Kairos brings blessings to a women's prison
By Carrie Madren
UMCONNECTION CORRESPONDENT
Just before Thanksgiving, 42 Christian women spent a weekend in jail.
The Kairos ministry team wasn't serving time, they were serving 36 inmates at the Maryland Correctional Institution for Women in Jessup. Such a retreat weekend is the kickoff for a prison ministry called Kairos in Maryland, a part of the larger Kairos Prison Ministry International, Inc., which seeks to connect the incarcerated and their families with Christ.
Male volunteers have taken such Kairos events to Maryland's men's prisons "“ Maryland Correctional Institution in Hagerstown and Roxbury Correctional Institution "“ but this retreat weekend was the first of its kind at a Maryland women's prison.
"This is an opportunity for the women to share, celebrate and worship," said Kairos Maryland lay leader Diana Bartlett. "The best analogy I can give for Kairos is that we take buckets of God's love and pour them over women's heads, and let that do the work."
Kairos Maryland had been knocking at the Jessup prison's door for several years. Then Kairos volunteers found inroads to the chaplain and warden, Bartlett said. At first, prison authorities had to be persuaded to let the team come, then Kairos had to know that the prison would be willing to commit to the schedule of reunions and follow-up gatherings.
Next came a year of deliberating and compromising on everything from food to hours to activities. "Everything is scrutinized, they know exactly what we're bringing in," Bartlett said. Even the notes and letters given to women must be identical.
The prison chaplain selected the women to participate, women in spiritual need. "We may get women that are Muslim, atheists, Wiccan, but we're just there to bring in the love of Jesus," Bartlett said.
Meanwhile, Kairos Maryland built up its ranks of volunteers and supporters for this particular prison. Volunteers rally together before the retreat to build strong bonds and get ready to serve. A support team provides food and materials for the team when volunteers leave the prison gates at night.
"Our focus is to build women up," said Bartlett, who doesn't want to know why the women she's serving are in jail. Instead, it's her job to help them in their Christian walk, wherever they are, she said. "For a lot of women it's a wake up call."
After the initial retreat, volunteers return to keep ministry going with weekly, monthly and bi-yearly events and gatherings. Once a woman has gone on a retreat, she can be a servant to help out her sisters at the next retreat.
"We don't go in to convert or proselytize," Bartlett said. Instead, the Kairos team takes direction from Matthew 25:36, "I was in prison and you visited me."
"We're there to build a Christian community," she said. God has helped Kairos get into prisons on lockdown, where no visitors could enter and inmates were relegated to their cells.
The retreat weekend costs some $11,000, money raised from volunteers' churches and other individuals. That cost helps cover lodging for volunteers and food at the prison, plus cookies and myriad other materials and supplies used to fuel faith walks. Extra money goes to Kairos Maryland, which pays for families to get to special gatherings for women and children of the incarcerated.
For newcomers, part of the draw to Kairos is the cookies, homemade cookies.
At the men's prison, Kairos buys cookie supplies and the prison's kitchen staff bakes them. Volunteers could strike no such deal at the Jessup prison. The women's jail will buy quality cookies for the group to nibble at. During the retreat, cookies become forgiveness cookies: each woman gets a dozen cookies, including one to keep and one to give to someone they need to forgive.
Even those who aren't at the retreat will get a dozen cookies.
Along with cookies, Kairos volunteers will take "Agape" posters and other items exclaiming God's love. Before the retreat, they fashioned a paper prayer chain "“ each link had the name of someone who signed up to pray for the women "“ which was draped on the walls of the room.
"We help them in many ways: talks, sharing testimony, prayer," Bartlett said. "It's very structured, not willy-nilly. The whole program is laid out."
Saturday night brings more "Agape," in which volunteers distribute bundles of letters and notes of support and encouragement.
"It is just phenomenal, God uses that to melt their hearts," Bartlett said, recalling an older woman exclaiming, after reading her Agape letters, "God really does love me."
"They've been hurt in many ways," Bartlett says. Some of the women have had fallings-out with churches or been let down in other ways. But they are still seeking God. So through cookies and colorful posters, they take a step forward in their walk with God.
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