P.O. Box 53055    
Los Angeles, CA 90053   

Unto One of the Least of These My Brotheren
Part 1

CONNIE: Hi everyone, and thank you for joining us on this beautiful Monday. I’m Connie Jeffery, and I think it’s no accident that God led you to this radio program because we are heading into one of our favorite annual treats here on the Voice of Prophecy. Our 5 day visit with Don McClure of the “Somone Cares Prison Ministry” is always a wonderful treat. Don and Yvonne help literally thousands of inmates with the Paper Sunshine Outreach Program that they oversee, and they are always looking for new friends to help out. You can contact Don and Yvonne yourself by phone at area code, (260} 492- 7770. Or you can write to them at P.O. Box 15338, Fort Wayne, Indiana 46885. Their website is located at, www.somonecares.org. Now, I know that your eager to hear Don’s story, so lets me him and go to Lonnie.

LONNIE: Don McClure, welcome back to the Voice of Prophecy.

DON: It’s a thrill as usual.

LONNIE: Hundreds and thousands of miles and many strange faces and places, and you have been there bringing sunshine to people behind bars. And Yvonne, we miss her here today as well.

DON: Double trouble’s at home getting into mischief with some prisoner, some or some guard.

LONNIE: The God squad. Now talk to us a minute as we get started this week’s series started about living fast and dying young and having a good looking corpse.

DON: A lot of times people ask, Don, why prison ministry? What credentials do you have? I was arrested the first time when I was 7 years old for stealing a bicycle. Then for the next 30 years, I was in and out of trouble, in and out of jail, in and out of prison, and I grew up in a world that you didn’t care about anything or anyone. I was beaten and abused in ways that thankfully God has cleaned from my mind, but now today this is back. The young people today especially in LA and near here, know because of their gang association; in fact I heard on the news last night that the gangs are marking their territory’s by throwing shoes over telephone lines, and this is their turf and all that they will ever see, and they don’t expect to live. They know because of the gang culture, which is Godless.

LONNIE: Well, talk to us a little bit about the fact that God moved in on your life and made a humongous difference, so vast in fact, that now you’re in the fulltime ministry of reaching in behind those doors where you were once locked up.

DON: God sent Yvonne, and Yvonne a pastor’s daughter, drove a Lincoln, carried a gun, and wore thousand dollar suits; this was a lot of years ago in 1967, and the fascination drew her out of her secure, protected life, and thrust her into my life, jet-setter, always on the edge of trouble, and never quite getting there.

LONNIE: So literally, opposites attract. A spiritual person with an unspiritual one, a criminal with an innocent.

DON: I wish she took me out of my life and into hers, instead of the opposite. We almost destroyed each other, and I lost planes, cars, houses, and lot lots of money. I could easily go to Tahoe and spend 200-300 thousand dollars gambling. Money was no object, I had it all and I lost it all. I became an alcoholic, a drug addict, and with my criminal background to back it all up. One day Yvonne told me that there’s one way out of this mess, and I said, “Who’s that”, and she said, “Jesus”. Now anytime before this when Yvonne mentioned her church…I was a real atheist, and when people say there is no such thing, I was one. I grew up beaten; I was in foster homes, reform schools, in and out of jail. I was rated by a judge at 15, as totally incurable.

LONNIE: So, anything about God was kind of a hot button, and not to favorable?

DON: Right. But at this point I was smart enough to know that I was destroying myself. I drank a quart of booze a day, and if it wasn’t something that you injected I used it, and one day Yvonne said, “We need a better life”. I knew I wanted a better life, I just didn’t know how to do it.

LONNIE: That little conscience that God plants in our minds began to smart in yours?

DON: Right. She finally talked me into going and seeing a pastor, and I said, “Look, this is it, this guy better have something to say or I’m going to book, and get out of here”. She took me to a guy named Yule Ashley, and it was a night that I will never forget, because he spent 21/2 hours telling me about Jesus. He didn’t say a word about giving up drinking, smoking, or drugs. He talked a lot about giving in and getting changed, and all in language that I could understand, because Yule, before he was a pastor was a vice-squad cop. He got to me, and we had prayer. I went down on my knees a total sinner, drug addict, alcoholic, you name it. I came up about 20 minutes later, and Lonnie, I have never had another drink since then, never had drugs, never smoked a cigarette since then, and the amazing thing is I have never had a moment’s withdrawal.

LONNIE: No regrets.

DON: No regrets. God cleaned me and I am now a Christian.

LONNIE: How long ago was this?

DON: This was 1971.

LONNIE: There are people out there listening today, thinking that they have come to the end with no answers to their lives with no solutions, except to just take their own lives, or die a hopeless death, or maybe they’re even in prison on death row. Talk to these people who are need, and at the end of their ropes.

DON: God has a Bible full of promises, and my favorite scripture is, “Remember the prisoner as if chained with them”, Hebrews 13:3. You don’t have to be incarcerated to be a prisoner. You can be a prisoner to weight, abuse, drug addiction, even to much church!

LONNIE: Even persons that are free may be in prison.

DON: If you want to learn to have a prayer relationship with God, get on our website and send me an e-mail, and you’re going to have 6 thousand people praying for you and I’ll tell you what? It works!

LONNIE: The point is, that wherever that person is right now, driving, working, taking a break, listening to this broadcast, God is listening, He can hear their heart cry is they will simply reach out to Him.

DON: And you don’t have to say it out loud. You think a thought and God hears it, you have a hurt and He feels it. When Jesus died on the cross, He looked into each one of your audience’s eyes and said I’m here for you.

LONNIE: So the person out there that buys into the same philosophy as you did as a young person, live fast and die young, what about this having a good looking corpse, what’s that all about?

DON: If you’re thinking about having a good looking corpse, you’re thinking about all the people coming to your funeral and seeing you. The good looking corpse that I’m going to have is the new body that Jesus is going to give me in heaven. In my case I guess what is so special is, I ran away from home and was gone for 17 years. She never saw me, didn’t know where I was. In and out of prison, in and out of jail, in and out of trouble, but she lived long enough to hear me preach my first sermon.

LONNIE: Praise the Lord! Now, tomorrow we will be talking about what happens when we let Jesus in, but if you could, jump forward a little bit and tell us what is currently happening with your prison ministry outreach program. How many prisons are you in?

DON: Every prison in the United States, I think?

LONNIE: SO what is the recidivism rate for those who are enrolled in Someone Cares?

DON: The United States recidivism rate is 78%, which means that roughly 7 out of 10 people released from prison will go back. Ours on the other hand is 13%, which is 13 out 100. Rehabilitation doesn’t work, regeneration does.

LONNIE: And we’re talking about a brand new birth in getting to know Christ.

DON: Jesus says to be free in me is to be free indeed. When you walk with the Lord He never leaves you. I know that when I get on the plane to go home that my guardian angel goes with me. My wife has a license frame that says, “Don’t drive faster than my angel can fly”.

LONNIE: 30 seconds, one quick story about someone who’s life has been changed.

DON: The Don Hawkins story from death row, but you’ll have to wait until the next show for that one.

LONNIE: Thank you, Don McClure from Someone Cares.