The Reunion...Even Sesame Street Knows we have a problem. But do they have a solution?

Today, I watched this video that aired on Sesame Street. Little Alex is facing a challenging life of a child with a father that is incarcerated. According to statistics 80 percent of incarcerated men came from fatherless homes and 70 percent of their children will follow their path to prison.

Prison Fellowship hits the nail on the head with the article Sesame Street and the Children of Incarcerated Parents

Sesame Street may know there is a problem but we know that there is a solution, Faith is the Foundation For Freedom!

Set Free,

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Did you know that almost 2 million children in the United States have a parent that is incarcerated?

 According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, in 2007, an estimated 1.7 million children under the age of 18 had a parent in prison, an increase of almost 80 percent since 1991. The negative consequences for children with an incarcerated parent can be substantial, including financial instability, ...changes in family structure, shame, and social stigma. However, research also shows that supporting healthy and positive relationships between these vulnerable children, who are the innocent bystanders of adult decisions, and their families has the potential to mitigate negative outcomes.
 The same gospel that set 888918 free is still setting the captives free. My story is not unique but God has opened the doors to not only share the story of 888918 in prisons but also in the Juvenile Detention centers now!

If you have not previewed the teaser to our short film The Reunion, please take a minute and see how God is not just saving lives but changing generations.

 

 Faith is the Foundation For Freedom!

 

Set Free,

 

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Happy Father's Day @ Baker Kairos #23 Closing

Today, I celebrated Father's Day with close to 100 men at Baker Correctional Institution. Half of the men wore blue, the other half civilian clothes. However, by the redemptive work of Jesus Christ we all had access to the same Heavenly Father through faith. It was an awesome time of celebration as each man entered this morning and wished me a Happy Father's Day. I believe they were just as excited for me as I was to celebrate my First Father's day as a proud papa. It was made even more poignant to me by the stark reality that many of these men were brought up in fatherless homes and now their children are being raised without their fathers presence.
It is a sad statistic that approximately 80% of the men in prison were raised without a father and 70% of their sons will follow them into prison. I have spoken to many of these men who have left children on the street. I encourage them that they are still responsible before God as the father of the children He has given them and that they can stand before God through Christ and can pray for their children and lead lives that their children can follow. Our Heavenly Father is not only in the reconciliation business but in the restoration business. He can restore the years that the locust have eaten.
Let us stand up and stand in the gap for our sons lest they fall prey to the devourer.

Please take a moment and view this trailer for The Reunion and leave a comment. Thank you.

Faith is the Foundation For Freedom!

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Day 2 Baker Kairos #24 Choose to Open the Door

Today will begin with the Choices talk and will progress towards Opening the Door. Men will have come to this Kairos weekend in Baker Correctional for many reasons. However, we will learn that we are where we are today because the choices we have made or even those choice which were made for us. God in His grace offers us the opportunity to open the door to a friendship with God through the forgiveness offered through His Son's life, death and resurrection.
In prison, love and forgiveness are unheard of but through the gospel of Jesus Christ. Prison is a hard dark place that produces the hardest of hearts. Yet God's light penetrates the darkness and the hardest of hearts. Prison may be a very violent place but how much more violent was the death of the very Son of God, Creator of mankind who was brutally butchered and spat upon, for what? For whom? Yes my friend, for you and for me. We had a debt we could not pay, He paid a debt He did not owe, and why? Love.
That is why we are going into this prison this weekend.Love. Not our love. His Love. No man has greater love than this, "That He lay down His life for His friends." Yes God desires a friendship with these men just like He desires a friendship with you. No more, no less. The reason He forgave us is simple.

Love.

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Baker Kairos Weekend #24

It is a great day for Kairos Weekend #24 at Baker Correctional Facility. This weekend will be led by none other than John Phillips of St. Andrews Episcopal who has served the men behind the fence faithfully in several major institutions. Our observing rector will be Gary Evans who has been serving at Baker C.I. as our Inside Prayer and share leader on Wednesday evenings. Please lift up our team as well as the men on the inside. We are expecting our Savior to work mightily in the hearts of men. As a wise man once said, "First the Word of God must preach to you before you can preach The Word of God."
If you would like to know more about Kairos Prison Ministry click here
Faith is the Foundation For Freedom!

