Religious leaders, editorial columnists and even politicians as
of late have sent out the message that the nation’s Christians need
to “put Christ back in Christmas.”

Three local volunteers talked with The Era recently about a
project they’re involved with that not only celebrates Christ
during the holiday season, but all year round, by bringing the word
of God to the surrounding prisons.

The Prison Outreach Ministry program, started in 1999 by the
Rev. David Heckman, current pastor of the United Methodist Church
in Eldred, and the Rev. Stan Nixon, is funded primarily through the
United Methodist Church’s Western Pennsylvania Conference of
churches.

Heckman’s wife, Dorie Heckman, the Rev. David Bunnell, pastor of
the Hill Memorial United Methodist Church in Bradford, and the Rev.
David Stains, pastor of Evans Memorial United Methodist Church in
Lewis Run, are three local volunteers involved with the
program.

Heckman said the program reaches 12 correctional institutions in
the western half of the state, providing an hour-long interactive
Bible study class once a week for more than 30 weeks out of the
year to men, women and juveniles at county, state and federal
facilities, including the local Federal Correctional
Institution-McKean at Mount Alton.

The mission of the program, according to its organizers, is “to
empower inmates to grow in discipleship through an interactive
Bible study, and to prove the opportunity to build healthy
relationships through God’s word as they prepare to re-enter
society.”

Bunnell said the classes incorporate video presentations and
manuals to study alongside the Bible. The study manuals, he said,
are in the process of being translated by Stains into Spanish for
use by Hispanic inmates – a racial category that comprises roughly
1/3 of the inmate population in the institutions where they
minister.

Stains, who has done mission work in more than one Third World
country in Latin America and speaks Spanish fluently, told The Era
that when non-native speakers are imprisoned, “it’s like being
doubly imprisoned.”

Communication issues can sometimes lead to guards treating them
with more hostility and suspicion, because the lack of
understanding can make the guards feel like the foreigners are
plotting or resisting directions or orders.

Adding to the hardships endured by foreign prisoners, especially
in the case of federal prison inmates, Stains said, it is nearly
impossible for their families to travel to the United States to
visit them.

Stains and Heckman both mentioned a specific incident involving
several inmates at a state prison in Loretto who lost family
members aboard an airplane from the Dominican Republic that crashed
near the New York Harbor shortly after Sept. 11.

One inmate lost his wife in the crash; another, a son and
nephew; and a third inmate lost 10 family members who were aboard
the plane. The chaplains at Loretto asked the Prison Outreach
Ministry volunteers to conduct a funeral service instead of their
normal class for those inmates who could not attend their family
members’ funerals and “had no sense of closure,” Heckman said.

Bunnell said many of the inmates the Prison Outreach Ministry
program touches are serving lengthy sentences, several of them
incarcerated for life.

“A lot of times, the family starts to forget (about the
inmates),” he said, “or poverty prevents them from traveling so far
… it gets harder and harder to make visits.”

That is just one reason the program’s organizers and volunteers
feel it is important. Another is the effect on the inmates and
their lives both inside the prison and once they are released, they
said.

“People are people wherever you go,” Bunnell said, adding he
feels prisoners are a product of a “throw-away society,” and are
often treated as “sub-human.” The Bible and the Gospels, he said,
are about redemption.

“That’s what God is all about,” Bunnell said. “It’s something we
all need.” He went on to point out that many notable characters in
the Bible were imprisoned at one point or another, including Jesus
Christ. And during his involvement with the program, he has
ministered to inmates from “all walks of life.”

He said that contrary to a recent report that evangelists in
prisons do no good, documentation and statistics he has seen show
inmates who participate in a Christian ministry program are far
less likely to re-offend and be re-committed to a correctional
facility.

Stains said he was aware of at least one former inmate, a
Hispanic man he ministered to, who left prison and went on to lead
a congregation of 200 people himself at a church in his native
country.

Heckman said when the Prison Outreach Ministry volunteers first
arrived at one state facility, the English-speaking and
Spanish-speaking inmates could not even be in the same room
together. Through the course of the program, however, they all
started to worship and pray together.

“They became a great support group for each other,” she
said.

“If people never encounter hope,” Stains added, “it’s likely
they will continue with the behaviors and attitudes that put them
(in prison) in the first place.”

A major obstacle that has recently come before the group,
however, is a federal mandate handed down from the Department of
Homeland Security, which restricts volunteers like Heckman, Bunnell
and Stains from ministering inside the prison. Often times, there
is a “camp” outside the prison itself, where offenders of less
serious or non-violent crimes are housed, as well as inmates set to
be released soon. The program is permitted inside the camp, but not
the prison itself.

Heckman and Bunnell said the group is working to have that
legislation reversed, but in the meantime, still try to reach as
many prisoners as they can. And their efforts are not in vain, they
said, as many inmates in several facilities have taken to
organizing their own groups and are studying, worshipping, having
meals and even making music together.

The inmates are not the only ones who benefit from the
program.

Bunnell said his life is blessed, and he has many positive
things going for him. Yet, the inmates he ministers to, who are
arguably in much worse straights than he, pray for him.

“It humbles you,” he said. He and Heckman agreed that many times
they go into their work thinking they will be a blessing to the
inmates, and it ends up working in reverse.

As effective as the program has been, however, volunteers are
still needed. Those interested in being a part of the Prison
Outreach Ministry must undergo a small amount of training, Bunnell
said, which had to do with safety inside the facilities. Aside from
that, anyone interested can volunteer.