Ruth Graham & Friends Will Link Arms With Angola

Prison's Inmate Ministers For September Conference

Contacts:           Tex Reardon                                 Doug Hovelson            

                          Ruth Graham & Friends              Big Thunder                   

                          651-261-1964                                612-722-5501                 

                          treardonjr@comcast.net           dhovelson@bigthunderpr.com

 

MINNEAPOLIS – (July 25, 2009) Ruth Graham & Friends (RGF) will find a warm welcome awaits them from an unlikely group of religiously inclined inmates when they arrive at Louisiana’s Angola Prison this September.

The RGF Get Growing conference, to be held at Angola Sept. 18-19 for inmates, prison employees and – on Sept. 19 – for inmate families, will meet privately with a nearly 150-man strong contingency of inmate ministers prior to the conference start.

Those ministers – all fully-accredited graduates of the New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary’s extension school at Angola – will have been working diligently with their fellow inmates to shepherd as many as possible to the conference. Conference participation is voluntary, of course.

It’s not as if RGF is coming onto hostile ground. Despite the fact that Angola is the largest maximum security prison in the country, it is mostly a peaceful place. Warden Burl Cain, a strong advocate of moral rehabilitation, believes that faith-based programs such as RGF’s play an important role in keeping the peace. His stance is that moral people do not commit crimes.

A significant number of inmates have taken Cain up on his proposition to commit to a course of personal moral rehabilitation. Many of them are expected to be among the attendees of the conference, which will focus on topics such as depression, anger, control, chemical and sexual addiction, abuse and divorce.

Those issues will be dealt with in seminars led by experienced RGF speakers, all of whom have themselves experienced the issues they address. In that sense, there will be no psychological separation between the speakers and their audiences – a key to the success of all RGF conferences.

“We have carefully selected those workshops which we feel will be most relevant to the lives of the inmates,” says Graham. “Many of the issues might have been factors that contributed to their criminal behavior that landed them in prison. By the same token, many prisoners may be dealing with those issues as a result of being in prison too. It doesn’t take much imagination to surmise that many inmates could be depressed, angry, feeling out of control over their being in prison.”

“Transparency is a hallmark of our conferences,” says Graham. “All the RGF speakers, myself included, see ourselves as sinners saved by grace. I think that attitude will serve us well in reaching the prison population.”

Since most of the men serving time at Angola are in for life sentences – the average sentence is 90 years – issues of faith and spirituality are of keen interest to many inmates.

 “Many of these men have committed terrible crimes, and they will spend the rest of their lives behind bars as a result,” notes Graham. “Warden Cain does offer them a chance to make their lives better in prison. And Ruth Graham & Friends believes that if they straighten themselves out while serving out their time, then eternity can be so much better for them than their current lives. That will be our goal, to give people the help and encouragement they need to make the right decisions in their lives.”

Those inmate ministers will be working hand in hand with RGF to accomplish the goal of improving people’s lives at the conference – and afterwards. RGF will “leave behind” an enduring program of Bible studies, called Living Free. Some of the inmate ministers have already been trained in facilitating these courses, which will allow inmates to gather in small, self-help styled groups and learn to follow a Scripturally based program for addressing their common issues.

The “Get Growing” conferences are held on average only six times per year. Upcoming conferences are at Angola Prison, Angola, La., Sept. 18-19; Logan County/Bellefontaine, Ohio, Oct. 23-24, Wichita, Kans., Oct. 30-31, and at Midland, Tex. Jan. 29-30, 2010.

Ruth Graham, author, international speaker and youngest daughter of renowned evangelist Billy Graham, founded the Ruth Graham & Friends ministry in 2005 to help the church provide care for people experiencing life and its constant challenges.   

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Media coverage welcome: Contact Cathy Fontenont, assistant warden, Angola, 225-665-2897 http://www.corrections.state.la.us/lsp/mission_statement.htm

 

For Ruth Graham photos: www.ruthgrahammedia.com