The Bishop: Getting our priorities straight

BY BISHOP W. EARL BLEDSOE
North Texas Conference

As I write this article, Leslie and I are attending the spring meeting of the Council of Bishops in Columbus, Ohio. Normally, the week-long gathering is filled with long days of meetings, reports and discussions. This was not your usual meeting.

First, we experienced “radical hospitality” by Bishop Bruce Ough and his team, including a family dinner hosted by the governor at the  Ohio Statehouse. On Wednesday we were given choices to leave the hotel and visit various sites in the area where transformation ministry is being done among the people. Leslie and I chose to visit the Horizon Ministry at Marion Correctional Institute, a medium security prison for men.

We boarded the bus and headed north out of the city for the 45 mile trip. Along the way large cypress, poplar, buckeye and occasional evergreen trees covered the roadside. The further north we traveled, the more the trees began to disappear beyond the fertile plowed fields ready for planting.

We arrived at the prison, where we were allowed to bring nothing but a photo id. We entered the security area and experienced the banging sound of that big iron door closing behind us. We knew then that we were inside among those isolated and separated from the rest of the free world, serving their sentences for various crimes such as murder, rape and drug trafficking. There are 2300 men in the prison, ranging in age from 19 to 89 years. Their sentences range from six months to life.

This was no ordinary prison. A female serves as the warden and she is kind-hearted and nice. Her deputies assist her in creating programs to help the men serving long sentences adjust to prison life and create a caring community. The ones serving shorter sentences are helped to prepare for re-entry into the community.

One of the ministries helping to do this is the Horizons program. Each year 48 men are screened and selected for the program. Once selected, they are placed in one of eight dorm rooms that accommodate six men each. They come from various religious, racial and economic backgrounds.

We had an opportunity to visit the living quarters and to hear testimony from several of the men. Their lives have been changed. According to the report of the Executive Director, Jeff Hunsaker, the recidivism rate of repeat offenders having gone through the Horizons program has dropped to less than 12 percent, as compared with the national average of 60 percent.

Many of the testimonies we heard related to caring Christians from the outside sharing the love of Christ on a weekly basis with prisoners on the inside. Needless to say, what was described as a “hellhole” ten years ago has now been transformed into a loving and supportive community. I thank God for the experience and the opportunity to witness love in action.