The prison ministry team at Elmhurst (Ill.) Christian Reformed Church reaches inmates with the love of Christ at a nearby Cook County juvenile detention center and as far away as Louisiana and most recently Mississippi. In August, the team visited the Mississippi State Penitentiary in Parchman, Miss., reconnecting with former inmates of Elayn Hunt Correctional Center in St. Gabriel, La., where the Elmhurst team has been ministering for five years. Supporting released Hunt inmates who now serve as ministers at the Mississippi State facility, Elmhurst CRC counts three prison communities in its mission field.
From their many trips to Louisiana prisons, the Elmhurst CRC prison ministry team met incarcerated men who had graduated from a seminary program. Upon release, several were asked to work for Mississippi’s Parchman prison as chaplains. “Since we had already had a relationship with these men, we wanted to support and encourage them in their new ministries on the outside and are now in the infancy stages of developing a long-term supportive relationship with Parchman as we have done with Hunt and the Cook County temporary juvenile detention center,” said Amy VanderMolen, one of the members of Elmhurst CRC’s prison ministry team.
“Like (for) the others, we are committed to keeping in touch monthly and praying for them regularly, having a mission trip there (Mississippi) at least once a year, financially supporting the work of the chaplains, and providing material needs as needed.”
Elmhurst CRC’s connection to Hunt, the all-male maximum security prison in Louisiana, was itself an extension of the church’s original and more local prison ministry.
VanderMolen said the team had been ministering in another prison for years but felt God leading them elsewhere. “The trips were always good, but involved a lot of red tape, uncertainty, and questionable long-term impact,” she said. After the opportunity to continue ministry in that prison was cut off, VanderMolen recalled that one of her inmate friends had told her he was being transferred to Hunt. VanderMolen called Hunt’s head chaplain to ask if they would like some visitors. “‘Come on over!’” was the reply, VanderMolen recounted. “God shut a door because he was flinging open a window,” she said. That was five years ago, and Elmhurst CRC has been taking annual trips to St. Gabriel, La., ever since.
Their focus has been a veterans dorm that was created by VanderMolen’s friend. VETS—Veterans Engaging Transition for Success—uses the military’s code of ethics to create a mindset shift within the prison. Inmates have to keep a clean room; do chores; take courses in trauma healing, communication skills, aggression management, and six other recovery-focused topics; and contribute to community service projects. VanderMolen said about 30 men have gone through the veterans program at Hunt, reentering society after incarceration with none of them returning to prison.
At Hunt, Elmhurst CRC’s prison ministry team shares the gospel, prays, and plays games with the veteran inmates. “You look at every person as an image of God,” VanderMolen said. “We never ask, ‘What did you do?’”
Apart from the annual visits to Hunt and the new addition of the Mississippi prison, the Elmhurst CRC team still visits the Cook County temporary juvenile detention center every Tuesday.
VanderMolen doesn’t consider the prison work as visiting “a dark and scary place. … It’s like going to a family reunion. It’s like seeing your family again.”