Miracles Happen

First, most of you know my husband and I are in the ministry. We reach out to incarcerated juveniles. The facility where we minister has forty eight boys ages thirteen to nineteen years old, sentenced for nine months, however length of stay normally averages fifteen months.

These kids are from all over the state of Texas. The facility is a juvenile Correctional Facility, drug treatment program, minimum security. If the boys don't adhere to the guidelines or run, they will be sent to a Maximum Security Facility. Only one in five hundred are picked to get to come to this facility.

Anyway, the second part of our ministry is after we have worked with these kids for almost a year and a half, some come to live with us, such is the case now. We have two boys with us and another on the way in a few months.

So now let me tell you a little about Jr.....He is nineteen, his parents are both incarcerated. He has a younger brother and two sisters whom he loves dearly. His father has never told him he loved him and has been to prison at least five times. His family lives serveral hours and miles away. Jr. was very involved in our discipleship program during his incarceration and asked to come live with us.

I am very adamant about seeing a committment from any boy we take into our home, so we have certain programs we have them go through and they have to be recommended by at least three staff members before we will consider them. I also give them every opportunity to back out or to go somewhere else and if they are persistent, then we allow them to come to our home.

Jr. went through our discipleship program and our Defining a Man program, he memorized over a hundred scriptures before he got out and now he is living with us. He is very involved in church, has become a leader at the High School Ministry and has a wonderful mentor there, who is giving him assignments and challenging him. He is planning to go to Barber College in January and then plans to attend Bible College in a year, hoping to become a Christian counselor. He has signed up to go on a mission trip to Chicago and then another mission trip to Russia for five weeks in the summer. He works full time making the canisters you put your money in at the drive thru at a bank, plays football with the College Life Football league at church, attends College Life and the High School Ministry, as well as Plumbline which is an urban minstry of the church.

Jr. is very transparent, he comes to us before he makes any decision, and if he is slipping he will ask to talk to one of us and he will discuss what he is doing and wants to know what he should do.

This week Jr. came to us and we were talking about what he wants to do with his life, where he feels he is spiritually, what his strengths and weaknesses are, what he has started and how to become a finisher. As we were talking he said to me, "I think yall give me more credit than I deserve. " I asked what he meant and he said, "you are always telling me you are proud of me and I am struggling, I am not perfect." So I explained we knew he has a long way to go, that even we struggle at times with doing the right thing, but the reason we are proud of him is he is trying. I explained how he is making right choices, he is staying involved and if he continues on the path he is on, he will continue to grow and mature spiritually and that is why we are proud of him. He then understood.

We are blessed to not only see fruit from the ministry we are involved in, but to get to see the miracle of a changed life. A boy who was born into a family with history of drugs and gangs, who wanted to go to prison, who told his father recently he was not going to be the man he is. Seeing God's hand move is incredible, it moves me to tears to know he can take a boy from the hood, take that black heart of sin and wash it in His blood and make it white as snow. He is changing his desires. He told me in the past he was always a follower. He said I didn't like myself, so I would do anything anyone told me to do, just for acceptance. He explained that now, He knows He is accepted and He is a follower of only one and that is the Lord Jesus Christ.

Thank You Lord Jesus, only you can change a life. You have all the answers.