Nothing to Offer but Jesus

by Audrey Wauson


Dear Tammy,

Regarding your inquiry about being involved in prison ministry:

I go to the Detention Center (DC) on Sunday nights from 7-9pm. After I committed to that so many fun things have come up on Sunday nights that I’d like to be a part of, but I KNOW where I'm supposed to be so that makes it a LOT easier. Once I'd made a connection with these women and saw their desperate need for Christ, it just feels right.

The procedure is that I go into the DC itself near the front where the classrooms are. After a guard escorts me in they bring the women from one of the pods. There are three pods that are allowed to go out to the classroom. Each pod can hold 32 women but there’s only room for 15 women in the classroom. We never know how many will come.

When the women first come to the DC they are often still cocky and full of themselves, eager to make someone else as miserable as themselves. But after they've been there for awhile they begin to see the seriousness of their situation and that they need someone. My job is to show them who God is and what He'd like to do in and through them. Not many of them will choose to follow Him but, as many as received Him, to them He gave the power to become "daughters" of God". Jn 1:12

Please understand that I don't want to 'talk you into' coming to the DC because it is a place where spiritual battles are fought and you shouldn't go because of any reason other than ... you can't be satisfied doing something else. You absolutely have to know that's what God is leading you to do. I personally wrestled with the decision of whether or not to go for over six months.

I didn't want to go in by myself. So finally, I told God if you will send someone who's willing to go in with me, I'll go. When I called my friend Mari, she said that God had been pestering her about going as well. Then the first time we went in God gave us a boldness that is simply unexplainable, a confidence that we could never have mustered up on our own. And, because we know that He wants us to be there, we feel like whatever happens (and you and I both know that bad things happen to good people) we can have confidence like Steven, Paul and Silas and Peter and other greats like Corrie Ten Boom, that our God will protect us and give us the strength to do His will. However, the chances of anything bad happening are pretty remote.

In order to get in at all, you have to get a background check and go through the prison training. The training alone will turn away any of the 'faint of heart' cuz they show & tell some of the worst case scenarios. The people who work at the DC want you to be afraid of what these people are capable of so that you won't break their rules, so that you will understand the reason these rules are in place. Many people who start volunteering become so burdened with these people's troubles and hard life that they start trying to do 'favors' for them and it's just not safe. However, IF you remember that you have NOTHING to offer these people but Jesus and His word then you'll be fine.

Tammy, please know that God will make your way/path clear and if you choose to follow Him you won't regret it. That may or may not include going into the DC. But here's what it won't do, it won't make you more spiritual, or closer to Him or any other thing. But if He's calling you, He won't give you the courage to go ... UNTIL you go. You won't have the courage while you're thinking about it and planning it, but when you ARRIVE at the DC to start the paper work you'll have enough courage to do that much. Later if you go in to the DC to encourage the women ... you won't be given the courage while you’re standing around waiting for the guards to take you in but AS YOU WALK THROUGH THE DOORS then the courage will come. It is in the moment that you step out in faith that the strength & courage is given. God is VERY generous, He will give you exceeding, abundantly above all that you can ask or think or even imagine as you step out in faith to do what He's calling you to do (Eph. 3:20)... whatever it is!!!!

God bless you as you start serving Him ... wherever you serve ^_^