‘Better to light one candle than to curse the darkness’

Today, I would like to share just a few snapshots of my encounters with some of the men I have met in over 30 years of prison ministry. Through such encounters I have experienced that to accompany those on the margins inside the barbwire fences is to enter into God’s mercy. First Sharing Apalachee Correctional Institution, called aci, is a massive prison just fifty miles west of Tallahassee, near the town of Sneads, Florida. It sits on the west side of the Apalachicola River, well into the rolling hills of the panhandle, barely into the central time zone. In 1988, this is the place where I will be introduced to prison ministry as a volunteer chaplain and prayer partner, to accompany inmates in one-on-one prayer sessions, sitting on metal chairs face-to-face in the chapel’s greeting card storage room, a closet about four feet wide and ...