October 2024
Hello my Beloved,
October has been a bittersweet month. On the outside, this was the time of year where life shifted into fast mode. Summer’s heat would finally abate. As the air cooled, the leaves began to change, and the fields were harvested, you could see animals, both large and small, rushing around and making their last-minute preparation before winter began. Likewise, we seemed to cram most of our activities into the last 3 months of the year.
The first full weekend of October always held the Crab Carnival for us. I was always so proud of my students and what each of them had accomplished during the previous 12 months. I loved showing them off to the thousands of people that watched the parade we performed in. Each fight choreography was specially designed by me and my students to show off our style and the strengths of individual students. I always have been and always will be proud of each of them and continue to pray for their continued growth into the men and women that God designed them to be.
Usually, the next two weekends were reserved for caving and the National Conference on Chrisitan Apologetics. Caving was always and adventure. It was always amazing to see how different each cave was. It required a good amount of effort to make it to and through some of them. And, of course, there was always a tiny bit of danger climbing over and under things to make it exciting. The day would end with a hike up to the Rock and then pictures at Look Out.
The Apologetics Conference was also always thrilling. I took great pains to make sure I could provide the best instruction that I could for my students. Whether in self-defense or Theology, Apologetics,
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And Philosophy, I surrounded myself with some of the best teachers in the world. And just like I brought my self-defense instructors into my two schools so my students could get an even higher level of instruction, I would bring my students to the conference to be trained by some of the world’s best in Theology, Apologetics, and Philosophy.
Though I greatly miss these things in here, I am confident that those I have trained on the outside have everything that they need to serve God in amazing ways. They should also be equipped to defend themselves physically, intellectually, emotionally, and spiritually.
Yes, I desperately miss my students on the outside. But God has granted me many, many students in here as well. I continue to pour into Richard. His passion for learning everything that he can about Theology, Apologetics, and Philosophy and how they all work together to equip the Christian to not only stand firm in today’s anti-Christian society but to actually thrive.
MJ is a close second to Richard. I continue to work with MJ using Geisler’s Introduction to Philosophy: A Christian Perspective. It complements what he has learned in my Critical Thinking class really well. I appreciate his patience, as well as my other students, as I struggle to adjust my curriculum to meet the needs and educational levels of my students. I have to constantly scale my lessons to reach people that have never finished elementary school all the way up to those who have graduate degrees in engineering.
I am drawing from several sources for my curriculum, Logic: A God centered Approach to the Foundation of Western Thought by Poythress, Love your God with All Your Mind by Moreland, Tactics by Koukl, Critical Thinking: An Introduction to the Basic Skills by Hughes, and Introduction to Philosophy by Geisler.
I am trying to make each section of skills as immediately usable as possible. It’s been difficult because, without access to a scanner and printer, I have to hand write worksheets for my students or write them on the white boars. The problem with leaving anything on the white board is that other inmates continue to lean against it and partially erase my lesson or worse, they purposely erase letters so that the ones left spell out obscene words or messages. I simply rewrite them instead of going to the guards because I can’t trust the guards to not make it worse.
I continue to grill my students during the week on hot topics to see how they engage me using their developing skills. All of them are doing great with the exception of Adam. He continues to frustrate me with his inconsistency. At times he seems to have a talent at being able to deduce things. Other times, especially on moral issues, he reverts to super irrational mode. In our critical thinking class, we have been discussing whether morality is subjective or objective. Subjective means it is a matter of personal taste or preference. Objective means the truth or validity of something is independent of taste, attitudes, preferences, or interests. Our conclusion was that unless morality was grounded in a transcendent source like God, it was subjective, at least everyone but Adam agreed. He went on this bazaar rant on how all of reality was not only subjective, but he doubted everything. He smugly announced he even doubted logic itself. Despite hem using the laws of logic to say that he doubted them, I promptly picked up my 1500-page Systematic Theology book and swung it at him. Adam quickly put his hands up and ducked. I held my book in the air and smiled. Adam changed his expression from a shocked one to a perplexed one. I said, “Loods like I found something that Adam doesn’t doubt. He didn’t seem to doubt all
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1500 pages of my Systematic Theology book was headed to his face!” I explained to Adam that I knew he wasn’t really a radical skeptic. His pride forces him to that position because he cannot logically embrace objective morality coming from God while embracing drugs and sex outside of marriage as virtuous things. Please continue to pray that I have patience with him.
