HELPING INMATE FAMILIES
Ministry out of the blue
___By Ferrell Foster
___Texas Baptist Communications
___RUSK--People call it the blue building.
___Its bright, welcoming exterior stands in contrast to the bland buildings and forbidding fences of its neighbors--Hodge prison and Skyview psychiatric unit.
___Churches in Cherokee Baptist Association banded together last year to build the blue
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STEVE HOLM AND KAY MARTIN talk about the ministry o Cherokee Baptist Association churches provide through Skyview/Hodge Family Visitors Center. The center is adjacent to Hodge prison and Skyview psychiatric unit
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building, which is called Skyview/Hodge Family Visitors Center, on a quarter acre of land adjacent to the prisons. Volunteers from the churches now staff the facility.
___The Baptist General Convention of Texas church ministries department honored the center recently with its annual Philippian Award for a community ministry sponsored by multiple churches. It was presented at the Servanthood Ministries Awards Reception in Corpus Christi.
___Kay Martin of First Baptist Church in Rusk is the driving force behind the visitor center, and she accepted the award, which now sits in a cedar display case on the center's serving bar.
___Skyview/Hodge Family Visitors Center provides a place for people to pass time while they wait to visit friends or relatives in prison or while they wait for someone else who is visiting. The building has a large open space with couches, chairs and a dining table, plus a kitchen and bathrooms adjacent. A spacious child-care room is situated in one corner of the center.
___The center is "homey," said Reba Wick, a volunteer from Reklaw Baptist Church. She said one girl, about 7 years old, commented, "You sure have a nice home."
___It opened in May 2000, Martin said, but not until God had worked to make some things happen. The "greatest thing" about the project has been "standing and watching God move through this process," she said.
___Initially, Cherokee Association sought to establish the visitor center inside the fences on prison grounds, Martin said. That effort ran into hurdles, and everything came to a stop. Mike Smith, director of missions for Cherokee Association, said, "We've got to pray," remembered Martin.
___They began looking outside the prison gates. A triangular piece of property beside the gatehouse seemed ideal, but Martin was told the owner never would sell.
___Enter Steve Helm, another member of First Baptist in Rusk. Within days, he bought the land. "There was a need," he said. "I've got pretty good credit."
___With the land in hand, Bobby Tosh of Rusk First Baptist determined what building supplies would be needed and how much money it would take. Donations flowed in from individuals, churches, businesses, banks and the city of Rusk.
___Bill Traweek of First Baptist guided the building process, and a Texas Baptist Men building crew then came in to do the actual construction.
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SKYVIEW/HODGE FAMILY VISITORS' CENTER ( at left) provides a place for people to pass time while they wait to visit friends or relatives in prison or while they wait for someone else who is visiting.
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___Once completed, more than 140 local volunteers went to work staffing the center. They are divided into eight teams, with one group serving each week, explained John Lilly of Reklaw Baptist Church.
___"We have ministered to 1,500 people" since opening, Martin said. And she estimates the center will have about 2,000 visitors a year.
___Weekends are the busiest time, Lilly said.
___On a recent Sunday, two visitors, Herb and Major, sat at the counter enjoying refreshments and conversation. They had come from different places and waited while others visited relatives in the prison. The prison allows only two visitors per inmate at a time.
___It was Herb's second stop at the visitor's center after a 70-mile drive from home. "It's very nice of them to have a building like this to relax and enjoy yourself while you wait," Herb said as he enjoyed coffee and cookies.
___Major, from about 120 miles away, said he would have been waiting in his car if not for the center, and that is hard to do in hot and cold weather.
___At the heart of the ministry is a desire by Baptists in Cherokee Association to minister to hurting people in the name of Christ, several volunteers said.
___Helm is a lay preacher with a special burden for people "on the wrong side of the fence." Many of the people in prison and their families have not had the chance to know Christ, he said, recalling his own realization that "some kids and some people would have a seed planted here that wouldn't be possible anywhere else."
___The center is a "replica of the good Samaritan," said Paula Helm. It's meeting the needs of people who are down.
___"We're here," Martin said, "to restore dignity to people who society has torn down and to show them a way of life."
___"We just express that we love them," said Reba Wick of Reklaw Baptist Church.
___Martin related the story of a Christian man from Kenya who visited the center. "When I stepped in this door, I felt loved," he said.
___Before construction of the center, Paula Helm said she never thought of the prisoners' families. Now she's getting to know them and learning of the "tremendous hurt" they feel.
___"That could be some of my family," she said. "They're just like we are."
This is the first of a five-part series highlighting recipients of the Philippian Awards for community ministry. __
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