P.O. Box 53055    
Los Angeles, CA 90053   

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

CONNIE: Can you have a bonafide, get 'em into heaven Christian baptism in a Wal-Mart kiddie wading pool? If your Yvonne McClure of the Someone Cares Prison Ministry and you've got born again convicts to baptize? You bet! Prisoners come to Jesus in all sorts of exciting ways when she's around.

CONNIE: Hello everyone this is Connie Jeffery from the Voice of Prophecy. Lonnie is not able to be here to enjoy our weeklong radio visit with Don McClure, but we're still right here signing up new letter writing volunteers for his army. Why not call in and find out how you can become part of their pen friends letter writing ministry. Have a pencil ready at the close so that you can enlist too, but right now lets join producer David Smith, and listen to part three of our visit with Don.

DAVID: Thank you so much Connie. Don, Prison Cares prison ministry, fabulous to have you here, we are sure enjoying visiting.

DON: Amen! It's always a pleasure.

DAVID: ¼and you know, we always have such an unbelievable response. Our listeners and you're ministry, there's a natural marriage there, an affinity.

DON: I'll tell you stories that will go on forever. I know last year at least two-hundred people wrote me, and I stopped my car in traffic, and said, "You guys are giving out your address. The truck driver said, "I listened to you're program for three days, and on the fourth day, I pulled over to a truck stop and I gathered all of my friends." Of those friends, thirteen long haulers as they go across country are stopping and visiting prisoners.

DAVID: Oh they are? Wow! Don I want to talk today about just the reality of changed lives in the prison. When Jesus comes in through your ministry, and through other ministries. It's not just a Band-Aid. Something miraculous happens to these people.

DON: We have seen very serious gang guys, very tough convicts turned to Christ legitimately. Now a lot of people do use Jesus as¼

DAVID: Sure.

DON: ¼brownie points for the parole board. I know one guy that's got a hundred and thirteen Bible study certificates. He's no more Christian than, Charles Manson is, but God is so good. And when a man sees change in other people, and when he sees any kind of a legitimate opportunity to break away from the gang, from the environment, because to be set free in Jesus, is to be free in deed.

DAVID: But prison life; I mean you how tough it is, the reality.

DON: I could tell you, forever, of the terrible situations going on in prison today. Again I said yesterday I believe there is no rehabilitation, give maybe a little bit, but¼

DAVID: That's the big R-word. Rehabilitation instead of more cells, let's rehabilitate. You have a different word?

DON: That's regeneration, and it works. Yvonne, teaches remedial reading using the Bible. We had tough gang guys not wanting to learn anything about the Lord. Not wanting to learn the Bible, but they want to learn to read and write so they can do they're own legal work, and the Holy Spirit just smacked them over the head, and they've joined. We had the head of the BGF, one of the toughest gangs in any prison anywhere, and he came to the Lord and left the BGF. The Black Gorilla Family is one gang you don't leave, but he not only left, he's still walking and talking, and so when you do the crime do the time. But men are sent to prison for punishment, not as punishment, and the corruption, the drugs, the sexual abuse. Everything going on in prison today is terrible.

DAVID: And your right there. You're seeing it¼

DON: Yeah and we have a lot of men, and women, boys, and girls in prison listening to this radio program. And I would love for them to write, and tell us about real conditions and maybe next year we'll read some of these letters. Folks let me tell you. When you make some decisions to get committed to the Lord, sitting in a cell somewhere is a man, women, boy, or girl that you can lead to a better way of life.

DAVID: Now tell me this, Don, this is really the important thing. Someone comes to Christ through a Bible lesson, Discover; through you're visits through these various ministries. How then do they live as Christian's seven days a week for ten, twenty, twenty-five, thirty years? How do they stay Christians in prison? How does that actually happen?

DON: It is very difficult. See there are all kinds of gangs, but unfortunately, there is Gods prison gang. Now when you join this, it's sort of a hands off by the other people. Now Christians are abused. David, I know guy's that will go to chapel loyally with their Bible tucked under their belt so no on sees it, because they'll get harassed. But when you know its you're only way out. The only light at the end of the tunnel is Jesus Christ. The only way to get away from the loneliness.

DAVID: Are there services in prison that these men and women can go too?

