Kairos is a prison ministry designed to bring men and women to an encounter with Jesus Christ.  After many setbacks our team went into the Wallace Pack Unit in Navasota, Texas at the end of April.  

We meet in the big gym starting Wednesday afternoon and ending Saturday, with 42 “brothers-in-white”, many of whom have waited for years to come to Kairos.  Some come because of the food — which is excellent, especially considering their daily fare.  

Some attend because they have seen a difference in others who have gone before, and others  because it is something different.  

There are many stories to tell, and I know only a few. I’ll share two.

After the first day, one man said he wanted  to talk to one of the clergy — the Spirit seemed to be stirring him up.  He said this at the end of the day, so we could not meet again until the next morning.

We pulled him out of the lineup waiting to get in, and I sat down with him to hear his story.

His father was an evangelist, and they traveled together when he was young.  He was licensed to preach at 16, but never entered the pulpit because “all the hypocrisy”.   I didn’t pursue what happened to change him, and let him go on.

He tried to find God in other ways, other faiths, eventually exploring witchcraft and other “dark arts”, which contributed to me meeting him in prison.  

He feared he had gone too far, that he was out of the reach of God. He cried as he told me.  

Together we spoke of the promises of God, of the entire Bible being the story of redemption, of people turning away from God’s love and the Lord being ready to receive back those who repent and turn to him, even running down the road to meet us as the father in the Prodigal Son story.  We spoke of Psalm 139, where there is no place we can go beyond the reach of God. 

And of course he thought he had committed the unforgivable sin.  (Don’t we all?)  I told him I could be wrong, but I think the only unforgivable sin against the Holy Spirit is believing we have gone out of the reach of God and therefore do not ask for forgiveness. Being tortured by the worry is a sign of God’s call, or so I think.  

We prayed and he offered his life once more to Jesus, and we both walked out of that room changed.  

The second story comes from the closing ceremony, where graduates attend as well.  A man came up to me, and asked if I remembered him.

I did.  He has a triangle tattooed on either side of his left eye and the logo of a football team tattooed on the back of his head.  Yes, I remembered.  

“I’ll admit, I came to Kairos for the food,” he said. “But after a couple of months, it began to sink in, and I’ve changed.  I’m following Jesus now!”  And he beamed as he hugged me.  

Where have you seen God?