Hurricane Irma Status Update: All of our office staff is safe and sound. We did have some minor damage to our office, including loss of power. We will be opening the office again as soon as the power has been restored In the meantime, should you have any immediate needs please email info@kairosprisonministry.org and we’ll be in touch as soon as we are able. God Bless.
Over 100 prisons and correctional facilities want Kairos Prison Ministry to come in and minister to their population. Kairos Torch is one reason why. You know that teens and young adults often make bad choices, leading to time in a juvenile correctional facility and the start of a life of crime. God, working through Kairos volunteers, is able to turn their lives around with Kairos Torch, a program that shares the transforming love and forgiveness of Jesus Christ with incarcerated youth under the age of 25. After an initial Kairos Torch Weekend, volunteer mentors work one-on-one for six months to help youth make improved life choices and acquire new God centered values, breaking the cycle of crime and giving youth a chance for a better life. One Ministry, Three Programs Kairos Torch is just one of the three programs offered by Kairos Prison Ministry that brings the light, love and forgiveness of Jesus Christ into the lives of prisoners and their families. Kairos Inside ministers to inmates, and Kairos Outside helps women impacted by incarceration. Over 100 Prisons Want Kairos Kairos Prison Ministry has opportunities to spread God’s Word, through programs like Kairos Torch, to over 100 new prisons, correctional facilities, and communities. But we need the resources to begin these new ministries. Won’t you please donate now and allow us to reach more men, women and youth in more places, so we can change more hearts and transform more lives? Donate Now
We Need Your help! Today is the Day! At the bottom of this message are several ways that you can help us by “Sharing” and “Re-tweeting” our Kairos messages to your family and friends. Happy #GivingTuesday! This day is now being celebrated around the world to support your favorite Non-profit/charity as a kickoff to this charitable season. This #GivingTuesday, we are excited about what God has in store for brand new 1st Weekends in 2017! We have several 1st Weekends planned already and know there will be many more! We are so thankful for our prayer warriors and volunteers who make things happen and allow God to use you to make an eternal difference in thousands of inmates each year! http://www.bit.ly/Kairos-GivingTuesday Our PURPOSE is to completely fund NEW Start-up costs for 1st Kairos Weekends in 2017! This goal of $30,000, includes trainings, travel expenses and other costs to help fully fund preparations for opening Weekends! With YOUR investment, we will raise these funds to remove these obstacles when new Weekends arrive on our 2017 calendar. We would love to have MORE people join in giving! Don’t think that your financial gift may be too small. God will use this to impact more 1st Kairos Weekends! http://www.bit.ly/Kairos-GivingTuesday 5 Ways YOU can help Kairos Prison Ministry and spread our #GivingTuesday message: Pray about how you can help Kairos Prison Ministry reach our Goal of $30,000 with your financial gift by clicking on our link: http://www.bit.ly/Kairos-GivingTuesday “Share” our Facebook posts from our page to share our #GivingTuesday messages with your friends and family! This simple thing can help hundreds to thousands of more people seeing our posts. Also, Follow us on Twitter and “Re-tweet” our tweets to your followers. (Social media links below) On Twitter and other social media sites, post about Kairos Prison
The Mission After her release, Rhonda Bear wanted to find a way to help women coming out of prison. According to Bear, women are often released from jail at midnight on the day their sentence ends, at which many of them don’t have a place to go, much less someone to pick them up. “If you went to jail in June and you were just getting out in February, and say you went to jail in shorts and flip-flops, you’re leaving in flip-flops,” Bear said. “If you don’t have any place to go, too bad. You’re leaving.” Rhonda cites this severity within Oklahoma’s criminal justice system as one of the reasons she decided to open a halfway house in Claremore. Her original purpose was to offer temporary housing for up to two weeks, but she never intended to offer permanent housing. “I believe God had another plan,” Bear said. “He was just getting my feet wet.” Before she knew it, Bear said, she was managing six halfway houses in Claremore, some of which had been donated. Residents of each home are provided with at least a year of permanent housing if they are willing to live by a few faith-based guidelines. But Bear’s journey to help former inmates didn’t stop there. Seven years after opening her first halfway house, Bear realized semi-permanent housing wasn’t enough to help women regain custody of their children. “Employment was a problem,” Bear said. “When people go to prison and they get a felony conviction and they do their time, many people don’t let that be sufficient. They continue to hold that against them for a long time, which creates barriers to employment.” She and a neighbor started coming up with ideas for ways to provide former inmates with employment opportunities, but she encountered a
