First grace notes of the new website

Hello Friend,

Welcome!  If you are reading this, you probably are checking out my new website, which creates awareness of a ministry founded by Jesus Christ about 6 years ago in my life.  I never ever dreamed I'd be writing to inmates in states across the nation.  As a music director of a church, I resigned to myself that music would be my "thing".  But as a young person I loved creative writing and Bible study....how would God use that?  Over the years I sort of gave up on that dream....and stuck with music.  God wonderfully added this to my plate, and has always provided the grace and strength to keep it up.  I am just the worker in the vineyard; He is the master gardener!   Here are  few things I've seen over these 6 years:

• A letter is EVERYTHING.  We usually grab mail and throw half of it out...the art of a personal letter has given way to texts and emails. But to an inmate, a letter is a cold cup of water in a parched land.  To have one's name announced at mail call is like Christmas day.  So many inmates, once incarcerated, are rejected by their families, friends, churches (yes, churches to our shame), and society.  The only voices they hear are the other prisoners or guards.  They rarely get a breath of fresh air, a voice telling them, "Jesus loves you  and is sitting with you right now."  Mail is an open portal for the Scriptures, a voice of compassion, and a friendship to develop faith. 
• God is doing WONDERFUL THINGS in the lives of prisoners.  I could fill this post with story after story ---- how God used a letter, a card, a prayer to fill a need.  God has not forgotten his redeemed who live behind bars.  He is actively at work with them, thought the resources are few.
  
• Letters help prisoners feel like VALUED PEOPLE.  It's so easy to mentally throw someone away after they have done a terrible thing.  But Jesus calls us to seek out those same people, the "Samaritans" in nature who don't fit into society's standards.  Just like the lost sheep, giving a prisoner a Scripture, picture or written prayer is being the hands and feet of Jesus.  Who is the messenger:  that humble little stamp.
  
• Prisoners have personally BLESSED me.  It's been wonderful to have a prisoner write a prayer for me, or send me 4 stamps ---- something that is very costly in the prison system.  They are literally giving the widow's mite that Jesus spoke of.  Their sacrificial giving to help others is a proof that God's grace is penetrating the prison system and God is growing good fruit among belieiving prisoners.