P.O. Box 53055    
Los Angeles, CA 90053   

Recorded by David Smith
Interview with Don McClure
of Someone Cares Prison Ministry

CONNIE: They are covered with muscles and sprayed with tattoos. They wear jailhouse garb and some of them bulk up to 275 pounds but for some reason prison inmates are kind of scared of little 110 pound Yvonne McClure, the feminine half of the God Squad.

CONNIE: Hi everyone and welcome to part II of our week long visit with Don McClure of the Someone Cares Ministry. I know that Lonnie's sorry that he's away this week because we always get a renewed sense of inspiration hearing how God is working behind prison walls through the efforts of Don and Yvonne. Every time they visit we shut down our own phone banks and simply invite all of our listeners to call them instead so that you can become part of their letter writing army in the Pen Friends Program. Now this program is perfectly safe and secure and you're about to hear all about it, but let me give you a phone number for Someone Cares right now. Area code 812.342.2932. That's 812.342.2932. More details are coming at the close but let's join our writer producer David Smith and special guest Don McClure.

DAVID: Thanks so very much Connie, Don good to have you again on Tuesday.

DON: It's good to be back.

DAVID: We appreciate every time you come. You just brighten up our studio and you sure brighten up the phone lines too and fortunately they are your phone lines too. People call you and that's exciting. Don, we're a little lonely today because you didn't bring your better half with you.

DON: Yeah, we're half the of a team nicknamed the God Squad and half the squad had to stay in Indiana and go to prison so I'm out here all by myself.

DAVID: Yvonne is a unique person.

DON: My wife is I'm not going to say what I said in prison one time when I was preaching to five hundred guys and I said "Would you take my wife please" and everyone stood up. Yvonne is just an exceptional person when she first met me I think it was a thrill because she's a pastor's daughter and I took her out of the world that she was used to, the fast world of life and when people say "sin isn't fun they're lying."

DAVID: Yes.

DON: It's not what we need to do but there's a time and it was exciting for awhile, but when I got my head together and she lead me to Christ and then she swore she'd never marry a minister, instead she made one. She and the Lord have done a great job but Yvonne and we nicknamed her Double Trouble in prison because if there is anything she can do to break any rule to bring Jesus to men and women imprison, Yvonne's going to do it.

DAVID: Now, she doesn't just go into a chapel and read a bible verse, she invades right where the guys are. Now, how does that work?

DON: Well, she'll do things like once I remember in Kentucky things were quiet in the chapel so Yvonne walked out into the yard and she stood there for awhile and nothing was happening so she pointed up in the air. Now, when you do that, people pay attention and so she is pointing and guys start to come around her and what are you doing? What are you looking at? There's nothing up there. "Well," she said, "That's where Jesus is going to some from and would you like to hear about it?" "Sit down." She had 33 guys in a bible study. This is my wife.

DAVID: But she'll go right up to a guy who is cussing a blue streak, for example, and she's not

DON: And she'll remind him that God's last name isn't damn.

DAVID: Yeah, and how do these big 6'6" tattoos all over them muscle bound guy and she must be 5'1"

DON: She is, 5'2", 110 pounds.

DAVID: Soaking wet.

DON: Yes.

DAVID: But she gets away with it.

DON: Because she has the love of the lord in her and there is nobody in prison and I mean this. There is nobody that would be in prison if they have the chance to change. Prison becomes a way of life.

DAVID: Yes.

DON: Men and women boys and girls become institutionalized. There is no such thing as rehabilitation so Yvonne in everything she does looks for a way for regeneration.

DAVID: Now, Don, can she go into segregated areas and to the whole.

DON: Oh yeah, I have a video of Yvonne in an administrative segregation cell giving an inmate Christmas cards. I have pictures of Yvonne in a bullet-proof vest going cell to cell praying with inmates.

DAVID: Now, Don, she was really part of the factor how this mail ministry of yours, this letter writing ministry, how did it start? What happened?

DON: Well, Yvonne many years ago I lost her in San Quentin, and I mean flat lost her.

DAVID: Where was she? That's a scary place to lose your wife.

DON: No, no, not when you have the Holy Spirit with you. But finally we met up and finished up when we were in the car going home and she said "Honey I sort of kind of made a promise to a guy" and I said "that's like being sort of kind of pregnant." "You either are or aren't" and what did you do? She said "well, I met a guy who hadn't had a letter in seventeen years and I promised him that I'd get somebody to write" and I said "That's pretty simple". So we got home, made a couple of phone calls and forgot about it.

