A Weekend Spent Behind The Fence
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DAVE’S WORLD
By David Howell
I missed Friday night’s football game, the first one I’ve missed all season. Thankfully, Bella Humphreys took some great photos for me, and Bobby Murphree recorded the game. The Blue Devils notched their ninth win and advanced to the second round of the playoffs, as a great season continues.
I was on a different kind of field, a four-day mission trip to Mississippi State Penitentiary also known as Parchman. I usually go once a year with Kairos Prison Ministry International, a faith-based outreach that has changed countless lives, including, my own.
We start Thursday afternoon, then go all day Friday and Saturday, finishing around 4 p.m. Sunday. As I thought about it, I realized I had reached for my phone only once the entire weekend, which is a small miracle. A Kairos weekend is one of the few times in life when the noise of the world fades away completely.
This particular weekend was in Unit 29, one of Parchman’s maximum-security units. It houses men who’ve committed serious crimes or become difficult to manage inside the system. You see a lot of institutionalized faces there, men who have given up on life or survive purely by instinct and prison smarts. But mixed in, even in that tough crowd, are a number of Christians who have found hope and purpose.
One of them is Brother Juarez Keyes, a Field Minister easily recognized by the vest he wears with that title. The Mississippi Department of Corrections partners with New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary to offer inmates a four-year Bachelor of Arts in Christian Ministry. Upon graduation, these men are assigned to prisons across the state, including Parchman, to serve as Field Ministers.
Their duties include leading worship, teaching Bible studies, providing prayer support, peer counseling and moral guidance to other inmates. They assist chaplains with funerals, memorials, crisis intervention, and reentry preparation. It’s serious ministry as men helping men find light in one of the darkest places imaginable.
I’ve known Brother Keyes for nearly a decade. He’s been a Herald subscriber for much of that time and says he enjoys reading about Water Valley’s giant watermelons and all our other happenings. I’ve watched him quietly mentor younger inmates, pointing them toward Jesus Christ.
Last weekend was Kairos #47, though records show there have been more than 70 Kairos weekends at Parchman over the past 35 years as the numbering used to vary by unit. Brother Keyes served on the very first one, Kairos #1, back in 1990. His testimony tells how he met the Lord a year earlier, about a decade after he first entered prison.
It’s hard to believe Brother Keyes is 70 years old, and he has spent 42 of those years behind bars. What is inspiring is he has spent day after day, year after year serving others.
One of the 40 or so men who attended this weekend’s Kairos event was a 28-year-old who’s been locked up since he was 20. For most of the first two days, he said little about his life. On Saturday afternoon, he opened up. About six months ago, he told me, he hit rock bottom as he was hopelessly addicted to drugs. He wandered into the prison church service in that same gym where we held our weekend and cried out to God for help.
Brother Keyes was the first to show up afterward. He checked on him daily, encouraged him, and convinced him to start attending church and classes. Now, the young man is rebuilding his life from the inside out. There were many similar stories – guys that Brother Keyes and other field ministers have helped. And guys who were there simply because Brother Keyes asked them to come. He has invested his time with dozens and dozens, probably hundreds of men during the last 35 or so years. Some stay the course; others fall away. But every single one has heard the truth from a man who walks it daily.
There’s a lot of ministry happening behind those fences at Parchman and in prisons across Mississippi. It takes cooperation, and we are very thankful for MDOC Commissioner Burl Cain, Superintendent Middlebrooks, the chaplains, and the Field Ministers who make this possible.
Even if you don’t believe that God changes hearts for eternity, there’s still measurable proof that programs like this make a difference. According to Kairos Prison Ministry International, participants have recidivism rates as low as 10 percent, compared to 23.4 percent for the general prison population.
Every time I leave Parchman, I’m reminded of faith and freedom unlike you typically see in many churches. The men who choose to follow Christ behind bars may never see freedom in this world, but they’ve found something a lot of folks on the outside are still looking for.
