Wise County Jail Chaplain Marilyn Featherstone said a jail minister rarely gets to see visible results of their efforts.
This particular jail has a lot of prisoners who are “in transit” to other facilities, including state penitentiaries. People get out or move on and those who minister to them never hear from them again.
Or they get out and fall right back into the habits that landed them in jail in the first place.
LEARNING ABOUT GOD – Eleven Wise County Jail inmates study the Bible on a Thursday night with Pancho Valenzuela (standing) and Kevin Alexander. Classes are available Sunday afternoons and Thursday evenings. Messenger Photo by Joe Duty
“You can’t get discouraged,” Featherstone said. “There’s lots of recidivism here – and I guess in any jail, probably.
“People will say, ‘Well, he’ll just be back in six months’ and I’ll say OK, I will have done what I could, and it’s up to him now. That’s kind of been my attitude.”
Overcoming addiction to drugs or alcohol is probably the biggest challenge inmates face when they return to the outside world.
“If we didn’t have people on drugs, we wouldn’t have a jail – wouldn’t have much of one, anyway,” Featherstone said. “Nearly everybody back there, one way or another, is connected to drugs or alcohol. It’s hard to get out of that frame of mind.”
She knows, first-hand. Her son, a former Decatur minister who preaches now for a church in The Colony, is a recovering addict who has made working with addicts a central part of his work.
Pancho Valenzuela, who works in maintenance for Wise County, preaches and teaches in the jail regularly. He, too, has “been there and done that” – and trusts God to change the lives of his listeners, just like his was changed.
Like the others, he sees himself as one who is just there to plant seeds.
“Jail should be a humbling circumstance, but from what I see in these guys, ignorance just overwhelms that humility,” he said. “It overwhelms fear – the fear of the Lord, first of all.”
He said many inmates still think it’s “just a game.”
“I can see it in their eyes,” he said. “They’re either tormented, cold-hearted or just a fool. They don’t believe anything can happen to them.
“We just do our best to teach them.”
Barbara Baas, like Featherstone, is a sweet, motherly woman. She works as part of a group from Aurora Baptist Church and can relate to family members who’ve had loved ones in trouble with the law.
“I remember a girl who came in and was just heartbroken because her brother wouldn’t talk to her,” she said. “I said, ‘Your brother’s hurt. He wants something better for you. But if you change your behavior you’ll see – your brother will come around.’
“She was in there long enough that one day she came to me and said, ‘I got a letter from him!’
“Nobody wants to be cut off from their family, but sometimes that’s all they know how to do, out of frustration, is just stop the communication.”
She and her group make it a point to correspond and be there for the inmates if they feel like reaching out.
“I want them to feel love and acceptance from me, especially if they’re not feeling it from their own families,” Baas said. “They are just so hungry for somebody to just accept them and love on them, and that’s all I try to do.
“I try to encourage them.”
REAL RESULTS
Lasting life-changes are difficult, but they do happen. Almost everyone who ministers in the jail has seen it – and they cling to those victories.
Valenzuela said he always throws out an invitation to those he teaches.
“I invite them all,” he said. “I say ‘Look, if you want to be mentored, if you want a church, you come see me. I work in the basement at the County Courthouse. Your first step, if you’re really sincere, you come see me and we’ll work from there.'”
Since he began teaching in the jail in 2005, he said he has probably taught thousands of men. Only five have taken him up on his offer.
“There’s times where I might get a little discouraged, but the Lord always picks me up,” he said. “He says, ‘Don’t be concerned about it. You did your part. You did what I told you to do.’
“If three or four or five of them have come out of there and changed their lives, I’ve won the battle.”
THE SCHEDULER – Debi Bruce sets up the schedule for those who teach at the jail, and teaches on a regular basis herself. Messenger photo by Bob Buckel
Debi Bruce took over the scheduling of teachers in the jail a year or so ago, and also teaches at every opportunity. Both she and Baas say they’ve run into former inmates in stores around town, and have received thank-yous for their work.
“I even heard from a mother, who asked if I would contact her,” Bruce said. “When I did, she asked me, ‘What did you do? My daughter is not the same person.’ I told her it wasn’t me – it’s the love of God that she now knows.
“I don’t know about anybody else, but that’s what I preach. There’s no better thing to be taught in there than the love of God.”
Baas said it is a “thrill” to see girls she’s taught in jail get out, get jobs and get their lives back on track. Some are in transit to other facilities, while others remain in Wise County for several months.
“We develop a little relationship there,” she said. “You just never know if you’ll ever see them again.”
CHANGING LIVES: FIRST STEPS
Staff members at the Wise County Jail are cordial when you walk in to study the Bible with the inmates.
