Challenges & Solutions

Challenges

One of the largest challenges in this ministry is the cost of sending the Good & Evil books to individuals who are incarcerated in California. Another large challenge is the frequency of transportation and deportation from jails and prisons.

Solutions

To solve both of these challenges, we have just recently started a new program with a few local chaplains. We give these chaplains a few boxes (there are 26 Good & Evil Books in a box) for him to take back to their offices in these facilities. Then when we get a request in the mail from one of these facilities, we will send an email to the chaplain with the inmates name and number. The chaplain then routes one of the books that we gave him earlier to the inmates through the internal facility mail system. From our calculations this saves up to $4.13 per book. The book costs us $5.00 to purchase from the publisher (they sell the book to us for prison ministry only at cost) and to get them shipped to us. So instead of costing $9.13 per book we can lower our cost down to approximately $5.00. Since we send out approximately 9,500 of these books per year, it would save us approximately $39,235 per year if we could get a similar program setup with all of the chaplains in CA. This process also solves the second challenge I mentioned above because when we email the request to the chaplain it saves approximately 1 week on arrival thereby decreasing the chances of the inmates moving into a different facility or from being released. If they already have been released or transported to a different facility then we save the whole cost of the book from being wasted.

Some of our more elderly volunteers diligently reading the prisoner letters

Life Leadership Lessons Learned

Since L.A.M.B. started this project in July 2010, they have sent approximately 2,600 Good & Evil Books to this Facility. NKSP currently processes incoming inmates usually within a 90 day period at this facility. 

When it comes down to the lessons that I have learned through this service project I could list many that apply to me.

One such lesson I have seen from reading the letters from inmates, is the power of close, intimate, and relational communication and the impact this can have on the outcome of your life. Most of these inmates who are incarcerated have learned from their mistakes about the power of these types of communication. Almost all of these inmates have had marital conflict, parent/teen conflict, no Father relationship to help them through their growing years, and many other types of problems. All of these problems have big bearings on the outcomes of these individuals. They have never seen the example of relational communication so they don’t know how to give this type of communication to another.

Another lesson would be the impact of leading by serving. This lesson takes me back to a quote I heard from a professor one who asked the question, “Should you lead through serving or serve through leading? The answer that this professor gave is that we should lead through serving. This gives leadership a completely new perspective and outlook. When I spent time organizing the monthly events for packing the Good & Evil Books I would have to stop and start leading by my own example of serving and then others have someone to look up to for example and leadership in that area.

Finally the last lesson would be the impact of spiritual training as a method to set people free from the bonds of enslavement to a system of recidivism. This lesson can apply in my own life in the specific area of my vocation. I work in the Tax & Accounting industry and by having previous spiritual training in the area of biblical lessons of finance and stewardship, I can serve others by giving solutions to difficult situations in life.

They Are Criminals ... Yet Created By God

Sometimes these inmates write about the heinous crimes they have committed such as rape and murder. Other inmates take the position that they are being wrongfully punished in prison for someone else’s crime (Chaplains have told us that this is true less than 1% of the time). Still others realize their wretched condition outside of Christ. They pour out their hearts onto the pages of their letters which are sometimes full of compassion, other times there are still traces of bitterness and anger, while others do not understand why God doesn’t answer their requests, and many other type of attitudes are present in these letters. This gives an incredible opportunity to respond with a special letter written by one of our many volunteers who correspond with the inmates. These inmates are extremely excited to be able to have their very own copy of the Good & Evil Book. One chaplain in Delano told me that the inmates will each read these books 20-30 times on average. These books also empower these inmates with a tool to share the Gospel with their cellmates. A few reports have come back to us which say that each book is read on averages by 3-4 inmates.

Good & Evil Books getting ready to be sent out

 As I have spent time working with this project I have come to the realization more and more that each of these inmates is specially and uniquely created by God. This means that each of these inmates have incredible value before God regardless of their past actions. Jesus said, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” We are called to love each of these inmates regardless of what they have done in their past. We are called to bless them and do good unto them. My hope is that through the time and energy I have invested into this project that I would continue to realize these incredible truths.

Service In Action

Front Cover of the Good & Evil Book

Over the past three years but especially the past two months, I have been heavily involved in prison ministry in California. I have even visited the North Kern State Prison in Delano, CA. I have made quite a few contacts with Chaplains across the state of California over the past three years. You may ask why I mention this and I would say that the reason is because I have seen the impact of the Good & Evil Book with those who are currently incarcerated. Chaplains also give very high accolades to the Good & Evil Book. Inmates love the book. L.A.M.B. Services receives an average of 30 letters per day from inmates requesting the Good & Evil Book. 

What Do/Did I Do With L.A.M.B. Services Prison Ministry?

I have spent my time pretty evenly divided between creating software programs for the project, reading letters from inmates, organizing monthly events for volunteers to send out the Good & Evil Books, ordering needed supplies, analyzing current operations for flaws and thinking of more effective methods, and finally contacting Chaplains for changes in the systems we have set up with special prisons & jails.

Here I am helping two other volunteers with the program we have built

What Is Meaningful About This Project?

What is really powerful and full of meaning to me in this project is reading the letters from inmates. Inside the letters the inmates will sometimes just write asking if we would send the Good & Evil Book. Other times the inmates write long letters (up to 16 page letters – our longest letter on file) giving lots of information about who they are, what they did to end up in prison, and how God is using prison to transform their life in spite of the circumstances.   

Here are two examples of the artwork of these inmates
*Names removed for security reasons

What is Wrong?

I have a passion to see prison facilities transformed, lives changed, souls saved, and communities impacted through the efforts of prison ministry. How can this be done? The only way that these things can be accomplished is for the Gospel of Jesus Christ to transform each inmate’s life in a personal and powerful way. 

What is Wrong with the Current System of Prisons in CA?

As of 2007 the California State Prison System which is administered by CDCR had 170,588 registered inmates. Over the next three years, CA estimates that 70% of these inmates will be released. The recidivism rate for California has stood at approximately 70% for many years. So what is happening is an endless cycle of being released and then recommitting crimes and then getting caught and getting put back in prison.

How can this problem be solved?

Research has proven that for inmates who receive the Bible, the Good & Evil Book, or other Christian Books, the recidivism rate drops to below 30%. This alone is incredible. If the inmates receive a Bible & the Good & Evil Book this rate drops to the range of 20-25% recidivism. If the inmates receive a Bible, Good & Evil Book, and have correspondence with a Christian Individual outside the prison walls, this rate drops to 15% recidivism. Finally, if the inmates receive a Bible, Good & Evil Book, Correspondence, and Personal Discipleship (both in & outside of prison), this rate drops to below 10% to as low as 1%. These statistics prove that the Gospel has power to transform the lives of these inmates and impact the communities they live in when they are released.

Average Daily Mail from Inmates