It is heart wrenching to hear a young believer cry out, “Why me? Why do I have cancer? It isn’t fair.” In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world. John 16:33 This is Jesus’ answer to the young woman’s lament. This world is filled with death, disease, and […]
In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world. John 16:33 Satan is the prince of this present world; and he promotes death, disease, and destruction. But Jesus came to overcome Satan and the world, and He has. He overcame death when he raised Lazarus from the grave. He […]
What a wonderful privilege to be able to witness God’s amazing work with addicts and inmates! If the story I’m about to tell you wasn’t a result of the involvement of God in time, you’d think it was straight out of the Twilight Zone. I met Jenna last Friday afternoon in the Wright County Jail, […]
I haven’t posted for quite some time. There are two reasons for that. Reason Number One: I was in Ireland the first part of April, returning home April 17. It was a wonderful trip. The highlight arrived on a day I wandered by St. Paul’s Church on Arron Quay (pronounced key) in Dublin and sought […]
I sat in a county courtroom last Tuesday morning waiting for Andrew (not the Andy of the last two blogs) to be brought in for sentencing. He had plead guilty to 3rd degree burglary, a crime he committed when he was so wasted on drugs that he thought he was entering his own garage. I’d […]
Inmates I meet with as a chaplain feel as comfortable talking with me as they would their minister. They tell me the truth as to what they did to get into jail. Some even tell me of crimes they committed that they weren’t charged with. Only two men in the past two years have claimed […]
My doctor left the exam room to go to his next patient last Monday. I was about to leave myself when my cell phone rang. Andy, an inmate I had met with several times in the Wright County Jail, had instructed his mother to call me after his sentencing in the Sherburne County Courthouse. For […]
With time on their hands, Christian programs that come into the jails, and the quiet of lockdown, inmates have a priceless opportunity to find Jesus or rediscover the Jesus they have lost. These are the ones who come to Sunday afternoon Gideon Bible studies. They are the ones who come to talks I give in […]
I was sitting in the National Museum of Ireland, walking through an exhibit entitled Proclaiming a Republic: The 1916 Rising. I marveled at the dedication and singular purpose and passion of the men and women who were prepared to give their lives (and did) for the independence of Ireland from Great Britain. As I sat on […]
In April of this year (2018) I was telling this to a group of female inmates in the Crow Wing County Jail. To my amazement, one of the women had been with Shirley in the short term program and confirmed to the group that my story was true. “Shirley is a real spitfire for Jesus […]