They seem to appreciate that you’re coming to try and make things better for those who have landed behind bars.
No one searched my wife or me – I expect because we were going in with trusted ministers, Bryan Jackson and Barbara Baas. We had let them know in advance we were coming that Sunday.
Still, security is everywhere. You sign in, show identification, then sign in again when you get inside. A jail officer comes to escort you in. He doesn’t carry any keys – all the locks are opened electronically, from inside the control room, and when the door clangs shut behind you, you’re just as locked-in as the prisoners.
The jail is painted cinder-block construction, white and gray, cold and impersonal. There are no bars, just rooms with heavy glass windows in heavy steel doors.
The women went a different direction and Bryan and I headed down a long hallway, passing two gyms with basketball goals on each end. None of the rims has a net.
In one of the gyms, four inmates sit waiting in a couple rows of folding chairs, three of them spread out on the first row, one on the second row. They all stand, come shake our hands as we enter, and tell us their names.
At first it’s hard to hear each other over the buzz of the lights. Our voices echo in the cold, boxy space. Also, there’s someone, somewhere, yelling constantly.
Big windows line two walls, and we can see trustys going up and down the hall. We can see into a few cells, too, and maybe a day room where a few shirtless inmates mill around.
The occupant of one cell, when a trusty comes to wash his window, steps up to the glass and smiles. They chat the whole time he’s working.
Once we get started, it seems more personal. We have something to talk about – a reason for being here. The inmates draw their chairs up closer so they can hear as Bryan talks in a clear, strong voice. A softer voice would be lost in here.
These four young men have come voluntarily. All sport tattoos, short haircuts, and the horizontal-striped baggy jail uniform with standard-issue crocs on their feet. A couple of them are wearing socks.
I can’t remember all their names, but I will never forget their faces. They lean forward and listen intently. It’s easier to imagine them on the outside, living normal lives, than it is to imagine them doing whatever they did to get in here.
Bryan tells his story, talks about the love of God and how he was turned around from the road he was on. About halfway through, he asks if any of these guys have professed their faith in God. Two say they have. He asks the other two if they want to, and they do.
One at a time, they stand before him. He puts his hands on their shoulders and prays for them and they begin a faith journey they still barely understand. He talks for about another hour. They ask questions, laugh at times, and at times stare down at the floor, lost in thought.
When we are ready to leave, we all shake hands again and Bryan presses a button. A voice comes over the speaker, like at Sonic Drive-In, and asks what we need. He tells her we’re done. A jailer comes to get us and asks the inmates to just wait – he’ll be back for them in a minute.
One of them asks for a basketball and the jailer just shakes his head no.
Walking down the hall, he sees my quizzical look and explains that if he gave them a basketball, the others would see that, and there would be problems.
Attending Bible study apparently causes no such problems.
‘ONLY GOD CAN TAKE YOUR HEART AND HEAL IT.’
Debi Bruce has “been there, done that” – and has a closet full of t-shirts that she prefers to just leave in the closet.
A native of Florida, she is a technician in network repair for Verizon Wireless. She’s been teaching Bible studies in the Wise County Jail for about 10 years, and for the last year or so, she has been the scheduler for the ministers.
She moved to Decatur in 2002 and about a year later she started going to Victory Family Church. That’s where she met Laura Hanson (now Laura Peck) who had inherited the jail ministry job from Shirley Wood.
“Shirley kind of passed the baton to Laura, and then Laura got married a year or so ago and she kind of passed the baton to me,” Bruce said.
She loves leading Bible studies in the jail.
“I feel funny saying ‘preaching’ because I didn’t go to seminary,” she said. “Mine is more teaching the word of God, and showing them the scriptures that talk about God’s love for them – that he is not a condemning God, that he is a very merciful and loving God.”
Bruce’s past equips her for this ministry, but it’s not something she wants to see in print.
Her voice gets very soft when she goes there.
“Been there. Done that,” she said, wiping away a tear. “But let me introduce you to my God. Let me show you my Jesus, and what he did for me, he can do for you. I have had some bad stuff in my life, but I can say, ‘Father, thank you for the things that happened, that I could take those and share them with somebody else, and help somebody else.’
“There’s a lot of psychologists out there, but only God can take your heart and heal it. He’s the only one that can do it – but you have to be willing to give it to him.
“I go in there and I’m proud to say, ‘Been there, done that. I know just what you’re talking about, just what you’re feeling, just what you’re going through.'”
She said she’ll be involved in the jail ministry “as long as the Lord will let me.” She wishes we would list all those who minister, so she could thank them in print.
And although she understands the limitations of security, she wishes more of the inmates could attend Bible studies more often.
