prisoners

A bit of ‘colour’ inside

'Prison life is deprivation... Connections with nature are missing in the too-small, brick-and-wire yard, where you might get to spend an hour.' (Image by falco/Pixabay)

I like to bring simple card-making supplies into the secure unit of the Edmonton Institution for Women. The inmates enjoy the chance to be creative but, more than that, they crave an opportunity to make something to send to family on the outside. Life stories bubble up as they write in the cards, and I listen.

A daughter named Genesis

'I left the jail one Monday morning last month feeling a heaviness that I have not felt in some time.' (Image by Fifaliana Joy/Pixabay)

I left the jail one Monday morning last month feeling a heaviness that I have not felt in some time.

I don’t go there each Monday with some big agenda—I’m not there to reform or convert or instruct, but to listen, to pray, to encourage. But most days, I get a glimpse of goodness through a conversation, a smile, a new insight into the human heart and the human predicament.

Not that day, though.

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