Month 4: FPC Story of Faithfulness
Doug Casebolt
Storytelling
For the past year, 9 First Presbyterian Church members have embarked on a journey named “One Parish, One Prisoner” or OPOP. Being faithful has been a constant refrain from Underground Ministries, the sponsoring organization. This means building relationships and sticking by them, even when the going gets tough. Many prisoners have had horribly traumatic childhoods, ones where they were used and abused by the very people who were supposed to Love, and nurture and protect them. Because of that trauma, trust is a HUGE challenge for them. They have been conditioned repeatedly and deeply that trusting is dangerous, trusting is risky, trusting is how you get hurt – again. The only antidote to that fear of trust is to be trustworthy, to offer a relationship that they can take to the bank, one they can rest their whole weight on, one that doesn’t fail even when they act in unloving or undependable ways.
Thomas, our incarcerated friend, has tested our faithfulness. For nearly three months last summer he quit responding to our letters and emails; the phone calls dried up (when someone is in prison, you can’t call them; they have to call you).
Underground Ministries encouraged us to remain faithful, to keep sending letters, to keep affirming our love and keep demonstrating that we weren’t going anywhere. That was hard. This ministry is not for people who need instant gratification! Sometimes faithfulness looks like chutzpa, like stick-to-itiveness, like dogged determination, with a smile. You just keep speaking your Love into the silence.
Eventually Thomas responded. He shared a great, devastating hurt he had suffered. A close friend and mentor, someone who had repeatedly demonstrated love for and belief in him even when he didn’t believe in himself, had died. And he wasn’t able to return the faithfulness by attending the funeral because he was in prison. We wrapped our “arms” around him through prayers, letters and emails. We celebrated with him at the news that his release date, 5/10/25, had finally been made official!
Then, this month, Thomas vanished again. Email access was shut off with no explanation, letters came back marked “returned to sender.” We felt “ghosted,” and quite frankly wasn’t sure if our time with Thomas was over. At our most recent meeting we asked hard questions like, should we continue sending letters into the void? Should we ask about coming alongside a new incarcerated friend?
Mere hours after considering moving on from Thomas, Abbey, our team’s champion sleuth, learned of a new address for Thomas. It seems likely that Thomas wasn’t “ghosting” us but was once again victim to the cruel machinations of life behind bars. When a prisoner is transferred there is no way for them to let us know. His new detention center does not use the same email system his former center used - which meant all access to him disappeared with no way to let us know. The more we learn about the prison system, the more it makes our blood boil!
However, with the new address letters have been sent with the hope of a soon-returned note from Thomas and connection re-established. We wait . . . . God, grant us faithfulness!!
How often, I wonder, has Jesus been ghosted?? By me? By you?
Thanks be to God, he remains, as ever, Jesus Faithful Christ, Our Lord!