“I don’t understand why they can’t all come, every time,” she said.
Barbara Baas. Messenger Photo by Joe Duty
‘THERE’S A LOT OF BROKEN, HURTING PEOPLE IN THERE.’
Barbara Baas and her husband moved to Aurora after his company shut down its New Orleans office and transferred him to Grapevine.
The week of the Sept. 11 attacks in 2001, she saw a sign that said the Aurora Baptist Church was going to have a special worship service that Sunday. She went.
“They just had a wonderful service,” she said. “I squalled the whole time.”
She decided that was going to be her church, and she came home and told her husband. He started going with her, and about a year later, he answered the altar call and was saved – at the age of 62.
“I tell this story to the girls in the jail because they say ‘Ask and ye shall receive’ and it hasn’t happened yet,” she said. “I tell them I prayed for 33 years for this man to be saved – but it was all in God’s timing.”
With a family member who is a recovering addict, Barbara also relates to the pain addiction brings to a family.
“I see it in a different way,” she said. “It’s a different perspective on an addict.”
When Aurora Baptist Church got involved in the jail ministry, Barbara decided she should be part of that.
The Alabama native said she wouldn’t feel comfortable in front of a big crowd. But in jail, her class usually ranges from two to 12 – a number she’s “very comfortable” with.
She doesn’t get to know every inmate’s story or what they’re in jail for, but she knows they all need to see the love of God, and that’s what she tries to bring them.
“There’s a lot of broken, hurting people in there,” she said. “We are supposed to shake their hand, and I don’t – I hug ‘em all. That’s the good part about being an old woman – you can get by with so much that you couldn’t when you were younger.”
She and the other Aurora Baptist group make an effort to get to know the girls, and to correspond with them once they’ve moved on.
“If it’s somebody we’ve had before and we know something we’ve prayed for, we ask them, ‘How’s your niece’s son?’ or ‘How’s your mama doing?'” she said. “You just never know if you’ll ever see them again.”
But she has run into people on two occasions at local stores where they were working.
“That just thrills me – it really does – to see those girls get out and get a job and hopefully get their lives turned around.”
Francisco “Pancho” Valenzuela. Messenger Photo by Joe Duty
‘I’M AN AMBASSADOR OF JESUS CHRIST, AND I COME BOLDLY.’
Francisco “Pancho” Valenzuela was born in El Paso, in an area called “El Barrio del Diablo” – the Devil’s Ward.
Despite parents who taught him right from wrong, he got involved with gangs, drugs and alcohol – following people “who brought me down instead of lifting me up.”
Alcohol, he freely admits, played a major role in the failure of three marriages.
He drove a truck for eight years, then moved to Decatur in 1996 to be near his daughter and granddaughter. That’s when he started, in his words, to grow up.
He went to work for Wise County and met Karen, who works for the elections administration. She took him to church.
“The reason I went to church was that there was another guy trying to date her, and he went to church,” Pancho laughs. “So the only reason I went was to protect my investment.”
But the first time he walked into church, he said, he was touched.
“I heard the word, and it started to move me. I started volunteering for everything. It changed my whole life.”
He and Karen got married in November 2002, and for the last three years he’s been pastoring a small church that he started. The Tree of Life Church meets every Sunday at 11 a.m. at 888 CR 4213 in Decatur.
He said his purpose in the jail ministry is to prepare those men to live in the kingdom of God.
“This is not a democracy,” he said. “We don’t meet every four years to see if Jesus is going to stay Lord or not. This is his dominion.”
He comes into the jail with no fear.
“A guy asked me, ‘What if a guy had a gun to your head?’ and I said I’d tell him, ‘Give me about five minutes to talk to you about Jesus, and then you can shoot me.’ I feel in my spirit that I would convince him he was doing the wrong thing.”
The power behind his message, he said, is compassion.
“If you don’t have compassion, you have no power,” he said. “Every time Jesus had compassion on somebody, somebody got raised from the dead, or fed, or something powerful happened. That’s compassion.
“I’m an ambassador of Jesus Christ, and I come boldly.”
Valenzuela said the first time he walked into the Wise County Jail was when he was hired by Sheriff Phil Ryan to work maintenance. The second time, he had been arrested for assault. The third time, he came to preach.
“I tell them the only reason I’m here is that I’ve been mandated to come here and preach this word,” he said. “There’s a reason behind that and it’s the love of God for you, and the love of God that I have in myself also.”
If he could change one thing, he’d like a chance to minister to Spanish-speakers in the jail.
“I know there’s guys in there,” he said. “They just don’t want to gather them together. But I’ll teach one. If he’s Hispanic and doesn’t know English. I’ll talk to him.”