In His Service,

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"I once was lost but now am found."

11 years 1 day and Counting...Still a Prisoner of Christ

Praise the Lord! 11 years ago and 1 day, I was released from the Florida Department of corrections and was escorted by the Chaplain of Dinsmore Work Release Center to The Victory House at Prisoners of Christ. My new life in Christ began while I was still incarcerated for 5 and a half years and has continued these blessed years beyond the walls and razor wire. Today, God has blessed me with a wonderful wife, Frances and a beautiful boy Elijah David.

God has restored my relationship with my family including my father who, at one time we did not have a good relationship, but today we had a great lunch with author and founder of Prisoners of Christ, Ken Cooper. My father had read a copy of Held Hostage while at my office at Prisoners of Christ and had read half the book by days end. He had read the book in it's entirety by the next day and had several interesting questions and comments. As my mother and father are returning to New York before Father's Day, gave my father an early Father's Day present and treated him to lunch with Ken Cooper and they had a great discussion as Ken shared some personal insight regarding his transformation from being "held hostage" to being "Set Free" in Jesus. It was a great time to see God at work. Only God can bring true transformation and reconciliation. Stay tuned for more testimonies of men being "Set Free..."

Merry Christmas! The Reason behind the season

Merry Christmas! These words meant very little to me before I received the gift of Eternal Life. There was a time in my life that I was a very angry hate filled man that had absolutely no regard for anyone but myself, let alone a little eight pound baby Jesus in a manger. I was very disgusted with the whole materialistic nature of this holiday, especially as a self proclaimed "atheist". I hated God and anything to do with religion. Then one day while I was incarcerated, facing a life sentence, a couple of men came into that jail cell and shared how that eight pound baby Jesus became a man and died to pay the penalty for my sins. I believed the message of the Christmas story and received the free gift of eternal life. I did receive a life sentence, an eternal life sentence, and was set free from the wages of sin and death.
I spent 5 Christmases incarcerated. However, it was while in prison that I learned the true meaning of Christmas. Prison is a very dark, lonely and dangerous place and even more so during the holidays when the fact of isolation and depression hit hardest. Christmas is a time when families come together. Which makes the pain of separation  drive men to desperate and violent measures, fights and suicide are prevalent during these times. Yet it was during these dark times that the light of the gospel shined the brightest. I finally understood what all those Christmas songs meant, "O Come Emanuel, In Excelsis Deo,"Glory to God in the Highest", Angels We Have Heard on High and others proclaiming the fact that our Holy Creator came into the world he created now darkened by sin. Christmas is not about lights hung on Christmas trees. It is about the Light of the world who hung on a tree to bring light and life to all who believe. He who knew no sin became sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God. He came unto His own but His own did not receive Him, but as many as received Him, He gave them power to be the sons of God.
It was there in that dark place and time that the power of the Christmas story changed my life day after day, year after year. I discovered that even if a man possesses nothing, if Christ possesses him, he  possesses everything. I understood why there is the emptiness and desperation in a Christ less Christmas of materialism, as empty as the boxes and wrapping paper tossed in the garbage. After all the gifts were open and everyone had gone home there only remained loneliness and emptiness, I now had more peace and joy then while "free".
I now have the privilege of going back into prison and sharing the testimony of those blessed years of Christmas behind the concrete and razor wire and how the gift of eternal life continues to change me day to day. At 22 years old facing a life sentence, I prayed, "Lord, they say I will be over 40 years old when I finish this sentence, I will never have a wife or children." Today, 15 years later, I am 38 years old , have been married for 7 years and by the grace of God, on December 27th, Frances and I will welcome little Elijah David Powers into the world! Praise God! MERRY CHRISTMAS!