DON: Well that's something that is very sad, and maybe we'll talk about it now. Religion in prison is not a priority. As such this is getting cut back. An example; at Corecran Prison the Chaplain has seven thousand inmates. His budget for the year is twenty-five hundred dollars.

DAVID: Basically nothing.

DON: Nothing! We collected for him almost sixty thousand religious books. After we collected them the prison wouldn't let them in, because the Muslims, and the Catholics, and the other religions, didn't want to share shelf space. So it ended up nobody got anything. Christianity is a way to stop recidivism, but in the prison systems of this country; prison is big business. They don't want men and women changed.

DAVID: Lets talk about residaism a bit, because that's the famous word, the rate of return which is staggeringly high. Give us some numbers on what it usually is?

DON: Probably nation wide now, about 79%, and if you don't know what the word recidivism means, return to prison. Meaning basically eight out of ten men, women, boys, and girls, leaving, are going to come back. So our prison systems don't work. Now the programs that do work, like I told you earlier, we kept track over the last two years, of one hundred men. We sent them both Christmas cards and, birthday cards. We kept in touch with them, and now they're all released. Of the hundred¼

DAVID: These are Christians¼

DON: Christian inmates¼

DAVID: X-inmates

DON: ¼yeah, all have left prison, and only six have re-offended.

DAVID: Compared to 75-80%.

DON: So, Jesus works.

DAVID: The Christian faith, and Jesus in the heart¼

DON: The key is accepting Christ in prison, and gentlemen and ladies this is to you. When you get out join a church.

DAVID: Yes, get with a local group of Bible believing students¼

DON: Yes, and that's the strength. Frankly David, I'd rather preach in prison then in some of our churches, because Jesus is real there.

DAVID: You and Yvonne, have had some unbelievable worship experiences in prison¼

DON: You want to get to Wal-Mart, don't you?

DAVID: Well no¼What I was going to say was, the singing is so alive there. The praying is so alive. These people are on their knees because they have nowhere else to be.

DON: The last service we had in California; I'll never forget this one as long as I live. They have this stick rule, eighty men. No more and they knew it was our last service. We had a hundred and sixty-five people in this small chapel, and Yvonne, when she saw the captain coming with the security squad, knew they were going to close us down. We said, "Please captain, Don't." " In the name of Jesus, let us finish." Not only did we finish. When we made the altar call, one of the security team came forward.

DAVID: Now you mentioned Wal-Mart. Now let me ask you to tell that fabulous story, because baptisms in prison are a challenge¼go ahead.

DON: We were at Solidad, and two guys that were getting out early, both Christians, wanted us to do the baptism, but we didn't have a baptismal tank. My wife is very ingenious. So she was driving to prison on the morning, and she passed Wal-Mart. It wasn't open, and she almost knocked the door down until she got somebody to come. She said, "I need a kiddie wading pool." The guy said, "We're not open." She said, "I work for the Lord, and He needs a kiddie wading pool to take to prison."

DAVID: There's no stopping Yvonne McClure.

DON: ¼and he said, "no." She said, "look, I have to have it." So he say's, " O.K. I'll get it, you stay here." So he went back and got it, and he said, "Its twenty-nine, ninety-five plus tax." She says, " I've only got twenty-five dollars." He took it, she took it, and we probably did forty-five baptisms¼

DAVID: In a kiddie wading pool. How deep was the water?

DON: It was about two feet deep. The first guy I baptized, to get him completely immersed I had to stand on his chest.

DAVID: I remember Chuck Fulsome, who is a great Baptist prison fellowship type of a guy. He wanted to baptize a great big prisoner, and of course Baptists baptize by immersion, just like we do, and they said, "All we got is a bucket." He said, "Well make it the biggest bucket you can find."

DON: Amen!

DAVID: But the Lord is working through these various avenues in a Wal-Mart swimming pool.

DON: Well, Plus the fact that when this kind of stuff happens, anything in prison is contagious, and people want it. In the same respect, everything bad in prison is contagious. Gangs run prisons, and the violence in prisons today that you don't here about, the warfare in prison you don't here about. The killings you don't here about, the stabbing's which you don't here about. The over- abundance of drugs is bad. If it's not a Cadillac, if you can get it on the outside, you can get it on the inside.

DAVID: You really need Jesus in those prisons.

DON: Amen!

DAVID: We'll pick it up right here tomorrow.

DON: O.K.!

DAVID: Thanks, Don.

www.someonecares.org