I have been a number of places recently including California to speak to the President’s Forum weekend for Partners International. It is a wonderful organization that finds out where God is at work in the hardest to reach places around the world and supports the indigenous ministries. I loved learning about them, meeting their folks and hearing about the ministry they have around the world. The people I met are not into “kingdom building” for themselves but are humble, sweet people with servant hearts. Jon Lewis, the president, is a dear man. I loved being with them. You might want to peek at their website: partnersintl.org to learn more. It is a very worthwhile, faithful organization. I commend it to you. I plan to use their catalogue to give gifts this Christmas. Instead of giving my grandchildren things they do not need I plan to give them a Partners International catalogue with a $25.00 check made out to Partners International so that they can sit down and choose a gift for someone else.
Last weekend my husband, his 3 sons and my grandson (all about the same age) returned to Angola Prison to attend the rodeo and minister to the prisoner-pastors and interns as well as the wardens and those attending the on-site Bible college. We were so blessed. The boys were amazed that men convicted of such heinous crimes were kind, full of joy and peace – a testimony of God’s grace and redemption. There are 5200 inmates – all there for life sentences. It used to be the most notorious prison in America – certainly the most bloody. But God, through Warden Burl Cain, has turned that place around. It is a wonderful  experience to be there and meet the men. We stayed on campus – there are 18,000 acres, surrounded on 3 sides by the Mississippi River. We never felt that we were at a maximum security prison unless we looked at the rolls of razor wire. There is no graffiti, no swearing, no cat calls – just a lot of respect and peace. That doesn’t discount the sadness and struggle these men experience for the victims of their crimes and their own families. They have loneliness and fears and needs – like all of us. But they are rebuilding their lives in a way that will bring glory to God. We came away, as we did before, with a profound respect for the chaplains that minister day in and day out. As we were accompanied by the head chaplain, Robert Toney, we saw the respect and love they have for him.  It is a remarkable place.
These same prisoners built my mother’s coffin and have built my father’s: a plain plywood box lined with a mattress pad – the same that they use to bury the inmates who die in prison.
If you don’t know about Angola Prison, read Cain’s Redemption. It is the story of Angola Prison.
I am home for a few days and will enjoy getting back into the yard to “winterize” it.
I am having the joy – and responsibility – of doing many interviews to promote my book, Fear Not Tomorrow, God Is Already There. I love talking to folks all around the country – these are radio interviews I can do by phone from home. By the way, the companion devotional book will  be out by Christmas. It is the same title but called “The Devotional Book”. I wrote it for myself as  much as anyone else as I was facing uncertainty in my own life. So, if the book is nothing else it is authentic!
For fun…did you know that grasshoppers have white blood? Butterflies taste with their hind feet and have about 4000 muscles? An armadillo can walk underwater? (The boys saw an armadillo for the first time while we were at Angola.) And minnows have teeth in their throats? Just a bit of trivia I gleaned form Jodi Picoult’s  book, Handle With Care. She is one of the authors I read when I travel!
