Prison Ministry Decorations

We minister in a small Church and the way the economy is right now, we have next to nothing in the budget for decorations. My husband and I are passionate towards missions, so as I thought about our upcoming Missions Conference I knew God would help us out.

Shortly after we secured our Missionary Speaker, Toby Cribbs, who serves the LORD in jails and prisons in TN/Ga area...I knew the decorations would be challenging, and nothing I could use from last year's decorations. Within days GOD gave me a vision of something that I was not at all sure if I could create, but I kept HIS vision before me, and plugged away the best I could in a frugal manner.

I gathered faces from the internet, mostly by looking at men's hairstyles. I printed them out and cut around the faces. Then I had a box of gloves left over from caring for my home under hospice. I filled them one glove after another. My daughter in law and grandchildren helped with that too when they were here. Then I bought poster board for their shirts, drew them, cut them out and printed a Bible reference on each shirt. Put them all together with paper chains on their wrists. I was amazed that it looked like it was going to work (although keep those gloves on the window was not an easy task).

I noticed that all of our prisoners were bound and that did not represent the FREEDOM that anyone can obtain in Christ. That is when GOD gave me the second VISION. He told me to find a song, and while we were singing it, to have various people cut the chains off the decoration prisoners. So the one song our people know well is: Victory in Jesus. So my hubby (the Pastor) gave directions to the people how they are all bound, and in the name of Jesus they can be free. So as we sang the song, various brave souls left their seats and walked to the windows. One by one the chains were broken!

It was a powerful service! I am so grateful to GOD who helps us in the big things and the simple things like DECORATIONS. And when GOD gets involved with decorations, HE turns it into something POWERFUL. I am so awed at GOD.