April & May 2024
Hello my Beloved,
So much for my good intentions. I really tried to stay up to date on my writings each week. After a brief period of calmness, the partying cranked back up again. The amount of drug use at St. Brides has increased dramatically, so has drunkenness.
This has led to several long compound wide lock downs. All classes and programs were closed through much of May. Between strip searches, locker searches, dog searches, and even x-ray searches, everyone is pretty worn out and stir crazy. As much as the lockdowns frustrate me, I am glad they are cracking down.
April and May have been 60 days of dramatic ups and downs. I told you how exciting is was to start Prison Fellowship the last week in March. Coach and Lenny are great teachers. We took the Keirsey Personality Assessment. I was rated a Guardian Inspector by the 70-question assessment. The questions were very frustrating sometimes. Each question was followed by two possible answers to choose from. Many times, though I was split equally in which answer best applied to me. For instance, one question says; Is it worse to be: (A) A softy or (B) hard-nosed. My answer is, ‘that depends’. If a person is trying to badly hurt a child around me then it would be horrible to be a softy. But if my wife was grieving the death of a child or parent, the last thing I would want to do is be hard-nosed. The question does not provide enough context to accurately answer the question.
I struggled with this very same issue in my annual review with the counselor. She would ask me questions like, ‘Do you struggle with anger?’ I asked her if the question was directed at my entire life or just my time in prison. She said she didn’t know. I then asked her, ‘What do you mean by struggle?’
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Does she mean that I am about to explode, or does she mean I am angry a log but not close to exploding. Is the question about the frequency of the force of my anger. She told me she didn’t have a clue, but I had to answer the question. ‘How am I supposed to answer the question if I don’t know what it is asking?’ I said. She smiled, shrugged her shoulders and again reminded me that I needed to give her an answer. I told her that I had no issues with anger. I repeated my answer that she could abstract from it what she wanted. I remember John telling me that during his assessment he told them that years ago while in the Navy he lost his temper once. Because he shared that one story from years ago, he was assigned mandatory anger management classes. I dislike vague questions, and I REALLY dislike vague questions.
Anyway, I was rated a Guardian Inspector (ISTJ). The test says that GIs (Guardian Inspector) are reliable, steadfast, dedicated, and consistent. We tend to be very practical. A GI is rock solid dependable, responsible, and trustworthy. We are very duty driven. We are also “What you see is what you get” type people.
A GI is always looking to better the community. To do this they are constantly analyzing. They want to know what is true or false and what is right and wrong so that they may better the society around them. A GI is also very framework-oriented person. They work hard to make sure there is a consistence of thought in their worldviews and the worldviews of others. Guardian Inspectors have a passion for working for the good of those around them and are willing to go to great lengths to equip themselves to know what that good is.
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I had tremendous hopes for Prison Fellowship. Having met it’s founder Chuck Colson twice, followed his ministry for decades, and been trained by many of the people that trained Mr. Colson, I was really looking forward to bringing my background in Theology, Apologetics, and Philosophy to the table in hope of helping to make their program even more effective. I was even hoping to work for them full time after I am released.
All of that came crashing down on April 4th. As we were in class, the Warden, Assistant Warden, and the Major walked past the classroom and office several times. The Assistant Warden then barged into the classroom and ordered all of us back to our dorms. I knew something was very wrong when I saw that only those in Prison Fellowship were being ordered back to their dorms.
It has been 2 months, and we still don’t know exactly what happened. There is some sort of investigation going on. It appears that one of the Prison Fellowship’s inmate aides was caught watching a movie on a Prison Fellowship laptop. Rumors are running wild on what he was watching and what was found in his locker. There is also strong evidence that the administration here at St. Brides is split about Prison Fellowship. Some say that those that dislike the program dislike it because it makes the secular programs here look bad. The recidivism rate of those that finish Prison Fellowship’s program is many, many times lower than those that finish the secular programs here. Either way, those that do not like Prison Fellowship have been looking for a way to get rid of it for a while.
I have missed Prison Fellowship these past 2 months. Me and many others were really looking forward to moving to the 330A or 330B dorm. Both dorms are Prison Fellowship dorms.
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This means that the vast majority of inmates in those dorms either attend or have attended Prison Fellowship and graduated from the program. Each month the prison rates each dorm on how clean they are, how ordered they are, and how many people get charges. Each month the Prison Fellowship dorm wins. It has been double frustrating living in this dorm so long. When I first moved into 350B, it was the Prison Fellowship dorm. They were just starting to slowly transfer people out of 350 into 330. Over the past few months our dorm has dramatically increased in drugs, alcohol, stealing, noise, and violence. I was really looking forward to moving to a dorm where I could focus more and thus keep more up to date on my letters.
On a brighter note, Richard moved here from Nottaway. If you will remember, Richard was the young Navy sailor that I met back in K Pod at Northern Neck Regional Jail. He w barely out of his teens and leading a Bible Study of men ole enough to be his Dad. I was impressed by his passion for sharing God’s word with people. He is still very much on fire for God. He shared with me a story that warmed my heart and made me smile. He said that while he was at Nottoway he was really feeling spiritually down. He really, really missed our sessions and discussions on Christianity, Apologetics, and Philosophy and how they all fit together. He told this to his cellmate who was a young Pentecostal man about his age named Mullins. Mullins told Richard that God told him that He was going to send him where I was so he could continue his studies.
