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Weekend in prison is revival for district superintendent


From NewsDesk <NewsDesk@UMCOM.UMC.ORG>
Date 08 Dec 1999 13:40:38

Dec. 7, 1999  News media contact: Tim Tanton·(615)742-5470·Nashville, Tenn.
10-71B{658}
 
By Michael Wacht*
	
LAKELAND, Fla. (UMNS) - Within the walls of a county prison, a group of
Christian visitors met with convicts and shared the experience of
reconnecting with Christ.

"Periodically, one needs to re-encounter the Lord," said the Rev. Aldo
Martin, superintendent of the United Methodist Church's Lakeland District.
"We are wrapped up in our work, visitation and going to church each week. We
need to stop and lean on the Lord and receive him inside."
	
For Martin, that opportunity came last October, when he and 35 other men
gave a Kairos retreat for a group of 29 inmates at the Polk Correctional
Institution in Polk County.
	
"I give thanks to God," he said. "It renewed my faith and my confidence in
the power of God to change people."
	
Kairos is an international and interdenominational ministry founded in 1976,
according to Executive Director Ike Griffin. 
	
Its weekend events are similar in structure to the United Methodist Walk to
Emmaus, in which participants are invited to attend a three-day weekend
event by friends or acquaintances who have been through the program. Through
Kairos, a team of 30 volunteers spends three days in the prison giving
talks, leading discussions and counseling prisoners.
	
The Kairos leadership team at the Polk prison was multicultural, with
several Latino members, as well as ecumenical, Martin said. "There were
Catholics, Baptists, Lutherans, Anglicans and men from non-denominational
churches."
	
Martin has been involved in three similar retreats in the past six months
and was the spiritual director for a Walk to Emmaus in Cuba. The trips to
Cuba and the prison were very similar, he said.
	
"When I went to Cuba, I was happy to encounter family and friends and the
church in that country," he said. "And it touched my heart and gave me joy
because they live with so little physical freedom, but so much spiritual
freedom."
	
He said he also saw freedom behind prison bars. 

"Jesus is never in prison. He is always free," Martin said. "Many people in
prisons spend a lot of time alone, and they have time to think. ... They get
a very personal sense of the presence of Jesus Christ. It gives much hope,
and they don't feel so alone."
	
Martin said he saw evidence of Jesus' presence from the very beginning. When
the prisoners realized outsiders who were not family or friends were
visiting them, it gave them faith. "Several ... said to me that 'in many
years this is the first time I've felt hope,' " he said.
	
The Kairos team shared the Gospel of Jesus Christ through discussions,
singing and group prayer, according to Martin. He said they witnessed a
change in the prisoners, which some of the prisoners shared Saturday night.
	
"The love and the powerful message of Jesus Christ changed their hard
hearts," Martin said. "In 96 hours, the visited and the visitor became
family."
	
Martin said all Christians should experience what he experienced. "Jesus
Christ sent us to visit the prisoners. He said, 'when you do, you visited
me.' For these people, he died on the cross," Martin said. "Every Christian,
once in their life, ought to visit a person in prison."
	
Christians should also be more intentional about their ministry to
ex-prisoners, he said. Many prisoners are angry, and when they are released
they are ready to commit another crime to act out that anger, he said.
Churches, he said, can be a place for prisoners to reorient themselves and
begin a new life outside prison.
	
Martin also believes a Kairos experience can benefit pastors. "It's so
different from the things in the church, where we see people fighting and
arguing."

# # #

*Wacht is the assistant editor of the Florida Annual Conference's edition of
the United Methodist Review. This story first appeared in that publication.

*************************************
United Methodist News Service
Photos and stories also available at:
http://www.umc.org/umns


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