by Tina McCormick, Team Expansion
I started visiting ladies at the jail last February to do DMM (disciple-making movement) Bible studies. Ashley was the first one I was able to share a Bible story with. We would talk on phones through a window and I would print off Bible stories from the Gospels, holding them up to the window so she could read it with me.
Ashley grew up in a home with a mother addicted to drugs. Her mom and sister overdosed in the same year, her other sister is addicted to drugs and homeless. She had no father because he was in prison for premeditated murder. Ashley has a son that is 3 years old, but she can’t provide for him. If Ashley was released from jail she would be homeless with nothing: no clothes, no car, no home, no way to provide for her son, nothing. She had no hope for a better future.
Hope for Her Life
In June, Ashley found hope in Jesus. She decided she wanted to be baptized. There was not a regular system within the jail at the time (although they had done baptisms before), but the commander at the jail let me schedule a baptism. The others who minister at the jail had a list of those they had been visiting that wanted to be baptized as well, so I was able to schedule a day for the group to be baptized.
The jail let 6 of us go in (which is miraculous in itself) for the baptisms. It was an amazing day with a lot of changed hearts. It’s awesome to see evidence of truly changed people and to witness the Holy Spirit at work.
The only downfall of the day was Ashley. She was on lockdown, meaning she broke a rule and was in a holding cell away from the other inmates (even a minor infraction, such as wearing a homemade headband, resulted in lockdown). She wasn’t able to come with the group for the baptism. I was so sad and heartbroken. I kept thinking, “Oh well, we’ll get her the next time around.”
Then we joined hands with the first group of ladies to be baptized and we started to pray.
Boldness through Prayer
During the prayer the Holy Spirit said to me, You need to ask for her. If you don’t ask for her no one will. My immediate reaction was, No way! But the same thought kept repeating. So I went to the officer who was monitoring our baptisms. As I expected, she said that Ashley couldn’t attend since she was on lockdown, but I persisted. I was really hoping they would be lenient and let her be baptized and to my amazement, she said she’d check with the officer in charge.
It wasn’t an easy process. When I spoke to the officer in charge, she was very negative about Ashley. She said things like, “She will never change” and “I have no hopes for her.” I responded with things like, “I believe that the Holy Spirit changes people” and “Let’s give God a chance in her life.”
She finally relented and allowed Ashley to come.
This was the first time I had been able to see her face-to-face without a glass between us. It was a very emotional moment for both of us.
That day, Ashley was baptized.
Hope for the Future
Ashley went to court about a month later and was sentenced to prison. I stay in touch with her and hope to get approval to bring her son for a visitation soon.
Her story may seem bleak, from the outside it looks like she still has no hope, but we know differently. We know she has hope in Christ. We know she has become a disciple worth multiplying and we pray that she will take the DMM principles she’s learned and begin her own disciple-making movement within the prison!
We have a God who can use the most unlikely people to do His work in the most unlikely places. The more we can trust in that truth, the more willing we’ll be to allow Him to use us, even when we can’t know the outcome. Do you trust God, even when your success isn’t guaranteed? If you’d like to take a step of faith and have a conversation about how God may be calling you into His mission, we’d love to hear from you.