DAVID: Right.

DON: We got back to San Quentin about 3 weeks later, the guy had gotten letters from both people that I had asked to write and shared them with everybody on his rung. Now everybody wanted somebody to write.

DAVID: The hunger that these guys have is unbelievable.

DON: The worst part of prison is the terrible loneliness. So this started what we call the Pen Friend Program, the risk free letter writing program endorsed by the American Correctional Association.

DAVID: Now, first of all, what is the nickname of the program?

DON: Pen Friend.

DAVID: No, the other nickname.

DON: Paper Sunshine because it takes, and you know, Jesus when you really think about it, Jesus said in Hebrews 13:3, "Remember the prisoner as if chained to them." He says, "Then I was in prison and you visited me not."

DAVID: Yes.

DON: The last thing Jesus did. He stopped dying to save a convict on the cross so is the commission to the church before he comes again prison ministries? I hope so.

DAVID: Yes.

DON: Because we're right up there.

DAVID: Don, a letter will brighten up my day and your day and we are out of a world where we have abundant lives and these folks imprison, just one letter must be sunshine for a week, for a month.

DON: Forever.

DAVID: It just makes all the difference.

DON: You're right and the thing about it is it's the proverbial snowball

DAVID: Yes.

DON: You get a letter, you get excited, and you tell somebody else. They want it. They want it now. Also, everybody that joins our Pen Friend program joins the discovery bible study.

DAVID: Yes.

DON: Everybody that joins the discovery bible study gets a pen friend application. So we have a nice mirror.

DAVID: They work together fabulously. But, Don; let's go back. You said this was risk free. How can our listeners write to prisoners and these folks are thieves, they are con men, are rapists,

DON: They¼

DAVID: That is not risk free, but tell us how this works.

DON: Ok, they address the letter to the inmate, just like they were writing them directly.

DAVID: Yes.

DON: They as a return address just put their name of if they choose a pen name and our address as the return, then they put this in an envelope and mail it to me.

DAVID: Right.

DON: I take it out and drop it into the mailbox. The only postmark they will ever have is¼

DAVID: Is yours. So the protection on the outbound is perfect.

DON: Yeah, I've got about 12,000 people living in my post office.

DAVID: That's right, now what happens when the mail is returned because these guys write back? Write back to women and men.

DON: Then we read their letters and we have people that help us read the letters. Other people when they watch TV or anything else, Yvonne and I are reading letters.

DAVID: Yes, you have how many other deals going on at one time?

DON: A lot, But every time we turn a corner, God opens a door.

DAVID: Now, somebody wants to get involved and speaking of snowballing they might say well, I'd like to do it the lord is calling. They write every two or three days. Is this going to . . .

DON: No, no. As long as you write once a month, because keep in mind that the postage just went up to thirty-four cents.

DAVID: Right

DON: Men will kill for a thirty-four cent stamp. So guys in prison can't afford to write often.

DAVID: Okay.

DON: But it's that one time, that joy. There are guys in prison that write to themselves to hear their name called at mail call.

DAVID: To get a letter. Well, somebody listening today Don, can give twenty minutes, thirty minutes a month.

DON: Write us or call us.

DAVID: You could do it, You can do it.

DON: Amen.

DAVID: And what a difference that makes in the lives of others because people's lives are changed by this program.

DON: Figure it this way, almost 2 million people in prison in the United States in which 70 percent are going to get out. Do we want them coming out like they went in or worse? Or can we do something to change them?

DAVID: Speaking of protection, you said yesterday that you have children writing to child molesters, but that's in perfect safety leading them to Jesus.

DON: I'll tell a quick story. A pastor's wife wrote me, getting ahead a little bit and she said Don I want to thank you. When you came to our church I joined your Pen Friend program because I'm the pastor's wife. I've been writing my pen friend for ten years.

DAVID: Right.

DON: He just led me to Christ.

DAVID: The prisoner led her to Christ!

DON: The pastor's wife.

DAVID: She was in a religious rut, but didn't know Jesus herself.

DON: Now she has a relationship with Jesus. It's unbelievable and that's the kind of miracle that anyone listening today¼

DAVID: Can experience.

DON: For thirty-four cents and a few minutes can experience it.

DAVID: From the comfort and safety of their home.

DON: Yes, that's perfect. Thank you for being with us and we'll talk to you again tomorrow.

www.someonecares.org