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Greetings in the name of
our Lord and Savior!
 At the recent Biennial/Mission Summit--surely a mountaintop experience--opening worship's guest speaker Michelle Alexander was especially moving. In her powerful message about today's mass incarceration of African American males, the author of "The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness" urged American Baptists to begin a spiritually enlightened movement to end the American travesty of justice that is legally stripping millions of their basic human rights, relegating them to permanent second-class status.
I hope you'll consider contacting ABHMS for guidance in beginning a church ministry to the incarcerated as well as citizens re-entering society. When I saw the number of people who raised their hands at that Mission Summit worship service to indicate a connection to family or friends affected by the U.S. criminal justice system, I became even more convinced of the critical need for these ministries across the United States and Puerto Rico.
Our ABHMS Mission Summit exhibit included a prison cell built by a returning citizen who wanted to give thanks to God for assistance provided by ABHMS' prison ministries network. I was deeply touched by the substantial number of attendees who stopped by the prison cell to pray for the incarcerated and returning citizens.
The need for prison ministries is too much with us to be silenced by shame. Please consider how you can help. For resources and aid with such ministry, contact the Rev. Fela Barrueto, ABHMS national coordinator of Prisoner Re-entry and Aftercare Ministry, at Fela.Barrueto@abhms.org or 800-222-3872, x2493, or visit Prisoner Re-entry and Aftercare Ministry.
With hope,
Dr. Aidsand F. Wright-Riggins III
Executive Director
American Baptist Home Mission Societies (ABHMS) |
