If the Son Sets You Free

Before Covid19, a consistent highlight of my week was leading a Wednesday night Bible Study in the Women’s Correctional Facility in Shakopee. The women were incarcerated for a variety of offenses, some more severe than others. But the focus was rarely on how they got “in” and more on how they’d get “out.” Not out of Shakopee, but out of their addictions, out of their negative thought patterns, out of abusive or codependent relationships, out of the shame spiral that threatened to imprison someone long after being released.

These women knew without a shadow of a doubt that there was no hope for their freedom apart from the gospel of Jesus Christ. So it was pure joy to study the Word of God with them, because they devoured it. They needed the promises of God like oxygen.

The Bible study I led was part of Prison Fellowship Academy (PFA), a voluntary year-long transformation intensive that included over 700 hours of classes, homework, and study. The women selected for this program lived together, ate together, worshipped together, and encouraged one another through beautiful but also incredibly painful moments of transformation. The women routinely expressed their love for this community and how they’d never experienced anything like it.

But what happens when the women leave? You can imagine the temptations and challenges that lie on the outside!

Black Butterfly House

Several weeks ago, at a PFA Alumni breakfast I met Amber Brown. Amber is not a PFA alum but was incarcerated as a teenager. Upon release, she moved into a transitional home* and with the support she found there, she was able to make significant life changes. She is now the executive assistant of a Vice President at a Fortune 500 company.

Amber made it. And she wants to give other women the same chance that she had. She’s purchased a home from Crossing Homes and is in the process of turning into the Black Butterfly House, where women who are exiting incarceration can stay for 6-12 months while they chart a new course for their future. Much of the work on this home has been completed but they are still in need of some kitchen and bathroom furnishings. If you would like to contribute to this effort, please sign-up below. Additionally, if you’d like to see the property and put in some grunt work with cleaning and repairs, I’d be happy to meet you there on any Saturday. Amber hopes to have her first residents by mid-March.

Help the House

We are a church that believes in the power of God to restore the broken fragments of our lives. Would you please pray for Amber, the future residents of the Black Butterfly house, and consider making a contribution to this effort?

*If you’d like to read more about the transformations homes like these can bring about, check out Becoming Ms. Burton.