By Ali Brooks, Anne Raun and Madison Reichert Flycatcher Media (reprinted with permission) Rhonda Bear comes out from behind the counter of She Brews, a coffee shop in downtown Claremore, Oklahoma, to gently tell one of her two grandsons to be nice to the other. The owner of She Brews, which has been open since November 2012, Bear is soft-spoken and friendly. Wearing an orange sweater and a small gold cross necklace around her neck, she is the image of politeness. Bible verses on wooden plaques decorate the walls of her small one-room coffee house as she sits down to an interview on a recent afternoon. She could be a nurse, a lawyer, a teacher. She speaks eloquently and articulately, so the first thing that she says when asked to tell the backstory behind her coffee shop is in juxtaposition with her calm countenance and demeanor. “Fifteen years ago I was sentenced to prison and saw first-hand what incarceration and drug addiction does to your children,” Bear said. “And so I went in to prison with only one thing in mind, and that was changing.” The Dependency Bear said her journey toward dealing drugs began before she reached high school. She became addicted to drugs when she was 12, and dropped out of school in eighth grade. By her mid-twenties, she was a single mother of three children without an education, job, or means to escape the vicious cycle of drug addiction. “I wanted to take a shortcut in life,” Bear said. “My whole life had been drugs, so I thought I would sell drugs and get myself financially ok so I could … be a mom to my kids.” Caught in the web of meth addiction that pervades Oklahoma, Bear was one of approximately 1.2 million Americans who use
Story #1: 40 Years in the Desert I entered prison here at Union Correctional Facility in Raiford, Florida in 1976. I heard a brand new program called Kairos was coming. (Turns out it was the very first Kairos Weekend ever held.) They said there would be chicken and cookies and much more, so I signed up. But I backed out at the last minute. 40 years later, when Kairos was celebrating its 80th Weekend at the prison, I finally came. I had spent those 40 years wandering in the desert. I now have a new perspective, and I found joy. These people came in, touched me, hugged me and prayed for me. Look around and see what God can do with a cookie! Story #2: Kairos Has the Ammunition! In 2010 my wife Marilyn and I were volunteering on a Kairos Torch Team in Mississippi. We were entering the facility that first day and had loaded supplies onto a borrowed trailer pulled by a borrowed truck. As we entered the sallyport area of the prison that afternoon we were surprised when a security check turned up some unused shotgun shells within the truck. The female officer conducting the search immediately grabbed her radio and reported to the Deputy Warden for all to hear that “Kairos was at the gate and has the ammunition.” The lesson here was ALWAYS search the vehicle your are bringing onto prison grounds! But this female officer just did not realize the type of ammunition we were really packing that day! Story #3: Beautiful Colors My dearest Kairos Inside Team sisters, All of last night I had dreams about the Weekend. I relived some of the high points, some of the questions remaining in my mind and some of the very sad moments that were being expunged from people’s minds and hearts. When I got
The moving video testimony of Tommy Fisher, a former inmate who turned his life around in surprising ways thanks to Kairos Prison Ministry.
Matthew 25:36: “You visited me in prison.” The mission of Kairos Prison Ministry is to share the transforming love and forgiveness of Jesus Christ to impact the hearts and lives of incarcerated men, women and youth, as well as their families, to become loving and productive citizens of their communities. Kairos Prison Ministry goes directly into prisons or correctional institutions and presents a carefully structured weekend program of talks and discussions to incarcerated men, women and youth. It is an invitation to live in a personal relationship with the living Christ. We also offer a similar program to women impacted by incarceration. Hearts are changed and lives are transformed forever. There are hundreds of prisons who want our program, but we don’t have enough volunteers to run it. The more people learn about our mission and get involved, the more prisoners we can reach, and the more our mission can be accomplished. To stay up to date with us, Like us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/kairosprisonministry/, Follow us on Twitter at @kairosprisonmin, and Watch us on YouTube at www.youtube.com/c/KairosPrisonMinistryOrgIntl. We hope you will come back often to learn more about Kairos. Blessings, Evelyn Lemly, CEO
Become a Kairos Volunteer! Does the above picture describe you? If so please considering volunteering for Kairos! You can: Be a Team Member Be a Prayer Partner Be a Financial Donor Be a Support Volunteer Be an Agape (artwork) Creator Be a Cookie Baker Find out more at Ways to Serve, You can also Contact Us about your interest…or help us by making a Donation. Your life will never be the same again!
By Chris Callahan, Western Region Vice Chair, Kairos of North Carolina. He is an attorney in Rutherfordton, NC. It was the last case on the Department of Social Services Court calendar that day. The parents had failed to make progress on their child neglect case for over a year, so the proposed guardians of the child were introduced to the court by the Department of Social Services for examination. Judge Rob Martelle was on the bench, and read that the proposed male guardian/parental figure was previously incarcerated at Tyger River Correctional below Spartanburg. A bit surprised that the Department of Social Services was recommending a felon’s candidacy for guardian, he asked the man a question. “What changed about you?” he inquired. “I did this thing called a Kairos Weekend, while in prison,” he answered, “and it changed my life.” Judge Martelle smiled, asks me if I’d heard that. Grinning, I go over to the man and put my arm around him and spoke softly, “See, Judge Martelle has done almost 10 Kairos Prison Ministry weekends and actually led one, and I’ve done more than 30 Kairos Weekends. By the way, bet you might know the court clerk down there too?” Rutherfordton is rural area in North Carolina, but 25% of its lawyers participate in Kairos, as well as three court clerks, and three women from the courthouse who participate on teams as cookie baggers. Judge Martelle approved the guardianship and said in conclusion, “See, Kairos really DOES make a difference!”
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