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Unto One of the Least of These My Brethren Part 3

LONNIE: Don McClure of Someone Cares, welcome back to our program.

DON: Amen!

LONNIE: Let’s talk about your ministry to those who are behind prison walls.

DON: Well, I think now is a good time to define prison ministry. There are two phases of prison ministry, one is prison ministry, and the other is ministry in prison. Ministry in prison is something that you would do. You would go in and preach, and teach, you go and you’re gone. By the way all prison ministries in America are being cut back by the government, but we take care of the inmate in every shape and form. You can’t lead an inmate to Christ if you came in and preached and then left without any sort of follow up. With doctrine of all kinds the prisoners may get confused unless you yourself keep coming to them and witnessing to them. Prison is like a church of all faiths, but ministering for Christ is the bottom line for us all. I always tell people who ask me about the various differences in religion behind bars, that God is God whether you preach in tongues or preach the doctrine, who am I to judge others for what they believe in. I remember 2 guys and I love these guys very much, and I have kept track of them now for 15 years. Steve Eisenhauer, and Larry Simmions, these 2 guys were in Soledad and they worked with Yvonne, and Yvonne led both of them to Christ.

LONNIE: One of our infamous California prisons. So he was led to Jesus?

DON: Both of them were, and they were getting out and they wanted to be baptized together in prison where they met the Lord, but we didn’t have a baptismal. So Yvonne went to Wal-Mart and bought a wading pool so we could have this baptism, and I had to nearly stand on one fellow’s chest just to get him under the water. Today, one is a pastor, and the other an elder and we still keep in contact with the both of them.

LONNIE: A little commercial here, how are you funded?

DON: Anybody who feels inclined to help us can send a check and we’ll make it. But we’ll make it no matter what because Jesus will provide for us and our needs. We have no funding; I don’t get paid by the state or anyone.

LONNIE: This is important, because it costs Someone Cares at least 50,000 dollars a year just for postage for the letters sent to the prisoners. How do people write to you Don, tell us a little bit about that and maybe give us an address.

DON: PO Box 15338, Fort Wayne Indiana 46885.

LONNIE: Now when prisoners write, and they don’t have the money for postage you pay for it right?

DON: That’s right. And if you would like to get involved in writing to a prisoner we will send you a packet with a list of all the rules and so forth for doing so.

LONNIE: Now this is a very careful program. The people write you and then you send the letters to the prisoners, and you never have to give out your address or anything like that. Sometimes there are people in prison that never get mail, so when someone decides to write what does that do for the prisoner receiving the letters?

DON: Tony, a member of the Mexican Mafia who is in prison in Stark, FL doesn’t know why he joined up for our pen friendship program, but he was lonely and needed someone to talk to. Tony was so full of hate, he hated the gang structure, he hated his life, he hated his future and he knew that he was going to die in prison if he didn’t change. So he wrote to me and the luck of the draw…our scientific matching system works this way, all of our inmate applications or requests go in one box, and all of you who write to us of call us, your names go into a separate box, and who ever is on top, well those 2 are matched up. Tony, this hard gang member got matched with a judge, and this judge wrote to me and said, Don, I have wanted to do something like this…I don’t have to give out my name…they don’t know, and I can minister, and she was very excited. Tony and the judge have been writing for 41/2 years, and Tony left the gang, and that is almost a death sentence in prison. Tony is a Christian in prison; he has a parole hearing next month, and who knows maybe they will see the change in his life and let him out.

Join us on our next show tomorrow when we talk with Don McClure.