'This is only part of your story.' Licking County Jail Ministry offers hope to inmates

When Linda Joseph and Carma French pass through the doors of the Licking County Justice Center any given Tuesday evening, they’re never sure which women might show up. There are “regulars;” there are newbies. The inmates come and go as time passes, and sometimes there are opportunities for farewells and others there are not.

Sometimes the women are released, only to return months later — Joseph and French don’t care.

They do not research backgrounds or pore over court records. They don’t know why the women have been booked in the first place. They merely open their Bibles and teach. And pray. And listen.

Once, the two women asked the inmates what topics they’d be interested in studying.

“Forgiveness,” someone said, and many agreed.

Good deeds: Licking County showed its kindness during COVID-19

Witnessing this desire — to learn, to change, to find hope — is what drives Joseph, French and the team of more than 30 volunteers with the Licking County Jail Ministry to pour hours each week into dozens of inmates at the Licking County Justice Center. Because they believe incarcerated souls are no less valuable than free ones.

“New (women) will come into the Bible study and I always tell them right up front, ‘It’s none of my business what brought you here. I’ll listen, but I don’t really care — that’s not important to me,'” Joseph said. “'What’s important to me is you and your life with Jesus.'”

Pastor Scott Hayes, chaplain at the Licking County Justice Center, has overseen the jail ministry and its various programs for 18 years. His passion for the incarcerated population is rooted in a personal past marked by drug use and crime.

“I do (jail ministry) because I appreciated someone reaching out to me. I grew up, I didn't believe in God. I've been the inmate, I've been homeless, I've been addicted, I've been suicidal — all the things that they're going through,” Hayes said. “And so, I want to offer that hope to them.”

Hayes also is the founder of Vertical 196, a daytime drop-in shelter for homeless people in Newark that serves as an arm of the jail ministry, in addition to assisting with other ministries in the community, many of whose populations tend to intersect.

Currently, there are nine Bible studies conducted throughout the course of the week on the jail premises. Volunteers work in pairs or small groups and meet with inmates of the same gender for at least an hour each week.

Sometimes studies will draw upwards of 10 people; other times, only a few.

But numbers aren’t important, the volunteers say. Connection is.

French’s husband, Joe, who co-leads a Bible study with fellow volunteer Sean Lennon, also has partnered with Hayes in a nonprofit venture dubbed Eight:28 Enterprises, which operates two separate homes in Newark — Calvary House and Exodus House — to help men transition from life within the jail to life outside of it.

In that context, French is able to further build relationships with the former inmates and support them through the various struggles they face during that transition.

But in the relatively short-term time of a person’s jail stay, French invests what he can and leaves the rest up to God.

“You're just planting that little seed and letting God cultivate that. It's not up to us to make them grow. That's up to God. We just plant that seed in their life,” he said.

Lennon agreed.

“Every day that I go in (to the jail), I feel like God is there. And whether I say the right thing or the wrong thing, he's always teaching me something — as well as teaching the guys something, I hope,” he said. “But the relationship is really the important thing.”

The volunteers admit there’s not always a “lightbulb moment” in the time they spend with the inmates, or a dramatic conversion experience — a lot of times, it’s slow, gradual changes that happen as a result of long periods of intentional support and discipleship.

Sometimes, the volunteers are able to reconnect with the inmates and hear their success stories; others, they are left to wonder and pray.

But whether they meet the inmates just once or over the course of several months, they aim to equip them for life beyond the jail walls — wherever that might be.

“Each Bible study, we say, ‘This is only part of your story, only part of your journey — being in jail. When you leave here, take Jesus with you,’” Carma French said. “And we always talk about what a beautiful world this would be if they did that, and practice spreading the love of Jesus after they left.”

Religion: Joyful faith fills the congregants of Bethel Rock House of Prayer in Newark

Though the volunteers’ backgrounds and stories are different, they share a desire to see the inmates find hope — and have found themselves to have benefited as much, if not more than, the ones they’re there to serve.

“I walk out (of the jail) and I just say, ‘Lord, I hope I'm not more blessed than they are,’” Joseph said tearfully. “I just feel so blessed to have had that opportunity to talk about Jesus with those women.”

Hayes said Joseph’s perspective is not uncommon.

“It's pretty unanimous that each volunteer feels more blessed than they feel like a blessing to the inmate,” he said. “But to see people that come from multiple trips to the penitentiary, to come from generation after generation of poverty and crime and addiction, and for Jesus to break those chains — man, it just fires us up. It’s amazing, to see the people get it.”

On Easter Sunday, the jail ministry will baptize several more inmates, bringing the total for the year to more than 100.

How do the volunteers see their work as being tied to the biblical Easter message they share with the inmates?

Lennon puts it in this way:

“(For) a lot of the guys in there, I can imagine that jail feels very much like a grave. Every day is the same, all the faces are the same, the routines are the same. It just becomes not life, really,” he said. “When we go in there and do a Bible study, God's rolling that stone away one more time for somebody, even if it's for a little while.”

amroy@nncogannett.com

This article originally appeared on Newark Advocate: Volunteers with Licking County Jail Ministry offer hope to inmates