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Have you ever tried to imagine how it would feel to be locked into your house for a whole year, forced to stay in your bedroom for hours at a time?
Worse yet, imagine being torn from everything familiar and buried alive behind block walls and razor wire, with no hope of escape for 5, 10, even 50 years.
I can’t imagine the helplessness of that feeling. But over two million of our neighbors faced that reality when they woke up this morning in jails and prisons across the U.S.
Step into their shoes for a moment. You long for home. You try to remember what it was like to be free, to go to work in the morning and return to your family at night. You dream of holding your child and embracing your wife. The years ahead look endless.
That’s life in prison, and the people living it face the same loneliness, discouragement, and condemnation you or I would.
The good news is that Jesus died for their sins and He rose again from the dead, so that these 2 million prisoners could be set free in their hearts and experience the life, hope, and freedom that only He can give!
We realize the majority of these people are locked up because of a law they have broken. But we also care about their pain and need for meaningful relationships.
Many of them who are seeking after God are young in the faith and need discipleship and encouragement to overcome the temptation to sin around and within them.
And perhaps the biggest encouragement to them is the example of others who are living in victory, joy, and peace behind the prison walls!
That’s why we give prisoners an outlet in every issue of the Loaves & Fishes magazine. “Free on the Inside” is our section dedicated to prisoner writings. Poems, testimonies, and short writings from prisoners are common in “Free on the Inside.”
Poems and testimonies from Christians in prison are a special blessing to other inmates because the writers can identify with them in a way that I can’t. Prisoners devour these blessings from fellow-inmates and it gives them a sense of fellowship through the Spirit of God.
We hope to soon have enough funds to print another issue of Loaves & Fishes. You can help us spread the message of hope and friendship in Jesus Christ with a gift of even $1/day.
Click here to learn how you can give.
Let’s work together to point the prisoners to the life-changing grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Until the night comes,
Lavern Gingerich
Sarah Markovitz, York Correctional Institution, Niantic, CT