I was able to get MJ to read Thomas Sowells’ Social Justice Fallacies. It’s a great read. Like most of Sowells books, he brings a much-needed perspective of truth and wisdom to topics like race, economics, and the culture wars. MJ has a new hero. 😊 Sadly, MJ was moved at the end of this month to 330B. He is very well equipped now to bring truth and wisdom himself to the new battlefield God has called him to. Matthew is also in that dorm so MJ will have a worthy sparring partner in him.
It was nice having you and Dodah at my Carpentry graduation on the 10th. I was glad that y’all got to meet my instructor, Thorne. He has helped to give me a better perspective on those that work for the Department of Corrections. Though employed by them, it seems that they do their best to make it nearly impossible for him to do his job. We are already months overdue for a restocking of our supplies. We have resorted to using scrap lumber for projects, and we are out of many types of paint, varnish, stain, glue, wood putty and replacement parts for our tools. Even our printer is toast. Thorne keeps us going, though. He even buys somethings himself and brings them in just so we can continue to do things in class. I was glad you guys got to meet him and take a picture together. He has designed an advanced class in Carpentry so I can continue to learn past the standard curriculum. I am grateful to have him as a teacher.
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I don’t know if you remember me telling you about Crawford. He is an inmate that’s around our age, but he has the mentality of a 5yo. He calls me Bishop because he said I always look like I am playing chess when I talk to people. Well, I woke up for my shower around 4am, and as I walked by Crawford, he was awake and sitting in his chair staring at the floor. As I looked closer, I could see the right side of his face was horribly swollen and he had great welts across his forehead that were leaking fluid. I asked him if he was ok, and he weakly replied that he didn’t feel so good. I tried to get the guard in the booth’s attention, but it wasn’t until I brought Crawford to one of the windows so they could see his head. They quickly called the paramedic and took him to the hospital. I didn’t see him for almost a week or so. When he returned, they assigned him the bunk right next to me. I am beginning to piece together what happened to him. He will go days without showering and sometimes more than a week. He has severe infections around his groin area and is constantly clawing at this area. The smell is absolutely unbearable at times. Because of his random hand movements (caused by his medicine), he is also always touching his face. I feel so bad for him. Many guys use his inmate number to call their baby’s mommas for money since they had their own phone privileges revoked for too many infractions. They pay him in porn and sweets. I have offered to pay him if he stops looking at porn but there is no real way to enforce that because I am out of the dorm so much. I have been able to work with Riley and Michael to get him in the shower more recently. I pray we can continue to do this. His life may depend on it.
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Speaking of Riley, he is such a sweet and gently man. In his 60s, he has such a passion for serving God. I try to help him out any way I can. He asked to do my laundry for me, so I pay him a 1/3 of a bag of coffee on Friday’s. He washes everything and folds it. He even does some sewing for me as well.
The dorm continues to devolve. They move more and more good people out and more of the worst of the worst in. There are more drugs, more fights, more stealing, more noise, more gangsta rap at insanely loud levels, and more chaos. But even in deep darkness we are still called to be salt and light. And I find that the brightest of lights are often found in the darkest darkness. Please continue to pray that I would remain that bright light here and wherever God places me. Pray also that our light continues to make others shine as well, and that we remain ever rooted in the true source of light in this world, Christ Jesus (John 8:12, Ephesians 5:8)
I love you so very much my Beloved. Please tell everyone I said hi and I pray for them constantly. Also tell them thank you for their support, encouragement, and prayers. Love you!!
Love always,
Me
SCRAP!
ILYSOOOOM!
LAAF!
GELPOY!