Beyond the Bars
Post-Abortion Ministries Reach Out to Women in Prison

The Post-Abortion Review
Vol. 7, No. 2b, April-June. 1999
Amy R. Sobie
Elliot Institute
Reproduced with Permission

Manda is serving time at a women's prison in Coldwater, Michigan. This is her second imprisonment. Her life has been scarred by many traumatic events: placement in foster care at the age of six, marriage to an abusive husband at 15, an abortion, imprisonment.

Yet behind prison walls, Manda has found hope. This hope appeared one night in May 1996 when a group of volunteers from Prison Fellowship and the Pregnancy Resource Center in Grand Rapids visited the prison to promote post-abortion healing. Although Manda is still in prison physically, she has been freed from the emotional and spiritual bondage that has troubled her most of her life.

"I have lived all my life believing I was unworthy of love," Manda wrote. "I had many years of troubles and bad choices . . . I did not realize I was carrying around so much pain from my abortion. . . [But now] God has shown me I am worthy, loved, forgiven, and healed. For the first time in my life, I feel Him in my heart and it is so peaceful."

Many Miracles

Manda's healing was just one miracle in a string of events through which God has used post-abortion ministry leaders to reach out to women in prison. One of these events happened in 1992, when Sydna Massé, then the manager of Focus on the Family's Crisis Pregnancy Ministries, was working on a Bible Study about forgiveness. At the time, Massé was struggling with the loss of a good friend who had been murdered. The woman who had killed her, Jennie, was serving a life sentence in prison for the murder.

"I asked God whom I needed to forgive, expecting it would be someone connected with my abortion experience," Massé said. "I did not want the answer I got: Jennie. I pleaded, 'Lord, she killed a mother of three and my friend!' Immediately I thought to myself, 'And I killed my first child. How am I any different?'"

Reluctantly, Massé wrote Jennie a letter asking forgiveness for her anger. Soon after, Jennie wrote back to apologize for killing Massé's friend. Then, during a personal visit a few years later, Massé learned that Jennie was struggling with deep emotional pain over two abortions she had experienced. And Jennie also mentioned that "easily 60 to 80 percent" of the women she had encountered in prison were also post-abortive.

In 1996, Massé shared this experience at a talk she gave at a volunteer appreciation brunch for the Pregnancy Resource Center (PRC). She reminded her audience of a famous quote by Mother Teresa: "Abortion is the greatest destroyer of peace." What if, Massé asked her listeners, we could prove this to be true in women's prisons?

Massé's words struck a chord with two women in the audience: Laurie Velker, a PRC staff counselor, and Valerie Cook, a PRC board member whose father is the executive director of Michigan Prison Fellowship. The staffs of these two ministries got together and began looking into ways to bring a healing message to post-abortive prisoners in Michigan.

"Prison Fellowship was very enthusiastic when we talked to them," Velker said. "They agreed that abortion recovery could have a positive impact on the lives of the inmates and really improve their rehabilitation. We really felt the Lord's leading on this."

Planting Seeds of Hope

After much prayer, discussion, and planning, volunteers from PRC and Prison Fellowship put on an outreach program for women prisoners at two correctional facilities in southwest Michigan. "A Journey to Hope and Healing" was held back to back on the same evening at the two prisons.

Nearly 200 women attended the two events. Velker said the number might have been even higher, but internal events within the prisons prevented more women from coming.


For entire article and more information view: http://www.afterabortion.org/PAR/V7/n2/Beyondbars.htm

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