As you know, I am very skeptical of peoples claims of direct revelation from God. I have seen this claim used many times in the past to justify someone doing unbiblical things. Even though I am skeptical of the average person’s claims, I cannot
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rule out the possibility that God still uses direct Revelation. Did Mullins receive direct revelation about Richard coming here to continue his training under me? I don’t know, but I am very glad he is here and ready to pick up where he left off.
As our ministry continues to grow here at St. Brides, I am finding more and more people are having difficulties with the evening Protestant services that I attend. The service is set up with a rotating group of pastors that preach. These include Chaplain Corbitt, and the lead inmate pastor named Kevin. Both men do a good job in their preaching most of the time. Kevin’s protégé, Anthony, alternates between fair and good. There are several pastor’s that come from the outside in order to preach on Sunday evenings. I am very thankful that these men take time out of their busy schedules to come in here to preach.
Their preaching runs the gamut. Some sermons are pretty good. They can be a bit loud, but at least they focus on equipping the congregation in some basic way. Other sermons, though, don’t qualify as sermons. Instead of a well thought out exposition on a passage of scripture, the hour is spent with the preacher reading a passage from the Bible, stopping every 2 to 3 words to scream, “Yes, He did, good God, yeeessss, hallelujah, or aaaah!!! This is usually interspersed with running, stomping repeatedly on the floor as if his foot is on fire, or jumping up and down as if his underwear is filled with angry hornets. There have been several people that have stopped attending because of sermons like these. Its getting harder and harder for me to talk them into coming back. Continue to pray that I would have patience and wisdom in dealing with this issue in the coming months.
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God has continued to work on my heart about forgiveness. As I said at the beginning of this letter, the loss of Prison Fellowship has been devastating for me and many others. Part of my future income was dependent on me completing Prison Fellowship, establishing myself in the organization, and being hired after I am released to help teach the program to others. Now that seems very unlikely. All because one of the inmate leaders of Prison Fellowship seems to have taken advantage of his position for his own personal gain. This particular P.F. leader is probable one of the most hated inmates on the compound now.
I have heard that because of what they found, they packed him up and immediately shipped him off the compound. Much to my surprise, after a week or so of not being seen, he was moved into our dorm. I had met the man once before during P.F. He is a middle aged African American man, kind of quiet, and very sincere. Now he liked emotionally beaten down and jittery like a frightened rabbit. Of course, all the people whispering and pointing to him probable didn’t help his emotional state. I confess that my own feeling toward him vacillated between dislike and compassion.
shunned and made fun of him. He continued to retreat more and more inside of himself. I couldn’t stand it anymore. He was still created in the image of God, just like everyone else. He deserved to be treated as such. I overcame my hurt and began to reach out to him. He has been very timid in his responses. I can tell he thinks I am setting him up for something. Only time and consistent love will get him past that. Meanwhile, I have reminded the rest of our Bible study members (who are also very upset with him about the loss of P.F.) what Jesus had to say about us forgiving others.
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In Matthew 18:21-35 Jesus paints a very vivid picture of how our sin debt to God compares to the debt other people owe us because of their sin against us. In the parable a mid-level servant is forgiven a debt to his master that would have taken him 200,000 years to pay off. But when the mid-level servant is confronted later by a lower-level servant that owes him 4 months’ worth of pay, he attacks him and has him thrown into prison. Upon finding out that the mid-level servant did not reciprocate the forgiveness he had shown him, the master the decided to show the mid-level servant the same level of forgiveness that the mid-level servant had shown the lower-level servant.
There is no one on this earth that has sinned against me as much as I have sinned against God, this includes the P.F. inmate leader. Someone needs to show him what forgiveness looks like, who better than someone that has been forgiven, who better than me? Continue to pray for me as I model Christ’s forgiveness to him and to the rest of our Bible study group as well as they likewise reach out to him.
I put in several medical requests this May. As you know, I have had problems with swelling this past month or so. First the left side of my tongue swelled just a little bit. It was almost like a small bug bite on this part of my tongue. I didn’t swell much, and it disappeared as the day went on, so it didn’t concern me. The next week my tongue was fine, but my bottom lip swelled twice. Each time I woke up with it swollen. Like before, the swelling went down after a few hours. Shortly after that my lip stopped swelling, but I would wake up with my left eye swollen almost shut. It only swelled in the area around the bottom of my eye. Like the other swellings, it usually disappeared after a few hours. None of them hurt and there was never a discoloring like it was infected or bruised.
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I also put in a request for them to look at my right shoulder. I hurt it when my left knee collapsed out on the rec yard one day. I was hoping it would get better, but its only gotten worse. Sleeping on a steel slab isn’t helping it. I wake up every hour or so and rotate because the pain in my shoulder wakes me. I have also lost over half of my movement in that shoulder now. I pray something isn’t torn and that its only partly dislocated or maybe I have some bone spurs coming up. Finally, I put in to see the dentist. I want a checkup, a cleaning, and a night guard to keep my teeth from grinding while I sleep. I don’t need a fancy one like I have at home, just one that will keep me from destroying my teeth.
Thank you so much for your continued support, encouragement, and prayers, my Beloved. Please tell everyone else that helps in those areas thank you as well. I am especially thankful to those that have made the effort to come to see me. It really made my Spring seeing Jenn, Denise, Ray, Tom, Wayne, and Jim. 😊 I love you so much my Beloved! Please give the kids a hug for me. Tell them that I’m praying for them, I love them, I miss them, and I’m proud of them.
Love Always,
Me
SCRAP!
ILYSOOOOM!
GELPOY!
LAAF!
😊
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