walls, some ask for family protection on the outside as well as hope that their loved ones don’t forget about them. There are requests for support systems once they are released and prayers that they don’t fall back into their old patterns of life. Each week I am touched by how selfless these women are, as they ask for more prayer for friends and family than for themselves.
Tuesday night is my favorite night of the week and I pray that in those moments of reading E.B White we can give these women a sense of belonging, and removal from their bleak reality even just for an hour and a half. I feel more filled up when I leave then when I come, and I thank the Lord that He has allowed me this opportunity to “remember those in prison” in even a small way. I would encourage you (who have made it this far in the post) to reach out in ministry to those in your local prison; you never know what will happen when you say “yes” to God, and it is always both a humbling and rewarding experience.
“For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.” -Matthew 25:35
